Splawn Quickrod or Nitro For Modern Metal?

[Charvel1975]

Well at this point I've been reading reviews on the Peavey 6505+ head and Peavey XXX head but, and maybe Lord Toneking and other Splawn users can chime in here, and I've been looking to get a Peavey 6505+ head.

My buddy has I believe a 1st year run Peavey XXX head and I've played through that a little bit and me and him might have a dead even trade trade deal going on with my Marshall Artist, dunno yet, he's kinda feelin' it out. My other friend has a 6505+ and I really like that amp too, his band plays in Drop B like my band but after playing on Lord Toneking's Splawn QR a while back I'm still getting lured back to the Splawn's. I'm at the point now where I might possibly sell the Marshall and my Line 6 flextone 2 head & floorboard to get another main head for shows & practice and another backup head.

 

[moltenmetalburn]

See now I thought i needed a nitro but wound up with a quckrod. With a boost the quick rod get plenty heavy, heavier than i expected.

I say choose by flavor.

You either want lots of saturation and a low mid focus nitro, OR less saturation but still enough and more of a high mid focus.

 

[Charvel1975]

See now I thought i needed a nitro but wound up with a quckrod. With a boost the quick rod get plenty heavy, heavier than i expected.

I say choose by flavor.

You either want lots of saturation and a low mid focus nitro, OR less saturation but still enough and more of a high mid focus.

Yea, I like my mids! See when I played thru Lord Toneking's quickrod I didn't think it even needed a boost pedal to do modern metal?

 

[thiswaythatway]

It isn't soo much about the amount of gain as it is the voicing IMHO. I've played them both and I'd pick the Nitro for what i consider modern metal.

 

[gibson5413]

I owned a QR for short period of time. Cool amp just not exactly what I needed. I had problems with the effects loop but have read that Scott has more than addressed this issue over the past couple of years. Very cool amp that can certainly get heavy.

Here is a clip I recorded with no boost. IMO, can certainly get heavy but think the Nitro is a better fit for modern sounding tones. The QR can hold its own though.

 

[moltenmetalburn]

See now I thought i needed a nitro but wound up with a quckrod. With a boost the quick rod get plenty heavy, heavier than i expected.

I say choose by flavor.

You either want lots of saturation and a low mid focus nitro, OR less saturation but still enough and more of a high mid focus.

Yea, I like my mids! See when I played thru Lord Toneking's quickrod I didn't think it even needed a boost pedal to do modern metal?

Yeah I didn't mean to imply that it needs the boost. I just preferred the extra oomph it gives. Quick rod has tons of mids, a balanced mid setting is at around 10 pm on the dial with the others set to noon.

If textbook modern metal sounds are what you're long for these guys are right, go for low mid focus. Then again scooping all your mids out is also considered metal. Ymmv.

 

[Charvel1975]

See now I thought i needed a nitro but wound up with a quckrod. With a boost the quick rod get plenty heavy, heavier than i expected.

I say choose by flavor.

You either want lots of saturation and a low mid focus nitro, OR less saturation but still enough and more of a high mid focus.

Yea, I like my mids! See when I played thru Lord Toneking's quickrod I didn't think it even needed a boost pedal to do modern metal?

Yeah I didn't mean to imply that it needs the boost. I just preferred the extra oomph it gives. Quick rod has tons of mids, a balanced mid setting is at around 10 pm on the dial with the others set to noon.

If textbook modern metal sounds are what you're long for these guys are right, go for low mid focus. Then again scooping all your mids out is also considered metal. Ymmv.

Yea see I already have a Mesa Tremoverb converted to a head and I'm getting ready to swap tubes around in it but I want to go for a different modern metal sound with a great clean channel as well and pretty versatile and road worthy. I'll never sell the Tverb and I've had a couple really good recent offers on an original Peavey 5150 half stack and a couple other guys that had 6505+'s they were selling at really good prices but I keep getting drawn back to the Splawn quickrod and Nitro, ever since I played thru lord toneking's QR!

So with the Nitro, does it have a sound like between a peavey 5150/6505+ and a hot rodded Marshall and great cleans?

 

[Khoi]

I say Quickrod, it's just so much more versatile than the Nitro. I've owned both.

 

[Les Zombie]

It isn't soo much about the amount of gain as it is the voicing IMHO. I've played them both and I'd pick the Nitro for what i consider modern metal.

After owning a few nitros and quickrods i agree 100%.

 

[bubbastain]

I agree that the QR is probably a bit more versatile and can easily get "modern" metal tones. I own a Competition which is essentially a QR without the clean channel. I have an older one that doesn't have the 3rd gear(super hot rod 800) but it still gets heavy for sure and I don't even use OD2 and only run the gain at noon. I also owned a Nitro and a 6505+ at the same time. It was basically a fight to the death between the Nitro and the 6505+ and the Nitro won and stayed. I'd say that if you like the 6505+ as I really did, You'll probably love the Nitro. To me it gave me everything the 6505+ did but just did it all better. To my ears at least. That's saying a lot because it cost twice as much and I'm pretty tight with cash.

