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Marshall MiniStack as a dirt box.....


petejt

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I go through periods where I think my little Marshall MS2 Mini-Stack is the best amp in the world. It has a great sound that I love but then after a bit I have troubles with it, the tone gets murky and loses defintion, the 'distortion on top of distortion' thing, then its arse gets clomped by my Mesa/Boogie MarkIV, then I remember it's just a gimmicky toy solid-state amp to resemble a Marshall half-stack.

 

 

At first I had troubles getting a loud enough signal from it to run as a preamp, then I was getting TOO much signal, it's damn loud!

 

I can get such a big range of gain sounds from the MarkIV, including lead tones, so I don't really need a gain-based pedal. The definition, articulation, clarity, as well as chugginess is plentiful already without the need of a clean-boost or overdrive. I'm not really into fuzz effects but I am open to trying it a bit more.

 

Anyway, with those things in mind, I'm considering on turning this into some form of gain-based pedal, whether it'd be a distortion pedal, fuzz, overdrive, level booster, treble booster etc. But the output signal is way too high, even with the level turned down. If I turn the level so far down it'll just become a fancy EQ/filter pedal, and that would be redundant since I already have an EQ pedal.

 

The obvious thing to do is chuck in a variable resistor in it as a (second) master level control, or just a fixed-value resistor to limit the level a bit, otherwise I get distortion on top of distortion making the tone ratty. I'm not sure what value but hope to find that out. But also, I'd like to modify the mini-amp a bit more just for some more experimentation, make something different out of it. I want to integrate this mini-amp somehow into my rig in a creative way.

 

Please share you thoughts, thanks.

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See I was thinking of using it for wooly dirt sounds, or that warm 'murky' dirt sound like L7 have on their song Wargazm.

 

But then I could get that tone instantly by rolling down the tone knob on my guitar See I was thinking of using it for wooly dirt sounds, or that warm 'murky' dirt sound like L7 have on their song Wargazm.

 

But then I could get that tone instantly by rolling down the tone knob on my guitar & playing closer to the neck. Even fuzz sounds, I just use the guitar's controls to get different tones rather than a pedal. I try to work it with the amp.

 

I guess I'm not used to relying on pedals? :confused:

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A friend did this with a champ by adding a line out that had some sort of volume knob to it, acts like a master volume. Ron Wood used to do something like this with the Faces for his "fuzz" tones.



Thanks for that. :)

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