DT25 Combo: Absolute Beginner Questions

[Peschamel]

Dear Guys,

 

I am a beginner both in guitars and amps. So I recently bought a used DT25 Combo mostly for practise at home.

 

I started with the recommended Setups printed on the sheet on the amp. When I use e.g. the American Clean Setup with Drive 40%; Channel Voume 100% and Master Volume 70% (and Guitar 100%) - my ears almost exploded! Jesus!

 

When I turn the Master Volume down to a non-health-threatening Level, that magical tube Sound gets lost. For e.g. with Brithish Crunch there is no crunch left and it sounds like American Clean.

 

So you see, a real beginner here. I came to the following conclusion: In home Use, I cannot use the tubes but only the modelling sounds with the low volume mode - which I think is not as appealing to me as with the tubes (soundwise).

 

Am I right? Is there something I am doing wrong (exept maybe have bought the wrong gear)? What would you recommend me? I mean for home use I would be much better off just using a podx... since I cant get tube sounds out of my amp in moderate volumes.

 

I am very gratefull for every bit of advice here. Thank you so much!

 

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

 

[Brazzy]

Dear Guys,

 

I am a beginner both in guitars and amps. So I recently bought a used DT25 Combo mostly for practise at home.

 

I started with the recommended Setups printed on the sheet on the amp. When I use e.g. the American Clean Setup with Drive 40%; Channel Voume 100% and Master Volume 70% (and Guitar 100%) - my ears almost exploded! Jesus!

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

 

Try the master at 50%. It supposed to be loud, after all it's a tube amp. I'm not digging on ya, we all started at some point.

 

Also, have you tried low volume mode?

Edited February 11, 2015 by Brazzy

[innovine]

You can only get the tube distortion by having it really loud. Well, you could add an attenuator which will let the tubes work hard yet cut some of the volume, but for that tube tone you need to have them tubes working hard.

 

You'll find plenty of good tone without having to crank it though. In this case you're hearing preamp distortion only, so its a lot like just a modeller, but you get a) a real cab and speaker and b) tons of volume and headroom. These matter, probably even more than 'tube tone'. I just love the sound of the amp. Even though I could run my pod into decent studio monitors I always play with the amp. Just sounds loud and solid like that.

You're probably overvaluing tube tone. Learn to dial in a good tone just with the preamp first, and worry about magic tube warmth later.

[Palico]

My recommdation, forget the suggested settings.  Set the knobs around 12 o'clock expcet the master volume. Now spin the knobs until you get something that sounds good to you.  

 

A tube amp does indeed sound good when pushed really hard but when it splits you ear drums it's no good for you or anyone listening to you. If you were recording the amp in studio where you can be in a separte sound isolated room then crank it up and let it roar. Otherwise you gotta just work with it to make something that works for you at an acceptable volume

[innovine]

Also, I have found much better results with the master low and LVM off, rather than the other way around. YMMV of course, but in my experience I haven't found a tone with lvm that I couldn't better with lvm off. It sucks.

[MartinDorr]

I did a few DT25 power amp only measurements at loud room volume levels and found that for my DT25 I get the smallest delta between peak and RMS levels at 3 o'clock DT Master setting with clean tones. It get's a little louder when you go 5 o'clock, but the difference between peak and RMS levels got a bit larger.

As far as I understand the relationship between peak and RMS levels while changing amplification gain, a shrinking delta indicates that the amplifier adds more harmonic distortion if the difference gets smaller. This may be wrong, but for my primary use (home) a 3 o'clock seetiing seems to get me the most 'tube' effect from my DT25.

Have not done extensive testing to say this applieas to all power amp configurations. Also, not clear whether this is impacted by my DT's tubes or other individual DT characteristics.

Martin

[Peschamel]

Thank you so much guys for your precious input - I will try it out tonight, really looking forward to.

Just to get it right; Start for dummies:

All Knobs to 12 o clock, exept Master Volume to mabe 1 or 2 o clock. Okay now my ears bleed from loudness. Where do I reduce first? Master Volume? Channel Volume? Drive?

Has maybe one of you some nice personal settings for homeuse for a clean and crunch sound?

Greetings from snowy Switzerland,

Peter

Update: Allright, this is getting better and better. Clean Setup: Just turned all Knobs to 12 o Clock and then Master Volume to about 9 o clock. This gives me a really nice sound without exploding my ears. Will check out other setups. But for a Start this really worked out well. Sometimes the obvious is seems so far :)

[Peschamel]

I did a few DT25 power amp only measurements at loud room volume levels and found that for my DT25 I get the smallest delta between peak and RMS levels at 3 o'clock DT Master setting with clean tones. It get's a little louder when you go 5 o'clock, but the difference between peak and RMS levels got a bit larger.

As far as I understand the relationship between peak and RMS levels while changing amplification gain, a shrinking delta indicates that the amplifier adds more harmonic distortion if the difference gets smaller. This may be wrong, but for my primary use (home) a 3 o'clock seetiing seems to get me the most 'tube' effect from my DT25.

Have not done extensive testing to say this applieas to all power amp configurations. Also, not clear whether this is impacted by my DT's tubes or other individual DT characteristics.

Martin

 

Thanks Martin. So with your Method: Master Volume to 3 o Clock, Channel Volume max (Or also 3?) and then to a ear friendly level by turning the drive knob? Did I get this right?

[MartinDorr]

Master Volume on DT to 3 o'clock

Channel Volume on DT to counteract higher Drive settings and natural amplification differences of different DT Amp configurations

For example, American Clean with a low Drive could take 100% Channel Volume if you can stand what comes out of the speaker. Lower as needed for venue.

