Tom scholtz power soak discussion in amps and cabs started by bstring, aug 5, 2009. Load box einen rohrenverstarker sollte man nie ohne angeschlossene box betreiben. Gibson les paul r7 george l cable 1979 marshall jmp 2204 tom scholz power soak 4x12 marshall cab w greenbacks this is a quick iphone demonstration of the tom scholz power soak, its use, and its. As the years wore on, things became quiet on the power soak front. This gadget is inserted between the amp and the speakers. As the mastermind of the hardrocking band boston, whose first two albums have sold a combined 25 million copies in the u. So, theoretically, you just need an lpad so the amp sees the right load and the speaker gets less signal. Very cleaver design and this makes it smaller in size. Daves unit would get so hot, the vented casing pieces would warp and melt. Creative ideas for starving artists brain juice that revives and.
Recorded in his basement that he claims was about 10x12x7 room. I think tom singlehandedly wrote a big chapter on guitar technology and that was better understood 30 years ago than now. I started playing out in my first band with the 60watt univox bass head in my avatar photo, a borrowed scholz power soak attenuator and a fender 4 x 12. I know its not just a studio thing because ive seen and heard tom get that sound live. Though the power soak was not the first power attenuation device for guitar amps, it was the. The first device tom manufactured was the power soak.
Ive heard good and bad and ugly regarding the power soak. Most of all, it was the first to include a volume control. God blessed me with a killer ear for music, but my playing ability doesnt match it and it doesnt seem to be able to allow me to. Plexi 1 head fed into a prototype of his own design power soak attenuator and stacked layering. Just wondering if anyone else has tried soaking their boogies to achieve the same tones at any volume. This unit is in good working condition and has been service including switches cleaned and dusting out the inside of the unit. Power soak 50swpwd8688 soak sink, portable power soak pss168 dishtable, power wash power soak pss168a dishtable, power wash power soak pss168b dishtable, power. Did not like digital and was trying to surpass tubes with transistors. Tom scholz is from the band boston, known for making the distinct boston sound. Like bill putnam, scholz recognised the need to acknowledge a market, not just solve a studio challenge. We have the vintage 1980s tom scholz power soak power attenuator in stock in our collection. One of the most wellknown systems of the day, by the way, was the tom scholz power soak, developed by the guitarist of the wellknown band boston.
Analoger lautsprechermikrofonierungssimulator spl transducer. During the late 60s and early 70s, tom and two musicians, singer brad delp and drummer jim masdea, spent more than six years playing, editing, and replaying tracks to create a demo album. I know it sounds incredibly dumb to be looking at a highgain 59watt tube head for a livingroom amp, but curcumstances seem to have conspired to make it a possible option, and like i said, its a greatsounding amp if i were to consider some type of attenuator, would there be a. Dec, 2012 gibson les paul, marshall jcm 800, scholz power soak performance is very sloppy after about 12 beers, but thats not the point, the point is the righteous power tube break up im getting. I have the patent document and some old sustainor schematics. I have found that the 9db setting seems to be the sweet spot, ymmv. Eqp200 dual program equalizer and the dcl200 dual tube compressor. Feb 26, 2008 im pretty new to pc building and am aware of something called soak stress testing. I tried tons of options, attentor, pulling 2 of the power tubes, 1x12 cab, turning the bassresonance all the way down. May 25, 2017 gibson les paul r7 george l cable 1979 marshall jmp 2204 tom scholz power soak 4x12 marshall cab w greenbacks this is a quick iphone demonstration of the tom scholz power soak, its use, and its. They will not go down as classics, like the 1st album will. Prior to the recording of the first boston album, scholz stripped the gold finish from the original vintage goldtop this replica is modeled after, revealing the underlying natural maple.
I understand that this sort of test pushes your hardware components and can reveal faults im running vista home premium 32 bit. Boston tom scholz exclusive interview more than a feelin. Shop now and receve free shipping on your order today. Vintage 1980s tom scholz power soak power attenuator. What id really like to find is a graph of a typical guitar speaker impedance vs frequency. The code may not be broken entirely, but it is cracked. Buy 1982 rockman power soak ii model 3586 black blue. Electric guitars, acoustic guitars, guitar amps, effects pedals, guitar amp speaker cabinets, guitar amp attenuators, and more. Tone and dynamics are about the same as the scholz power soak. Hi, i plan to use the attenuator on a marshall 1974x if i can find that kind of marshall. I have to validate a prototype before building something clean, so i will test the two solutions. But, by todays standards it is not a great sounding attenuator. The engineers who changed recording sound on sound. Long before the term project studio was coined, tom scholz founder of.
