Scott Henderson Discussion

[Thumberstrummer]

Hi Scott.
I’m just wandering if you’ve ever had any experience with the power scaling stuff, or have heard anything about it in your life long seek for good gear and gear tweaks.
Here’s the point - I got a Fender Bassman RI which I love, mostly because of its tasty cleans, that are quite hard to get with my plexi, way darker sounding. Issues start when moving on the crunchy - overdriven side of the coin. The BS starts to break up with the normal ch volume set beyond 4, 4 and a half (at least), but when I go just beyond 3 people around me, no matter if the FOH guy or bandmates at gigs, or neigbors at home, start complaining about me being too much loud. Like most of amps, that boy makes OD pedals work way better when set on the edge of break up, but that implies a lotta more volume than accepted nowadays on stage. And jezzzz that guy is loud! In another thread here I asked for some advices on how to get a good overdiven sound out of a Fender-ish clean amp. I’ve made a lot of attemps in stacking pedals, with no satisfying results so far. On the other hand the BM is not like other fenders, as it’s said to be the ancestor of the Marshall plexi (same kinda circuit). So it breaks up well, but just when turning up the volume until it starts to be very very loud!
In the search of a good way to tame it, but still retaining a bunch of air, after having digested a lot of attenuators (BTW the Fender BM is a 2 ohm output / 4x10 speakers amp), I’ve hit by chance an article on the power scaling solution by London Power.
It seems it’s able to do better than any other MV / attenuator solution, as it works by delivering a lower (pot controlled) current to the power tubes, in a way that these can retain their character and warm-ness.
Always by chance, in the same days I happen to try a Lazy J tweed boutique amp, at my local music store, that comes stock with PS, and it was awesome, having on tap the chance to reduce amp volume to whisper level, still retaining its gain structure and character. I don’t want to go down to whisper volume - just to balance the amp overall volume to bandmates / FOH demand, still having a good tone.
Any esperience yourself, or any of you guys out there? Any thoughts?
Many thanks in advance
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Germino Club 40 plexi replica + EJ Strat w Suhr ML st. pups. I'm not asking for more so far (but... who knows...?)

[Scott Henderson]

I'm the wrong guy to ask about power scaling. I've tried a few attenuators out of curiosity and hated them, and I use a master volume amp on stage, so I've never needed any kind of power scaling. Contrary to popular belief, the power tubes don't need to be roaring to get a good tone, they just have to be working hard enough - an amp on 4 or 5 is plenty enough. The crunch from the preamp plus a pedal gives me all the gain I need, and with a master volume control in the FX loop, I can turn the guitar down with the pedal off, crank the master volume up and get a good clean tone.

If you use an attenuator or power scaling to get enough gain for solos, there's no more clean sound unless you use another amp. It's been my experience that playing a non-master volume amp is extremely limiting, unless it's the perfect volume for the rhythm section you're working with. In my band I sometimes have to play loud clean sounds, soft high gain sounds, and the opposite. An amp without a master volume is useless to me.