Dsl Pseudo Tone Stack

[Crunchifyable]

I'm curious about the pseudo tone stack that Marshall has the on the DSL (C1, C2, C3, etc). Or at least...that's what it looks like to my amateur eyes. It's switched in after the first gain stage...

I've never seen an amp with this. This was from the DSL40C schematic...and I've seen similar on other DSLs

What's the point? to scoop the mids before the distortion? To make the clean channel sound more fendery

Is this why everyone complains about the "clean / crunch" sounding too different from the lead?

I wonder what it would sound like if the pseudo stack was bypassed...more like a 2204?

 

[RickyLee]

That is exactly what they are doing there. It is like having a Fender tone stack set on fixed settings. And Fender uses their tone stack right after the first stage as well.

No need to mess with it, as the Crunch channel is basically bypassing that and mimicing a 2203 in that section.

The Crunch mode is based off the 2203 preamp. But there is more compression and other factors due to the DSL having more stages than a 2203. You have an FX loop, reverb and such. So it can never be totally identical to the 2203. But it does a close decent job of it in my opinion.

 

[Crunchifyable]

That is exactly what they are doing there. It is like having a Fender tone stack set on fixed settings. And Fender uses their tone stack right after the first stage as well.

No need to mess with it, as the Crunch channel is basically bypassing that and mimicing a 2203 in that section.

The Crunch mode is based off the 2203 preamp. But there is more compression and other factors due to the DSL having more stages than a 2203. You have an FX loop, reverb and such. So it can never be totally identical to the 2203. But it does a close decent job of it in my opinion.

Thanks. I suspected "crunch" was bypassing it anyway...but I guess yeah it's a different beast. One which I'd like to understand. Who knows maybe I'll build a JVM or DSL preamp one of these days just to experiment.

On the mini DSLs that lack the "crunch" mode...maybe that's why people don't really like them....maybe. There's a lot of gain stages going on in the Ultra side of things...and no real cold clipper either. Which I guess creates a warm distorted tone.

 

[RickyLee]

Thanks. I suspected "crunch" was bypassing it anyway...but I guess yeah it's a different beast. One which I'd like to understand. Who knows maybe I'll build a JVM or DSL preamp one of these days just to experiment.

On the mini DSLs that lack the "crunch" mode...maybe that's why people don't really like them....maybe. There's a lot of gain stages going on in the Ultra side of things...and no real cold clipper either. Which I guess creates a warm distorted tone.

I have considered using a tweaked version of DSL/TSL Lead1 or OD1 from the JVM in one of my projects as well. They are quite different from each other and the DSL has one more gain stage than the JVM OD modes.

 

[Crunchifyable]

I have considered using a tweaked version of DSL/TSL Lead1 or OD1 from the JVM in one of my projects as well. They are quite different from each other and the DSL has one more gain stage than the JVM OD modes.

I was actually shocked when I saw the schematic (all those stages...) and I don't really understand the why of it. Nor do I understand why a JVM works.

I vaguely understand the 2203 and the 5150 / Soldano, both of which operate on cold clippers (10k and 33k).

But never really understood why Marshall uses "warm" clippers on their amps.

They all sound cool.