No New Owners?

How is your soldering Jeff? It's a doddle to do if you can just solder an XLR connector. I can get the values for you as long as we know what we are hooking it up between. 5 tiny resistors and some heatshrink.

bordonbert wrote:How is your soldering Jeff?  It's a doddle to do if you can just solder an XLR connector.  I can get the values for you as long as we know what we are hooking it up between.  5 tiny resistors and some heatshrink.

I suppose I have singed enough fingertips to be reasonable at it (I do guitar electronics work on the side to make a few bucks here and there, and at one time made a plug in resistor pack to bypass the notoriously delicate knock sensor on a Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo. I could probably fab up an attenuator without burning the house down. .....*probably*)

VoodooJeff wrote:I ordered one of those line attenuators a couple of months ago. Nine days later he hadn`t shipped it nor contacted me about it so I cancelled my order. Sucks, too. Looks like a great piece.

That's a bummer! I've had a couple experiences like that on ebay, I suppose it's bound to happen from time to time. But I've bought 2 of those attenuators from that guy over the past few years and he has been very prompt.

The one that you were going to buy is very simple.  It has only 3 resistors, 2 x 7500R and one 150R.  You could improve that to 4 and will get the benefits of a proper impedance balanced setup rather than just floating balanced.

Assuming that we are dealing with only a voltage setup rather than a power one, we just need to make sure that driving impedances are a lot lower than input impedances along the way.

We will need 4 resistors, 2 are 100x as big as the other 2.  So 6800R and 68R would be fine, 7500R and 75R would be fine, 10000R and 100R would be fine.  It's not a necessary thing to have these a specific value, only fairly high and with that accurate ratio.  Keeping the values matching in each pair is also advantageous so use 1% resistors.  Let's just assume 6800R and 68R as they are really common values and the Redbox out is 1360R and this  = 2 x 680R, see the connection?.

1) Take a Male XLR connector (plug) and connect both a 6800R (6k8) resistor and a 68R resistor to each of its pins 2 and 3.  Short legs rule!

2) Connect the ends of the 68R resistors together and back to pin 1.  (Often a single resistor of twice the value is used and connecting to pin 1 is left out but without the mid-point ground you don't have a true balanced setup.)

3) Connect your cable +ve wire (red?) to the resistor connected to pin 2 and sleeve it with heatshrink.

4) Connect your cable -ve wire (black or white?) to the resistor connected to pin 3 and sleeve it with heatshrink.

5) Connect your cable screen to pin 1 or the junction of the 68R resistors making sure it can't short on any of the other connections.  (It may be beneficial to part sleeve that with heatshrink too.)

5) Close up the male connector making sure to fit the insulating tube around the whole assembly before the back shell.

6) Connect up the female connector to the other end of the cable as normal.

Voila, you have an attenuator which is properly impedance balanced thanks to the grounded resistors to pin 1.  It has an input impedance of 2 x (6800 + 68) = 13736R (13k68) which is just over 10x the Redbox output impedance.  It has an output impedance of 136R which should be lower than what you are plugging it into.  The amount of attenuation is set to 100x (6800/68) but it will vary with the impedances of what the cable is plugged into at each end.  That's not by much in the real world.

If you can solder, can use heatshrink or insulating tube, (please NOT insulating tape, it's gets so gunky and unwinds after a while), and can work neatly, this is pretty easy.

So to sum it up in my own perspective, a 68 and a 6.8K resistor are connected to pins 2 and 3. The two smaller ones are shorted to each other, then connected to pin 1. + to pin 2, - to pin 3, cable screen (braided ground?) goes to the joint between the two 68`s.

Is that correct?

VJ wrote:So to sum it up in my own perspective, a 68 and a 6.8K resistor are connected to pins 2 and 3. The two smaller ones are shorted to each other, then connected to pin 1. + to pin 2, - to pin 3, cable screen (braided ground?) goes to the joint between the two 68`s.

Yes, 68R and 6k8 to each pin 2 and 3, 68s shorted together then joined to pin 1, +ve line to 6k8 on pin 2, -ve line to 6k8 on pin 3, screen braid ground to the 68s joint.  You've got it.

Make sure to get the plain cable connections the right way around on the female at the other end.  The pin numbers will stay the same for +ve and -ve but will be physically reversed if you are looking from the same perspective, front or back, in both male and female.  (I'm sure you're aware of that point Jeff from having played with these things before but others reading this might not be.)  Here's a diagram looking into the connector pins of the two.  (The numbers are usually moulded into the plastic parts if you can read small print.)

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Hi!

I am new to the club...a Grandmeister 36, 12" H & K cab, and Midiboard now grace my floor. What an amazing amp!

Thanks to all that contribute here on the Forum!

Welcome aboard, Blueglow! It`s a great community, lots of knowledge and experience among the ranks

VoodooJeff wrote:Welcome aboard, Blueglow! It`s a great community, lots of knowledge and experience among the ranks

Thanks VoodooJeff! I lurked for quite a few months when I researched amps in general and H & K in particular. I very much appreciate all of the info here.

Blueglow wrote:Hi!

I am new to the club...a Grandmeister 36, 12" H & K cab, and Midiboard now grace my floor. What an amazing amp!

Thanks to all that contribute here on the Forum!

Welcome!!

Raf0419 wrote:

Blueglow wrote:Hi!

I am new to the club...a Grandmeister 36, 12" H & K cab, and Midiboard now grace my floor. What an amazing amp!

Thanks to all that contribute here on the Forum!

Welcome!!

Thank you!
Suddenly, BLUE is my favorite color!

Hi all - picked up my Grandmeister and FSM432 on Tuesday, first rehearsal tonight and I'm very, very happy - good comments from the rest of the band.  First gig with the GM on Saturday, and I can't wait.  Guess I'll just have to kill the time programming presets

Hi LE. Congrats on getting your hands on the GM. If you're setting them at home, be prepared to fiddle with those presets. Get the process under your fingers and foot so you can do it without thinking. Setting them at gigging volume generally takes a little adjustment away from your home settings. Unless you live in a remote mansion on your own away from the world like a great rock recluse where you can turn it up and stun the squirrels in your garden that is?

bordonbert wrote:Hi LE.  Congrats on getting your hands on the GM.  If you're setting them at home, be prepared to fiddle with those presets.  Get the process under your fingers and foot so you can do it without thinking.  Setting them at gigging volume generally takes a little adjustment away from your home settings.  Unless you live in a remote mansion on your own away from the world like a great rock recluse where you can turn it up and stun the squirrels in your garden that is?  

Hi there, thanks for the advice. I managed to get a couple of sounds set up in the rehearsal studio last night, and fortunately I have a studio at the end of my garden, so I can crank it up a bit, so I'll be able to put a basic set of presets together, but yes, you're right - it'll still take a bit of tweaking once the rest of the band kick in. Think I might plug an expression pedal into the FSM and set it to control volume, so at least I'll have a bit of control available there.

Bugger me! You ARE a great rock recluse who lives in a remote mansion on your own away from the world where you can turn it up. Glad I'm not one of your squirrels!

Got the GM wired up this AM before I had to leave for work, just to make sure it made sound - wish I had more time! Using a Rocktron Midimate with it so a bit more complicated than the HK floorboard. Need to put more time into it - I can tell the sounds will be great. I may be overdoing the rig - have a compressor, Klon Klone and an AF9 (autowah) in front, and a programmable looper with 5 time/volume/pitch based pedals in the loop. I noticed the loop had a volume drop and added some distortion. I took the boost off and that helped the distortion (boost is pre send apparently and driving the pedals too hard). The volume drop goes away when I take the pedals out of the loop (the looper is true bypass). So I'm thinking I may be out of luck with pedals in the loop. Only had 10 minutes or so, so need to tweak more. Anyone experience this? Impedance mismatch? Use the Ebtech Line shifter?

Haven't got a schematic for the GM36 but there is another 'close model' knocking around.  Assuming they are the same basic layout for the relevant bits here, the Boost is applied right at the front of the amp.  It has a very high quality transparent solid state buffer as the very first block before any of the valves, which is set up to have a switchable gain.  Kicking it on increases its gain and drives it into a pseudo-Tubescreamer overdrive pedal mode with assymetric diodes set to clip at about 5.7V and 12.3V in a +-15V circuit block.  We can all guess why this isn't made much more of in the marketing.  (But we're all more mature big boys here, right?)  At the same time the first valve stage gain is altered by shaping its cathode component values.  Something like this:



Yes, you get a free automatic overdrive pedal fitted pre-valve sections into the amp for large signal input, and valve overdrive within it!  And it is beautifully balanced to be totally controlled by the guitar volume knob.  Use it wisely and it performs magnificently!  Now as I said, this is NOT a GM36, but it is a close enough cousin.  The fine detail will vary but I would expect most of the basic structure to be fairly similar.  If anyone can fill in more real life observation it could be illuminating!

You could try using the Volume control to help with your loop distortion problem.  You need to use the Boost to get the sound you want, then the Volume is meant to balance your voices for level.  Its setting persists with the channel.  I would guess it's a pre-loop level control with the Master Volume having to be post-loop to not affect the pedals you have in the loop.  If that is all correct then you can reduce the Volume and increase the Master Volume to the original level and get less drive to your loop pedals.  Does that make sense or am I just dreaming?

Impedance mismatch in that loop shouldn't be a problem unless you have a totally s**ite pedal in first place.  The loop is properly designed with the right impedances driving it and loading it. I know that because I measured it and someone else confirmed the measurements!

