Grateful Dead Music Forum

Dozin wrote:When I play the poor mans cowboy it sounds great through the Dean Markley in a room by myself. However, with the band cranked up it looses that sparkle. When I play it through a Mesa studio and a Crest power amp I like it a lot. I'd like to find a combo that can maintain the same as the Mesa setup.

MK do you still have your Mark IV combo?

Have we seen your "pm" cowboy? I always thought you had a real one?

I don't have a Cowboy. Do a search for poor mans cowboy. I posted a picture of a Strat that I did up.

Never owner a Mark IV. Had a Mesa Nomad combo - long gone.

mk

Michael,
I saw that you may already have this in your head, but I will confirm it for you. From everything you are describing as your wants and requirements, I really see only one direction for you:
Solid State

Im serious.

jeffm725 wrote:Michael,
I saw that you may already have this in your head, but I will confirm it for you. From everything you are describing as your wants and requirements, I really see only one direction for you:
Solid State

Im serious.

JC-120 is the first thought that popped into my head!

Wait, you said lighter... I really, really like these amps for what they can do:
http://www.rolandus.com/products/produc ... arentId=57

strumminsix wrote:

jeffm725 wrote:Michael,
I saw that you may already have this in your head, but I will confirm it for you. From everything you are describing as your wants and requirements, I really see only one direction for you:
Solid State

Im serious.

JC-120 is the first thought that popped into my head!

JC-120 is definitely a workable amp for Weir stuff. Used to use one myself.Believe it or not you can get Jer tones out of it too. It is just a strong CLEAN amp that acts as a great pedal platform.

I think he could also go outside the box here and do something no one else has done. To my ears, the chime Weir got from 75-82 (and yes I know you can find distinctions within that period, but lets keep it simple) has an almost "direct" like quality to it. I find myself sometimes just totally falling ass backwards into a situation and then saying "wow that sounds like 78 Weir" .
The last time that happened was just 2 nights ago at a Shakedown gig. It was the end of the night, closing song and my Deluxe Reverb went kaput (blew or shorted power tube I think,I havent looked at it yet, but I got it back once by flipping the standby switch quickly like 6 times and used it for about 5 more minutes before it went ) anyway, for the last song I plugged into the keyboard players Powered Personal monitor a mackie SRM 150 :
http://www.mackie.com/products/srm150/

It is like a hotspot. It is just a self contained powered speaker. I swear to god it had the Weir chime! It had a little bit of help as we jumpered it to a 12 inch powered mackie speaker. It sounded remarkably good and cut right through the mix!

Michael, you and I have known each other for quite a while now. I have watched a ton of gear pass though your hands
Start checking out some direct sounds via solid state equipment, and then build back from there.
Im actually going to do that myself.
The best way I can describe the key to Weirs sound from the era that both you and I love, is that it sounds "direct" even when its not direct.

I sold my JC120 last year. Very nice amp, but pretty heavy & bulky for me.

Recently, my main gigging amp has been a Roland JC77 - it's a 2x10 smaller version of the JC120. At low volumes, it's perfect. Not fond of the sound when I turn louder. It just doesn't keep the same balance across the frequencies, or as Dozin puts it, it loses that sparkle. Is it an amp or speaker issue - I don't know.

Regarding solid state: I think of it often. Afterall, after his Boogie, Weir used solid state through to the end of his Ibanez era.

I recently remembered that I have an MC2100 (JeffM - wink wink nod nod...). It's way too heavy for me to lug to gigs, however, I plan on testing my IVP's with it.

Love the ideas... I sense more gear coming. SMS -> SS power amp???

mk

MK, my SMS & TubeWorks is awesome! The new Roland cubes are great! Roland also has 77s that are lighter.

Jeff, for my 80s shows I do a SansAmp Cali directly into the board and it's outstanding!!

strumminsix wrote:MK, my SMS & TubeWorks is awesome! The new Roland cubes are great! Roland also has 77s that are lighter.

77's - something different from my JC77?

mk

Don't know how but for some reason I didn't read it right the first time. I think my eyes are used to seeing a 120 after JC...

Anyway, have you tried the Cubes?

nope

Played tonight with IVP->MC2100. I can get ample volume with clean tone. That's a good start, however, the MC2100 is too heavy so I'll need to find something else.

The trick is dialing in the right EQ with the IVP. There are 4 bands to play with. Any ideas?

From this experiment, maybe totally solid state is better for me.

mk

I have owned a few IVP's over the years and I simply got tired of always turning knobs. I could never get it to sound the way I wanted for every song played. Turning around and messing with it got frustrating...But I put one in my Ebay watchlist just because so go figure!

I sold my IVP for the same reasons. To many knobs. I felt like I was tweaking the unit all the time.

MK, try the RM-150 w/ the MC2100