• From: Sandy Eggo
  • Registered: 2007-04-29
  • Posts: 1,369

Topic: Use of a hot plate kill tone?

Just wanted to get some opinions from those who have used hot plates to cut back on volume when pushing the amp gives you those delicious break ups. I would've made a comment in the "Marshall or Fender" thread but figured I might as well just start a new thread! I don't find that hot plates are tone killers, or mine isn't anyways, but I want to hear from other people.

"Music is the only thing that you can share with a million million people and you don't lose, you gain. It helps you to get energy and to live long, because when your soul is very happy then you don't want to die." - Ali Akbar Khan
  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: Use of a hot plate kill tone?

I've never owned one but everyone I talk to gives me different opinions.  I personally think what people are missing out on is the amount of air those speakers move without the hot plate.  You feel the tone as opposed just hearing it at high volumes.  It also depends on the hot spot.  You know the guitar amp has a hot spot where it just sounds amazing, well who's to say the Hot plate doesn't have a "hot spot" on it.  Again just an opinion.  I preffer personally just buying amps that are low wattage and then you don't have to worry about volume as much.  My little Epiphone valve Jr. is only 5 watts but for the $100 I paid for it sounds wonderful.

AD3THREE's Website

  • From: Sandy Eggo
  • Registered: 2007-04-29
  • Posts: 1,369

Re: Use of a hot plate kill tone?

That makes sense, but you can't deny that some amps hit their "hot spot" at high volumes. It sucks, but it's life.

"Music is the only thing that you can share with a million million people and you don't lose, you gain. It helps you to get energy and to live long, because when your soul is very happy then you don't want to die." - Ali Akbar Khan
  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: Use of a hot plate kill tone?

Totally!  I'm no expert I know from only what I have and I don't own a Hot Plate.  For my big sounds I don't even have a marshall.  I have a Epiphone valve JR and a Peavey Windsor 100 watt head running into a 4 12 cab that I wired up myself.  The Peavey has a master volume so I've never even cranked it up.  I run the Valve jr through the same cab and it screams I've also got a very small 4 or 6 inch speaker that I play the valve jr in and it produces plenty of tones that I had in the other cab just at lowwer volumes because it doesn't push the same amount of air that the big cab does.  All I'm saying is at times you have to judge your amp by the place your playing.  I've had plenty of Fender amps, I've had a Marshall JCM 800 and I've had Laney amps.  They are all great amps but put out tons of volume.  So much that I couldn't run the amp hot because it was too loud (noise restrictions)  With the smaller amps I can burn hot if I want too and nobody in the block next door gets mad at me.  Less is more kind of thing.  If I was like Joe Bonamassa I'd crank up as loud as I wanted because I wouldn't be playing in some tiny bar with nobody in it...  Oh well I can always dream anyways.

AD3THREE's Website

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2008-04-23
  • Posts: 553

Re: Use of a hot plate kill tone?

Hi,

I have several of these attenuators. The Amps I used them with were Vox mostly a AC-30 or a Marshall Bluesbreaker RI. I think every attenuator will suck the tone at a certain level. I have the THD Hotplate, Weber Mass, Marshall Powerbrake and Tubejuice. The Tubejuice is the cheapest but sounds best at low volumes. As stated before the amps live up at a certain volume level. But to me those attenuators make sense just at 1 channel amps who take the dirt out of the poweramp saturation. No point to kick a multichannel gain amp to the top. Most of these newer amps produce the sound in the preamp section and just "make it loud" in the poweramp.

My main amp is a Valvetech Hayseed 30 with Blue Bulldog speakers.
I crank the dark normal channel up and hang a rangemaster treble booster in front.
You can go from (almost) clean over a sparkly twang to insane just with the vol.pot (with single coil guitars).
It has an amazing working mastervolume. Here I don't use an attenuator anymore
but also here, in reheasalroom the sound isn't as good as on stage. Also on stage I have the
master only at 12 o'clock and this beast roars! And with its 30 tiny watts its so louuud!!!! smile
But it sounds amazing and eats all pedals.

Alex

...it's a musical journey
www.u2-experience.de

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