Hi all, new owner here... (from the Netherlands) Just got it for 1 day and didn't had the change to play with it good.. Owned a Kemper but could not get used to the sound ..so sold everything and game back to a steaming tube amp!



Use ist with a pedal bord with:

Boss es-8 switching system (still figuring out how to operate the GM with it.. )

Strymon - Timeline

Strymon - BigSky

Strymon - Mobius

Strymon - Deco



Maybe gonna put in new tubes.. not clear yet...

Welkom op het forum Nixxo.  (Isn't Google translate a lovely thing? )

You'll find guys here who can help you with that control side, we have some very advanced applications going on down that street.  On the valve side, do take a little time to get to know the sound of your amp and how to set it up with the valves you already have, that way you know whether you are getting the best out of it and if there is a need to change them out in the first place.  There is a long Valve Swapping thread on this forum which will definitely give you a lot of useful food for thought.  Don't neglect the speaker choice either as that seems to be genuinely fairly influential.  For both issues the type of music you play will directly affect what you need.  In the Netherlands do you have the same obsession with Death Thrash Metal type genres as the Germans? Are you an Atrocity or Sacrificium fan? Or do you get off on heavier stuff like Sam Fox and David Hasslehoff?     If so the amp may suit you out of the box, and there are ways of making it sound even rougher!!!  

Keep in touch with us here and let us know how you get on with your new best friend.

yhaa it isn't my native language that's clear.. And no, not all Dutch like the death and thrash metal (where NOT germans, although the language sounds similar to native English speaking folks lol (nothing against Germans, don't get me wrong)) .. we don't walk all on wooden shoes either.. haha

My style of music is mostly progressive rock like Karnivool, Porcupine Tree, Muse, Incubus, Steven Wilson (my GOD..haha) etc etc.. But also the old rock styles are appealing.. Playing at this moment in two bands, one progressive rock, the other RockaBilly. So from one end of the spectrum to the other one

So you see , ik need a versatile rig! My first thoughts are to tame the amp a little bit with different pre amp valves.. I've bought them along with the amp, a TAD 12AY7/6072A Highgrade and a TAD V1ay7.. i dit not installed them yet but thinking about to give it a try tomorrow. The valve specialist also told me that the Chinese valves wich came stock with the GM are good valves, his statement was that there are only a few valve factories in the world who produce valves in Russia and one in China so all tubes come from these factories. I didn't bought EL84 's.. his opinion was that changing the EL84 from china for the TAD ones will not give a sound difference in this amp. Only get them as replacements as he sad.

I m using at this moment a open cabinet with two Celestions, one G12T-75 and one G12 Vintage 30.. Gonna play around a bit to see of this is the sound i like, as mentioned, like to tame the amp a little..

I think you are doing a wise thing in not changing out your preamp valves yet.  How can you know if you are making an improvement without knowing how the amp sounds in the first place?  For my money, your dealer is right, the Chinese stock valves are not bad, they are just very bright and allow a coarseness into the top end for my ears.  Those Germans and their love of overdriven rasping sounds have voiced the amp so it does that very well.  Personally I find it very telling that in the online review vids on YouTube none ever really demonstrate anything but how good it is to whack onto Ultra, wind up the Gain and chug out the same sort of Metal type riffs with a few ultra fast fuzzed up runs.  No one really shows off at all the subtlety of the Crunch channel for Blues, or how to get great Classic rock tones out of the Crunch and Lead channels, or killer Rockabilly settings out of the Clean but this amp does all of that if you take care of the details.  The amp seems to me aimed primarily at a great Metal sound and achieves it and the fact that the other sounds can be absolutely riveting seems almost an accident, and H&K are not cashing in on that.

I've no experience of the TADs you mention, I just went for JJs and got a really worthwhile improvement.  Other people have other experience and have filled in quite a lot of the picture on that one.  That "Tube Swapping Thread" is long but it is useful.  As for telling you that the EL84s don't benefit from swapping, I'm not in agreement with your dealer on that.  They make a significant difference too in my experience.  But exploring that will come in time for you.  And of course it only takes a single pair to be able to test it.  On the 18W setting only one pair is in use so you should hear a difference or not by swapping only that pair.  You'll find I have a LOT to say on the subject of the 12AY7 issue!    (For God's sake don't start me!)

Oh dear, a V30!    Well the threads here will let you know what I think about that combination    , (others love it).  I predict your ears (and your pet bat) will tire of it knowing the music you are playing and your intent to tame the amp.  There is a lot of other info here on that aspect for a rainy evening's reading.

