chosendarkness Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I've never tried any Line 6 gear, but I've heard nothing but good things about their stuff. I've got a few pedals I've played with and a few preamps (not pedals, 'cause I didn't buy stomp switches for them) that I've built. But when I use them with my little Valveking, I generally just use them as treble boosters. I've got a JFET treble booster design that I've been working on that puts out an almost 18Vpp signal. When I put it in front of my Valveking and tweek the bass cut, it FUCKING KILLS!!! I've got it in a little metal enclosure with a solderless breadboard inside. I might play around with my tone control design before I solder it together into a permanent build. If I get it to where I like it, I'll go ahead and buy a good stompbox enclosure with a proper stomp switch for it. That treble booster sounds cool! Funny I've never heard of it before but now I'm interested. I've been trying to figure out how to get the 'chainsaw' distortion sound I heard one time at a show. The only way I can figure he did it was by putting a crappy solid state distortion in front of a tube power amp. And also raising the pickups, and not using 'slinky' strings. Now I'm thinking maybe the the guy secretly used a treble-booster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I've never tried any Line 6 gear, but I've heard nothing but good things about their stuff. I've got a few pedals I've played with and a few preamps (not pedals, 'cause I didn't buy stomp switches for them) that I've built. But when I use them with my little Valveking, I generally just use them as treble boosters. I've got a JFET treble booster design that I've been working on that puts out an almost 18Vpp signal. When I put it in front of my Valveking and tweek the bass cut, it FUCKING KILLS!!! I've got it in a little metal enclosure with a solderless breadboard inside. I might play around with my tone control design before I solder it together into a permanent build. If I get it to where I like it, I'll go ahead and buy a good stompbox enclosure with a proper stomp switch for it. That treble booster sounds cool! Funny I've never heard of it before but now I'm interested. I've been trying to figure out how to get the 'chainsaw' distortion sound I heard one time at a show. The only way I can figure he did it was by putting a crappy solid state distortion in front of a tube power amp. And also raising the pickups, and not using 'slinky' strings. Now I'm thinking maybe the the guy secretly used a treble-booster. Yeah, by cutting the lows, you eliminate a lot of intermodulation distortion that muddies up the sound of a high gain amp. When Kirk Hammett uses a tube screamer in front of an amp, he's basically using it as a treble booster, though I guess one might view that as a mid booster. Some guys suggest cutting frequencies below 400hz before distortion and about 1khz after distortion to remove some of the harshness caused by clipping. Of course, when you're overdriving a tube output stage, your speaker cab is cutting the highs (which is why hifi speakers sound like shit with guitar amps). When I use my Marshall Jackhammer or Boss DS-1 in front of my Valveking, I basically adjust the tone to boost the highs, turn up the volume, and turn down the gain, so most of my distortion is coming from tubes. Of course, the most your going to get with a regular distortion or booster pedal is a signal that approaches 9 Vpp because the supply voltage is 9V. This is still considerably more than what you get from guitar pickups. But, my booster uses two 9V for an 18V supply, and has enough gain to cleanly output somewhere arround 16Vpp. I know others do this as well, but most mass produced booster pedals use a 9V supply. I guess it's debatable whether or not one needs 16 or 17 Vpp output from a booster pedal, but I like it. Here's a version of my booster pedal without any bass cut: 18 V JFET Preamp . This has a flat frequency response. What I'm working on right now has a tone control between the two JFET stages. When I settle on the tone control I want, I'll post the schematic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chosendarkness Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 Yeah, by cutting the lows, you eliminate a lot of intermodulation distortion that muddies up the sound of a high gain amp. When Kirk Hammett uses a tube screamer in front of an amp, he's basically using it as a treble booster, though I guess one might view that as a mid booster. Some guys suggest cutting frequencies below 400hz before distortion and about 1khz after distortion to remove some of the harshness caused by clipping. Of course, when you're overdriving a tube output stage, your speaker cab is cutting the highs (which is why hifi speakers sound like shit with guitar amps). When I use my Marshall Jackhammer or Boss DS-1 in front of my Valveking, I basically adjust the tone to boost the highs, turn up the volume, and turn down the gain, so most of my distortion is coming from tubes. Of course, the most your going to get with a regular distortion or booster pedal is a signal that approaches 9 Vpp because the supply voltage is 9V. This is still considerably more than