How do you set your Musicman HD130?

[hollowbody]

I picked up a HD130 and used it on my Sat and Sun gigs. Sat night I plugged into an SVT 8x10 and waas having a hard time hearing it, plus the EB0 was farting out in the low notes. By the end of the night I had the master at about 6 and the pre at about 4. Sunday night was better, running into my Avatar 2x12 with the master at full and pre at about 5. Since I see that there are a few 130 users on here, how any of you set your pre/gain? This amp is strange to me.

[amptech]

It is indeed a strange amp. Nevertheless I´ve used it as my main amp for 20 years.

I use the ´normal´channel, the deep switch works anyway. I always have the master at 10,
but switch to 65W (LO) unless I´m on a stage. The eq is not very effective, but the preamp
seems to collapse when too much highs or lows are present - I use pedals with care on this
amp. For gain I end up on 2-4, usually loud enough. I must admit that using mudbuckers on the
HD130 is not a great success, although I love both... Something is happening gain/low end-wise
that I don´t like. I´d say it has a good power section. I put a pre in (between the deep switch and the
driver tube in the schematics) and you can use anything in front of it, all the troubles are gone!

I seriously think of modding the HD130 so that the normal channel is stock, while the bass channel is
all tube bassman like. Many people think the HD130 is difficult to fine tune, it really is a fine line
between ´loud, clear and thight´ and ´too hard / stiff´sounding. There is also some sound difference between
the ones with tube diver vs. those with transistors. It´s an important stage in the design, but a good setup/biased
amp sounds good anyway, with the right speakers. Some say that HD´s with tube drivers are ´smooth sounding with a touch of bassman when cranked up´, while the later versions are way too harsh sounding. In my opinion that is
far from true.

All that said, I think it´s a very reliable amp, but yes- can be difficult to tame on some axes.
Never tried with 8x10, though I did try out a 4x10 + 1x15 setup once.

I like the full 1x15 + 2x12 stack best, or with a single 15 in smaller places. 

[amptech]

Edit: uhh.. collapse might be a strong word, but I like it best with bass and mid on 5 and treble (even bright switch) set according to my stings, as my gibbys usually have flats..

[hollowbody]

Thanks for the rundown. I may just have to spend a little more time tweaking knobs. It's going to see my tech on Friday.

[drbassman]

I have been experimenting for months now.  It is true the amp roars when humbucker basses are plugged into it.  Some of the overtones it creates are quite weird and untamable.  I can't get my 4003 to sound good no matter what I try.  ThunderJet and T-birds do sound good.  So does my j bass.

I use the guitar channel. It seems clearer and sounds really good to my ear.  I set he channel vol around 4 and the main whenever I need it, usually around 6 or so.  I run at full power.    the tone knobs are both around 7 or 8.  I use the deep switch and normal on the other one IIRC.  Less bass and more treble if I have flats on the bass so it cuts through the guitar and drum racket better.  I have also been running my ThunderJet, T-Birds and 335 basses with both pups full on and equal and I am really liking the sound.  Not so much mush, more clarity.  The tubes still are producing a wonderful warm tone with a touch of distortion.  I just love the old school tone it produces.

[amptech]

  I can't get my 4003 to sound good no matter what I try. 

I have similar issues with my 4001, although I think it sounds great alone.
It delivers really nice authentic ricky-prog tone, from clean and ´wide´scoped tones and
all the way to full drive, like some of the heavier tracks on ´lamb lies down on broadway´.

But when played with a band, the rick+HD130 gets tricky to blend in, in my opinion.
It´s possible, but i feel like I´m tweaking away the cool sounds just so it can blend in.

That´s when I switch to mudbucker - and the band can´t be heard at all

[dadagoboi]

How does the Marshall compare to the HD-130, Amptech?

I own  an Ampeg B-15 and a B-1(2-12AX7 pre, ss power), with pre outs, a Demeter 201 Pre and an H & K Bluesmaster.  I can get virtually the same sound out of them using either the tube poweramp section or into an SS poweramp (Ampeg SVP-1500, the B-1 amp in or PF-500 Class D amp in), transparent, big and round with great mids and highs.  The PF-500 sounds better with a tube pre into it vs. the factory front end, though it's not bad.

I'm skeptical you can get a real "tube" sound out of an SS pre to tube power hybrid.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I'm skeptical you can get a real "tube" sound out of an SS pre to tube power hybrid.

The Trace Elliot VR series have ss preamps and with that massive eq will cover everything from Bassman boom to Hiwatt roar while still letting the bass's inherent character shine through. Many s/s bass amps make every bass have the same tone. My go-to amp right now is my VR350 into an Acme Series I 4x10. Before I got an SVT cab and hauled my SVT rigs, my live rig was a VR400 power amp with a Dual SMX Compressor pedal acting as a preamp into various 4x10 (usually Gibson) and 18" cabs. The trick is to have enough drive current to really swing the tube power stage. Most preamps rely on simple voltage specs matched with woefully inadequate IC's ("servo balancing") for preamp output/power amp input. They can't match current flow because of high input impedance and simply don't have the guts to make a tube power amp sound good.

In the HD130's with the tube driver, it is another stage that overloads pleasantly while still driving the very/clean almost harsh power section, so it fattens up the overall sound and gives more punch and volume. The transistor drivers just sound like transistors at high drive levels. The HD130 runs its power tubes VERY hard with over 600 volts on the plates and biased just inside of class A/B. It's basically as clean as you can make a quartet of medium-sized audio power tubes.

[dadagoboi]

In the HD130's with the tube driver, it is another stage that overloads pleasantly while still driving the very/clean almost harsh power section, so it fattens up the overall sound and gives more punch and volume. The transistor drivers just sound like transistors at high drive levels. The HD130 runs its power tubes VERY hard with over 600 volts on the plates and biased just inside of class A/B. It's basically as clean as you can make a quartet of medium-sized audio power tubes.

So the earlier model is the way to go?

[Psycho Bass Guy]

The transistor driver models are plenty warm and loud, but if you want a fuzzier, more broken-up, SVT-ish sound at high volumes, go for the tube driven models.  The HD-130 was a great amp, it was just a fashion victim, coming along making lots of clean power when Marshall was the omnipresent stage standard. If someone wanted the Music Man tone for guitar, they'd just get a Twin, or if they were rednecks, they'd get a Peavey Mace or Butcher.

[amptech]

The HD-130 was a great amp, it was just a fashion victim, coming along making lots of clean power when Marshall was the omnipresent stage standard. If someone wanted the Music Man tone for guitar, they'd just get a Twin, or if they were rednecks, they'd get a Peavey Mace or Butcher.

And then there is the Clapton mod. Clapton had his heads wired different than the other HD heads at the time, while he appeared in musicman ads. It must have been confusing for those who wanted clapton sounds and bought musicman amps.

I´ve suggested this mod as a possibility to guitarists who don´t like how it distorts, but they usually have a stompbox
that does the job fine - and they don´t want to sound like clapton in the 70´s anyway

[drbassman]

I have similar issues with my 4001, although I think it sounds great alone.
It delivers really nice authentic ricky-prog tone, from clean and ´wide´scoped tones and
all the way to full drive, like some of the heavier tracks on ´lamb lies down on broadway´.

But when played with a band, the rick+HD130 gets tricky to blend in, in my opinion.
It´s possible, but i feel like I´m tweaking away the cool sounds just so it can blend in.

That´s when I switch to mudbucker - and the band can´t be heard at all

Amen, I've found the same thing!  Every now and then the guitar player ask me if I've turned my amp way up and I haven't.  I'm just filling the room and moving lots of air.

[drbassman]

How can I tell if my preamp is transistor or tube?  My newer acquisition has a single little tube aside from the  4 power tubes.  Is that the preamp tube?

[Psycho Bass Guy]

How can I tell if my preamp is transistor or tube?  My newer acquisition has a single little tube aside from the  4 power tubes.  Is that the preamp tube?

All the preamps in the HD130's were transistor. The 'tube in question' is the phase inverter/drive stage tube. That's what you have, otherwise there would be no small tubes in there at all. At the time of the HD130, RCA had just shut down its tube plants and lots of poor quality, noisy preamp tubes were hitting the market as their reject surplus was sold off by unscrupulous wholesalers under various brands. Since phase inverters don't make a lot of gain and have a high level signal being fed to them already, a lower quality tube in that stage isn't as big of a deal in terms of noise. As the preamp tube supply became even more inconsistent, the amp was redesigned to use transistors for the drive stage.  Leo wanted clean. The HD series is basicallly the Twin/Showman version 2.0, so in order to have the cleanest possible input, he used transistors because they were more consistent in quality.

 The era of early Music Man was where tubes got the reputation for being far more fragile than they are because of RCA's junk stock hitting the market. RCA basically quit the tube game because the military was switching over to s/s electronics. They had been subsidized to screen their production and when the subsidies stopped, reject tubes that would have been destroyed and remanufactured were stored. RCA was, until they quit, THE largest tube manufacturer in the world and still part of Bell. GE and Sylvania were able to pick up the slack and carry on domestically, though GE did almost double Sylvania's business and actually made many of Sylvania's envelopes for them. Sylvania (and Magnavox) was bought by Philips in the early 80's and had tube pants in both Europe and the US, having aquired Amperex, Telefunken and much of Mullard's facilities. Widespread tube production stopped in 1986, but many speciality lines (radar and transmitter) carried on production, some even to this day.

[amptech]

All the preamps   Leo wanted clean. The HD series is basicallly the Twin/Showman version 2.0, so in order to have the cleanest possible input, he used transistors because they were more consistent in quality.

I'm well aware of the fender similarities, but Leo himself didn't have anything to do with musicman amps, did he?
If I remember correctly, he only designed the stingray series instruments, and another which I can't remember..