How to slave, say a Blackstar HT-5 with my 50 watt Plexi?

[mightyjoeyoungxnj]

Hey guys,

I plan on picking up one of those Blackstar amps as soon as they are available. I'm interested in slaving it with my 50 watt Plexi clone and am curious how it is done. I have an 8 ohm hotplate if that helps.

Also, am I correct in assuming that only the volume control on the Plexi will have an effect on the tone when doing this?

Thanks for helping a slaving newb.

-Joe

 

[Strat+Marshall]

Go from the blackstar speaker out to the hotplate (you will be using the hotplate as a load box) and then take the line out from the hotplate into the return of the plexi. If the plexi doesnt have a return you could try the low input but that might be a bit noisy.

 

[MrDan666]

Do you mean slaving as in using the Blackstar with a dummy load, then lineout into the Plexi input?

That would give you the Blackstar tone, but allow you to use the Plexi like a poweramp and give you all the headroom. Plus would only require 1 cab and a hotplate set to load (dummy load)

If you want the Blackstar HT-5 tone in a wet/dry setup like for example, Psychodaves setup.. then you would just need to run the Blackstar into its own cab, the Plexi into its own cab, and just hook the FX send from the Blackstar into the Plexi input or FX loop return (if it has one).

Hope this helps

 

[MrDan666]

Go from the blackstar speaker out to the hotplate (you will be using the hotplate as a load box) and then take the line out from the hotplate into the return of the plexi. If the plexi doesnt have a return you could try the low input but that might be a bit noisy.

Beat me to it, well said

 

[mightyjoeyoungxnj]

Do you mean slaving as in using the Blackstar with a dummy load, then lineout into the Plexi input?

That would give you the Blackstar tone, but allow you to use the Plexi like a poweramp and give you all the headroom. Plus would only require 1 cab and a hotplate set to load (dummy load)

If you want the Blackstar HT-5 tone in a wet/dry setup like for example, Psychodaves setup.. then you would just need to run the Blackstar into its own cab, the Plexi into its own cab, and just hook the FX send from the Blackstar into the Plexi input or FX loop return (if it has one).

Hope this helps

Ah yes, this is what I want to do. I pretty much just want more head room out of the Blackstar when I get it.

The Plexi has no loop, so I suppose I would need to go straight into it then, eh?

-Joe

 

[Strat+Marshall]

Do you mean slaving as in using the Blackstar with a dummy load, then lineout into the Plexi input?

That would give you the Blackstar tone, but allow you to use the Plexi like a poweramp and give you all the headroom. Plus would only require 1 cab and a hotplate set to load (dummy load)

If you want the Blackstar HT-5 tone in a wet/dry setup like for example, Psychodaves setup.. then you would just need to run the Blackstar into its own cab, the Plexi into its own cab, and just hook the FX send from the Blackstar into the Plexi input or FX loop return (if it has one).

Hope this helps

A better way for him to do the wet dry setup would be to go blackstars speaker out to hotplate set with no attentuation then hotplate to cab 1 for the blackstar. Then for the effects, take the line out from the hotplate into his effects and back into the plexi's return. Plug speaker out of plexi into cabinet number 2.

 

[Strat+Marshall]

Ah yes, this is what I want to do. I pretty much just want more head room out of the Blackstar when I get it.

The Plexi has no loop, so I suppose I would need to go straight into it then, eh?

-Joe

Try the low input, might be noisy and not sound so good though.

 

[mightyjoeyoungxnj]

Ah yes, this is what I want to do. I pretty much just want more head room out of the Blackstar when I get it.

The Plexi has no loop, so I suppose I would need to go straight into it then, eh?

-Joe

Try the low input, might be noisy and not sound so good though.

Cool, I'll try it out when it arrives. Thanks guys.

-Joe

 

[mightyjoeyoungxnj]

Guys, just to clarify...

If I have the speaker out of the HT-5 going into the input of the hotplate, then I do not need anything connected to the output of the hotplate as long as it's set to load, correct?

thanks

-Joe

 

[mightyjoeyoungxnj]

Just my .02...

Slaving a regular Marshall into the front of another Marshall sounds like complete shit, so I expect the same results from slaving the Blackstar into the front of a Marshall.

Why get a Blackstar HT-5 amp if you are looking for headroom? It is a 5 watt amp. ...sounds like you are not happy with the Marshall...

Nono! I'm 100% happy with the Plexi build. I'm totally happy with it and spent a lot of time building it. It just doesn't cut it for what I'm doing in my current band. I am going to try boosting it in a band environment though. I want the hotrodded Marshall tone, but I need something relatively cheap right now to write on until I get a Soldano Avenger. I was just curious how I could do this if I decided to bring it to practice one day and experiment with.

