I get my new GrandMeister today!

It should arrive today!  

I am looking forward to running home with it and plugging it into my Marshall 1960 4x12 cabinet that has Celestion G30's and Greenbacks in it.  It is an open back cabinet.  My other 4x12 cabinet is an 1960AV closed back cabinet with vintage 75's in it.  It should be interesting to hear the difference between the two cabinets using the H&K.

I will be demoing the amp using my Diezel Herbert as a reference point for me to hear the differences.  It's funny how your hearing can think it sounds great until you compare it with another "like" item.  I know what the Herbert sounds like and I have played that amp more than any other.

I am really excited to get it and try it out.  I also got the footpedal to drive the amp.

As I do the burn in of the amp and compare it to the Diezel I will be updating this thread with my thoughts; good and bad.  I want to document this amp to it's fullest.  How is the clean? Is the crunch good? Does the distortion sound fizzy? Does ultra light me up? How are the effects? Do they stand up to my pedals?

I will be writing my thoughts in here for all to view.

Wish me and the GrandMeister 36 luck on our journey! It should be a fun ride.

It arrived!  Safe and sound.  Thanks Amazon!

I played it this afternoon and compared it to my Diezel and Line 6 DT25 (Bogner)...

It did not sound that good through the closed back cabinet (1960AV) loaded with Vintage 75's.  Then...

Through my trusty-dusty 4x12 open back cab loaded with G30 and Greenbacks - Oh my!  There that sound is!  It is clearer and has more dynamics than the other two amps.

More to follow.  All and all a very big thumbs up.  Maybe a nine out of ten!  I don't think I have had as much fun playing guitar like this in years.  Maybe never...

I was dialing in sounds from preset number 29 that is using the ultra channel with some slight delay and it really came to life.  Then, I looked at Marco Sfogli's settings in his YouTube video of The Reaction where he is using a Mesa Boogie Mark V and "bam" there it was.  By using his settings from that video, even though it is a Mark V, I was playing along with his video with a big grin all over my face.

Maybe, just maybe I will be cancelling that order for the Suhr PT-100 SE amp.  This H&K is so easy to use and weighs next to nothing.  Simple to hook up and control with the pedal.  Has an iPad app that even has some notes by channel I can use live...  What's not to like?

Day 2 and still going strong here!

I am setting up my base four presets for tomorrow's band practice and balancing the volumes of each preset.  I copied four factory presets into 32 A,B,C and D.  The presets were 1-C, 2-B, 3-A and 8-A.  All presets sound good in an empty room but the real test is playing in practice.

The band's studio is large enough that it will mirror most small bars/casinos that we will be playing in.  The real lit-mice test is live in front of noisy people.  That is were the real tones are tested.  The studio will just have to do for now since we are just finishing up our first setlist.

The ultra channel I am setting up is going to sound as close as possible to this amazing video by a great player:


I noticed that Marco's Mark V setting were very-very close to John Petrucci's setting from a couple of years ago.  I may still pick up on a Mark V but one amp at a time.  So far I am really happy with the H&K GM36.

Last night when I was playing, factory preset 8-A sounded damn close to Marco's sound above and I was really happy.  After listening to the preset again today I will probable back off on some of the delay and may boost the bass a little.

This morning I re-wired my 4x12 cabinet and just made the G30's active (2). Will test the cabinet tomorrow without having the greenbacks active.

That's it for today sport fans!  

So far I am a happy camper.  I did notice a little bit of a pop switching from preset D to A (Ultra to clean).  Hopefully I can figure out what that is related to.  I may have to send an email to H&K if it becomes a problem.  The only other issue that worries me some is that the amp pops pretty loudly when I take the amp out of standby.  Even when the Master Volume is turned all the way down.

First practice went well.  No issues!  Sort of...  

When you power off the GM36 then power it back on, the last preset used is restored for playing with; but the preset on the foot pedal is not restored.  It always restores to Bank: 1-A, so you think you are good until you select the next preset but you probable are using the wrong bank.  Unless you always have your presets starting at 1-A.  Then you know where you're at.  I created my presets on bank 32 so I would not blow away the factory defaults.  I still have not installed my iPad connection so I want the amp to basically stay pristine until I can save the factory presets then create my own presets, starting at 1-A.

The sound was very good for factory defaults.  The ultra channel being used in lead situations was just killer and was fun to play with.  Clean needs work,  Crunch was good, Lead needs some small tweaks.  All in all three good presets and one "ultra" killer preset!

