DO I NEED AN ATTENUATOR?

[rayc]

Marshall Superbass MkII - modded.
The amp has a PPIMV and I can drop the volume to "bedroom" levels though it lacks BEEF when the speaker isn't getting a workout.
I had an attenuator for quite a while but it was useless with this amp so I sold it. That was pre mod.
Is an attenuator of any use post mod given the amp stays put?
I see the newish Harley Benton Loadbox
HB PA 100
has a compensated out as well as a line out.

I usually record with two mics but can only record at volume when the wife n sister-in-law are out of the house for the next six months or so.

[Greg_L]

I'm not convinced that your PPIMV was done correctly so yeah I'd say use an attenuator if you can't be as loud as you need to.

But not that one. Your amp can exceed the wattage rated for that cheap thing. I personally wouldn't trust it. I'm afraid you're gonna need to spend a little more to get quality and safety for your amp.

[ocnor]

This is what you really need. I absolutely love mine.

[rayc]

I'm not convinced that your PPIMV was done correctly so yeah I'd say use an attenuator if you can't be as loud as you need to.

But not that one. Your amp can exceed the wattage rated for that cheap thing. I personally wouldn't trust it. I'm afraid you're gonna need to spend a little more to get quality and safety for your amp.

Yeah, I was leery of the 80watt aspect. They make one for double the amount that can handle 125 watts.
https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton ... _stock.htm
This really is a slightly better version of the attenuator I had some years back...load resistance and plenty of heat...though these have line out etc.
I'd much rather turn up but, at present I can't even mix loudly let alone sing, play guitar etc with the level needed.

[rayc]

This is what you really need. I absolutely love mine.

I've seen them about, quite a few reviewers use them and I can understand the love BUT what I really need is the opportunity to turn my amp UP. It sounds fab when set free. My big problem is that my recording space is directly under the living room and a bedroom. In my pervious space it was alos down stairs but at the otehr end of the house with more doors in between.

[Greg_L]

Yeah, I was leery of the 80watt aspect. They make one for double the amount that can handle 125 watts.
https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton ... _stock.htm
This really is a slightly better version of the attenuator I had some years back...load resistance and plenty of heat...though these have line out etc.
I'd much rather turn up but, at present I can't even mix loudly let alone sing, play guitar etc with the level needed.

Isn't your amp 100 watts?

If so, I think you should use this at a minimum.
https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton ... nuator.htm

[Lt. Bob]

I plan on getting one of these just for the occasional use:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... a2d8367f25

[JD01]

I wouldn't be that arsed about an attenuator. I often play/practice/write quietly. Then when I come to record I record loud. It might make you a bit less prolific, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, when you get the chance to play and record loud you'll know the parts better having practiced them more and maybe you'll have generated some additional ideas too.

While loudly recorded guitars generally sound better that's not the only reason for doing it. Playing guitar loud is fun! Playing nice and loud when I've spent time to learn and practice all of the parts I want to record is really good fun.

[Greg_L]

Some of the modern reactive load attenuators are pretty spectacular. They cost some $$$ but they're good. The Suhr Reacive IR thingamajig is awesome. As is the OxBox.

[Armistice]

when the wife n sister-in-law are out of the house for the next six months or so.

Please explain?

[rayc]

when the wife n sister-in-law are out of the house for the next six months or so.

Please explain?

It should probably read ONLY when they are out of the house.
S-I-Law is having a granny flat built in a few months. Until then she & Kim are almost constantly in the house and in the living room...SIL's current bedroom is adjacent to my recording space. I can't get loud unless they are elsewhere.

[Armistice]

Please explain?

It should probably read ONLY when they are out of the house.
S-I-Law is having a granny flat built in a few months. Until then she & Kim are almost constantly in the house and in the living room...SIL's current bedroom is adjacent to my recording space. I can't get loud unless they are elsewhere.

I feel your pain. I was playing around the other day, at only moderate volume, whilst GF was stewing downstairs in her office, unable to concentrate, trying to do work. Whilst I have to listen to whatever work conversations she has, and can't escape them, apparently I can't make too much noise whilst she's working.

So I had to dig out the headphones.

[rayc]

It should probably read ONLY when they are out of the house.
S-I-Law is having a granny flat built in a few months. Until then she & Kim are almost constantly in the house and in the living room...SIL's current bedroom is adjacent to my recording space. I can't get loud unless they are elsewhere.

I feel your pain. I was playing around the other day, at only moderate volume, whilst GF was stewing downstairs in her office, unable to concentrate, trying to do work. Whilst I have to listen to whatever work conversations she has, and can't escape them, apparently I can't make too much noise whilst she's working.

So I had to dig out the headphones.

DON'T mention THE PHONE...there's nowhere, in doors, at this place to escape BOTH ends of a phone conversation by the lassies.

[Tadpui]

I feel your pain. I was playing around the other day, at only moderate volume, whilst GF was stewing downstairs in her office, unable to concentrate, trying to do work. Whilst I have to listen to whatever work conversations she has, and can't escape them, apparently I can't make too much noise whilst she's working.

So I had to dig out the headphones.

The joys of an open concept house My last 2 houses have both been open concept, where the only doors are on bedrooms and bathrooms (and even those are crappy hollow-core doors that might as well be made of papier mache). If the dogs get riled up or my wife decides to putter around, there's nowhere to go for quiet if I'm on a work call. That said, she's pretty much always OK if I want to smash away on the drums or crank a 50W Marshall stack up to eleven.

