Anything to share about using the GM40? Screens, cabinets, pedals, eq settings?

Hello,
I have a tubemeister 40 deluxe, I loved the YouTube videos of the demos, and now that I have it, I can't find the hard rock sound of AC/DC, Zeppelin, nEIL YOUNG, Purple, Creedencem Thin Lyzzy, Black Sabbath. , Judas...etc. (and some 80's metal)
I use an Epiphone Les Paul with JB pickups, and a 2x12 cab with a Celestion type V.

I would like us to be able to share here our experiences with screens, cabinets..., to be able to adjust the purchase of a screen or cabinet a little better based on our good or bad experiences.
I would like us to be able to share our experiences with distortion and effects pedals here, so that we can adjust the purchase of a pedal a little better based on our good or bad experiences.
I would like us to share here our experiences with equalizations for hard rock, metal, to be able to adjust our sound a little better based on our good or bad experiences.

Thanks for your contributions.

I've taken your multiple threads and put them where they should be, in a single one. Your queries are all exactly the same except for the one point you mentioned in each clone. You could have easily put all of them in the one thread. Please don't clutter up the place with multiple threads which are just copies of each other with a few words changed.

Have you searched for any other existing threads based on each of the aspects you listed, (and in a couple of cases duplicated)? These are things which have already been discussed and reading that might help you to get a start with what you want.

Yes, I have searched all the forums, and I have not found anything, that is why I have located this thread, I would appreciate it in advance if you can tell me in which threads the answers I am looking for are, because I insist that I have not found them. thank you

That's fine, I certainly accept that you can't find what you wanted Jaro. Just don't start a number of threads with exactly the same post and just a different couple of words difference. One thread was fine to list each of the topics you were interested in.

Hello,
I have various doubts.
I have a TM 40D and a 2x12 box with 16 amp V type speakers.
1.- Could I replace a 16 V type speaker and replace it with a 65 8 amp creamback?
Or should it be a 16 amp 65 creamback?
2.- How would the resulting amperage be in each case? The TM40D supports 8-16 A.
3.- How could I connect the TM40D to a 2x12 box with 16 A and another 1x12 box with 8 A or 16 A at the same time?
Thank you

I think you are confusing "amp" with "ohm". Amps are a measure of the current passing through a circuit, ohms are a measure of the resistance of a circuit. Speakers are not defined in amps, they are basically defined by their impedance which comes down to ohms. The words resistance and impedance are basically used for the same thing when talking about speakers though it is more complicated in real life engineering. The amplifier pushes as much current through the speaker as the speaker's resistance will allow it to. So a lower impedance speaker will automatically draw more current (amps) out of the amplifier which means that speaker is getting more power. The power rating of a speaker is the maximum it can take and not how much it should be fe4d with. You should stick within those limits too, though they are pretty high and forgiving for most modern speakers.

The output impedance of your TM40D is 8-16ohms. It needs no switching on the amp to cope with any speaker setup with an overall impedance in that range. You say you have 2x 16ohm V type speakers. These will be in parallel, (wired side by side), to make 8ohms overall and the power will be equally shared between them. If you are only replacing one of them then you should replace it with another 16ohm model. That way the power is still shared between them equally. If you replace with an 8ohm speaker then their combined impedance will drop lower and the power sharing will not be equal. The 8ohm speaker will take more of the power than the 16ohm by a large margin. You could replace with a pair of 8ohm speakers making sure they are wired in series, (one after the other), to give 16ohms over all.

Putting one 8ohm and one 16ohm speaker in parallel would give you 5.3ohms. Putting them in series will give you 24ohms. You can see both of these are outside the 8-16ohm range which H&K recommend. While speaker impedances are not perfectly accurate and there is a little wriggle room you should stick by them where you can.

Remember, the 65 Creamback is a 65Watt speaker and your TM40D is a 40W amp. The speaker would cope with the TM40D by itself and may even sound better than the mix with a harsher V type. That would be my own choice. You could even sell the V type cabinet to fund a new single Creamback one. As an experiment you could try putting the Creamback in your current cabinet and simply not connecting the other speaker. Shorting out the connections of the silent speaker with a short piece of wire helps to stop it from ringing. That may sound as you want.

So...

1, No. You must replace with another 16ohm speaker to stay within the recommended range.

2, With another 16ohm in parallel with one of the original V types you will get 8ohms overall. With an 8 ohm replacement in parallel with 16ohms you will get 5.3ohms. There is no way to attach one 8ohm and one 16ohm to give an impedance within 8-16ohms.

3, The only way you could attach the amp to a pair of cabinets is if they are BOTH 16ohms and you put them in parallel. The same calculations apply to cabinets as to individual speakers. Wire the amp positive output to BOTH of the cabinet positives and the amp negative to BOTH of the cabinet negatives.

You're right, I was referring to ohms.
The last question is not clear to me:
A box with 2x12 of 16 ohms each, in parallel, makes 8 ohms.
If I plug it in parallel to another 1x12 16 ohm box, would it give me???? Shouldn't they be the same? That is, the 1x12 box should be 8 ohms. But in total it will give me 4, and my TM won't admit it.
My head only supports 8-16.
And how do I make the connection, type of cable, etc?
Thank you.

