The Watering Hole

This 3120 amp is pissing my fingers off. You know that vibe you get when you have an amp or pedal that just hits your ears in the sweet spot....so you go to it every night and just play. And eventually your fingers hurt.

Yes the 3120 is a high gain amp. BUT...(and ironically), when in the Lead channel at low gain, and using single coils, those EL34's have a really nice low gain breakup. There is something about how the Lead channel is built on this thing that really works nicely in the lower gain spectrum. Again, and ironically, the Lead Channel has the capacity for lower gain than the Rhythm channel. But at the same time it has more low end than the Rhythm channel at low gain. So you get a nice big, full, low gain tone. And spanky as hell with single coils.

This is honestly the best aspect of this amp....yet you will never see it on Youtube (because everybody who shows this amp on Youtube is below 24 years old and only shows the high gain spectrum).

But I will also give it props in the high gain area as well. The Rythm channel can go from AC/DC to Dream Theater by turning the gain from 2 to 7. As the gain knob actually goes from 1 to 10, I have all of the gain on tap I will ever need. For anything. And all of the gain is pure tube driven.

I'm using the RP500 pedal purely for effects now. But I do have a 'solo' patch with just a hair of the on-board Tubescreamer and delay for solos. Just Killer.

Clips please ! Sounds interesting, especially as any high gain amp demo on youtube is simply someone chugging away on one string (or 2 at most) in either drop D or drop C.   Would be good to hear a "just breaking up" demo of this amp.

Johnny — Jul 20, 2014 You know that vibe you get when you have an amp or pedal that just hits your ears in the sweet spot....so you go to it every night and just play.

Yep my Hot Rod Deluxe/C-Rex does that for me. I just love it's tone, so I understand very well just what you posted above, have fun with your new toy amigo. I am glad it works for you.

Jon, I'll try to get some clips made. Have to get an XLR to 1/8" jack adapter to plug the mic cord into my computer. The amp has a line out, but I'd rather record the sound pushed from the speakers. Plus I don't have a mic preamp, so will have to do it when I can crank it up (meaning - when nobody else is home).

Since I posted last, I've tooled around with the clean channel on the amp and pedals on the RP500. The Digitech Redline pedal was designed as a clean boost pedal. But the one onboard the RP is voiced very much like a 'Screamer, and also has nice controls for Low and high EQ's. With some trimming, I've found a really killer 'red dirt' tone that has nice bottom end, yet nicely 'quacky' in the second pickup position at the same time. Very Bassman + Screamer-ish. I can only imagine what the clean channel on this amp would sound like with a high end overdrive pedal.....

What kind of high end overdrive pedal would you want to try with it?

I vote for this one...

http://www.effectrode.com/products-page/effects/td-2a-tube-drive/

To answer your question Charger.....something like what Ironsheep posted, but a little less expensive ;)   Something in the higher end of the  Fulltone range of OD pedals maybe. Just something that can get a nice, smooth, red dirt tone, but with more balls (gain and low end) than a Screamer.

I've moved into another phase of really digging into this amp....which is.....getting my chunky, tight rythm tone down for live use. My rock band 'Durham' is actually (and finally) moving forward on getting our 4-year-in-the-making CD finished. And we have gigs lined up for October and November.
When I say chunky and tight, I'm going for something in the neighborhood of Blink182 type rythm. Not metal by any means, but...well...chunky. And tight.

Upon reading stuff about the 3120 from other owners, I've learned that the 'special sauce' on this amp is the effects loop. Up until now, I have been running my RP500 'in front' of my amps. So I have been re-working all of my pedal settings while running through the effects loop of the 3120. Not only do all of the effects sound better, the effects loop has level IN and OUT knobs (see attached pic) that act like onboard power-brakes (or variacs). As in the pic, I can turn the effects loop IN and OUT knobs to about 30%, and the output of the amp runs at those levels. Meaning...I can turn the amp up, and yet maintain lower volume (while driving the tubes).

The pedal that came with the amp has an 'effects bypass' button on it. When I hit it, the amp goes up to its normal preset volume, and I get the sound of the amp on its own. As I am using the EQ on the RP500, the tone is night and day. You really need an EQ to get a good full sound out of this amp.

Another (very cool) thingy about the effects loop level knobs....when they are set at say 30%, and the channel gains in front are turned up to compensate for volume, I get an insane amount of compression. So right now, I can match Blink182's crunch with my pre-amp gain set at about 3. 6 gets me into Dream Theater territory. 8 vaporizes cats and Howie types.....:)