Volume Question (Frustration Content)

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crushabud

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...after perusing a number of guitar/amp forums, I've noticed a common thread (no pun intended): alot of players talk about the sound of their rigs at high volumes, how it affects tone, etc. Now, leaving aside gigs, where there's obviously going to be high(er) volumes involved, I have a question:

Where do all of these people live, where they can turn up a 100-watt guitar amp, without their neighbors going nuts, or police showing up, or family members trying to kill them, pets having nervous breakdowns, etc.???

So far, I've never lived ANYWHERE where that would be tolerated, and that includes private homes, not just apartments.... :?

Let me know, people...
 
I can't speak for everyone, but I find gigs are a great place to turn my amp up loud. ;)

We practice at my drummer's house too, on his farm. Only people to disturb, apart from his wife, are the horses & cows :)
 
I do believe that higher volumes sound better. I think it may be because the tubes are running hotter (which can be replicated with an attenuator) and also because the speakers are moving at a higher rate, which is how they are designed. But no you cannot crank it, even at gigs, unless you are Iron Maiden selling out sports arenas, so most of us never get to hear the glory of a fully cranked amp. But we can dream.

Peace, Joshua
 
I'm 62. When we used to rehearse in my mother's basement in '68,
the neighbor's would come out on their porches to listen, or come down
and sit on the basement steps. This was in Brooklyn NY. I played through
a Fender Dual Showman Reverb and later through a Marshall 100 watt
w/ 2 4x12 cabs. Yes, full up. Today, in Claremont NH, as long as the sun's out, I play my RM50 as loud as I want.
It seems to me that all the old hippies turned into crotchety pains who have
forgotten what they did "when they were young." Bullfeathers!
The sound of certain amps, with certain speakers simply create a sound
at higher volume that they can't produce at lower volume. It's a combination of all the parts, guitar, pups, amp, spkrs, etc. Don't give me an attenuator,
Line 6 crap, etc.
I'm NOT talking about loud for the sake of loudness. You can get the sound from as little as 5 watts.
 
Gentlemen, great comments, agreed on amps sounding better turned up; but I'm not talking about maxing out volume. I mean turning your mv even halfway up, or at least past 3 (where the power section kicks in)...

Unless someone lives in a remote area, alone, I don't see how it's possible, without getting massive crap about it.
 
I live in suburban Detroit and have neighbors on both sides of me as well as in front and behind....My house was built in 1954....My home studio is in the basement and we crank two full stacks and a 8x10 Ampeg bass cab and have live drums and ajor PA for vocals and no one complains- ever...Strangely, you can hardly hear it outside....Must be the thick mortar blocks...Don't get me wrong, you can hear it out there but unless a window is open, you can't really tell what you're hearing...

I like things quiet as well as cranked....My experience is that you have to compensate for both...You'll need much less processing loud and more quiet to get good results....The easiest way to control these variables is by dialing up or down on presence and density....Having a MIDI EQ is great as well as you can pre-program each module to have two or more separate settings for quiet and loud....That's what I do...
 
Well, I'm already terrorizing the block every morning when I leave for work on my (motor)bike :lol:

But little kids and old sourpusses on the block, so I'm running my rt2/50 at just around 9 o'clock
 
This is normal for 90% of the areas.

The human ear if you go by the Loudness Contour & Fletcher Munson curves hears things best at 85 dB.

At loud volumes when you crank up your amp, your speakers also start to break up and add distortion. Power tubes don't really matter until your master volume gets over noon along with your channel volume. Typically that's way too loud for most residential homes, and it will cause hearing damage.

So unless you want to go modeling with FRFR monitors, you might want to try a 212 cab that has speakers rated under 20W like the Celestion Heritage Greenbacks. I also know Ted Weber makes some 12" speakers that are rated at 15W and very early breakup. Of course you can't drive them hard, but in a residential home a 5W amp is very loud.

I ended up with the modeling + FRFR option.
 
My bud Steve plays cranked in his basement where half of the house is underground and he can crank it while barely being able to hear what's going on from the yard between his house and hiss neighbors. The back yard is a different story however...
 
the highest I'll run a 100W amp at home is probably around 3 - during band practice on a weekend afternoon. No complaints so far from the neighbours, but we don't do it late and we don't often practice at my house anyway. Feedback from those who have commented is that we sound pretty good ;)

The aforementioned drummer's farm is much better for practice because we can play loud for a 3 hour session.

For regular playing around the house (on the rare occasion I actually fire up a 100 watter at home), it won't get above 1-2.
 
And now the critical question.......
Is everyone playing at low volume using pedals to get their tone?
 
On tube amps? When I play full out clean, no. When I want a blues breakup I use a pair of TS808s, so yes.

I've also used attenuators. It's kind of ridiculous. You spend $2000 on a 100W tube amp that doesn't sound good until you get the volume level around 100 dB so people set the levels up there and add an attenuator between the amp and cab (THD Hotplate, or if they've got money another $800 for the Ultimate) to get the volume back down to around 80 dB effectively listening to under 1 watt rms going to the speakers and complain that the attenuators color the tone.

So when I'm playing when I usually do after 10 pm I just run my modeler into my near field monitors.
 
We run our gear pretty hot and it's almost unbearable depending on where you stand....Our drummer is basically deaf and always wants more guitar and bass...So we happily do so but it's REALLY loud...Far too loud but it's always been that way...
I think a lot of it is how you use the space you're in and where you place and orient the direction of your speaker cabs and PA...
 
We rent out a sound proofed practice room in town... ?10 an hour for a 6 piece band isn't at all bad. Good quality (i.e. ones that have a flat response) earplugs are a must though.
 
In a sense, it's sad. We buy what we hope is a great amp to get "the sound"
and then, for a preciously small amount of time, get to play it the way it sounds best. One of the greatest tones and sounds I ever got to record was
playing through an original tweed Fender Bassman 4x10 amp I should have never sold, basically wide open, with two mikes, one at the speaker and one
in the room. 10 minutes to set up, 15 minutes to record. A sound engineer
that didn't make me turn it down. He captured the sound I created.
 
All good stuff, gentlemen...especially Mattfig's info. I never thought of altering tone for quiet/loud, but then again, I've never been able to play loud at home...

I'm not talking about rehearsal/practice here; I'm talking about a guy sitting in his bedroom, wanting to hear how his amp will sound with the power section engaged. In every forum I've been in, there's always people saying "So I turned the master up to 4..." or words to that effect. I've never understood how anyone gets away with that... :?

How about the old volume-pedal-in-the-FX-loop thing? Since the RM100 has buffered FX loop(s), I was thinking of putting a good quality VP (like an Ernie Ball) in the loop, so I can turn up the MV, then barely crack open the pedal. Wouldn't the buffering prevent tone alteration, or am I incorrect in this assumption? I've heard/read alot about attenuators affecting tone...
 
I live in an apartment block, so I don't even try turning it up at home :-(

At four I'd get evicted, lol. Band practice is the only time I can try it out unfortunately.
 
Effects loops are tube buffered.

A volume pedal in the effects loop won't do any more than what you can already accomplish by lowering the output volume on the module, or by lowering the level on the master volume, which I believe is pre-phase inverter.

There is no way you are going to engage the power tubes without both the channel volume level and the master volume levels over noon. At 2:00 you might start clipping the power tubes --- this actually can get dangerous for your amp, and I especially wouldn't try this with EL34s.

Over noon on both is stupid loud. Most people today don't really like power distortion anyway.

I once figured out I was using about 5W playing loud on my RM100 just going by sound level. How did I come to that? I heard a 5W Marshall Class 5 through a 412. It was too loud. Then again I'm getting too old.
 
Crushabud,
It may me worth your while to rent some studio time, take the amp,
and turn it up. No pedals, just the guitar, the cord and the amp.
I regularly play my RM50 with the module masters all the way up, and the
power amp at least 12 noon to full up. I use a pair of Ruby 6L6s.
Then you can judge for yourself. The only thing that matters is how you like the sound.
 
I also use a simple Alesis 3630 in the series loop...Not so much to compress but to limit and also to attenuate volume ... Works great for me and cheap!

I also programmed my MIDI gear for 2 different banks of settings...One for low sound levels and the other for when I'm opening it up...It took a bit but worked out well...
:D
 
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