To other Crate Blue VooDoo users...

[TopekaRyan]

First off, I really don't need to hear any shit about how I need to get a
Marshall, or a Fender, or a damn Peavey, or whatever else you think I need. I
have a Crate BV120H head and that's what I'm asking about. Thanks.

On to the question... I have a Crate BV120H head running into a Marshall 4x12.
I LOVE the clean channel - warm tone, excellent. I also LOVE the sound of
channel 2 - the overdrive sound, BUT, it just doesn't get loud enough to work
in a gig situation. Channel 1 (clean) gets MORE than loud enough, so what I've
been doing is sticking a Boss DS-1 in front of it for my overdrive stuff, but
I'd REALLY like to use channel 2 on the amp cause I think it sounds better.

Don't get me wrong, channel 2 is damn loud, especially in closed quarters, but
in a big open room it gets lost in the mix. I play with a really loud band.
Anybody else experience this?

Thanks!
Ryan

[Barry King]

TopekaRyan wrote in message
<19990626193921...@ng-fi1.aol.com>...

>First off, I really don't need to hear any shit about how I need to get a
>Marshall, or a Fender, or a damn Peavey, or whatever else you think I need.
I
>have a Crate BV120H head and that's what I'm asking about. Thanks.

Oh what the bigots on this newsgroup have brought some of us to.

>On to the question... I have a Crate BV120H head running into a Marshall
4x12.
> I LOVE the clean channel - warm tone, excellent. I also LOVE the sound of
>channel 2 - the overdrive sound, BUT, it just doesn't get loud enough to
work
>in a gig situation. Channel 1 (clean) gets MORE than loud enough, so what
I've
>been doing is sticking a Boss DS-1 in front of it for my overdrive stuff,
but
>I'd REALLY like to use channel 2 on the amp cause I think it sounds better.
>
>Don't get me wrong, channel 2 is damn loud, especially in closed quarters,
but
>in a big open room it gets lost in the mix. I play with a really loud band.
>Anybody else experience this?

You didn't mention what sort of tone settings you are using, but if you are
scooping the midrange out of Channel 2 then you are also sacrifcing quite a
bit of gain. Mids punch through in the mix which is, I believe, part of the
reason many Mesa/Boogies sound so good with a band -- they tend to favor
mids.

Anyway, if that's of any use give it a shot. If not, dunno. One would
think 120W would be ample. Another thought is the cabinets you are using.
In my experience, a 4 ohm cab seems to sound louder than an 8 or 16. If you
are in a loud band you are probably already using at least a 4 x 12.
Increasing speaker area may help (ie, adding a cab). There may be other
cabinet tricks that will open up the sound to yield a bit more volume.

I owned a BV60 2 x 12" combo for a short period of time and ran it through a
Marshall 1960A plus the 2 x 12" It was damn loud even in the mix in a
decent sized room.

>Thanks!
>Ryan

Barry

[TopekaRyan]

Good point - I was scooping the mids quite a bit - maybe that would help.

Also good info on the impedance. I am running this head into the marshall 4x12
at 16 ohms.

I also think 100 watts should be enough. It certainly is on the clean channel.
The overdrive just doesn't get out there though. It's weird.

Thanks,
Ryan

[Ed Dahl]

16 ohms is really high. My Crate 8 x 10 cabinet is only 4 ohms. Using a
4 ohm cabinet would increase your power 4 times. This wouldn't make it 4
times as loud though, because I believe that sound is perceived
logarithmically so that an increase of 10 times the power = 2 times as
loud and 100 times the power = 4 times as loud. Still you should hear
some increase.