Sounds like it's a wash with my current setup though! I will probably just use it on it's own.

-Joe

 

[Digital Jams]

SO you want the pre-amp of the BS fora heavier sound that the plexi is not doing?

CAn be done but as Dave said going into the front end of the plexi is not going to get what you are looking for, you could try the low sens input but it will not sound like Dave's vid.

 

[mmorse]

Just my .02...

Slaving a regular Marshall into the front of another Marshall sounds like complete shit, so I expect the same results from slaving the Blackstar into the front of a Marshall.

Why get a Blackstar HT-5 amp if you are looking for headroom? It is a 5 watt amp. ...sounds like you are not happy with the Marshall...

Nono! I'm 100% happy with the Plexi build. I'm totally happy with it and spent a lot of time building it. It just doesn't cut it for what I'm doing in my current band. I am going to try boosting it in a band environment though. I want the hotrodded Marshall tone, but I need something relatively cheap right now to write on until I get a Soldano Avenger. I was just curious how I could do this if I decided to bring it to practice one day and experiment with.

Sounds like it's a wash with my current setup though! I will probably just use it on it's own.

-Joe

Or you can get yourself an HT Dual pedal, set the plexi to a clean tone and run the pedal into it. The HT dual pedal is the same as the HT5 preamp. Since it's 2 channels, you get a vintage and modern type of OD. It's tube driven, has the same eq and ISF controls and separate volume and gain controls for each channel. Blackstar will tell you that the HT5 came about by taking an HT pedal and mating it to a 5 watt power section.

I have the pedal and had an HT5. Returned the HT5 because I got the same tone using the pedal. The best I got the HT5 to sound was running it through my 2204 low input directly from the HT5s DI out. Worked fine. No loops, attenuators etc. running through the DI out shuts off the speaker outputs.

 

[mightyjoeyoungxnj]

Thanks for the help guys, but I've ditched the idea pretty much. I was just looking for more headroom with the HT-5, but will just be using it to practice/write anyway. Cheers,

-Joe

 

[grizdeluxe]

Just my .02...

Slaving a regular Marshall into the front of another Marshall sounds like complete shit, so I expect the same results from slaving the Blackstar into the front of a Marshall.

Why get a Blackstar HT-5 amp if you are looking for headroom? It is a 5 watt amp. ...sounds like you are not happy with the Marshall...

Nono! I'm 100% happy with the Plexi build. I'm totally happy with it and spent a lot of time building it. It just doesn't cut it for what I'm doing in my current band. I am going to try boosting it in a band environment though. I want the hotrodded Marshall tone, but I need something relatively cheap right now to write on until I get a Soldano Avenger. I was just curious how I could do this if I decided to bring it to practice one day and experiment with.

Sounds like it's a wash with my current setup though! I will probably just use it on it's own.

-Joe

Or you can get yourself an HT Dual pedal, set the plexi to a clean tone and run the pedal into it. The HT dual pedal is the same as the HT5 preamp. Since it's 2 channels, you get a vintage and modern type of OD. It's tube driven, has the same eq and ISF controls and separate volume and gain controls for each channel. Blackstar will tell you that the HT5 came about by taking an HT pedal and mating it to a 5 watt power section.

I have the pedal and had an HT5. Returned the HT5 because I got the same tone using the pedal. The best I got the HT5 to sound was running it through my 2204 low input directly from the HT5s DI out. Worked fine. No loops, attenuators etc. running through the DI out shuts off the speaker outputs.

I had success running the DI out on the HT5 into the return of my Kustom Coupe effects loop. Real ballsy tone reminiscent of my JCM 800. It really woke up the clean channel on the HT5.

 

[mightyjoeyoungxnj]

Just my .02...

Slaving a regular Marshall into the front of another Marshall sounds like complete shit, so I expect the same results from slaving the Blackstar into the front of a Marshall.

Why get a Blackstar HT-5 amp if you are looking for headroom? It is a 5 watt amp. ...sounds like you are not happy with the Marshall...

Nono! I'm 100% happy with the Plexi build. I'm totally happy with it and spent a lot of time building it. It just doesn't cut it for what I'm doing in my current band. I am going to try boosting it in a band environment though. I want the hotrodded Marshall tone, but I need something relatively cheap right now to write on until I get a Soldano Avenger. I was just curious how I could do this if I decided to bring it to practice one day and experiment with.

Sounds like it's a wash with my current setup though! I will probably just use it on it's own.

