The Furman PQ3 boost method- in REVERSE

[zz666]

I thought it was designed to 'replace' the PQ-3, which I think Doug would never do, but kinda like he could plug into any gainy Marshall and get the PQ-3 tone.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

I mean, a modded Marshall has enough gain for a Doug type tone. A stock Marshall with an overdrive has enough gain for that tone, AND the PQ-3 has enough gain into a stock Marshall for that tone. What happens when you combine all three?

very very easy and effortless solo-ing and a way to cover up any flaws in your picking..

I totally agree... listening to that pedal, it has a ton of gain available, I would use that into a stock JCM800. He uses it into an already gained out marshall. If it is voiced to be used with the PQ3 as you mentioned, holy $hit that is enough gain for that flamenco guitar and then some! That's why i am not so sure it is voiced for use with the PQ3. I think if anything he tone shapes with the PQ3 but lowers the gain to have less noise and then gets more gain from that rocket fuel pedal. Either way, tons of gain. He is also the only one with the proto type PQ3 in a pedal from majic box that they decided not to go into production with. Maybe it didn't cut it.

 

[paulyc]

Well, I can only speak for myself here, but I have a couple of Marshall 2203s with the Egnater Megadrive Mod (another 12ax7 added) that gives the amp PLENTY of gain on it's own, but I used to turn the amps gain knob down to ,like, 5 for rhythm and then step on an SD1 for solos...if the amp had 2 gain knobs that were foot switchable I wouldn't have had to do that...but playing the amp with the gain whacked out on 10 all the time got old (feedback, hiss, etc) and my solution worked pretty good. Now that we have 3 and 4 channel amps, it makes life easier.

The Rocket Fuel was supposed to replace the PQ3 I think (for Aldrich), and I'd assume he runs it the way I ran my Marshall/SD1 combo listed above...not with the Cameron/Golub Marshalls on 10 pre gain, but backed off a bit for rhythm and then pumped up for solos...

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

I suppose that is a valid point.. i tweaked my JCM for more gain and it sounds fine with the preamp on 10 but i prefer it around 7 and then stepping on something for more aggressive rythms or saturated leads.

 

[Shiny_Surface]

I've had mixed results doing it. With the right amp, it's pretty badass.

What about an old 50 watt Marshall JCM 800 2204? (no effects loop, two vertical inputs)

'83 2204 (no gain mods but it does have an effects loop) boosted with overdrive and EQ both in series through the front end.

I used the old school style described in the posts above. Set the amp for a nice 70's rock crunch for your foundation tone, then use some sort of EQ parametric/graphic/rack/pedal and your favorite overdrive pedal of choice both boosting the front end.

And it does get noisy with 2 boosts as said above...

 

[Chubtone]

'83 2204 (no gain mods but it does have an effects loop) boosted with overdrive and EQ both in series through the front end.

I used the old school style described in the posts above. Set the amp for a nice 70's rock crunch for your foundation tone, then use some sort of EQ parametric/graphic/rack/pedal and your favorite overdrive pedal of choice both boosting the front end.

And it does get noisy with 2 boosts as said above...

Bah! Who is this jerk??????

How can that possibly sound good? You are using a $60 pedal into another $60 pedal. You are using an amp with a preamp and power section designed in the mid 70's and no gain mods done to it to make it sound more bad ass.

You my friend have lost focus on what is important in this guitar playing obsession. I hope you are at least unhappy with the pickups in your guitar and are buying and swapping in new pickups every other week.

Otherwise, what are you going to do? Play guitar? Practice? Write songs? Record? Get in a band? Play gigs? There is way too much hype to buy into in this industry and you are missing out on ALL of it. There are way too many unicorns to chase.

Stock Marshall. Cheap ass pedals in front.




And, oh yeah....... it sounds freaking wicked on my work computer here!!!!!!!!

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

point taken.. I really don't think dropping 250$ on a pedal is going to make THAT much of a difference to my tone.