Tomorrow I start working on the cabinets to activate all fours speakers, G30's and Green Backs.  I am curious to hear what it sounds like.  

I did not notice any pops while playing live.  I will try to test the amp at a louder volume (not at bedroom level) to see if the pops are a mute point.  Get it?  

Great to read your reviews Hwystar.
Just got mine !! Loving the sounds and versatility . Only thing that worries me is how freaking HOT this thing gets. I measured it at 111f today, yikes.

Hey Teddis! Thanks for being the first person to join the forum!

I hear you on the 111 degree temperature. I may be a little worried playing outdoor gigs in the summer. Hopefully H&K did some heat tests. They must have designed the top of the amp to be made out of metal to act like a heat sink so that it would transfer the heat out of the tube cavity. The TubeMeister amps have been out for over a year now and I have not seen any complaints of the amps failing due to heat. But... It does make you think about what you put on top of the head. You never know. H&K may have discovered that by having metal on the top transfers the heat out of the cavity better then wood and Tolex on the top acting as an insulator. The heat may be trapped in there and is actually hotter than the H&K is. I'm not an Engineer so I don't know how it will do.

Thanks again Man!

Teddis: Do you have any pop issues at all with your GM?

It may be that my Ultra channel is set up to hot and the gain needs to be backed down a scrunch.

Hello Everyone, I received my Grandmeister 36 on April 3rd which IRONICALLY was my birthday Yea! Anyways I'm lovin it! I did and from time to time get that popping, not so much since I changed tubes for some reason. I put 4 matched Groovetube Gold series in it along with 3 12ax7's which are the Gold series. Made a small difference so I guess I have a spare set now. The expression pedal input on the 432 MKII thru the midi communication to the amp doesn't work the way I would like it in that when you change presets it reverts to the preset volume not where the pedal is set at; that makes it difficult to go from one preset to another with the volume at a consistent level. I have it set on soft volume but unlike my other gear when you switch presets the volume expression pedal is at the heel or toe position setting. Also the Roland EV=5 expression pedal will not work as a stock pedal you have to go into it and reverse the wiring on the threadle. Other then those couple of quirks I love this amp coming from owning everything made out there, (recently JVM410H, and a Mesa Boogie Mark V), I now have a an Axe-FX II which I love also.  

Welcome aboard Treewiz!

I did get some Sovteks and TAD tubes to swap out.  I will do that procedure this weekend and see if that stops the popping problem.  At this point I don't think it's much of an issue but I am curious to hear what the difference is.

In regards to the volume pedal: I had the same issue in practice yesterday.  One of the songs starts out with cascading volume pedal playing and the pedal (Yamaha FC-7) could not do it.  Since the H&K pedal is strictly using midi commands and everything is being saved as a preset then maybe we need to over write the preset with the volume "moved" to 100%?  I will try doing that and will report back today.  I have an EB Junior volume already that I was using and was going to go that route if the Yamaha/H&K route did not work to my liking.

So far, so good!  Thanks for the post Mr. Tree Wizard!

Thanks Hwystar for the welcome, and for setting this forum up for us, we need this

I have also noticed a pop once.......through my monitors which are connected to my 6 channel board through Redbox. I am not sure what channel I was on, I will pay more attention to that.
I have JJ's all through the amp, seems fine so far. TSC gives me a 10-2 rating which. I understand to be ok. What are others TDC ratings ? This will be cool to compare.

I emailed support on the heat, I hit 114F in play mode, but with NO VOLUME ( not playing ) eeeesh. Wonder how hot this will be pushing volume on a hot day?
I may mod the back panel and add some small fans on the inside . Have to make sure this does not introduce noise.

Setting the volume preset all the way up won't work. I set the volume  in each preset to a 9:00 to 10:o'clock setting depending on the preset and that is as close as I can get for now to operate at a live volume with some consistency; but it still surges. The option is to use a volume pedal in the effects loop and program the loop in each preset. This ok but I still get some surge of volume when I move the volume pedal. I e-mailed Hughes & Kettner about this issue but have not gotten a response yet, not sure about their customer service

Teddis:  I will try my purchased tubes (Sovtek, TAD) out first before I switch to JJs.  I was using Tony Mckenzie's review of the amp and he used those tubes in his swap out.  If those pop, then out they go and I will get a set of yours.

It is interesting stuff at the end of the other video I posted about changing tubes out and the bias information reported by TSC.  Very informative info in that video. I didn't no that bias info about amps to that detail and by using the H&K manual and the TSC it all makes sense now!  There is no way that you will catch me going into a live amp, using an o-scope and VOM and adjusting the bias.  Those days are over for me.  I hate getting zapped!