Don't turn the guitar volume pot all the way down to keep Channel volume up.

You want the highest level signal you can get from your guitar for single note playing and do the rest of the volume adjustment with the Channel volume as a start.

Having said that, you can try every variation of Guitar pot, Drive, Channel Volume, and Master.

if you like it it's good ;-)

[jegler]

Yeah the DT is loud as f*&k when cranked to glory. Hate to recommend spending more money, but get a POD HD500 w/latest firmware and Use the POD's master volume to turn down. You can keep the DT cranked up. It still sounds cooked but at comfy levels. For real. Way better than LVM. 

[patrick2099]

Are you using this with a HD500?

 

With a HD500x, I can get good tone with the DT25 head volume at 9 o'clock, the master volume on the HD500 at 1 o'clock.  To me, it is acceptable volume for bedroom levels, between 11:00 am and 9:00 pm.  I wouldn't play it like that when my neighbors were trying to sleep, but it is fine for daytime volume.

 

I have used it without the HD500 and can get acceptable volume and tone as well, but don't remember the settings off the top of my head.  I prefer my distortion coming from the preamp and the warmth coming from the tubes, but different people have different preferences.  If you really want power tube distortion at very low volumes, I would think you would want a 1 watt or 5 watt tube amp, or an attenuator.

[MartinDorr]

+1; similar experience here!

I think there is little if any difference in sound between turning Channel Volume down on the DT w/o an HD or Master Volume down on the HD when connected to the DT while DT Master is left set for both cases.

For American clean I have my HD Master at 10 o'clock for home use, DT Master at 3 o'clock, and my Volume pot on my JTV probably around 90% for single note lines.

Within the HD I raise my JTV input signal by 9dB to get to a peak level of around -12dB throughout the model chain. My preamp channel volume in the HD is typically close to 100% for clean tones with Drive at 20-30% preserving a peak level of -12dB, i.e., the HD Master Volume takes over the role of the DT channel volume, I think.

Can't say how well this translates to going directly into the DT.

Martin

[Palico]

Yeah the DT is loud as f*&k when cranked to glory. Hate to recommend spending more money, but get a POD HD500 w/latest firmware and Use the POD's master volume to turn down. You can keep the DT cranked up. It still sounds cooked but at comfy levels. For real. Way better than LVM. 

 

There have been post after post on this idea on the forums. Most seem to have idicated the two act in conjuction so if you turned down the POD master(output) its going to lower the input the tubes, thereby not getting the "cooked" effect.   Similar to turning down the guitar volume, it's just getting less signal, thereby not pushing the tubes. The only thing to get the "cooked" effect at low volume is a very low wattage amp or a attunator. Althought there are tons of  other advantages to having the HD500(x) with the DT. 

 

If that works for you by all means use it but I could not not recommend buying the HD500 just for that. Too many discussion on the forum with no clear answer if that really works or not.

[innovine]

There's no difference between having the Master high and the channel vol low, and the Master low and channel high, apart from the fact that the channel volume is saved with your patch. So I tend to set the channel volume in the middle, and then adjust it up and down so one patch/preset is levelled compared with the next. Finally I set master to suit the room volume I want (mine never goes above 9o clock in my small studio room)... so with this setup I dent get drastic volume changes when changing patches, and when it starts to get late, I turn the master lower so as not to annoy neighbours. All the relative volumes between patches remain the same. I'm not pushing the amp hard enough to get proper tube distortion I guess, but most of my tone is coming from some fuzz pedals anyway, so I don't mind.

[mtreehugger]

If you run the L6 LINK, the POD HD master volume has no effect.  From the connectivity guide pages 2-5 and 3-7:  "The POD HD Master Volume has no effect on the signal fed to the DT amp. Simply use the amplifier’s Master Volume knob to control your overall volume."

 

Further, while I can't explain why, the HD just plain sounds much better with the volume at max than it does at a lesser volume.  I experienced this myself in studio/direct mode, and other have as well, some I believe were using the pre's.  I would guess that the noticeable effect of turning up the master using some connection other than L6 LINK could seem like one was getting some preamp OD from the pod.  Are you using the default doubled input or is it adjusted to provide just a single signal path?  How is the HD hooked up?  What mode is the POD in?  There are so many variables here!  

 

When I record direct from my HD500, my Tascam US-800 likes it better if I turn down the master.  I forgot to turn it back up once when I went back to my normal FRFR system and it took a few days to figure out why my guitar abruptly started to suck sound-wise!

 

Personally, after having experimented a bit, I would never again use the HD without the L6 link.  The tones are incredible, to heck with the master on the HD.

[jegler]

If you run the L6 LINK, the POD HD master volume has no effect.  From the connectivity guide pages 2-5 and 3-7:  "The POD HD Master Volume has no effect on the signal fed to the DT amp. Simply use the amplifier’s Master Volume knob to control your overall volume."

 

With new HD500 firmware, it does. All the manuals on Line6 site are for v2 I think v2.1 added mv feature.

[mtreehugger]

With new HD500 firmware, it does. All the manuals on Line6 site are for v2 I think v2.1 added mv feature.

 

Something strange is going on then.  That quote was taken from "L6 LINK Connectivity Guide for POD HD & DT Amplifiers v2.10."   If I had my amp I could test it, but of course the shop is running behind...

[jegler]

I run JTV>VDI>HD500>L6>DT25combo

 

I can control DT amp volume with both the DT master and POD master. I keep the DT master @3 oclock all the time and use the POD master to tweak up and down on a per-room basis.