Class 5 Issues

[Yardbird Mac]

Today, I brought home a Marshall Class 5 to give a trial run. It sounds great until I try to run effects (time delay) trough it. They sound muddy and distorted. 'Anyone else have this problem?

I'm giving serious thought to taking it back tomorrow.

 

[eddy999]

It's fairly common for people to dislike the sound of time-based effects being run through the front-end of an overdriven amp. Delay, reverb etc.

These effects are usually better placed after the distortion creating stages of the amp. For a high gain preamp this is usually the effects loop which comes after the preamp, however your C5 creates it's distortion in the power section, so even if there was a loop you'd still be inserting the effects in the wrong place (before the distortion).

Try dropping the level of the effect down, or don't use them at higher volume/gain levels.

Alternatively you could use a relatively cheap attenuator set on minimal/no attenuation (like a weber minimass) that has a variable line out to provide a signal to run through your delay and then into the front of a clean second 'slave' amp.

 

[stratoblaster]

That explanation makes a lot of sense. Consider in your pedal chain, your time based effects are usually placed after your drives/distortion.

I don't think I ever considered using my delay with my C5. I really only use that amp for raw tube saturation. When I want delay, I go with one of my Fenders for more clean headroom. It's not something I was really conscious of until you asked this question.

Try it at a lower volume (before it breaks up) just to see what it does. Turn it up until you find the point it stops sounding right. I doubt you will want to use the amp set that low but it might give you some insight.

 

[Yardbird Mac]

Well folks... I took the C5 back to the store today. I got my refund and invested in an MXR 10 band graphic EQ. I'm using it as a slight boost and to dial out some of the brittleness of the DRRI vibrato channel. I like a slightly fatter tone for solos.

I decided that it would be better for me to put together a pedal board so I ordered a PedalTrain jr. I also ordered a Zendrive. Here is what my setup will be: Tuner > Wah pedal > distortion > Chorus/Delay > EQ.

 

[stratoblaster]

The C5 is pretty much a one trick pony. If that trick doesn't work for you, there's no reason to keep it.

 

[Danno1985]

The C5 is pretty much a one trick pony. If that trick doesn't work for you, there's no reason to keep it.

Yeah, I own one and I'd have to agree. Still, I have one of those old Digitech delay/loop pedals, and was playing around with it and the Class 5. I pretty much never use pedals, and this one in particular has been gathering a lot of dust, but I was able to dial in a sweet slap-back sound. Yeah, it was muddy and dark, but sounded cool. Kind of "Truth"-era Jeff Beck-ish. But if you're looking for modern-rock, crystal-clean echo, yeah, an amp with an overdriven power amp isn't gonna cut it.