Another email excerpt... did some more play testing with Stephen's Trinity 18 today. Had the opportunity to play it through all my cabs. For the veterans of this forum that have had the chance to play through a bunch of speaker types, leave now! But for those curious how the amp sounds through different cabs/speakers, read on!!
The artist I’m working with was late today, so I had a chance to spend some more time doing some testing. Today was speaker/cab day! I set up a tone on Ch.1 – sort of a med gain thing, not too loud (vol 3, tone 1.5) and played my Les Paul Vintage Mahogany (Burstbucker Pro pickups – classic LP sound) on the bridge pickup into the Lo input…
The clear overall winner today was my Marshall 1960 cab with G12T-75’s. This tone was yummy top to bottom, crunchy, tight, focused, and even – classic Marshall tone with both the EL’s and the 6V6’s. I think it likes the EL’s a teeny bit more (a bit more tonally even top to bottom – the 6V6’s were verging on bright (easily compensated for if I’d moved the tone knob), but GREAT with both tube types… this tone is why people LOVE Marshalls…
Runner-up… probably the V-30s. For whatever reason, I seem to like your amps A LOT with V30’s!! Anyway, both the Orange 2x12 and the Mesa Recto 4x12 were cool – the Orange was cooler with 6V6’s than with the EL’s (good but a teeny bit dark and “middy”), but the Mesa opened up a bit more, still had a dark smooth top and big bottom but the mids were less congested. Both tube types were great with the Mesa…
The others…
Marshall 4x10 with G10’s - This one probably takes 3rd place for me. Similar to the 1960 cab with 75’s, but obviously less bottom overall due to 10’s instead of 12’s, and maybe a bit less open, but more focused sounding. Anyway, with EL’s it was cool, although there was a bit of buildup in the low mids. Again easily dialed out, but I wanted to hear all the cabs with the identical setting on the amp. Switching to 6V6’s totally solved the problem – it got leaner in the mids, tighter in the bottom and crunchier in the top. This tone was AWESOME. Overall, the cab is probably in 3rd place, but this tone was challenging for #1!!
Marshall 4x12 with Greenbacks – this is one of my favourite cabs to use with my JCMs so I was curious how it would fare with the Trinity 18. It was good – I liked it a little better with the EL’s, good crunchy top, very soft and smooth in the low-mids and bottom end. This isn’t a tone I would use all the time, but it the right context it would be amazing. With the 6V6’s the top got a teeny bit strident, but the mids and bottom got a little leaner and meaner which was cool. If I was dialing it in to record, I just would have taken some top off the amp and been good to go. In any case, liked this cab, but didn’t LOVE it… There seems to be a little more chemistry between the JCMs and this cab than the 18…
My little 1x12 with the Classic Lead 80 – it’s a bit difficult to shootout a 1x12 vs. a 4x12, but I will say this – despite the fact that this didn’t wow me like the 4x12’s did due to one speaker instead of four, this speaker sounded GREAT. With both tube types it was balanced, crunchy, and rock and rolll. While in a 1x12 configuration this wouldn’t be my “goto” cab, I was left thinking I’d like to buy an empty 4x12 and put four Classic Lead 80’s in there! I think it would be an AWESOME match with the Trinity 18… How awesome? Probably in the top two or three I’m guessing…
70’s Hiwatt 4x12 with Fanes – meh… weird ‘cause as I’ve said before this is my favourite cab in the room 99% of the time. For whatever reason, the voicing of your amps and this cab just don’t work that well for me. Now, whereas with the TC-15 I would probably never choose to use this cab, with the Trinity 18 it was cool in a quirky way – it was REALLY dark, like almost no top end, but if you were looking for a kind of lo-fi indie Marshall thing it would probably be cool. With 6V6’s there was a teeny bit of top end, but with both tube types this cab had an interesting mid “glow”. Cool, but certainly not an everyday flavor…
60’s Fender 2x12 with Oxfords – this was an interesting cab. Hated it with EL’s – distant, dark, muddy, bleh… but with the 6V6’s I quite liked it – had a similar quality to Greenbacks with 6V6’s but slightly more “vintage” sounding…
Anyway, one interesting observation overall – with the TC-15, there are certain cabs I would not use. Just no chemistry between the TC and those cabs. But the ones that worked, were AMAZING. With the Trinity 18, no cab was bad. I would probably use them all at some point depending on what I was doing. Perhaps this is one reason why the 18 is your most popular amp – it ALWAYS works no matter what it’s plugged into…
So when my artist finally arrived, we needed to track 3 electric parts… I decided it was going to be Trinity day! So, I got the 18 (through the Marshall 1960 cab) and the TC (through the Mesa cab) cooking! Stephen, the TC-15 is INCREDIBLE man – we did a Strat semi-clean tone and an effecty Strat thing using an EHX Memory Man delay and a Boss Flanger pedal. I was overwhelmed with the clarity of these guitar tracks, they were SO detailed, and forward and BIG. Man, do I ever LOVE that amp.
Next we did a Danelectro/Trinity 18 track, a little crunchier to make the chorus of the tune bigger. I wasn’t sure I’d like the Dano, but it was great. This tone filled in the mids/low-mids of the chorus PERFECTLY. The TC and the 18 are a great 1-2 punch. In the same way with Mesa, the Recto and Stiletto are supposed to fill different parts of the spectrum (and I can confirm that they do since I own both), the TC and 18 are very complimentary to each other frequency-wise. They’re a nice combination for double up parts when recording… On the other tune we needed a clean jazzy tone, so we used my Epiphone Sheraton hollow body through the TC-15. Gorgeous, and I didn’t even need to touch the EQ! Just turned the gain down a bit, and dialed in a bit more cut. With the bridge pickup it was perfect amount of low end fat with high end presence. I can’t believe how versatile this amp is Stephen!! Oh and BTW, the TC stayed on Ch. 2, “munch” with the “hi” switch in. The 18 was in Ch.1 with more gain and different tone setting from my cab test. And I used the EL’s – tried the 6V6’s but they sounded a bit strident with the Dano…
Hope someone finds this interesting reading!!
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
Anyway, impressions.