Tree:  That sucks that you have not heard back from H&K. Yes, I hope they have a client support staff.  I will probable use my volume pedal in front of the the amp with a tuner and buffer.  I'm not sure where I am headed with that whole mess.  Gets back to having a core amp sound that works, then add effects if needed.  But, volume and tuning is mandatory in my book.  I don't use the volume on my guitar as much as I should.  Some songs require a volume pedal.  Like one of my bands cover songs:  

There is a way to control the amps volume with the volume pedal using the FSM but it is not really a good idea.  If you adjust the volume for each preset up to around 100% then the volume pedal works the way it should work.  The down side to this is you need to make your loudest preset (my boosted lead sound) and set it to 100%, then all the other presets are set to about 95% volume.  This accomplishes a boost of 3dB for lead and all other presets are normalized.

That being said, I think I will use my volume pedal!  Since I will now be using my volume pedal I might as well pull out my pedal board:  http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showpost.php?p=17592751&postcount=903.  I didn't want to but my pedal board does it all and I think it will control the GM36 via midi control provided by the One Control Crocodile pedal looper.  I will report back if it does in fact control the amp without any issues.

I am so bummed that the GM36 couldn't do it all...  One little amp, one little pedal controller, one little volume pedal.  I still may use just a buffer, tuner and volume pedal with the FSM instead of my full pedal board.  That would K.I.S.S. That much less to break in a concert!  Time will tell.

The One Control Crocodile pedal looper controls the GM36 like a champ! Now I have 7 presets per bank instead of four which is really handy, plus the Crocodile has it's good internal buffer for 30 feet of cable (15 feet/pedal board/15 feet).

I think I will keep the FSM because I may still have a need for it if I use the following signal route: guitar->volume/tuner->buffer->Mobius->amp, effects loop: Timeline->Big Sky. The FSM should control the Strymon products with no issues.

I recorded 5 parts of Paperthin Hymn by Anberlin using the Red Box out of the GM36 into Logic Pro X using one my Strats and it sound pretty good! It's not worth posting anywhere because it will be used as a backing track for the band so it is un-compressed and not totally processed like most music is. We are going for a live sound in our backing tracks and not a studio quality sound. I am impressed with the sound of the GM36 better than Logic Pro X guitar sounds. It is more organic sounding than the sounds that come from the plugins of Logic. Win win!

HwtStar,
I noticed in another thread you mentioned using your tuner connected to the "Line out " of the GM36.
How do you deal with muting when tuning live ? I realllly do not want to go through any pedals anymore front end.....straight in the front and FSM32, that's it.
Thanks !

Hey Teddis!

I have always liked having my tuner active at all times so that I can see something out of whack while I play or in-between songs.  It's not un-common for me to see something wrong and tweak it live in the middle of a song.  Gives me something to do actually!    

Thanks for asking Man!

Hi what tuner are you using ? No mute. I guess correct ?

I'm using the TC Electronics Polytune 2. I was using it with my Ernie Ball Volume Jr that has the built in tuner output.

But... Yesterday I ordered a Mission VM-Pro volume pedal. That pedal has a built in buffer in it and I am running 30 of cable (15 feet/pedals/fifteen to amp). The buffer will really help bring the life and sparkle back into my guitar. I tested it tonight by plugging the first fifteen directly into the amp and the sparkle was back. The VM-Pro has a TRS output and you can use one of the rings for a tuner output. I think I will go that route instead of using the "Line Out" of the amp.

I'm late to this convo but I just wanted to add how I'm dealing with using a tuner with the GM, in conjunction with a volume pedal...

I have a Ernie Ball VP Jr 25k volume pedal in the amp's fx loop. It works mah-velously... when I heel down, the delay and reverb trails DO NOT get cut off. Perfect! I prefer the volume pedal located here vs in front of the amp because I don't want it to affect the gain. I only want it to affect VOLUME.

I have Korg Pitchblack Pro (it's a rack mountable tuner - my Grandmeister is also rackmounted) which is connected to the GM's Line Out. This works great because 1) the Korg tuner has a special input on the back for line level signals (12" patch cable, nice and tidy); and 2) when I heel-down the volume pedal, the tuner still gets a signal!

My wireless receiver sits on top of my rack, connected to the GM's main input. There are only 3 cables running from my pedalboard to the rig: The FSM's midi cable, and the send/receive cables for the volume pedal. I have them bundled together like a snake. It's AWESOME!!!