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Music Man RD 100 Head users?


ceeelow

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Hey all, I just acquired a Music Man RD 100 Head from the other guitarist in my band....my 70's silver face twin was losing power and this just seemed to be handy. So, I had an extra 2 x 12 cabinet sitting around, filled it with two Celestion Alnico Gold speakers and hooked up the head and.....well....WOW. It sounds amazing.....but, I still know little about it...

 

I know many of you will give me crap for choosing a solid state/tube hybrid head over a all tube vintage Fender twin but, with the enclosed 2x12 cabinet I'm using with the head, it gives my SG much more body and a fuller sound than the twin but, still retains that Fender Bite and a touch of the Marshall 4x12 cabinet sound.....:love:

 

Any other users of this particular head out there who could share some experiences, tips, likes, dislikes....etc?

 

There is also a unique effects loop on the front panel.....I know the basics of what its for but, can anyone tell me some interesting uses for this (I just have the typical brands of effect pedals on my board). Which is the best to use?

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Oh yeah, the HD130 - All tube...if this Rd 100 continues to go well, I can see myself off loading my twin and picking up one of those....I do like all tube amps too.....I have a Memory Man moded Ibanez TS808 I was using with my twin, cause my twin was so bloody clean...even at high vol. levels....so I'llk still hold on to that....

 

I am a huge fan of the Gang of Four, XTC, clean, biting, bright, percussive sound...but, combos sometimes sound very thin to me...

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  • 5 years later...
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Let 'em give you crap....while they keep changing out noisy, microphonic 12AX7's every 6 months.  I have an RD-100 head I've been using for 34 years and it's been in the shop twice; once to change the on-off switch which wore out, and again to change a tube socket that cracked when a monsoon came up at an outdoor gig and flooded the back of the amp while it was on.  The head once took a fall from 6 feet to solid concrete and still worked perfect.  I've blown 3 or 4 JBL E-110's over the years (those are rated at 100 watts each) by getting careless with the volume.  I normally use two of those in parallel (4 ohm load to the head) in an open back cab, and my rig will take your head off if I turn it up.

Took me awhile to get used to the solid state front end.  Admittedly, it's maybe not quite as warm as a tube one, but you get used to it.  People mistakenly think this is a 100 watt head because of the moniker, but it is only 50 watts, which is all you'll ever get out of a pair of 6L6's.  My only bitch is, is that the overdrive channel is not 'linear'.  If you turn up the master, it starts cleaning up.  The "normal" channel will actually go louder than the overdive one if you dare to crank it that far.

Both channels have separate 'drive' or input controls and master controls, but both channels share the same EQ and 'verb.

Show me any other amp in service this long with that few trips to the shop. 

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  • 7 years later...
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On 4/5/2013 at 10:39 AM, chuckk1 said:

Let 'em give you crap....while they keep changing out noisy, microphonic 12AX7's every 6 months.  I have an RD-100 head I've been using for 34 years and it's been in the shop twice; once to change the on-off switch which wore out, and again to change a tube socket that cracked when a monsoon came up at an outdoor gig and flooded the back of the amp while it was on.  The head once took a fall from 6 feet to solid concrete and still worked perfect.  I've blown 3 or 4 JBL E-110's over the years (those are rated at 100 watts each) by getting careless with the volume.  I normally use two of those in parallel (4 ohm load to the head) in an open back cab, and my rig will take your head off if I turn it up.

Took me awhile to get used to the solid state front end.  Admittedly, it's maybe not quite as warm as a tube one, but you get used to it.  People mistakenly think this is a 100 watt head because of the moniker, but it is only 50 watts, which is all you'll ever get out of a pair of 6L6's.  My only bitch is, is that the overdrive channel is not 'linear'.  If you turn up the master, it starts cleaning up.  The "normal" channel will actually go louder than the overdive one if you dare to crank it that far.

Both channels have separate 'drive' or input controls and master controls, but both channels share the same EQ and 'verb.

Show me any other amp in service this long with that few trips to the shop. 

Sorry, but that comment about its power is just not inaccurate.  I owned a Music Man RD100 that I purchased brand new around 1982 and it was most certainly spec'ed as a 100-Watt RMS amp head. My band mate also bought his RD50 which was the 50-Watt RMS version. My brother still has the 50-Watt head in his rehearsal studio. In case you might think that we are mistaken I can only offer that all the members from my high school band (all four of us) went to college to study electrical engineering. 

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I bought my Music Man RD100 brand new around 1982. No, it was actually 1981 because I had that rig when I first started playing nightclubs in my senior year of high school before college.  It was a leap forward from my old Classic 212 Peavey 50-wat that I replaced with my Peavey Artist VT 112 combo 120-Watt, and then finally getting into more of a Fender vibe with my Music Man RD100.  I loved the power and switchable gain in both channels.  For economy, built my own cab aping the Music Man RH-212 rear horn design which I loaded with old JBL D120 12' speakers with aluminum dust caps.  This rig could loud, clean and really bright.  I gigged in clubs up until the early '90s and it performed flawlessly never needing any service.  It stayed rather pristine because I always transported with a cover.  It was only retired when I finally bought my '65 Reverb Twin Reissue. Because it was a hybrid design it really had no love in the resale market and I ended up selling it for about $250 foolishly. You just couldn't give them away back then. But I took that money and it seeded me picking up my 1st Gen Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp as a second to my Twin. GC had a killer intro sale price of only $375 so I at least cleaned up on that purchase.  I now run my Fenders in stereo off my TC Electronics Nova Repeater stereo delay pedal. I could not be happier with this setup. 

My Music Man was a flawless workhorse and it would have sounded better if my guitar cab and speakers had been a better choice. It was so clean that at times you could drive nail through your head. It was more midrangey and punchy. It lacked the spongy warmth of the tube front end, but it was really not that bad. I suspect if I have chosen a better set of speakers for my taste in a more solid cab design. My home made 1/4 ply design was too ringy even with dampening and the rear horn also made for a peculiar sound stage instead of an open back design providing a more 360 sound.  Live and learn, but I should have held onto that head. 

I made my own custom Y chord running my effect digital reverb in the end with my Alesis QuadraVerb which I would trigger off my BOSS FC50 MIDI control pedal .  I always used the amp channel switching for overdrive sounds, and looking back better results would have happened running clean with pedals for overdrive. The Clean channel was awesome, the Distortion channel I could take or leave.  I have played through my brother's Music Man RD50 with an open back 112 EV speaker and it sounds much better than my old rig which has a lot to do with the speaker pairing.  Hindsight is 20/20. 

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