Neutral settings for Peavey Classic 50/50

S

Spellbound

Member
First of all I want to say hello. I'm a new AXE-FX Standard owner for two days. I'm very impressed by the AXE, it sounds great with my KRK VXT4 monitors at home.

Yesterday I tried it with my Peavey Classic 50/50 tube poweramp and my peavey 4/12 cap (no idea what speakers inside). I kindly ask for some advice in setting up the poweramp with the Axe. I know what sounds good to me ist good :) My goal ist to keep the poweramp as neutral as possible.

Ok what have I done? I briged the poweramp to mono 100W so I dont have to crank it fully. If I do so I get enough volume at 6 (1 o'clock). If I do that I don't drive the tubes so hard and don't get so much coloration? Or am I totally wrong here :D

Next I put the "resonance" and the "presence" of the poweramp to 0. I don't know wether this is the neutral setting. With my piranah preamp I had resonance to 10 and presence about 5 to 7 depending on the location.

In the Axe I switched the cab sims off but left the poweramp sims on. Sounds better to me, maybe because it was louder ;)

Has anyone some experience with this poweramp? Any tips in setting it up with the AXE?

Thanke you and sorry for my bad Englisch.
 
Welcome to the Axe family :D ...

I ran the same combination for a short wile but in stereo using 412's. I ran the Resonance and Presence at noon, if you turn them all the way down I belive your take away to much from the amp. As far as the 50/50 being a nutral amp I don't think it is. The EL84 power tubes have there flavor of color that they add even when not driven, just the nature of that beast. So it's really just tune it to taste. Not that it's a bad thing it just is what it is.

FYI when I went to a SS power amp I found my self having to re-tune all my presets quite a bit. Again not a bad thing it's just what needed to be done in order to make it sound the way I wanted it to which is the beatuy of the Axe. You can get it to work with just about any power amp.

Also make sure you have enough space between the Peavey and the Axe or the Axe will go into thermal shutdown.. found that out the hard way.

There is a learning curve with the Axe so be patient and take you time. Any questions the search function and Wiki are the quickist ways to find certain answers. If you can't find the answer their most everyone here on the borad is very helpful and will try to answer your questions as best they can.
 
My first poweramp with the Axe Fx was a Classic 50/50. I ran the Res and Pres and noon also. I thought it sounded pretty good until I grabbed a Carvin DCM and realized that the Peavey was adding a lot of color to the tone. In short, it acted as you would think it did. It made all the models sound a little similar.
 
Thank very much for your answers. I worried that the 50/50 is far away from being neutral :? Ok for the next time I'll try the noon settings for the Presence and Resonance. I tried that so far and thought it sounds little better, but I thought 0 is neutral.

Thanks for the rack space advice. My plan at the moment is to put the power amp in a 3 space rack to seperate the axe from it. So I can easy carry the axe with me at home.

I think I have to go 4 a SS power amp. Want to try it anyway. The last tube change for the 50/50 costs me about 250 EURO and I had a lot of trouble with it (blown fuse, defect "new" tube - it was done in a repair center). And this 3 years after the last tube change. And I only play 1 1/2 times per week for 2 to 3 hours with it. That means an ART SLA 2 has amortized in 5 years :)

Or maybe I try one of the Fratomics for easy gig setup. Just have to tell my girlfriend that the Caribbean holiday has to wait another year. Maybe I'm dead then :twisted:
 
Spellbound said:
Ah one thing I did forget to ask you deadringer and Sixstring: Did you leave the poweramp sims on with the 50/50?
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For me, It's been a wile but I belive I didn't. Again I tuned to taste so depending if it sounded good with it on or off that's the way I used it. With the Persence and Resonance knobs on the Peavey you already have that controll with in the power amp so I guess it would be like using the cab simms when you running a cab already which I have tryed but didn't seam very musical to my ears. The sonic possabilitys are endless so you really have to change your mindeset and realize you have more controll then just Bass, Mid, Treb and Gain. Using an EQ in the layout is very healpfull in tunning what your after.