what you get from guitar pickups. But, my booster uses two 9V for an 18V supply, and has enough gain to cleanly output somewhere arround 16Vpp. I know others do this as well, but most mass produced booster pedals use a 9V supply. I guess it's debatable whether or not one needs 16 or 17 Vpp output from a booster pedal, but I like it. Here's a version of my booster pedal without any bass cut: 18 V JFET Preamp . This has a flat frequency response. What I'm working on right now has a tone control between the two JFET stages. When I settle on the tone control I want, I'll post the schematic. That's interesting. I always turn down the bass to about 4, put the mid at about 7 or 8 and the high at about 9. Also I raise the pickups, turn the volume on the guitar to about 9.5 and lower the gain on the amp. I always use the bridge pickup. I tried using a ts-9 booster but didn't like the sound, it seemed to ruin the tone. I like to be able to play a chord and hear all the notes. There needs to be a chime when you play the chord, like a chainsaw cutting. It almost sounds like console distortion, but with extra tone from the tubes and speakers.. Definitely post the schematic when you're done. I can't build it but have a friend who can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Yeah, by cutting the lows, you eliminate a lot of intermodulation distortion that muddies up the sound of a high gain amp. When Kirk Hammett uses a tube screamer in front of an amp, he's basically using it as a treble booster, though I guess one might view that as a mid booster. Some guys suggest cutting frequencies below 400hz before distortion and about 1khz after distortion to remove some of the harshness caused by clipping. Of course, when you're overdriving a tube output stage, your speaker cab is cutting the highs (which is why hifi speakers sound like shit with guitar amps). When I use my Marshall Jackhammer or Boss DS-1 in front of my Valveking, I basically adjust the tone to boost the highs, turn up the volume, and turn down the gain, so most of my distortion is coming from tubes. Of course, the most your going to get with a regular distortion or booster pedal is a signal that approaches 9 Vpp because the supply voltage is 9V. This is still considerably more than what you get from guitar pickups. But, my booster uses two 9V for an 18V supply, and has enough gain to cleanly output somewhere arround 16Vpp. I know others do this as well, but most mass produced booster pedals use a 9V supply. I guess it's debatable whether or not one needs 16 or 17 Vpp output from a booster pedal, but I like it. Here's a version of my booster pedal without any bass cut: 18 V JFET Preamp . This has a flat frequency response. What I'm working on right now has a tone control between the two JFET stages. When I settle on the tone control I want, I'll post the schematic. That's interesting. I always turn down the bass to about 4, put the mid at about 7 or 8 and the high at about 9. Also I raise the pickups, turn the volume on the guitar to about 9.5 and lower the gain on the amp. I always use the bridge pickup. I tried using a ts-9 booster but didn't like the sound, it seemed to ruin the tone. I like to be able to play a chord and hear all the notes. There needs to be a chime when you play the chord, like a chainsaw cutting. It almost sounds like console distortion, but with extra tone from the tubes and speakers.. Definitely post the schematic when you're done. I can't build it but have a friend who can. Keep in mind that with at some point, you need to use simpler chords. With gobs of distortion, it's probably best to stick to power chords due to the extra intermodulation distortion you will get with triads. With power chords, you'll have the 1st and 5th plus the sum and differences of them both generated by the intermodulation distortion. If you throw in a minor or major third into the mix, it's going to get a little more muddy, which might be ok with lower amounts of distortion. If you're playing heavy metal levels of distortion and you have the 1st, 3rd, and 5th at a few different octaves, you'll have a mess. With the TS-9, it's possible that you were simply getting much more gain than suits your playing style. Maybe turning the volume and gain down for just a little bit of boost might have been a bit better. Of course, I might not be telling you anything you do not already know. I know some technical stuff about the electronics, but it's likely you know a hell of a lot more about guitar playing than I do, so take my advice accordingly. Here's a sound clip of a booster played through a modded Valve Jr.: http://runoffgroove.com/omega-higain.mp3 The booster pedal is a runoffgroove design called Omega. http://runoffgroove.com/omega-higain.mp3 It starts off with the booster bypassed, and then at various degrees of gain. Is this something like the sound you are looking for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovemybrain Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Oh god that's sexy...all those numbers, and big words like "intermodulation distortion"...mmmmm yeah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted March 8, 2011 Author Share Posted March 8, 2011 Oh god that's sexy...all