 

[paulyc]

Chubtone's post above really brings it home for me. All my guitar playing life I've been searching for a better way thinking that my teenage 70's 2203 SD1 GE7 setup COULDN'T POSSIBLY be good enough for any pro level player on a big budget album...fast forward 20 something years and I'm watching Reb Beach's home video that he did a couple years back...and he says 70's Marshall 2203/SD1 was THE sound of the first couple of Winger albums (plus some Beau Hill gloss I'm sure)...DOH !!! I wanted to throw the damn guitar out the window. 20 year tone chase back full circle ? Really ? (although the PQ3 does LA metal way better) Sometimes you just gotta say " WTF ?"

 

[petejt]

I gotta admit guys I'm not actually after a lot of gain- I want it crunchy but not too seething.
If anything just a bit edgier & distorted than Malcolm Young's guitar tone, and can roll into a great chimey clean sound as well.
At the moment it's one or the other (nice and clean but not cranked up enough/too loud).
I'm basically just trying to find a way to crank my Marshall up without it blowing the walls down!

Instead of attenuating the output, I'm reducing the input. 'bout time I tried it tomorrow (tomorrow arvo I promise).

 

[Nilo]

If you are cranking a Marshall and lowering the input signal instead of attenuating the output all you'll get is a thin tone with not a lot of gain. And a ton of hiss of course since you're forcing the amp to work very hard to amplify a weak signal. Get a Lar/Mar PPIMV in your Marshall instead. Does the trick and sounds great!

 

[paulyc]

To the OP : I gotta say I'm stumped on what you want to do here. Set the amp for Malcom Young and roll back the guitar's volume knob is about as good as this situation is going to get with a 2204. If you want clean sounds, get an A/B box and another amp...more dirt ? An OD pedal...skip the PQ3 ...too hissy.

 

[Nilo]

To the OP : I gotta say I'm stumped on what you want to do here. Set the amp for Malcom Young and roll back the guitar's volume knob is about as good as this situation is going to get with a 2204. If you want clean sounds, get an A/B box and another amp...more dirt ? An OD pedal...skip the PQ3 ...too hissy.

Not sure if I understood you correctly, so I'll apologize in advance in case I got it all wrong, but the 2204 does great cleans when you roll back the guitars volume. Unless you have it boosted into super high gain of course, but who would use a 2204 for that?

However, as I understand it, the OP is trying to instead of pushing the front end into overdrive meaning it gets to loud he's trying to crank the amp and lower the input signal instead.

As I said the result will only be shitloads of hiss since the amp is working very hard trying to amplify a weak signal and you wont really get any fair amount of distortion since the signal is to weak to overdrive the tubes.

 

[paulyc]

Yes, a 2204 does ok cleans rolling back the guitar's volume knob...but it sounds like the OP is trying to do too many things with a single channel "one trick pony" amp.

I went back and re-read his posts, and it sounds like he wants power tube crunch at low volume without an attenuator by using a weak signal into the amp...not gonna happen.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

Why not use a A/B amp switcher pedal with one line into High input and other into low input?

 

[paulyc]

Can't on a Marshall...won't work. You can do that on a Vox AC30 or a Fender 2 channel amp, but not a 2 input Marshall...4 input you can do it.

 

[OUTLAW1969]

Someone needs to give their head a shake and come back out with a furman PQ3 in a pedal like the rocket field guys were supposed to do before they scrapped the project. Make it that forest green with brown knobs. This is a winner guys come on! Someone here with the know how get on this.. I see tons of people chasing that same tone and it always comes back to furmans and plexis/JCM's

That 5th angel tone KILLS! Very Ratt Out of the Cellar.

That pedal will need 10 knobs on it!

With modern technology couldn't they "squeeze" it into something the size of a Boss GE-10 Eq box? I have two of the PQ3 rack units (a spare because I like them so much!), and I would definitely buy a pedal version of this, if it was the same.

I have not ever tried the Rocket Fuel. I was going to find one to try, but heard that they were going after the "PQ3 in a box" idea for Aldrich, but scrapped the idea, and gave him the prototype to keep. Maybe the Rocket Fuel is the answer to a pedal version of a PQ3, afterall. I just use it to blast the front end of the amp, like the 80's guys did.

