Carvin guitar amps?

[NeonKnight]

Mind a recommendation?

No, I'm not a sales rep for Line 6; I just think this thing is one of their greatest products ever! I've been taking it on the road with me for about 4 or 5 years (30 to 50 gigs a year, most of which I fly to) with no issues whatsoever. So as you can tell, I'm very fond of this unit, especially as a former pedal board user.

http://line6.com/m13/

You just may have another happy guitar player to reel in on that Line 6 M13. I'm just a hacker, jamming around with friends and all, but I have been looking into a serious upgrade to the cheap little Digitech box I've been using up until now. Who knows, maybe this little toy will inspire a step up in my playing also?

M13 on the Xmas list this year.

[Plasmatopia]

I have hesitated a bit on the M13 because I thought I was going to have to get an expression pedal with it. The Line 6 expression pedals that are supposed to work with this unit don't come highly recommended, but they are about $50. Mission Engineering makes a much more robust one for $130. Instead, as I have recently discovered, the M13 can be set up with its own effects loop. I'll just put my wah in the effects loop. Done.

[No Pride]

You just may have another happy guitar player to reel in on that Line 6 M13. I'm just a hacker, jamming around with friends and all, but I have been looking into a serious upgrade to the cheap little Digitech box I've been using up until now. Who knows, maybe this little toy will inspire a step up in my playing also?

M13 on the Xmas list this year.

Obviously, I think that's a great idea.

The Line 6 expression pedals that are supposed to work with this unit don't come highly recommended, but they are about $50. Mission Engineering makes a much more robust one for $130. Instead, as I have recently discovered, the M13 can be set up with its own effects loop. I'll just put my wah in the effects loop. Done.

I had heard people complain about how cheap and fragile that expression pedal is, but I bought one anyway. Been traveling with it for 4 or 5 years and using it on somewhere between 30 to 50 gigs a year now and the thing hasn't failed me yet. I just use it as a volume and wah pedal with the M13. Of course you can bring your own volume and/or wah, but they're bulkier and heavier and wahs need batteries (and can be prone to some RF interference). If you want to do that, I'd put the volume in the effects loop (unless you want it to clean up a dirty sound when you back it off; then put it in front of the amp), but I'd plug my guitar straight into the wah's input and run the output to the front of the amp, or through the M13.

[NeonKnight]

Obviously, I think that's a great idea.

And it really was Ernie!

Santa delivered one of his best gifts ever thanks to your tip. Man, what an upgrade over my cheap little Digitech, like night and day.

The M13 arrived earlier this week and I've happily spent my holidays off noodling around in endless brand new sonic landscapes. I thought I would be lost in some non user friendly menu screens for a few days at first, but the reality could not be anymore user friendly.

The sight of this magic box glowing in it's multicolored lights only makes it more appealing that these apparent bells and whistles actually mean something and provide low light functionality. Just stomp away and play.

Just today I've got the looper pedals mostly figured out and have already gotten some credible results. This looper thing is an added bonus and actually will inspire some improved playing from me.

Thanks again, just a great call on this Line 6 Magic Box.

[No Pride]

Thanks again, just a great call on this Line 6 Magic Box.

You're most welcome! It's not every day that a recommendation I've made to somebody enhances their life that much, so I'm happy that you're happy! Jam on!

[No Pride]

I'm desperate for an all tube 20 watt combo or head. I am not a Fender fan at all, 6L6's don't do it for me ... I just don't know where to start .... Too much selection these days in that category.

Low wattage amplifiers seem to be getting quite popular these days, so there are a lot of options. Personally, I'd go for the Mesa Boogie Mark 5 Twenty Five that I posted a video demo for on this thread. BTW, a low wattage amp isn't going to use 6L6s. The vast majority use either 6V6s or EL84s. At least one that I know of uses both; The Egnater Rebel 30. You can use one or the other tube pairs or mix them together.

[Plasmatopia]

I got an M13 over the holidays as well. Even though I just had 12 days off, I somehow didn't find the time to play with it much! I brought my RA-100 home from band practice, but it's been having an issue which I think I have somewhat resolved. It had low volume on the "blue" channel (which is the one I use the most). I finally tracked it down to a bad relay. I tapped on it with a screwdriver and for now it works...but for how long?

Looking forward to getting the M13 set up the way I want it.

