Speed Shop A12Q Speaker

Speed Shop A12Q speaker.

After some deliberation, I ordered a Speed Shop A12Q AlNiCo speaker to use with my 5E3 head. I was deciding between the Weber 12A125A and the Speed Shop A12Q for a while. The A12Q is a 20W Weber speaker built to Speed Shop’s specifications. It’s described as an idealized Jensen P12Q sound, supposedly with less highs than the 12A125A.

The positive reviews of the Speed Shop speaker on various forums led me to purchasing one. The price difference between the speakers was negligible. The speaker is still within the 12A125 family, so I ended up supporting both companies.

Weber identification sticker for A12Q.

It took exactly 2 weeks to take delivery of the speaker. The speaker’s build date was a week after my order went in, earlier than the quoted build date.

Speaker mounted in cabinet with grill removed.

I put the speaker in an unloaded Tech 21 1x12 cabinet that I got directly from Tech 21 for $57, including shipping. The cabinet is used interchangeably for the Tech 21 Trademark 60 and Power Engine 60 amps. Although the whole cabinet might be MDF, the Trademark series seems to be respectable enough from a tonal standpoint. I had to buy some 10-32 x 1 1/4” bolts to mount the speaker. It didn’t come with any speaker wire, so I bought a Fender internal combo speaker cable to wire up the speaker. I spent about $230 for the whole cabinet assembly, so I’m not concerned about getting a 100% authentic pine cabinet Tweed Deluxe experience. I do want to experience the 5E3 circuit through a Jensen-voiced 12” speaker rather than a Celestion.

Less than ideal speaker cable mounting.

I was able to use the power cord holder to secure the speaker cable’s make TS jack. I am connecting to an external speaker cable using a female to female 1/4” coupler. The speaker cable termination isn’t the most elegant installation, but I don’t want to sink any more money into the project.

A12Q speaker in Tech 21 1x12 cabinet.

I am liking how the speaker sounds in the room with the 5E3. I am of course taking impulse responses of the speaker cabinet to learn more about how my modelers and amps sound through the speaker at different mic positions. My initial observations from listening to the speaker are that there are more low mids and less highs than I expected. I am moving my dynamic mics back about an inch off the grill due to the proximity effect. The captures of mics close to the center of the dust cap are very useable.

Link to IRs: here

While my focus is on getting tones with the 5E3 pairing, I may have stumbled upon some good sounds with my 5F1/5F2A amp. I ran some WAVs of the loaded down amp through IRs and really liked the tones in isolation. 

To be continued.

Fractal Audio FM3

Fractal FM3.

Was I bought a Fractal Audio FM3 to see what I was missing in the amp modeling world. The number of Marshall models was the main driver to getting the unit. There are flavors like Plexis with large bright caps that the Line 6 do not offer. The early reported bugs with the FM3 appeared to be resolved as the product matured.

Initial Impressions

I checked out the 59 Bassguy and 65 Bassguy presets using my Supro Hampton guitar and like the clean/breakup sounds that I was able to get. I then jumped over to the Plexi 50W preset. The gold foil pickups work well with hitting the front end of these models. The IRs suited the presets well. I played around with the bright cap settings on the Plexi 50W High 1, and enjoyed having the ability to dial in 100pF and 5000pF settings.

The Bassman amps were better than the Helix counterparts with humbuckers for my tastes. With single coils, I like both devices. The Plexi models are much more versatile on the FM3 than the Helix with the ability to dial in the bright cap. The models are better suited for more rocking humbucker sounds, although the Brit Trem Brt is still my favorite Helix model. The Marshall models in the Helix are more mid-60s bass-spec flavored than the Metal Panel ones on the FM3. I am a big fan of bass spec amps, but I do like the gainer 70s sounds from time to time.

I now do understand the gripes about front panel editing on the FM3. It’s much much quicker to edit on the HX Stomp front panel. I was a bit overwhelmed with the menus on the FM3 and felt much more comfortable using FM3 Edit to make changes to presets. It’s going to take some time to figure out how to best utilize the foot switches along with a Mosky Dual Switch.

Portability

I  began to prefer a more compact setup while using the HX Stomp, to be able to play and record in remote locations. The HX Stomp will still be my primary remote setup since I have it running on battery power. I do want to try to use the FM3 to record DIs remotely to reamp later. Input levels on the FM3 were 1.5dB lower at 440Hz and 1kHz, so I can use DIs between units interchangeably. 

I originally envisioned mounting the FM3 on a pedalboard to take advantage of all the routing options when I was first on the waiting list. However, I learned with the HX Stomp that I was much less adventurous than I had thought with routing and interfacing with other equipment. I found that I wasn’t using the loops to interface external pedals or stereo outboard much. I was mostly inserting loaded down tube amps in one loop.

As an Audio Interface

USB recording and reamping was a major consideration when looking into the FM3 again. When I was originally on the FM3 waiting list, there were apparently USB performance that needed to be worked out to minimize pops and clicks at typical ASIO buffer sizes.

Not all is fixed. The Axe-FX III and FM3 don’t properly report latency to the host DAW as an audio interface. With the ASIO buffer size at 128 samples and the FM3’s hardware buffer at the default 1536 samples, I get just under 10ms of reported latency with the FM3 connected to my desktop. There is however an additional 2149 samples of latency not reported to Reaper. The latency seems to depend on the active blocks in a preset. With shunt blocks from input to output, the additional latency becomes 1168 samples. I can enter these offsets into Reaper’s preferences and print sample accurate reamps through the USB connection. 

Short clip of a few FM3 Plexi models in a mix.

To be continued.

Speaker Impulse Response Updates

I have been reshooting some more impulse responses of my speakers, knowing that I will have to put most of my gear into storage in June. The links on the download page are always updated to the latest attempts.

For my remaining immediate projects, I decided to stick with the following microphones:

• Shure SM57
• Beyerdynamic M201TG
• Sennheiser E906
• Oktava MK-012
• Beesneez Lulu FET
• Beesneez BU87I C

Cabs finished so far:

• Jet City 2x12 - Celestion Greenback
• Jet City 2x12 - Celestion V-Type
• Eminence 1x12 - Weber Ceramic Blue Dog
• Eminence 2x12 - Classic Lead 80
• Eminence 2x12 - Vintage 30
• Tech 21 1x12 - Speed Shop A12Q
• Roland 1x10 - Jensen C10Q
• Roland 1x10 - Jensen C10R

Cabs I can hopefully finish:

• Pro Junior IV 1x10 - Jensen P10R
• Roland 1x10 - Eminence GA10-SC64
• Vox Pathfinder 1x10 - Vox Bulldog

I have been enjoying mixing my latest Celestion IRs in Ignite Libra from STL Tones. It is satisfying to blend through my set of speakers to come up with my own tones.