Jaro wrote:A box with 2x12 of 16 ohms each, in parallel, makes 8 ohms.

That is correct, you have 8ohms.

Jaro wrote:If I plug it in parallel to another 1x12 16 ohm box, would it give me????

It will give you 5.3ohms.

Jaro wrote:Shouldn't they be the same? That is, the 1x12 box should be 8 ohms. But in total it will give me 4, and my TM won't admit it.

They do not have to be the same to work but the parallel impedance will be too low and the sharing of power will not be equal.  For a pair of 8ohms you should wire them in series, (amp +ve to +ve1, -ve1 to the next +ve2, -ve2 to the amp -ve).  This will give you 16ohms overall.

Jaro wrote:My head only supports 8-16.

That is correct.  Using any 8ohm and 16ohm in parallel will be too low, (that applies to both a single speaker and a cabinet).  You cannot do that in any way.

Jaro wrote:And how do I make the connection, type of cable, etc?

The type of cable is fairly irrelevant as long as it is sensibly thick and is insulated properly.  Any flexible ordinary mains cable is fine.  I strongly recommend you ignore ANY claims abiout "Super Special Speaker Cable".  For example the improvement given by "oxygen free cable" is a myth for guitar speakers and a con!  Special woven speaker cables are irrelevant outside of very expensive hifi setups.  Just use mains flex and it will be fine.  A 100W speaker signal is only 3.5Amps and mains cables find that very mild.

 You should either solder your cables, (not as easy as people sometimes think if you are a beginner), or you should crimp push-fit spade connectors on them with a proper crimp tool for that type of connector.  I recommend you do not trust crimps you make with ordinary pliers.  These may be fine for cars but are unreliable for our music signals.

Hello, I need to extend the FS-2 pedal cable that the tubemeister 40 has by 2 meters, since it only initially comes with 3 meters and is a little short. What type of cable could I use? A guitar cable? a power cable? Is there a specific extension cord for this? I understand that it should be a cable with a female jack and a male jack, unless they are both male and a special female-female piece is used. Thank you.

Guitar cables are designed to carry very light signals.  Your guitar generates signal currents of only a few microamps and the signals for amp functions controlled by simple stomp switches can be 30mA or more.  This is 100s of times heavier current.  It is really more current than a guitar signal cable is meant for but they will do the job.  They won't go up in smoke but they are not doing the job they were designed for.  You could use one but it is really better to get a cable based on simpler sturdier wire.  It will give you a much more heavy duty reliable cable.  This should make things cheaper as good quality screened signal cable is much more expensive that a simple 3 core cable.

It is actually easy to do the job yourself if that is possible.  It's a no-brainer to make a control cable of this type.  Basic cheap round three core mains flex and a cheap pair of a TRS jack plug and socket is great for the job.  Of course you would have to be able to solder to set it up - or maybe know someone who can.  Soldering is a useful skill for every guitarist to learn, I recommend it.  If you want to start with soldering you should get a decent soldering iron right from the start, they aren't terribly expensive nowadays, and practice with it until you can make a solid good looking joint quickly and smoothly.  There are dozens of tutorials online.

Other than that it's just look for the cheapest option out there.  Before people shake their heads and start extolling the benefits of "oxygen free copper" or even worse "silver Litz wire" let me stress - THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY ON EARTH OR IN HEAVEN THAT THIS CABLE CAN AFFECT THE TONE OF THE AMP!!!  It only ever carries either DC of a fixed level or 0V.  It goes nowhere near the signal path in the amp.  As it is carrying only DC it cannot radiate any interference.  It cannot affect your tone.  I don't care what your "tech guru" told you, if he says you need an expensive solution he is either lying or an idiot. Incidentally Oxygen Free Copper is a marketing ploy and doesn't really make any difference in our applications. It offers no proven benefit as the normal copper used in cables is pretty much the same thing anyway with 99.9% purity as opposed to 99.99%. (Sub micro crystalline diodes? don't make me laugh). No one has ever produced any rigorous engineering data to show the copper oxygen content makes any difference at all to a signal.

"Kenable" is a UK company I use for cables if I ever have to buy anything unusual that I can't make.  As I said before, I always make my own. I keep them decent quality but never most expensive and keep things simple where I can and they have never let me down.  Here is a selection of their cables which would do the job so you can see how basic and cheap they need to be.  Kenable Extension Cables. These or others like them would all be fine for your job.

These cables are so cheap that it isn't a silly idea to just buy or make a longer one right from the word go rather than get an extension which introduces two more connectors which can go faulty.  That way you have a short one and a long one in your gig bag.  I carry 3, each one a simple "two jack plug" type, no extensions, and each a different length.  It allows me to set up for any size venue without having metres of excess cable lying around for people to trip over.  I do have an emergency signal extension cable but with 3-4m cables to my pedals and then to the amp it isn't ever used other than for microphone cable extending at awkward gigs where the mixer desk is a longer way off than usual. It is never used for extending my control cable.

Keep it simple and very cheap, there is no problem with using the most basic materials for this job. Unscreened mains type cable is best!