The reason for a power soak is generally to make the tube output stages drive to clipping while not driving the speaker with as much signal. The namm tecnology hall of fame announces new 2020 inductees. I have some earplugs that i can use also that reduce 12db too. He said it definitely allowed him to get the boston sound. Soak tests are used primarily to check the reaction of a subject under test under a possible simulated environment for a given duration and for a given threshold.
Its now a shopping center with a starbucks coffee, food market, clothing store marshalls, etc. Ive been using a tom scholz power soak with my 1959slp. On the head id jumper the inputs, crank both channel volumes plus the mids, treble and presence and cut the lows. There are some differences in the peak detector, but it shouldnt be an issue. Not just the rockman but the power soak was a big advance in technology at the time. But its not too terribly noticeable at high volume, in fact im not sure i. It has an amp impedance selector for 4, 8 or 16 ohms, a solid state or tube amp selector. Combo amps free delivery possible on eligible purchases. Once you had a sound dialed in that worked, you could then use the power soak to dial in the output level. This will look great in your home, office or studio. Tom has said in interviews, that he will do anything in the studio to get a particular sound or groove. Tom scholz power soak attenuator telecaster guitar forum.
I just picked up an old tom scholz power soak for practicing at home. But it allowed more control over the boston tone than we may realize. Ron pownall, courtesy boston i was a fixer, a builder an inventor ever since i can remember, scholz once told writer larry lange in an interview. Removes body oils, lotion residues, dirt and grime.
For a long time we first encountered it in the early 80s, all was quiet on the power soak front. Observations made during the soak test are used to improve the characteristics of the subject under further tests. This device, a little box that allows your amp to achieve great sound at low volumes, quickly became a hit. I think it sounds pretty good if i dont turn it down past half way, then obvious tone sucking occurs. Tom scholz power soak amp attenuator blues angel music. The second album had a mix of that marshall set up and some solidstate precursors to the rockman. I ran into a guy in another forum that owned a bunch of tom scholz designed gear. Jan 31, 2015 tom scholz used to work at polaroid at 1265 main st in waltham ma. This might be of interest to some of you for those of you familiar with tom scholz of boston, he often talked about his first invention that he developed in order to record and perform with his marshalls without annoying his neighbors or blowing everyone off the stage the power soak. As you easily click through the seven steps to design your power soak unit, the configurator will create customized autocad drawings which can be downloaded and saved as a pdf or a. The first boston album is a 1972 marshall super lead 100 model 1959 into his power soak, into a 4x12 cab, into an sm57, into a furman eq.
Today, my bad cat unleash has become an indispensable piece of equipment for me. Find great deals on for power soak in guitar amplifier parts and accessories. After further design enhancements, it became the power soak. There was the first, tom scholz s power soak issued at the end of 1980, the model ii, was issued at the end of 1981 and the model iii issued in 1992. That mod prompted everyone from tom scholz to, you name itevery company on the planet to make some kind of speaker emulator, power soak. Bostons distortion sound electric guitars harmony central.
The power soak configurator is a dynamic tool that allows you to create autogenerated drawings to your design specifications. A power soak is something tom scholz came up with so he could crank his marshall and keep the actual volume down. This plus a simple master mod to a 6550based jmp mk. According to boston founder tom scholz, it went down something like this. Jul 21, 2018 i mentioned tom s power attenuator power soak in an earlier post, and that imo it sounds better than some of the much more touted ones. Unlike household cleaners, will never cause spa water foaming. It uses the same basic circuit design for the scholz power soak. Much, much better than my first which was a tom sholtz power soak i bought in the 70s. I had a nonmaster volume marshall 100 watt head which was obviously unuseable at rehearsal or club gig. I purchased this several years ago to use with my 100watt marshall but now i have a low watt tube amp so i dont need it any more. Tom scholz has recorded the two first albums of boston with these big, overpowered marshall stacks, cranked up at 11. Early examples of attenuators was the tom scholz power soak and the marshall power break. I looked on the internets and found some good starts, but no 100% success.
