FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Marshall Half Stacks

Question:
I have a Fender Pro Jr, and I read on this newsgroup that the speaker cord can be unplugged from the jack and an external speaker can be plugged up. I wonder what it would sound like if I ran it through a Marshall 4x12. I'm sure it would increase the volume, but would it sound good? The Pro Jr. can be pushed to tube saturation at moderate volumes, and I think it would be great to give it the extra bass response of a Marshall speaker. I love the tone my Pro Jr. and Les Paul get, but it is lacking a bit in the bass dept. I have also thought about getting a Boss GE7 EQ pedal and simply tweaking the amp for more crunch. What do you guys think about these two ideas? I may not actually do either of them, but I am toying with the idea. Any input, ideas, or suggestions. ?

Answer:
Always make sure that the impedance of the amp and speaker cab match up, so you will have the best sound and tone, and also not endanger the amp components from a mis-match of impedances. For example, my `74 Marshall 4 x 12 cab is a 16 ohm cab, so you'd want to be able to use an amp that either required 16 ohms, or, had a selector switch to allow you to select the 16 ohm load. Or, if your amp will allow the use of a 4 ohm cab, you can re-wire the Marshall cab. www.webervst.com , a great speaker company, has some info on wiring cabs. Marshall cabs sound great, and the only thing that sounds better through them, are Marshall amps . If you own a Marshall cab, keep your Fender for small clubs, and start looking for a 70's era 1) non-master volume Super Lead, or, 2) a 70's era master-volume JMP. I've been telling guys on this NG for several years now that the 70's era Super Lead amp has been poised to jump up in price, as Plexi's are harder and harder to find, and judging from some of the prices I've seen lately, I was correct. The Super Lead, in the hands of a good amp tech, is an incredible amp. I hope you guys who read this can sometime play through a properly set-up Super Lead and a Marshall 4 x 12 cab; damn it's fun I just got back from a rehearsal with The Relics, the band I play guitar in. Rex used his new reissue AC-30 and I fired up my `74 Super Lead half stack. Hadn't played through the Barber Electronics Burn Unit pedal for awhile, so I got that pedal out and my trusty Les Paul Classic, and had a blast. A good quality overdrive pedal, a Les Paul and a Marshall is a lot of fun; great tone and sound, and at lower room volume. But....the Burn Unit pedal is a really strong pedal, with a bunch of gain. To turn the guitar volume down to a place where the guitar was quieter was down to around 1 on the guitar volume control, and anything up from there added more gain and sustain and harmonics to the sound. The Burn Unit does not clean up as well as the Tone Pump pedal, so when you use the Burn Unit, as the Barber Electronics website says, you definitely know that it's on. I had unlimited sustain, controllable feedback, harmonics and great tone, and I had a lot of gain and volume boost left in the pedal that I didn't dial in. I'd been playing my Strat for about a month, so getting the Paul out tonight was a blast, and the guitar/pedal/amp/cab combination was almost magical. I had a very good night Bruce Collins (Colorado), an amp tech that has done excellent work for me, loves to set up small amps for use with 4 x 12 cabs; huge sound. But always remember that it's important to have your cab and amp matched up, i.e. 16 ohm cab - 16 ohm speaker out on the amp, 8 ohm cab - 8 ohm speaker out on the amp, etc.