those numbers, and big words like "intermodulation distortion"...mmmmm yeah Phase shifting!!! Pulse width modulation!!!!!! Now for the latest in the Larry vs. the She-devil wars. Came home from running errands to find her in quite the good mood. Seems there was some fuck-up in my medicare, and I got a healthy chunk-o-change from the gvment. I'm king of the hill again, for today at least, and both the guitar and I are staying put. As my family is fond of saying, if it wasn't my life it'd be funny as hell. MM, let me know how the Berhinger rig works, that' s similar to what I was looking at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chosendarkness Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Pretty close! It had that trebley ring to it. The boost sounds good. When I play a rhythm the chords are always either a full bar chord or quick 2 and 3 note chords. The bar chords sound really good as long as you hit the strings right. If it's dull and muddy there's either too much distortion or the strings attack is off. I like metal, love it actually but I hate to play it. It's too mechanical to have very much fun with. I like to play more f a powerpop/punk style. Good times. Here's an example of the tone I was looking for. It doesn't sound anything like that when you're there with the speakers pointed at you full blast, this sounds dry and lifeless compared. I saw these guys play and all it saw was an OR120 and a Marshall 4x12. But it sounds to me like they have some solid state thing hidden. Guitar starts about 1 minute in.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYJDMzMu0NM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted March 9, 2011 Author Share Posted March 9, 2011 Here's a pic of the homewrecker and heartbreaker: Note volume and tone faders. Model made only in 1968 at the matsumuko factory in Japan, one of their finest, it's said. That isn't a crack in the pick guard, it's a two-piece deal with the top section elevated. Mechanical palm mute. Cool old gal, considering the shape she was in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chosendarkness Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Great job! That guitar looks very sexy. To me it looks like it's saying 'touch me baby, handle me with your rough hands'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Yeah, that does look pretty sweet!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Here's a good demo of the Firefly amp I want to build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Ade8tJOW4 This has pretty good clean tone, but jump to around 3:00 and check out the kick ass tone coming from this amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
george caitlin Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 To expound on the situation: For those who don't know my situation, I live off disability (heart/diabetes) and she has been unemployed for a year and a half now. Money was tight even when both of us worked, so it's like a Playtex girdle now. My first ever guitar was a similar hollow-body electric. I play several instruments, some of them adequately, but I have forgone actually owning any, except my battered old "Willy style" acoustic guitar. Had it been clear at the onset that it was just a restoration project to be sold, I wouldn't have poured heart and soul (bad choice of words) into it. She's not the warm giving sort (at least where I'm concerned) and it was stupid of me to assume she had faltered. It was also silly of me to be hurt, but nonetheless............ Thanks to all who have/will comment(ed). The clown needs a pick-me-up sometimes. Larry If you only need a few more bucks to finish the project before you can turn around and sell it for hundreds, I would advise you to spend the $20 - then make sure you follow through and sell the instrument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chosendarkness Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 This has pretty good clean tone, but jump to around 3:00 and check out the kick ass tone coming from this amp. If you boost the volume with more speakers the clean sounds better than the distortion imo. Start watching at around 3:15 to see what I mean.. The magic might only last a few seconds but when you nail it that's all that matters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 This has pretty good clean tone, but jump to around 3:00 and check out the kick ass tone coming from this amp. If you boost the volume with more speakers the clean sounds better than the distortion imo. Start watching at around 3:15 to see what I mean.. The magic might only last a few seconds but when you nail it that's all that matters. With the boost mode engaged, these two builds sound quite different. It sounds like the guy in this clip isn't getting near the boost as the guy in the other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 MM, let me know how the Berhinger rig works, that' s similar to what I was looking at. I played a bit through it, and with the ASIO driver, the latency is plenty low enough. I haven't had a chance to do much with it yet. Too much Calc III homework to catch up on. I'll give a better review when I get the chance to do more