I do suspect that the old tom scholz power soaks would put a 8 ohm fixed load on the 16 ohm tap of an amp, and that may have been better than putting a 16ohm resistive load on a 16 ohm tap. So, in short im looking at either a scholz power soak adam had this but expressed dissatisfaction in the loss of high end sparkle, thd hotplate matthew had these, but its hard to tell exactly whats going on at a club, or a weber 100 watt mass which ive never seen or. Amps with master volumes cuts the signal or volume before it reaches the power tubes. Tom sawyer software to demonstrate at nist mbe summit 2020. I also plan to test a tone king royalist 15w on sunday with the. Experience with attenuators and nonmaster volume amps. I know there are several version of these units, so please check out the pics. The reason people blow their amps are usually they dont know the difference between a speaker cable and an instrument cable, their amp is not in perfect running order in the first place and also not all amps can be run flat out for extended periods of. I used a tom scholz power soak for years with my svt. This is a one owner piece, still in the original packing. The mittrained engineer with a passion for music, problemsolving and inventions, would watch his band become a musical force in the 70s when more than a feeling became a celebrated rock anthem. Soak testing, nonfunctional testing involves examining the system if it can withstand a huge load for a longer period of time and there by measuring the systems reaction parameters. Jul 21, 2018 i had a power soak way back, when it was one of the only attenuators you could get maybe even the only one.
Tom designed his own prototype load box, using a heat sink from an old theatrical light. I kinda feel bad, because when people first asked me how i used it, i told people i turned it up, when i really turned it down. Ive been told these power soaks destroy guitar amps and they shouldnt be used. Soak testing also known as endurance testing is performed to determine if the application under test can sustain the continuous loads. A 1982 resistance method to run your guitar amp for optimum crunchiness.
The power soak was an attenuator, that you would put inline between your amplifier and speakers. Gibson les paul r7 george l cable 1979 marshall jmp 2204 tom scholz power soak 4x12 marshall cab w greenbacks this is a quick iphone demonstration of the tom scholz power soak. You can still find a few tom scholz power soak devices floating around on ebay. See more ideas about tom scholz, boston band, boston. Tom scholz power soak attentuator my les paul forum. For greater savings check out our used tom scholz 1980s power soak power attenuator and get a great deal today. Powersoak was only rated at 120 watts, but as long as i only used it in the first or second level of resistance not very much, but enough to get sound men off my back, it would last a couple years before melting down. In electronics, soak testing may involve testing a system up to or.
I dont think tom was the first to design a power attenuator for a guitar amp, or was he. Rockman tom scholz power soak attenuator 1980s reverb. Tom scholz, the 69yearold guitarist behind the band boston, is about as different from a rocker stereotype as you can get. As the years wore on, things became quiet on the power soak.
I would be mostly playing it in my living room, so thats a potential issue. Ppt attenuator history powerpoint presentation free to. The namm tecnology hall of fame announces new 2020. Pretty much everything that goes into the music is as analog as i can make it, says tom scholz, chief sonic architect of the longtime rock powerhouse known as boston. The power soak was the first commercial product by tom scholz. Or more importantly, because the latter is impossible to know, was the rockman unit the first on the market. Sib hashian remembering the drummer that wasnt sweetwater. A few years back i pulled out my old power soak and altiar units and compared them both side by side to a new thd and the thd.
It was a passive attenuatora big box of resistors with a knob to determine how many of them were in. You just cant sacrifice cleanliness in the foodservice industry and power soak is a trusted source for machines that help kitchens keep their standards high and their labor costs low. Both are risky endeavours that will test your resilience and fortitude, not to mention. Since i could talk a little engineering with him, i came to find he is the transistor champion of the world. Though the power soak was not the first power attenuation device for guitar amps, it was the first to be 100% reliable, the first to respect the sound of the amp.
I had a scholz sustainer and still have a power soak. The downside is, since your running the amp harder and sweeter, the power tubes are also taking a beating. Power soak leads in continuous motion ware washing, helping your kitchen keep utensils, dishes, and equipment clean and sanitized, while saving water and money. That thing worked but was a treble killer not transparent at all. Rockman tom scholz power soak power attenuation in very good condition. Since hes a clever man and knew that his ears are precious for a musician, he designed the power soak as a volume control device, as defined by the us patents 4,143,245, d256,798, 4,363,934 and d270,153. The power soak is therefore tom scholz s power soak. Gibson les paul r7 george l cable 1979 marshall jmp 2204 tom scholz power soak 4x12 marshall cab w greenbacks this is a quick.
60 1018 503 1205 230 1220 1327 301 1035 530 480 1456 826 1467 988 504 451 45 1030 1103 168 392 1444 668 514 1216 1324 926 1363 995 357 536 1121 1349 565 1143 1303 423 807 1478 815 438 1336 853 216 810 435 1140