So what is your native language?  I thought that almost everyone around that part of Europe spoke Dutch, including some of Germany and most of Belgium?  And I did guess you probably wouldn't be into only those genre I listed, I know Dutch people are more sensitive than that, (at least your women are).   Seriously though, I have nothing but good experiences of visiting Holland, the people there are amongst the warmest in Europe, especially to me as an Englishman.  You sound as though you suffer from the same as I do being a northener from Newcastle.  Everyone knows we live in narrow little tenements and we take our whippets for a run on the local slag heap when there isn't too much rain or smog with our flat caps and thick mufflers on when we're not drowning ourselves in Brown Ale and killing ourselves with cigarettes.  Yes, we're all as backwards and dumb as you see us on "Geordie Shore"!     You must grow terrific tulips then?  

 Keep us up to date with what you are finding, we love to hear.

bordonbert wrote:Bugger me!  You ARE a great rock recluse who lives in a remote mansion on your own away from the world where you can turn it up.  Glad I'm not one of your squirrels!  

Haha - hardly! It just happens that my nearest neighbour is 85 and stone deaf (dunno about the squirrels, tho'). Anyway, the first gig was fantastic - all my presets worked well (I'll still do a little tweaking, of course), and the sound was fabulous. Had several comments from punters who've seen us before about the tone.

Yes, I have just bought a new Grandmeister 36 and in a word, LOUD! This is my first tube amp, I am almost afraid to admit that here, but I was very comfortable with solid state amps and rack systems, their low cost, simple use, and almost trouble free reliability. Yet in the back of my mind I always felt I was selling myself short by not using valves to get a more natural tone. But I need effects and I am not one to use fx loops or stomp boxes or pedal boards, I have always kept it simple, plug and play! Just a little chorus and delay to fatten the sound that's all. This amp is the only one out there that is tube and has an array of fx built in, and a noise gate to boot. Its very natural sounding and clear, and again LOUD! Plus it looks great lit up on top of my 2 cabinets!

Hey, don't be embarassed to admit a liking for Solid State amps Stargazer, I'm with you on that, I love a decent one. They do what they do without fuss and, nowadays, with tonal capabilities closer to valves than ever before. In practical situations, live onstage with a band around you, not many people could tell the difference to be honest. And I've said many times before, how many people in your audience are standing there thinking, "sick band but, hey man, like solid stade gear? For God's sake that's todally bogus dood!!!" There will be a few musos in there who long ago vanished up their own cathodes and turn their noses up, are you playing to impress them or to see that the other 99% of people have a good time?

My own feeling is that there is no such thing as a "natural" tone, the whole process of amplifying a guitar makes it unnatural, and natural is just plain what you want it to be. There is a snob value that people put on their valve equipment which makes them use that as the reference because it is "better", but the only reason that should be the case is because the original amps were valve as that was all there was at the time. As an example, you should listen to some of the Session transistor amps, they are wonderful. They are made simply but using the latest approaches which make them much more organic, and there are now professionals using them in preference to valve amps.

Tone is what you want it to be. Let's see, those sounds we all get excited about come from a studio setup where they pass through at least dozens of ICs when they are shaped at the mixing desk, are ditigised by solid state and stored, are then lifted by more digital solid state circuitry, are D2Ad with solid state and generally amplified by the same. And people worry about the "sonic fingerprint" of a single IC in a pedal? Stand by your SS amps without embarassment SG, a decent one is worth its weight in gold in my book. Of course, they will be a backup to the GM36 now, but they should still hold their heads up high.

Bordonbert,

I too agree with you about solid state amps and that they can definitely sound great and be used to perform live. I had before the GM36 a Marshall 8008 Valvestate paired with a Digitech GSP1101 and then the Blackstar ID60TVP head with that true valve power tube emulation and both setups rocked loud and hard.

I agree with you that the whole process of amping an instrument thru electronics is in a sort, artificial. The only natural way is strings vibrating into an empty wooden casing, hence the acoustic period! Yes, in fact again I agree that what we hear when listening to recordings that is all going thru mixing boards and racks of fx in a studio with digital systems and computers sampling and adding enhancements etc... Where are the tube sounds there? Buried within the electronic signals...

So I used to get all red hot with anger when someone would tell me that my using a solid state amp was not a real amp to rock the guitar thru, and that only a tube amp would give it its true form. They would argue ss is not natural and I would reply with very same answer all the time, that its all synthetic if you think about it. But alas, I did want to try my hand on tube amps but I knew I would not go for one unless it simplified the use of fx as solid state does. And the GM36 definitely does with its built in choice of fx and done quite nicely I might add.

Well, I don't have any of those ss amps, I traded them in for this little monster, and I might confess that I wish I had kept them because I did like they sound and quality. But I do want this amp to work out for me and so far I cannot really complain. I've yet to use it up against my drummer and bass friends for a rehearsal, lots going on recently with all of us and hoping to get back in the garage in May. Wonder what they reaction will be when I show up with it and not my usual gear...