with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chosendarkness Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 This has pretty good clean tone, but jump to around 3:00 and check out the kick ass tone coming from this amp. If you boost the volume with more speakers the clean sounds better than the distortion imo. Start watching at around 3:15 to see what I mean.. The magic might only last a few seconds but when you nail it that's all that matters. With the boost mode engaged, these two builds sound quite different. It sounds like the guy in this clip isn't getting near the boost as the guy in the other. They're probably different speakers, I saw the second guy was using a little Fender Champ or something which is a 10" speaker. But the first guy's sound is an 80's metal with the scooped mids which makes it sound compressed like an album. That's great for recording an album but it will get lost in the mix when you play with a band. Ideally you want to be able to sound great without too much disortion and effects. Boost it with how you control the string attack. The reason is because amps and guitars sound pretty much the same, The metal sound is a precise and controlled attack with scooped mids to emphasize the bass and highs, the rock sound is more loose with mids about in the middle. The sound on the recorded album is changed to make it 'ear-pleasing' from the stereo , so it uses lots of compression and loses the mids, or else it sounds too dynamic and abrasive for everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 This has pretty good clean tone, but jump to around 3:00 and check out the kick ass tone coming from this amp. If you boost the volume with more speakers the clean sounds better than the distortion imo. Start watching at around 3:15 to see what I mean.. The magic might only last a few seconds but when you nail it that's all that matters. With the boost mode engaged, these two builds sound quite different. It sounds like the guy in this clip isn't getting near the boost as the guy in the other. They're probably different speakers, I saw the second guy was using a little Fender Champ or something which is a 10" speaker. But the first guy's sound is an 80's metal with the scooped mids which makes it sound compressed like an album. That's great for recording an album but it will get lost in the mix when you play with a band. Ideally you want to be able to sound great without too much disortion and effects. Boost it with how you control the string attack. The reason is because amps and guitars sound pretty much the same, The metal sound is a precise and controlled attack with scooped mids to emphasize the bass and highs, the rock sound is more loose with mids about in the middle. The sound on the recorded album is changed to make it 'ear-pleasing' from the stereo , so it uses lots of compression and loses the mids, or else it sounds too dynamic and abrasive for everyone. No doubt differences in speakers made a big difference, but I think the first guy simply had more gain to the point to where I wonder if the second guy had everything hooked up right in the booster portion of the circuit. With four triodes in the preamp in boost mode, it's hard to imagine the second guy really had the boost circuit cranked. Also, keep in mind that with lots of preamp gain, you're sound is much more compressed without adding compression during or after recording. Don't know how it sounds with a band, but I sure liked the tones coming from the first guy's amp. Of course, everyone's opinions about tone vary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 The reason is because amps and guitars sound pretty much the same, The more I think about this, the more I have to disagree. There is a big variation in how various amps sound. One big reason for this is the different ways the frequency response of different amps are shaped. There's a big difference between relying on preamp distortion, power amp distortion or a mix of the two. Speaker selection makes a huge difference. The amount of negative feedback in the power stage has a huge effect on the damping factor and the degree to which the speaker effects the tone. Of course, with the firefly, there is no negative feedback applied, making speaker selection that much more meaningful. Ditto the little 5W amps like the Valveking R8, and Valve Jr. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chosendarkness Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 The reason is because amps and guitars sound pretty much the same, The more I think about this, the more I have to disagree. There is a big variation in how various amps sound. One big reason for this is the different ways the frequency response of different amps are shaped. There's a big difference between relying on preamp distortion, power amp distortion or a mix of the two. Speaker selection makes a huge difference. The amount of negative feedback in the power stage has a huge effect on the damping factor and the degree to which the speaker effects the tone. Of course, with the firefly, there is no negative feedback applied, making speaker selection that much more meaningful. Ditto the little 5W amps like the Valveking R8, and Valve Jr. Amps make different sounds definitely, and there's a big difference between a compressed high gain metal sound and say a Fender amp. But I guess what I mean is I've heard so many that they start to sound the similar to each other after awhile. It becomes less about what the gear sounds like and more about how it's used. The same goes for technical playing ability, it's not so much how technically skilled you are but how you play it, the music that you make. Still though, I'll mess around with the amp sound on the computer for hours to try to get exactly what I'm looking for, but that's after the song is already written and recorded. When actually playing it though the particulars of amp sound matters very little, as long as it's the basically the same.