The Furman PQ3 boost method- in REVERSE

[Kapo_Polenton]

I keep seeing the green ones with brown/black knobs. I see them out of Toronto from 250-350$! I'll ebay later to see what i can find.

 

[zz666]

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.

Not with the Detox EQ.

Paul Gilbert designed these for this purpose, they sound fantastic, I have been using one for months, gave me and instant Malcolm/clean channel

 

[Chubtone]

I keep seeing the green ones with brown/black knobs. I see them out of Toronto from 250-350$! I'll ebay later to see what i can find.

The only one on ebay right now is the older green one. If you search Completed Items you will see quite a few of the black with red ones in the price range I mentioned.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

Had a look, not sure why they don't show up for me but I'll take your word for it because I have seen some in the past.

So Chubtone, here is a loaded question... what is your poison for boosts if any at all? Being a splawn or judge module guy, maybe you don't use them but i thought I would ask.

 

[OUTLAW1969]

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!

Agreed, only saying that a pedal version would make for a more portable "grab and go" scenario. I have two PQ3 units, but they are mounted in a rack, so a pedal version would make it possible to leave the rack at home on occassion, and just take the pedal board that would be going anyway.

I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks extra, for the convenience of a true pedal sized version.

 

[petejt]

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!

Blast. Oh well...


Thanks for the advice but I won't be modifying the amp: a) I cannot afford it, b) I want to keep it stock.


The way it is setup currently does sound good, I was just considering an alternative path.

 

[petejt]

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.

I basically just thought of using a rackmount equaliser to do the "roll back" instead of actually rolling back my guitar's volume as much. Same process isn't it? It does seem odd why using an EQ to reduce the input signal with the amp cranked up, would result in a thin tone yet rolling back the guitar's volume on a cranked amp results in a great ballsy rounded clean tone that breaks up when you dig in the strings.

The clean sounds that I get are great. It's just that I miss out on that heavy grind when using the High input on the amp- but then it's way too loud, or the rolled-back clean sounds aren't as nice, or clean.


Let it be known that I am the owner of a Mesa/Boogie MarkIV channel switcher amp. It runs in stereo alongside the Marshall.
I change channels for clean, dirty and leads tones on that amp but quite frankly I like the Lead channel most of all.

 

[zz666]

I'll say it, just one more time

A Paul Gilbert Detox EQ pedal will do what you are asking

 

[petejt]

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?

I would


At the moment I run the Marshall on the Low input, with both the pre-gain and Master volume controls at 12 o'clock.
Just like that it sounds awesome for clean tones, and when I dig into the strings I get a nice gritty edge to the sound.
It sounds fantastic with effects as well. I know it's too late to record some audio clips now as I'll be away soon and busy all weekend, but when I get round to it I'll post some.

For higher gain I just kick the front end with an overdrive pedal, some boutique thing I bought from a local amp builder.
It's pretty good, but just not as grindy as I'd like. I want that edgy grind you get from plugging into the High input socket and cranking the gain up. The issue there though is it gets way too damn loud with the Master volume at 12 o'clock.
So deciding between one or the other is the problem.

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

Yep that's it.

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.

But isn't that the same as just rolling the guitar's volume control down, then rolling it back up again?
Or would it just get too cumbersome using all these in-between boosts to over-compensate the 'level cut' at the EQ device?
Which inherently would create a lot of hiss?

 

[petejt]

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.

Pity.



It's funny though as I much prefer single channel amps to channel switcher amps. I'd love to have the Lead channel of my MarkIV as a single channel amp.

 

[petejt]

I'll say it, just one more time

A Paul Gilbert Detox EQ pedal will do what you are asking

But if I already have two EQ units? (A graphic EQ pedal and a rackmount 5-band parametric EQ unit.)

 

[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.

Not with the Detox EQ.

Paul Gilbert designed these for this purpose, they sound fantastic, I have been using one for months, gave me and instant Malcolm/clean channel

Well, I'm am going to try to explain this as simple as I can. Just to be sure everybody understands where I am going with this.

If you have a cranked amp and lower the signal the amp is to amplify the signal:noise ratio will always be higher (more noise).
Mostly in terms of hiss since the amp is working really hard to amplify something that is very weak.

The Detox EQ wasn't designed to lower the overall output level with a cranked amp. It was designed to work like rolling back the guitars volume (again, if you where to do this and the amp is cranked it's gonna be noisy, it's the way of nature. More gain=more noise) but with an EQ to compensate for the treble roll off happening on a guitar without treblebleed.

It is supposed to give a single channel amp a clean channel. But if you roll down the volume to much, there is noise. It's a fine line between noise and clean.

Of course, there are some mods you can do to your 2204 to lower the hiss and hum to an extremely low level. But I think those are tricks I'll keep up my own sleeve for a while. Until then, just trust me on this one.

 

[paulyc]

I think you're a prime candidate for a modification on your 2204 by someone like Friedman...his simple clean channel and the master volume he uses in his amps would make your amp "more useable" I think...I can understand why you don't want to mod it though...

I love single channel amps too. My Cameron Atomica kicks ass, but not having a clean sound or a solo boost or lead AND rhythm channels is a drag...I feel like I should have waited for a CCV (not to mention MIDI)...but what it does it does EXTREMELY well.

I have LOTS of amps,and they all have a purpose and do some things really great and others meh.

 

[petejt]

Thanks everyone for your input.


Just had a thought after reading the comments about boosting the midrange in front of the amp with the PQ3- I guess this is similar to the "cocked wah-wah" method?

 

[Nilo]

Yeah, somewhat similar. Not as drastic midboost as a cocked wah though.

 

[ke2]

I think you're a prime candidate for a modification on your 2204 by someone like Friedman...his simple clean channel and the master volume he uses in his amps would make your amp "more useable" I think...I can understand why you don't want to mod it though...

I love single channel amps too. My Cameron Atomica kicks ass, but not having a clean sound or a solo boost or lead AND rhythm channels is a drag...I feel like I should have waited for a CCV (not to mention MIDI)...but what it does it does EXTREMELY well.

I have LOTS of amps,and they all have a purpose and do some things really great and others meh.

The shipping from Australia to Friedman would cost him more than the mod

 

[paulyc]

Oops...didn't check location. Maybe there are amp mod guys Down Under ?

 

[ZR4400]

My humble submission. The PQ3 bug bit me too. Pinch harmonics were

However, the noise was almost unbearable, even with a Decimator.

Bottom line = tone was OK, similar to "Out of the Cellar".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvufXKNc ... ure=relmfu

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

That sounds great.... seriously, someone needs to do the pedal form PLUS built in noise suppression.

 

[petejt]

Oops...didn't check location. Maybe there are amp mod guys Down Under ?

There are some, but I still wouldn't modify my amp.


I intentionally bought my 50 watt Marshall because of the clean & gritty clean tones I got out of it, NOT because of its gainy sounds. I also bought it because it does not have an effects loop.


This thread was just trying to find a different way to get crunchy sounds out of it while still retaining a nice clean sound.
I do believe that if I had the amp modded it would not only wreck its clean sound, but lose that big ring you get when opening it up a bit (think of Malcolm Young's guitar tone).