Here's something I stumbled across in some forum or other if you ever want to mod your M13:

http://www.jhv3.com/m-series-mods/

[Plasmatopia]

I ended up buying a Mesa Mini Rectifier so I'd have another amp to use while getting my RA-100 fixed. I had replaced another relay in my RA-100 and it worked for a few days...so I thought I'd fixed it. Nope, the problem came back. I have been in contact with Mesa and supposedly doing that work should not void my warranty. I'll find out soon if that's the case or not. Once that amp is fixed I may just sell it. It's 90 lbs. and the Mini Rectifier is 12 lbs. (I use it with a Marshal 4x10 cabinet that is surprisingly lightweight.)

I also abandoned the M13 for live use, at least for now. I have been putting together a pedal board and I find that when using the pedal board I get more of the natural tone of the amp. The M13 seems to color the sound somehow.

At one of our last gigs I accidentally hit the "scene" button (when I thought I was just hitting a button near it), then stepped on another button. This kicked me into another scene. What I find odd about scenes is that (maybe there is a way to change this, but...) 4 new effects become immediately active. And the particular scene I happened onto was rather bizarre and sounding and not musical. I'd never played around with scene mode, so it took me a minute to figure out how to get back to my original scene. I also had the M13 become completely unresponsive a couple of times. All the displays went dark and I still had sound, but the switches weren't working. I had to cycle the power to get it working again.

But in general the issue I had with this setup (and this is partly the fault of my amp) is that I started to run out of available effects. I'm not big on using various effects by any means, but with the M13 you can only have 4 effects at once. I was using EQ (due to the amp having some rather shrill high freq, despite having the treble control all the way down), compression, and I had the last set of pedals setup for volume control (with each switch in that column doing a different volume setting so I could have a boost). That left one column/effect for something interesting (chorus, delay, tremolo, etc.). And in this setup even the volume control is lacking since it mostly results in more gain in the preamp. In that sense, it would probably work better with a 4-wire setup where the volume control could be in the amp's effects loop. But I'd expect to still be using the same 4 effects. And adding any external pedals (IMO) defeats the whole purpose of convenience.

In contrast, I have set up my pedal board to be just as quick to hook up and I like the sound of it better. Not to mention I have access to a better sounding chorus and now have wah which I didn't have with the M13.

There is a lot of cool stuff in the M13 though. I'm going to keep it in the practice room for recording and also the looper will be fun.

[No Pride]

At one of our last gigs I accidentally hit the "scene" button (when I thought I was just hitting a button near it), then stepped on another button. This kicked me into another scene. What I find odd about scenes is that (maybe there is a way to change this, but...) 4 new effects become immediately active. And the particular scene I happened onto was rather bizarre and sounding and not musical. I'd never played around with scene mode, so it took me a minute to figure out how to get back to my original scene.

The first time that happened to me (and it was at a gig), I thought the unit had completely malfunctioned and I ended up sending it back to Line 6, who replaced it with a brand new one. When it happened again, I was pretty upset, but that time I figured out what the deal was. I try hard not to accidentally hit that switch anymore, but it still happens once in a while. At least now I know how to get back to where I was in a matter of 2 seconds. Still, I wish they had put that thing somewhere out of the way.

But in general the issue I had with this setup (and this is partly the fault of my amp) is that I started to run out of available effects. I'm not big on using various effects by any means, but with the M13 you can only have 4 effects at once. I was using EQ (due to the amp having some rather shrill high freq, despite having the treble control all the way down), compression, and I had the last set of pedals setup for volume control (with each switch in that column doing a different volume setting so I could have a boost). That left one column/effect for something interesting (chorus, delay, tremolo, etc.). And in this setup even the volume control is lacking since it mostly results in more gain in the preamp. In that sense, it would probably work better with a 4-wire setup where the volume control could be in the amp's effects loop. But I'd expect to still be using the same 4 effects. And adding any external pedals (IMO) defeats the whole purpose of convenience.

In contrast, I have set up my pedal board to be just as quick to hook up and I like the sound of it better. Not to mention I have access to a better sounding chorus and now have wah which I didn't have with the M13.

I suppose that going to a different "scene" alleviates the problem of running out of effects, though you can still only have 4 at a time, which is enough for me (and I only use one scene). I do hook it up with the 4 cable method and have the left two columns of effects running to the front of the amp and the right two to the amp's effects loop. My volume pedal is in column #3 and my reverbs and delays are in column #4, so the repeats don't get cut off when I back the volume pedal (a Line 6 expression pedal) to heel position. Even before I had the unit, I always would put the volume pedal in the effects loop. If I want to back off the gain, I use my guitar's volume control.

