Express Dial In

[WhopperPlate]

Hello everyone,

After taking a break from the Express for awhile (wasn't really working for my band's sound) I plugged it in today to take a quick listen, and show a friend, and I started falling in love all over again.

However as I played I started to recognize and pinpoint what I previously thought needed work. I noticed that single note sustain, harmonic feedback, and clarity were great, but unison bends sound dissonant and weird, like two subharmonics clashing heavily. The effect is pretty muddy and really brings down note clarity.

After some time of playing, this "dissonance" becomes very fatiguing on myself. My Marshall builds all swell and bloom wonderfully with this technique with no harshness what so ever.

I've been watching all the Express videos I could find and I'm wondering is this just a natural characteristic of the Express? If I just play single notes and avoid this technique it sounds just like all the clips I have ever heard. Most footage I have seen doesn't really show case the unison bend technique.

[geetarpicker]

I don't notice any issues in this regard compared to other amps when using similar gain. Even compared to say an amp set clean and using pedals for dirt. Actually a Marshall 100 will show a bit more oddities in this regard as the power supply isn't as well filtered and you definately get some AC type ghosting. For the most part a wreck doesn't ghost even as much as a Marshall 50 which is mild compared to 4 input 100s. Are you sure you don't have some oscillation issues? This will give the distortion a very odd character, and especially when you play double stops. That all said, typically with double stops it's normal to hear about 3 different notes when you add distortion. You'll hear each note, plus a 3rd note caused by the beating effects of each of the tones together. As the double stop notes get closer to each other the 3rd note will go lower and lower, until it's out of range. Still you can even hear this on an just about any amp set totally clean if you really listen carefully, it's definately not just a Trainwreck thing.

[Cliff Schecht]

My Express sounds great with double stop licks. Clean or dirty, if you can get your bends in tune then your Express shouldn't have dissonance problems. Like Glen said, check it on a scope for oscillations outside of the audio range. Maybe you need to play around with your amps lead dress a bit.

[WhopperPlate]

I'll try and post some clips, I'm not really convinced its LF oscillation, but I'll throw it on the scope this weekend and peek around. My first thought was that this could just be a preference thing and other good ears might think its fine.

To me it has a almost neck humbucker into fuzzface type character in that the unison bends really beat out of tune, like a heavy, fundamental accented beating compared to my Marshall sound, which is much more forgiving in this aspect as the notes sort of blend smoothly, not this heavy fundamental "beating".

I'm using a deep Marshall 412 clone with ev12s and ev12l speakers mixed which could be a contributing factor, but every other amp that I plug in to that cab sounds superb, so I don't know.

I'll check the scope asap. Is there any special parameters for preventing low frequency oscillation specifically vs. High frequency oscillation as far as lead dress is concerned?

Thanks for the time guys!

[Gibsonman63]

One thing I have noticed with my Express clone is that I have to play with a lot more precision to make things work. I have been playing for a long time and thought that I was pretty acurate with my bends, double bends, etc... With the Express clone I can really hear the semi-tones and the notes rubbing against each other when they are not perfectly on pitch. Pretty useful to start a little out and then bend to pitch because it realy draws your ear in with this amp. I have also noticed that I can't get as much life out of a string as I previously thought because the intonation seems to change a little after a couple of gigs outside in the hot Texas sun.

[WhopperPlate]

Gibsonman63, sounds like we're on the same page. Like I said, I've listened to as many clips as I could find and from what I can hear it seems to be a common element to the Express sound. It's like the notes have so much depth and complex overtones that it has this effect you and myself have mentioned.