F30 as Power Amp

Hello guys

I was trying to connect my Mesa Rect Recording Preamp in the return jack of my F30 the other night, and the result was kinda "muddy", full of bass etc... sounded crap What I wanted to do was use the Recto as a preamp (that's what it is anyway...) and the F30 as a power amp. Anyone tried this with anything? Even with other preamp-effects?

Cheers!
:?

Did you try it in the front input?

Yes I did, it sounds decent actually, but "theoritically", two preamps in a row (guitar --> Rect preamp --> F30 preamp --> F30 poweramp), is not very "correct", is it?

If it sounds good....then what the hell!!haha. Something else I thought of....I wonder what it would do sound wise if you did the effects loop jumper volume control thing with your set up.That'd be a frankenstein SOB there! I did it on my amp and got quite a bit more tonal range than normally. Do you know what mod I am talking about?

You cannot achieve a correct connection through the return jack because it blends the signal with the preamp signal as it is a parallel loop. No matter what you do boogie left a 10% signal through. As a result you have phasing issues and the sound is not what it is meant to be.

The loop design is a bit weird. Don't have that worry you though there is a solution and you don't need to mod it to serial. Just connect a patch cable (a short cable you usually connect pedals with each other) to the send jack. What you do is that you "send the preamp out to infinity"! In a sense you just eliminated it.

Then you connect the recording preamp to the return jack and everything is fine. Check it out! Just to be sure also, do these things: Have all the knobs on the f-30 preamp set to zero and the channel switch to the gain channel. As a result the f-30 preamp produces no signal at all and the minimal amount of hissing on the clean channel is not present because you switched to the gain channel (which for some reason seems far more quiet to me). But the cable trick should cover you in the first place.

Tmuggie said:

If it sounds good....then what the hell!!haha. Something else I thought of....I wonder what it would do sound wise if you did the effects loop jumper volume control thing with your set up.That'd be a frankenstein SOB there! I did it on my amp and got quite a bit more tonal range than normally. Do you know what mod I am talking about?

Click to expand...

Haha! You're right Tmuggie! It sounds quite good actually! Sorry, I didn't understand the 'effects loop jumper volume control'.. Are you reffering to the serial mod thing? I've done that.. Or is it something else?

giorikas81 said:

Then you connect the recording preamp to the return jack and everything is fine. Check it out! Just to be sure also, do these things: Have all the knobs on the f-30 preamp set to zero and the channel switch to the gain channel. As a result the f-30 preamp produces no signal at all and the minimal amount of hissing on the clean channel is not present because you switched to the gain channel (which for some reason seems far more quiet to me). But the cable trick should cover you in the first place.

Click to expand...

Giorikas81, can I do the same thing after having applied the "Serial Mod"? Or do I have to switch it back to parallel?
I applied the mod before trying the "input solution"... At that time (before the mod), I had a "dead patch", like your saying, and preamp to return. But the sound sounded less "present"... With the mod applied and the things you're advising, is it possible?

Cheers guys!

osafer said:

Tmuggie said:

If it sounds good....then what the hell!!haha. Something else I thought of....I wonder what it would do sound wise if you did the effects loop jumper volume control thing with your set up.That'd be a frankenstein SOB there! I did it on my amp and got quite a bit more tonal range than normally. Do you know what mod I am talking about?

Click to expand...

Haha! You're right Tmuggie! It sounds quite good actually! Sorry, I didn't understand the 'effects loop jumper volume control'.. Are you reffering to the serial mod thing? I've done that.. Or is it something else?

giorikas81 said:

Then you connect the recording preamp to the return jack and everything is fine. Check it out! Just to be sure also, do these things: Have all the knobs on the f-30 preamp set to zero and the channel switch to the gain channel. As a result the f-30 preamp produces no signal at all and the minimal amount of hissing on the clean channel is not present because you switched to the gain channel (which for some reason seems far more quiet to me). But the cable trick should cover you in the first place.

Click to expand...

Giorikas81, can I do the same thing after having applied the "Serial Mod"? Or do I have to switch it back to parallel?
I applied the mod before trying the "input solution"... At that time (before the mod), I had a "dead patch", like your saying, and preamp to return. But the sound sounded less "present"... With the mod applied and the things you're advising, is it possible?

Cheers guys!

Click to expand...

That's interesting....
So....let me get this straight. If I plug a patch cord into the send and leave the other end free....then I can plug the output from say....a tone lab se into the return and then be using only the power amp section?

I thought this was done when plugging the tonelab, lets say, in the INPUT section, while SEND is plugged to a dead end..

Hmm. With the serial mod there should not be any need for a patch cable. But the loop is buffered on the return level by a tube and a very cool guy here on the forum explained to me that it does have some kind of feedback with the rest of the preamp. Anyway the only way is to try both ways.


I tested my old f-30 (now belongs to a good friend) with his pod XT on the parallel loop with the patch cable, it made a hell of a difference and it worked great. Completely different but almost as good amp, by running the JCM 800 pod preamp model. Worked really good. So I guess the tonelab has potential.

In my peavey XXX super 40 with a serial loop it doesn not need anything, to play in the return as the signal is indeed disrupted and only the external preamp reaches the power amp.