 

[Shiny_Surface]

Thanks Chubtone for the comment! Means alot getting feedback from an 80's guru.

Regarding the EQ comments if one wants to avoid a rack setup and you can find an older Ibanez or Boss parametric EQ at a good price they are great at getting that "squawk" in the midrange imo. The Boss unit isn't a true parametric it's more of a hybrid but it's easy to use and good at dialing in that general era of tones. The Ibanez units are pretty cool as well. I have both EQ's and patterned my GE-7 settings after the parametric's midrange as close as possible and they are pretty close imo.

These pedals are nice because they are compact and fit on a board easily, and simple to integrate into your signal chain.

I would like to try a Furman unit if I have the extra cash someday, as well as the Empress Parametric pedal and even the BYOC Parametric looks interesting although I would have to buy a pre-assembled one lol.

 

[Chubtone]

These pedals are nice because they are compact and fit on a board easily, and simple to integrate into your signal chain.

I would like to try a Furman unit if I have the extra cash someday, as well as the Empress Parametric pedal and even the BYOC Parametric looks interesting although I would have to buy a pre-assembled one lol.

See now we have discovered another problem with your rig and these two "pedals" you are using. Let's say you are touring and someone steals your pedal board or a beer gets dropped on them and these two pedals fry out. This sort of occurrence needs to throw you and the entire band into full-fledged panic and perhaps cause you to consider cancelling the next several dates on the tour. You need some flakey, eccentric, boutique pedal guy building your pedals in his mom's basement while reading the Unibomber's manifesto. You need this guy to never pick up the phone and answer vaguely in 1 out of 10 emails. Otherwise, how else will you have good tone?

With those pedals you have, all the band will have to do is roll into the first guitar shop you drive by or even a pretty good pawn shop and for $120 used or $200 new you have just re-created your tone path.

I think you can see by now that you are not doing it right.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

lol chubtone.. you are right, in theory none of this REALLY makes a diff to the audience. A mid squawk is a mid squawk... whether a very hard to find GE-10, a rack furman or a GE-7 (stock and noisy). It may not be the squawk that we like and want, but to the audience it will be mid range cut enough. STILL though, the elusive tone chasers in us all are seeking the holy grail.

With modern technology couldn't they "squeeze" it into something the size of a Boss GE-10 Eq box? I have two of the PQ3 rack units (a spare because I like them so much!), and I would definitely buy a pedal version of this, if it was the same.

I have not ever tried the Rocket Fuel. I was going to find one to try, but heard that they were going after the "PQ3 in a box" idea for Aldrich, but scrapped the idea, and gave him the prototype to keep. Maybe the Rocket Fuel is the answer to a pedal version of a PQ3, after all. I just use it to blast the front end of the amp, like the 80's guys did.

I'm generally still of this opinion as are you. It could definitely be done with today's advances in technology and components. Whether or not they want to is another thing. It seems to be a niche product. Again to chubtone's point though, if someone spills beer on it while on tour and it fries, what are ya gonna do?

I think i will lay this to rest tonight and try to record a couple of clips to see what all our ears hear.

1. ZW -44 boosting
2. stock GE-7
3. BOSS flanger boosting the mids letekro style

I'll start a fresh thread when I'm finished. Hell I'll throw in the bad monkey too. Also interested in what pedals you guys like to use now for your mid boosts?

 

[Chubtone]

A lot of guys complain that the Kemper Profiling amplifier is not available in rack mount form. They say as soon as it is, they are going to buy one. On this thread, we have people wanting a Furman PQ-3 in the form of a pedal. But, it is available in rack mount form. Almost all of us back in the day, used the black one with the red knobs. That's what Doug had. That's what Amir and Chris from Rough Cutt had. That's what the Stryper guys had etc. The black one with red knobs sells for about $150 on ebay. Any pedal that would do everything the PQ-3 does would easily cost more than what the real deal costs....... Why not just pick up the real deal one and call it a day?

It's in the form of 1 space rack unit, one of the most commonly available formats of building musical gear for the past 35 years.

Don't forget, you will need to buy a noise suppressor too. A good one!