 

[irondeth21]

Dude that tremoverb with a boost should give you modern metal all day...

 

[Charvel1975]

Dude that tremoverb with a boost should give you modern metal all day...

Just got done re-tubing the tremoverb a little bit ago and no there is no sound coming out of it??!! Problem with the Tremoverb is I can't really use it at shows unless it's a big show where it can be opened up, anytime I've tried using it at shows sound guys bitch about it, can't even turn it on 1 and the sound guys bitch saying it's too loud and for that amp to even sound good it's gotta be turned up. Now after this happenening tonight I'm getting nervous about the reliability because I already had all the factory updates done LDR's, etc. a while back

 

[nighttrain69]

I owned a QR for short period of time. Cool amp just not exactly what I needed. I had problems with the effects loop but have read that Scott has more than addressed this issue over the past couple of years. Very cool amp that can certainly get heavy.

Here is a clip I recorded with no boost. IMO, can certainly get heavy but think the Nitro is a better fit for modern sounding tones. The QR can hold its own though.

ive listened to this clips a few times on netmusician,and i think its f-in badass sounding,probably best clip ive heard of the qr..and i would consider that getting heavy enough .
tons of gain isnt the only way to sound heavy.thick guage strings help also

 

[311boogieman]

^ +1

Great clip.

Never played a Nitro but I was reading somewhere, maybe here, that for drop tunings the Quick Rod may actually be better due to all the inherent low end already present in the Nitro.

Also keep in mind, that a huge portion of the Nitro's are running KT88s, where a huge portion of the Quick Rods are running EL34s. QR can run KT88s too if that is your thing but you'll need to a 'simple' mod.

 

[Les Zombie]

^ +1

Great clip.

Never played a Nitro but I was reading somewhere, maybe here, that for drop tunings the Quick Rod may actually be better due to all the inherent low end already present in the Nitro.

Also keep in mind, that a huge portion of the Nitro's are running KT88s, where a huge portion of the Quick Rods are running EL34s. QR can run KT88s too if that is your thing but you'll need to a 'simple' mod.

A qr with kt88 wont sound the same as the nitro, i owned a promod and its just a qr with kt88 and i feel its closer to the qr tone than the nitro tone. I really like the qr and promod but my favorite splawn is the nitro.

 

[moltenmetalburn]

Damn just played the quick rod for an hour. Killer f'n amp!

 

[311boogieman]

^ +1

Great clip.

Never played a Nitro but I was reading somewhere, maybe here, that for drop tunings the Quick Rod may actually be better due to all the inherent low end already present in the Nitro.

Also keep in mind, that a huge portion of the Nitro's are running KT88s, where a huge portion of the Quick Rods are running EL34s. QR can run KT88s too if that is your thing but you'll need to a 'simple' mod.

A qr with kt88 wont sound the same as the nitro, i owned a promod and its just a qr with kt88 and i feel its closer to the qr tone than the nitro tone. I really like the qr and promod but my favorite splawn is the nitro.

Oh yeah. I didn't mean to imply that it did. Putting KT88s in a Quick Rod does not make it a Nitro. I was just saying with the inherent low end of a Nitro coupled with the enhanced lower end of a KT88 and it 'COULD' be too much for some.

PS: I know you from the Splawn boards I just can't put my finger on it.


Edit: yeah I played some shit in Drop C last night and it had such saturation AND thickness I about passed out.

 

[Dale B]

Dude that tremoverb with a boost should give you modern metal all day...

Just got done re-tubing the tremoverb a little bit ago and no there is no sound coming out of it??!! Problem with the Tremoverb is I can't really use it at shows unless it's a big show where it can be opened up, anytime I've tried using it at shows sound guys bitch about it, can't even turn it on 1 and the sound guys bitch saying it's too loud and for that amp to even sound good it's gotta be turned up. Now after this happenening tonight I'm getting nervous about the reliability because I already had all the factory updates done LDR's, etc. a while back

Either V1 or the Phase Inverter is bad. Try swapping out the preamp tubes one by one with the older ones.

 

[Dale B]

Also, if you're using the Tung Sol reissue or the Sovtek LPS, don't put either of those in V3. They're not good in Cathode Follower stages. V3B is the cathode follower.

If you use the effects loop for an overall master volume for both channels, the tube in the loop could be bad as well. If you use the reverb, the reverb driver may be bad as well. The Reverb return is in V1A. Again, start replacing the tubes one by one.

 

[trashedlostfdup]

i have a nitro and a promod (same preamp as QR but with KT88's), and would say that the nitro is much better for modern metal than my promod if you want heavy bass and low mids, balsy tone. the promod while being KT88 is still a little marshally, but it is a lot more modern sounding than the QR and the mids still peak in the higher mid territory.

for modern though i really would prefer the Promod over the Quickrod.

so what do i do?

run them in stereo, and slay the masses...