@rayc I think an attenuator is a great idea for a beefy tube amp. In my experience (with all whopping two attenuators I've ever owned) they do their best when they're just shaving a few dB off of the overall loudness. Once you get them to "bedroom" levels, they all pretty much suck. That's not so much any fault of the attenuator, but the outright removal of the influence of the speaker and cabinet from the overall tone. At that point, I'd rather go for something like a Two Notes Captor as a dummy load, then you can add a cab/mic/room sim VST to it and get some really good tones. It's still not quite the same, but IMO it sounds better than a neutered tube amp.

But that being said, my Two Notes Torpedo acts as an attenuator and a load box with a line output, and it really only sounds convincing when it's being fed by my Marshall. My Fender amp never sounded good through it, despite how good Two Notes' cab sim plugin is. It always sounded like the output section of that amp was straining, and once I heard that sound I couldn't ever dial in anything where I couldn't hear it. A real speaker inside a wooden box pushing air and working hard is a pretty hard-to-beat EQ filter for a guitar amplifier.

[Greg_L]

I think an attenuator is a great idea for a beefy tube amp. In my experience (with all whopping two attenuators I've ever owned) they do their best when they're just shaving a few dB off of the overall loudness. Once you get them to "bedroom" levels, they all pretty much suck.

This is absolute gospel truth.

[rayc]

I think an attenuator is a great idea for a beefy tube amp. In my experience (with all whopping two attenuators I've ever owned) they do their best when they're just shaving a few dB off of the overall loudness. Once you get them to "bedroom" levels, they all pretty much suck.

This is absolute gospel truth.

Yeah, I hear you gents, and the amp. I've tried to do a couple of songs with the amp turned down and it's a disaster...I'd rather use an amp in a box pedal and Greg's cab sims...in fact they sound better than a cranked amp with the MV turned way down.
I considered proofing/isolating the room but it's already small.
Shaving a few dB from cranked isn't going to get what I want.
I'll have to wait this out I suppose.

[Greg_L]

Yeah, I hear you gents, and the amp. I've tried to do a couple of songs with the amp turned down and it's a disaster...I'd rather use an amp in a box pedal and Greg's cab sims...in fact they sound better than a cranked amp with the MV turned way down.
I considered proofing/isolating the room but it's already small.
Shaving a few dB from cranked isn't going to get what I want.
I'll have to wait this out I suppose.

If you really have to get down to bedroom volumes you are probably better just using a sim/cab package or a load box with IRs.

Things you need to look for are reactive vs resistive.

The best most natural sounding attenuators and load boxes are reactive. They have circuitry that, in theory, "reacts" to your amp's output like a speaker does. A speaker never just sits at the same impedance or has the same frequency response. The load a speaker presents to an amp is dynamic. Your output tubes and output transformer react to the speaker's schizophrenia and we get sounds we love. The reactive load boxes and attenuators try to mimic this phenomenon. They present a similarly varying impedance to the amp. The amp is happy, the sound can still be pretty good, but these cost money.

Resistive attenuators are basically just a big ass resistor that eats output current and acts like a giant sponge. These work fine and they're simple and cheap. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, so your 100 watts from the amp has to go somewhere. As your signal passes through the attenuator, some of it goes on to the speaker, the rest gets turned into heat. But they don't like going down to bedroom levels behind a very powerful amp. They get very hot and they can possibly wear out output tubes faster than normal due to their very rigid demeanor. These are the types of attenuators that are wonderful for knocking a little volume off the top, say for using a Super Lead in a small club setting or letting you push a small amp even a little harder.

And some of them do both. I'm not familiar with the voodoo technology behind the modern reactive attenuators/load boxes, but I know that some of the Weber stuff uses an actual little speaker motor inside their bigger attenuators, and a big resistor to eat the current. You get the natural reaction from a speaker magnet load, and the big ass resistor to eat the volume. And they're relatively affordable.

[ocnor]

I started down this rabbit hole years ago. I first wired up a big resistor and a Behringer speaker sim box. Then I moved on to a Palmer PDI-03 rack unit. Then I tried using IRs with the Palmer. After that I bought an OX box which is one of the best attenuators on the market. I soon came to the conclusion that attenuators fuck up the tone no matter how good they are. I then bought an Axe-Fx III and holy crap! This thing must have been built from alien technology. The Marshall amp sims are in this box are crazy good. The parameters allow you to mod the amp and create amps that don't even exist. I still love my tube amps, but for recording and playing at bedroom volume, the Axe-Fx is the way to go.

[JD01]

I still love my tube amps, but for recording and playing at bedroom volume, the Axe-Fx is the way to go.

So do you find that you rough out songs with the Axe-Fx and then record your final takes with a cranked amp when you have the time?
That's basically my technique - I put my H&K in 0W mode to work out all my parts and rough out the song, then recorded it for real quite quickly when I have the house to myself.

[ocnor]

I still love my tube amps, but for recording and playing at bedroom volume, the Axe-Fx is the way to go.

So do you find that you rough out songs with the Axe-Fx and then record your final takes with a cranked amp when you have the time?
That's basically my technique - I put my H&K in 0W mode to work out all my parts and rough out the song, then recorded it for real quite quickly when I have the house to myself.

No. It would be impossible for for my tube amps to be cranked up to 8-10 without destroying my ears and the house. I can get a much better tone from the Axe-Fx because I can do things with it that would be impossible to do with a real amp. As a bonus my wife doesn't yell at me.