Marshall SL-X Question

Lasse Lammert

Lasse Lammert

HCAF Blitzkrieg
Feb 12, 2009
8,409
40
48
www.lasselammert.com
Hey,
I got this SL-X and while it sounds killer there's something rather peculiar about the master volume pot...
I'm used from my other Marshalls that for most of them it'll end up somewhere between 2 and 4 for rehearsalroom/recording levels, after that not extremely much happens regarding rise in volume...

with the SL-X it rises slowly until I reach recording levels around 8 or so...which baffles me a bit to be honest...feels weird turning the MV up that high.

is that normal for this amp or is my pot screwed?
 
Sounds like something is wrong Lasse. I remember using mine at rehearsal with the master volume at around 4 and it was incredibly loud. 8 would be insanely loud. I think my preamp was at about 5-6. Cheers
 
I still miss my one, really loved it. I have a JVM these days. I look forward to hearing some clips :)
 
had a similar problem with my JCM900 for a while. It was one of the contact on the first preamp tube socket that was broken. These sockets are shit so it might be worth checking them.
 
Sounding killer, Lasse!

Kinda unrelated question, but have you ever tried running your Krankenstein through Greenbacks? I'd love to hear what that sounds like. My Krank Jr. loves Celestion EVH's, but the Jr. is a toy compared to the bigger Kranks.
 
haven't tried greenbacks with the krank, no...maybe I should, think that might work well.

THe SL-X is IMO one of the very best amps ever for lead and solo work (alongside the SLO), very thick and dense midrange...
I do not understand wh people say it's thin/bright sounding though, it's actually one of the darkest sounding amps I own (this was recorded with the presence knob almost maxed out...up until about 8 it's REALLY dark
 
Lasse Lammert said:
haven't tried greenbacks with the krank, no...maybe I should, think that might work well.

THe SL-X is IMO one of the very best amps ever for lead and solo work (alongside the SLO), very thick and dense midrange...
I do not understand wh people say it's thin/bright sounding though, it's actually one of the darkest sounding amps I own (this was recorded with the presence knob almost maxed out...up until about 8 it's REALLY dark
Click to expand...

Your tone is awesome.
People say all sort of bullshit.
That being said, if the power section is anything like the EL34 Dual Reverb, it gets a lot darker past noon because the power tube start to break up early.
It's not a subtle difference, the tonal character completely changes and the eq starts to act like a pre-gain eq. Maybe that's what people are referring to.
I suppose you know that already but It's very cool to get a "brownish" sound with looser lows and over-saturated character.
 
People give all 900's shit because of the diode clipping in the Dual Reverbs, but that isn't the case with the SL-X and MKIII. But, sweeping statements by people who don't know what they're on about or worse, haven't even played with one. Out of all the amps I've owned, the SL-X was probably my favourite, despite its lack of versatility.
 
Just realized my previous post made no sense in that regard lol. People probably say it sounds thin because the Dual Reverb. Yes, that's very likely.
 
Lasse Lammert said:
Agree on the MKIII being awesome as well.

booooo 4100 though, I'm puzzled why that's the JCM900 they decided to re-issue
Click to expand...

Did they? :err: I think Bugera made a copy which makes no sense but I didn't know they reissued it. I can't see why.

That said I like mine alright but it has been modded.
Stock model was really unpleasant, thin and under-gained but you could get usable tones when pushing the power amp.
 
The SLX is criminally under-rated. Stop making good clips of it, so I can get one cheap though!

The dual reverb is however, Fizzy arse.
 
K...I spent the last night with a soldering iron looking at schematics.
While I did like the tone of the amp, it didn't really react the way I expected...I had to turn the master higher than I usually should have to and also had to raise the gain higher than expected which led to a tone that was a bit mushier than it should have been.
Overall the tonal characteristics of the amp were still there, but everything was a bit odd, so I decided to open it up and have a look.
people who have worked on amps know that a sentence like "just open it up and have a look" often results in quite some soldering work paired with various degrees of desperation and various glasses of dubious drinks to keep one going (no worries, I had all the caps properly discharged and checked twice;)).
Turns out some guy did the weirdest mod to it, he bypassed one triode entirely (connected C2+C3, got rid of R4 and took the entire second stage out) but then to make up for the loss of gain (which I assumend was what he wanted to achieve in the first place) he bypassed various cathode-Rs with caps.
Then he did some really odd wiring in the MV section...I can only assume in a stupid attempt to take the IC out).
He also did something with the heating which I admittedly don't understand: usually theres the black wire connected to the center tap pin9 and the red wire to the heater pin4/5..he left the red one connected to pin4 but took the black wire off the center tap and soldered it to pin 5 instead, leaving pin9 naked.
So yeah, half my night consisted of undoing all those changes (all while being plagued by a terrible cold)....
really worth it though, the amp has come to life again, sounds so much better now....
What all the above meant to convey was:
NEW CLIPS SOON!
 
Lasse Lammert said:
K...I spent the last night with a soldering iron looking at schematics.
While I did like the tone of the amp, it didn't really react the way I expected...I had to turn the master higher than I usually should have to and also had to raise the gain higher than expected which led to a tone that was a bit mushier than it should have been.
Overall the tonal characteristics of the amp were still there, but everything was a bit odd, so I decided to open it up and have a look.
people who have worked on amps know that a sentence like "just open it up and have a look" often results in quite some soldering work paired with various degrees of desperation and various glasses of dubious drinks to keep one going (no worries, I had all the caps properly discharged and checked twice;)).
Turns out some guy did the weirdest mod to it, he bypassed one triode entirely (connected C2+C3, got rid of R4 and took the entire second stage out) but then to make up for the loss of gain (which I assumend was what he wanted to achieve in the first place) he bypassed various cathode-Rs with caps.
Then he did some really odd wiring in the MV section...I can only assume in a stupid attempt to take the IC out).
He also did something with the heating which I admittedly don't understand: usually theres the black wire connected to the center tap pin9 and the red wire to the heater pin4/5..he left the red one connected to pin4 but took the black wire off the center tap and soldered it to pin 5 instead, leaving pin9 naked.
So yeah, half my night consisted of undoing all those changes (all while being plagued by a terrible cold)....
really worth it though, the amp has come to life again, sounds so much better now....
What all the above meant to convey was:
NEW CLIPS SOON!
Click to expand...


If you managed to make it sound great with all that crap inside, I'm prepared to be amazed by what you will do with it now.:cool:
 
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