-Joe

Or you can get yourself an HT Dual pedal, set the plexi to a clean tone and run the pedal into it. The HT dual pedal is the same as the HT5 preamp. Since it's 2 channels, you get a vintage and modern type of OD. It's tube driven, has the same eq and ISF controls and separate volume and gain controls for each channel. Blackstar will tell you that the HT5 came about by taking an HT pedal and mating it to a 5 watt power section.

I have the pedal and had an HT5. Returned the HT5 because I got the same tone using the pedal. The best I got the HT5 to sound was running it through my 2204 low input directly from the HT5s DI out. Worked fine. No loops, attenuators etc. running through the DI out shuts off the speaker outputs.

I had success running the DI out on the HT5 into the return of my Kustom Coupe effects loop. Real ballsy tone reminiscent of my JCM 800. It really woke up the clean channel on the HT5.

I wish my Plexi had a loop...

-Joe

 

[mrp5150]

I wish my Plexi had a loop...

-Joe

Couldn't you get someone to mod it and install a loop? I'll never buy an amp that doesn't have a loop. I need reverb and delay in the loop and those sound like total ass in front with any decent amount of gain.

 

[grizdeluxe]

Why not just get the Blackstar distortion pedal instead of going through that hassle? It's supposed to be the same circuit in the HT-5.

Similar circuit but it isnt an amp. Going into the front end of an amp with a pedal isnt the same. I use my HT5 for recording and for ultra portable gigs where I go right into the PA for a surprisingly good sound. They did a good job with the DI emulation. I do think the pedal rocks.


Edit to add the pedal has emulated out but while it uses ecc83's the HT5 uses an ecc83 and a 12bh7 in the power section for a slightly different tonality.

 

[mmorse]

Why not just get the Blackstar distortion pedal instead of going through that hassle? It's supposed to be the same circuit in the HT-5.

Similar circuit but it isnt an amp. Going into the front end of an amp with a pedal isnt the same. I use my HT5 for recording and for ultra portable gigs where I go right into the PA for a surprisingly good sound. They did a good job with the DI emulation. I do think the pedal rocks.


Edit to add the pedal has emulated out but while it uses ecc83's the HT5 uses an ecc83 and a 12bh7 in the power section for a slightly different tonality.

Well, I guess technically you are correct. The best I got my HT5 to sound was going from the DI out into my 2204. When comparing my old JCM800's power section to the preamp tube based 5 watt HT power section was no contest. Even at low volumes. There was just more of everything tonally using the 800. Plus you have the amp's eq to further shape the tone.

Not dissing the HT5. It's a nice little 5 watter. Just that, IMO, if you already have an amp you like that has a decent clean, running the HT Dual into the amp, even at low volumes, will sound better than the HT5 alone. And it's cheaper to boot! Of course, YMMV.

 

[mightyjoeyoungxnj]

Just my .02...

Slaving a regular Marshall into the front of another Marshall sounds like complete shit, so I expect the same results from slaving the Blackstar into the front of a Marshall.

Why get a Blackstar HT-5 amp if you are looking for headroom? It is a 5 watt amp. ...sounds like you are not happy with the Marshall...

Nono! I'm 100% happy with the Plexi build. I'm totally happy with it and spent a lot of time building it. It just doesn't cut it for what I'm doing in my current band. I am going to try boosting it in a band environment though. I want the hotrodded Marshall tone, but I need something relatively cheap right now to write on until I get a Soldano Avenger. I was just curious how I could do this if I decided to bring it to practice one day and experiment with.

Sounds like it's a wash with my current setup though! I will probably just use it on it's own.

-Joe

Or you can get yourself an HT Dual pedal, set the plexi to a clean tone and run the pedal into it. The HT dual pedal is the same as the HT5 preamp. Since it's 2 channels, you get a vintage and modern type of OD. It's tube driven, has the same eq and ISF controls and separate volume and gain controls for each channel. Blackstar will tell you that the HT5 came about by taking an HT pedal and mating it to a 5 watt power section.

I have the pedal and had an HT5. Returned the HT5 because I got the same tone using the pedal. The best I got the HT5 to sound was running it through my 2204 low input directly from the HT5s DI out. Worked fine. No loops, attenuators etc. running through the DI out shuts off the speaker outputs.

I had success running the DI out on the HT5 into the return of my Kustom Coupe effects loop. Real ballsy tone reminiscent of my JCM 800. It really woke up the clean channel on the HT5.

I wish my Plexi had a loop...

-Joe

Get the Metro loop. It is super easy to install. Heck, I will do it for you for free... You just have to buy it

Thanks man, I've actually been checking that one out and considering it. I'm pretty confident I can do it though (hell I should be able to if I built the amp lol), but I'll hit you up if I have issues!

-Joe