I think I have to go 4 a SS power amp. Want to try it anyway. The last tube change for the 50/50 costs me about 250 EURO and I had a lot of trouble with it (blown fuse, defect "new" tube - it was done in a repair center). And this 3 years after the last tube change. And I only play 1 1/2 times per week for 2 to 3 hours with it. That means an ART SLA 2 has amortized in 5 years
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I know what you mean I had re-tubed my Peavey a few hours of playing time befor I sold it and that was an exspensive deal to say the least. Weather you go ART or somthing else you will start to see the huge benifit of going SS just from the weight and maintenance stand point alone. If you gig a lot the 412 will be the next thing to go and once your ear gets real comfortable with tunning the Axe FRFR will be next (Fratomics) or powered monitor. It's seams to be the natural progression and a very familiar road with a lot of pepole that have gone to the Axe from a tube amp.
 
Spellbound said:
Ah one thing I did forget to ask you deadringer and Sixstring: Did you leave the poweramp sims on with the 50/50?
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I left the power amp sims on with mine. I thought it sounded a lot better. I didn't run the volume on the 50/50 very high though and without the power amp sims on it was kind of thin and weak.
 
I can only report from the VHT2502 as I haven't tried the 50/50 yet. But in general tube amps react a lot on levels, too. So I would experiment with both, Axe high, Peavey low and vice versa. I got to run the VHT cranked now anddo the volume on the Axe, like it better, more bouncy and more mojo.

I run amp sims on but Thump off by the way.
 
Ok what have I done? I briged the poweramp to mono 100W so I dont have to crank it fully. If I do so I get enough volume at 6 (1 o'clock). If I do that I don't drive the tubes so hard and don't get so much coloration? Or am I totally wrong here
Click to expand...

I don't think it works that way. Whether you turn up the Axe-fx and turn down amp volume or turn down the Axe-fx and turn up the amp; provide the final output level is the same AFAIK you will be driving the power tubes the same.
 
javajunkie said:
Ok what have I done? I briged the poweramp to mono 100W so I dont have to crank it fully. If I do so I get enough volume at 6 (1 o'clock). If I do that I don't drive the tubes so hard and don't get so much coloration? Or am I totally wrong here
Click to expand...

I don't think it works that way. Whether you turn up the Axe-fx and turn down amp volume or turn down the Axe-fx and turn up the amp; provide the final output level is the same AFAIK you will be driving the power tubes the same.
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It makes a big difference at same volume.

Also it's well known that multi channel master vol amps sound way different if you crank the channel volume vs low master or the other way round. It changed the sound completely on my Shiva, when i turned Ch Vol up and Master down, it was more direct and harder, with Ch Vol down and Master up, more smooth and compressed. Behaves the same with the Axe and the VHT.
 
hunter said:
javajunkie said:
Ok what have I done? I briged the poweramp to mono 100W so I dont have to crank it fully. If I do so I get enough volume at 6 (1 o'clock). If I do that I don't drive the tubes so hard and don't get so much coloration? Or am I totally wrong here
Click to expand...

I don't think it works that way. Whether you turn up the Axe-fx and turn down amp volume or turn down the Axe-fx and turn up the amp; provide the final output level is the same AFAIK you will be driving the power tubes the same.
Click to expand...

It makes a big difference at same volume.

Also it's well known that multi channel master vol amps sound way different if you crank the channel volume vs low master or the other way round. It changed the sound completely on my Shiva, when i turned Ch Vol up and Master down, it was more direct and harder, with Ch Vol down and Master up, more smooth and compressed. Behaves the same with the Axe and the VHT.
Click to expand...

I am familiar w/ the Shiva and VHT. I own them and have used them for a number of years.

With your shiva you are running it thru a preamp first, yes completely different. We are talking power section. Not preamp vs poweramp distortion.

Also, read what I said. I said it doesn't drive the tubes any harder. I said nothing about any other effects.

What do you think the Master Volume does to the signal? It attenuates it before the output tubes. The Axe-fx output will work in much the same way.

But rereading what he said, he is correct in that if he was driving his power tubes in to non-linearity bridging the channels would give him more headroom.
 
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