The chorus models are a little disappointing on the M13. I use the "analog" one, which is based on the old Roland Chorus, but I used to have the real one and it sounded better than that. Ditto for the Dimension 4, which I used to love. I do have a great sounding TC Chorus/Flanger pedal, but I have enough stuff to put in my luggage without lugging external pedals. Besides, I don't use chorusing very often.

Sorry the M13 isn't working out as you hoped it would! I used to use a pedal board, but I retired it a good while ago. Each has it's pros and cons, but the M13 is much more convenient for me. My favorite difference is that when you tap a tempo into the M13, it's global; it effects all time-based effects that you have set to respond to tap tempo. I used to hate it when it was time for a solo and I'd have to turn the delay on and tap the tempo in while simultaneously trying to start soloing. Now I can have the tempo tapped in well before actually turning the delay on.

[Plasmatopia]

I suppose that going to a different "scene" alleviates the problem of running out of effects, though you can still only have 4 at a time, which is enough for me (and I only use one scene). I do hook it up with the 4 cable method and have the left two columns of effects running to the front of the amp and the right two to the amp's effects loop. My volume pedal is in column #3 and my reverbs and delays are in column #4, so the repeats don't get cut off when I back the volume pedal (a Line 6 expression pedal) to heel position. Even before I had the unit, I always would put the volume pedal in the effects loop. If I want to back off the gain, I use my guitar's volume control.

Controlling the gain that way works really well with my Mesa amps. At our last band practice I needed to reduce the gain a bit for a couple tunes and since my pedal board was still a work-in-progress I didn't yet have an overdrive pedal connected which I had planned to use for that sound. I just backed off the guitar volume and it ended up sounding better than the pedal would have.

The chorus models are a little disappointing on the M13. I use the "analog" one, which is based on the old Roland Chorus, but I used to have the real one and it sounded better than that. Ditto for the Dimension 4, which I used to love. I do have a great sounding TC Chorus/Flanger pedal, but I have enough stuff to put in my luggage without lugging external pedals. Besides, I don't use chorusing very often.

I really don't like to use chorus very often, but there are a couple slow songs using a clean sound (and they also used to be filled out more nicely with keyboards when we still had a keyboard player) where I use it. I was also using the Analog Chorus as I thought that sounded noticeably better than the others. I've wondered if chorus just doesn't work that well into my amp, but the Danelectro Cool Cat chorus pedal I have on my pedalboard sounds better than anything I found in the M13.

Sorry the M13 isn't working out as you hoped it would! I used to use a pedal board, but I retired it a good while ago. Each has it's pros and cons, but the M13 is much more convenient for me. My favorite difference is that when you tap a tempo into the M13, it's global; it effects all time-based effects that you have set to respond to tap tempo. I used to hate it when it was time for a solo and I'd have to turn the delay on and tap the tempo in while simultaneously trying to start soloing. Now I can have the tempo tapped in well before actually turning the delay on.

No worries! My wife was really starting to get annoyed with how much I've spend on gear in the last several months and was pressuring me to get rid of some stuff, but when I explained the M13 would be useful for a home practice setup she seems to have relented. And I agree about the tap tempo feature. That is really handy. I like using it for tremolo speed. The one thing that might be cool is if there was a global 7 band EQ. Or even a couple that you could associate with various effects as needed. That would free up one row of switches.

It probably won't happen for quite a while, but I'm seriously thinking about sending the M13 away for the mod I posted above:

http://www.jhv3.com/m-series-mods/

From the website:

"Reduces background noise
Adds remarkable increase in fidelity and clarity
Effects are more profound and detailed
Clean signal is far more robust and clear
An analog master volume is added for fine level adjustment when effects are active or in DSP bypass mode"

[Yodelgoat]

I just bought a Carvin PA last year and I'm amazed at how good it sounds. Light cabs but a lot of volume. I've used the PA amps for years back when I played out, and they were always reliable and always more than loud enough. The speakers seem to be likewise, very, very high fidelity for what I have, with almost no distortion at full volume. I'd buy Carvin again and again if I needed a big PA, but I cant justify anything more because it just sits for most of the year and I use it on the 4th of july and perhaps on new years eve.

Yeah, Carvin rocks.