For all you Shiva users....I've noticed that you can get very different tones by cranking the channel volume and leaving the master low, or cranking the master and leaving the channel low, or somewhere in the middle for both. How do you get the most natural and beautiful sound out of the OD channel? I've been doing a lot of tweaking lately, hard to find *the* sweet spot. I'm just looking for any ideas, anything from settings to tubes to speakers etc. Thanks!
I demoed that amp. It has a sweet albeit compressed tone. I cut the gain up and master down too. I think they are cool heads though. I tried an avenger and shiva at the same time. I ended up ordering an avenger, but the shiva actually had a more unique tone. I was looking for a straight up rock tone.
Someone once said on this forum and I can't remember who, "You either love the Shiva drive channel or hate it". Seems to be an aquired taste that I haven't aquired yet.
yeah, it makes sense. I love it, but I just though some of the TGPers here would have some suggestions for things that worked for them.
I ran a Shiva as my primary amp in a rock band for 3 years straight. I am one of the "you either love the OD on the Shiva or hate it. There is no middle ground" guys. I say it all the time, and FWIW, I loved it. Basically, I tried NOS tubes everywhere in the Shiva, and the Shiva.... hated them. I found, after a LOT of trial and error, that the Chinese preamp tubes were best for the amp; I liked Flying C SED EL-34's. I cannot recall the bias setting I liked, sorry. I played, at the time, H/H guitars (PRS, Hamer) and had the preamp gain up to 3 o'clock, everything else at 12 o'clock. I ran Celestion V-30's in the big Bogner 212; and a G12H-30/Vin 30 mix in the big Bogner straight 412 (either/or on the cabs, never both at the same time). I liked the master cranked and the preamp open to taste, but found it was the wrong color of OD for the band I was in. It stepped on the other guitar players tone in the mix, at least to my ears. I just cranked the preamp gain as noted above and used the master to taste. Just my experience and opinion.
thanks for your suggestions! I find a lot of times I have to either keep the master pretty low or the channel volume very low, and there's some tonal discrepancies in there. Thank you again!
I like it as crunchy as possible and I find that the master at 10 oclock and channel 2 at 11 oclock works perfectly with the gain to the max!! Enjoy~ Thomas
My former bandmate has the 1x12 combo that also, in our opinion was too compressed. We put an ECC81 in the PI spot and patched the loop (with the special Bogner cable)without using the loopamp. This made it possible to set the master higher without being too loud and run the channelvolumes higher too. It's still not one of my favourite amps but it made it sound much better to our ears. Giga.
I prefer to use an overdrive pedal set as a clean boost (with built in boost off) for rhythms, for more of an edgier type tone. For solo fills I like the built in boost because it's a fatter tone. Here's a short clip where I used a Bad Monkey for rhythms and the built in boost for the solo lines: http://www.mp3lizard.com/download.cfm?id=18186
I have the EL34 1x12 combo. I tend to keep the Master pretty high (around 1:00), I like the sound of the power tubes running hard, and adjust the channel volume accordingly. Also, I run the tone controls pretty hot as well, somewhere around 3-4:00.
I've been using an EL34 Shiva since about 2000 for live and studio work. For the od channel I try to keep the volume for that channel up to 10-12:00. Gain from 9-12:00, depending on the material. Start with tone controls at noon and mix for the guitar and the room. I really like the overall master volume for its ability to keep most of the personality of the amp at lower volumes for smaller venues. I use either a Jenkins 1x12 or a Jenkins Hwy 61. There's Weber C12B and S series speakers in them. Tried some NOS tubes at some point, but did not care for them with the amp. I use Svets for the power tubes and mix and match preamp tubes. The amp's voice is pretty mid-centric and somewhat compressed. To me it always sounds better in a band setting than it does on it's own. It's been a great amp for me. Here's a couple single note clips. One in the studio one live. The studio was done with a Wolf standard, the live was a Melancon mahogany Tele variant with P90s. Studio Live
Nice! Yeah, I just find myself keeping either the channel volume or master fairly low in order to play some smaller venues...I wonder if I'm sucking the tone out of this poor amp. There's a lot of great characteristics to the Shiva, and many strongpoints...I just want to maximize them
Based on Mark Cameron's advice I bias'd my Shiva on the lower end of the spectrum..about 30-32mv depending on taste. +1 on sticking with chinese preamp and SED EL34's, tube swapping experiments were not an improvement other than putting a 12at7 in the reverb rather than the stock 12ax7 The last thing I gravitated towards....was a completely different way to dial in the amp. Initially I started out focused on the gain channel, and would crank the gain and channel master...and I also noticed as you did that the alternative of cranking the master and then bringing up the channel volume gave a different tone... in the end, what I liked best, due to a less dark sound overall Crank the clean channel volume all the way up. Bring the EQ's down to about 9 o'clock on bass/treble..to help keep the volume down. Bring the master as loud as you can bare (with your guitar volume rolled back to about 7) Then, set your OD channel gain and volume to where you need it to be. This resulted in a fantastic clean channel that could get great blues grit when the guitar volumed was dialed or when using a clean boost...and the OD channel sounded good, and was less dark sounding. Depending on how much gain you need, you might need to engage the boost or add a clean boost. I hope you like it...it worked well in live situations for me. Also notice with the master up so much, you might need to roll back the reverb alot as it seems to take off non linearly at high volumes.
I love the Shiva drive channel so much with humbuckers. It's probably my favorite Marshall-flavored drive sound ever.
i agree with most everything above, but i want to add that a Tung Sol reissue in V1 is better than the recommended Shuguangs imo (but don't bother for the other tubes). more life & depth, especially for cleans. a bit more gain for ch2 also. give it a try.
