It is currently Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:40 pm

All times are UTC - 7 hours



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 4 posts ] 
Author Message
Post subject: M1- initial impressions and queries
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 7:46 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 11:12 pm
Posts: 520
Location: Perth, Western Aus.
New M1 (v2) owner. My 2nd amp, first was a Pathfinder, which in retrospect was an excellent purchase, given I knew nothing about amps other than I thought it sounded better than anything else I could afford. Still think it does some things better than Mustang - reverb, for one.

Sprung for a M1 as I can't get distortion at family friendly volumes, and I can't get on with playing with my phones on. While I preferred the M1 to others I tried, it still seems a bit of kit you need to play with excessively to tame its limitations. Some of the factory presets just suck, and many Fx added to these are hokey - do you really need a flange or phaser with delay and hall reverb? Luckily it's easy to turn them off and save on the fly.

I'm no tube snob. Not good enough player to get the best from any tube, nor the opportunity to crank even a small one up, but bends and picking work on many models sounds really synthetic and screams - DIGITAL! - which was why I skipped these modellers last time.

However, plenty of yoootoob vids show this amp can do a lot, and sound great. I think it's just working out how. Don't really want to spend hours with FUSE, but seems many think that's where you get your money's worth. The Fender 57, Bassman and Twin really clean up nicely, and I'm thinking of up setting up clean presets for these on one bank, and dirty on another - which of course is easy to do right on the amp.

Wondering how you can clean up some of the high gain amps a little? I'm not going to do much of this, but some decent 60s, AC/DC and Foo Fighter sounds would be good to have. I can get in the ballpark with the 60s and 80s model, but still sort of fumbling around and not really getting it.

Also, one issue I'm having is signal dropout. When changing from one preset to another and doing some adjustments, sometimes the amp stops working altogether. Turn off and on and it's back. Any ideas?


Top
Profile
Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
Post subject: Re: M1- initial impressions and queries
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:40 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 8:08 am
Posts: 824
Drubbing wrote:
Also, one issue I'm having is signal dropout. When changing from one preset to another and doing some adjustments, sometimes the amp stops working altogether. Turn off and on and it's back. Any ideas?


If you refer to the small gap when changing from one preset to the next (split second) it is the time the DSP get'S reprogrammed with the new settings, it happens in all models I tried, including the Mustang 3 and Floor.

Regarding the clean sounds, my experience is that the speaker has to have a minimum size to sound right, particularly with clean tones. If you can, I would recommend to go to the store and try the same preset on the M1,2 and 3 and you will see what i'm talking about, the DSP of the three is the same but the speaker makes all the difference.


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: M1- initial impressions and queries
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:52 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2013 6:30 am
Posts: 375
All I can say is that Angus Young, Chris Shiflett, and Dave Grohl didn't come up with those tones overnight either, lol.

For Dave's Foos' sound try the British Watts model. It's what he uses- a Hi Watt head and cabs. Chris uses a Vox AC-30. Both primarily use humbuckers, and also have sizable pedalboards.

I think the fx are more a matter of taste. Sometimes adding just a touch of something counter-intuitive can add just the right touch. For EVH's Brown Sound, he uses quite a bit of fx, including both phaser/ flanger AND chorus AND delay. I agree that some of the presets lack sublety, though!

I actually thought the reverb was one of the better effects on this series of amps. There are quite a few different ones, though. The small room is pretty fun- it really does sound like the amp is in a small empty room!

Jedi is right on the money. I got frustrated looking for the kind of cleans I wanted. It wasn't until I found the "right" combination of speaker size, and power that things came together. For example- the Fender Twin is a 2x12" amp with 100 watts of power. The M1 is 20 watts through a single 8" speaker. The 3 is 100 watts through a 12" speaker. PLUS it's an open backed cabinet.


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: M1- initial impressions and queries
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:59 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 11:12 pm
Posts: 520
Location: Perth, Western Aus.
jedi2b wrote:
If you refer to the small gap when changing from one preset to the next (split second) it is the time the DSP get'S reprogrammed with the new settings, it happens in all models I tried, including the Mustang 3 and Floor.
.

Nope, I'm talking about nothing coming out of my guitar at all. No sound.

There's always the possibility of a dicky guitar lead, but I've two, they both can't be faulty.


Top
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 4 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 7 hours

Fender Play Winter Sale 2020

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: