Okay, so I just recently picked up a Music Man RD50 head from Nasvhille. I've been using a Peavey classic 50 410 combo amp and had to get rid of the thing because it cannot handle heavy gigging w/o needing to be serviced ALOT.
Anyways, I would use my micro amp boost pedal with the Peavey in certain tunes and I've noticed that on the limiter channel with my music man head the boost does not "boost" the signal but instead keeps the volume adding only a bit of gain distortion to the sound coming from my cab. Why does it do this, is this normal, and is there anyway around it?
On a sidenote when I play it through the clean channel, the boost does indeed work like it normally does in my Peavey 410.
A boost doesn't just effect volume...
A boost pedal won't always increase volume (as you are finding), it merely pushes the next item in line harder.
With the clean channel of an amp, often you will hear it as a "volume boost" but what you are really doing is turning up the input level - or gain.
With the dirty side of an amp (the limiter side on the RD-50) I am going to assume you already have the volume (gain) turned up for distortion.... when you hit it with a microamp you are effectively turning up the volume (gain) knob further. It may just add more distortion rather than volume. This is a very common technique for making your leads stand out and have more sustain.
In order to get a boost pedal to be a true "clean boost" (ie: make the amp louder) it would need to be placed in an FX loop so it only turns up the power amp section, not the preamp section. Unfortunately, Musicman amps don't typically have FX loops.
Edit to add: I'm surprised you have had on going problems with your Classic 50.... those amps are usually work horses.
Thanks for the info, I fixed
Thanks for the info, I fixed the reverb tank. Just needed a little tinkering.