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted March 10, 2011 Author Share Posted March 10, 2011 I tried out the new little Fender Mustang. Mimics 24 basic amp sounds and 24 onboard effects plus USB interface to design your own. For 100 bucks I'm impressed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 I tried out the new little Fender Mustang. Mimics 24 basic amp sounds and 24 onboard effects plus USB interface to design your own. For 100 bucks I'm impressed. I thought you were talking about the guitar at first rather than the Mustang amp. hehe. I'd rather have a separate digital effects processor that I could plug into any amp, but then again, you can probably pipe the line out on the Mustang to other amps. I'd be concerned about being able to turn off the speaker emulation on the line out if I were piping it to other amps, though. Having speaker emulation plus the high frequency roll off of the real speakers from a separate amp could make the sound overly dark. I guess for most people buying the Mustang, this really isn't an issue. I guess it really wouldn't be an issue for me since all I would ever do with it is play guitar at home. I guess modularity appeals to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freespirit Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 To expound on the situation: For those who don't know my situation, I live off disability (heart/diabetes) and she has been unemployed for a year and a half now. Money was tight even when both of us worked, so it's like a Playtex girdle now. My first ever guitar was a similar hollow-body electric. I play several instruments, some of them adequately, but I have forgone actually owning any, except my battered old "Willy style" acoustic guitar. Had it been clear at the onset that it was just a restoration project to be sold, I wouldn't have poured heart and soul (bad choice of words) into it. She's not the warm giving sort (at least where I'm concerned) and it was stupid of me to assume she had faltered. It was also silly of me to be hurt, but nonetheless............ Thanks to all who have/will comment(ed). The clown needs a pick-me-up sometimes. Larry Yeah, Larry. It's silly of you to be hurt. She bought you a nice guitar to fix up because she likes you. She doesn't want you to buy an amp because you're broke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ro-bear Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 To expound on the situation: For those who don't know my situation, I live off disability (heart/diabetes) and she has been unemployed for a year and a half now. Money was tight even when both of us worked, so it's like a Playtex girdle now. My first ever guitar was a similar hollow-body electric. I play several instruments, some of them adequately, but I have forgone actually owning any, except my battered old "Willy style" acoustic guitar. Had it been clear at the onset that it was just a restoration project to be sold, I wouldn't have poured heart and soul (bad choice of words) into it. She's not the warm giving sort (at least where I'm concerned) and it was stupid of me to assume she had faltered. It was also silly of me to be hurt, but nonetheless............ Thanks to all who have/will comment(ed). The clown needs a pick-me-up sometimes. Larry Yeah, Larry. It's silly of you to be hurt. She bought you a nice guitar to fix up because she likes you. She doesn't want you to buy an amp because you're broke. Wow, you are just a little ray of sunshine, aren't you? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted March 11, 2011 Author Share Posted March 11, 2011 Wow, you are just a little ray of sunshine, aren't you? Thanks. I didn't want to say that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chosendarkness Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 I tried out the new little Fender Mustang. Mimics 24 basic amp sounds and 24 onboard effects plus USB interface to design your own. For 100 bucks I'm impressed. Wow a digital mpdeling amp for $100, cool! I hope the tube amps get cheaper too. Personally I'd spend a little more and get an Valve Jr, or something comparable in that price range. You could probably get one used (people sell them on craigslist all the time) for about $125. The sound you get from that will blow away any digital modeling. Tube amps cab be copied but digital can never capture the magic. You can't hear it on youtube either. A tube amp wiill be fuller and more soulful than digital. Especially with that bad-ass rocker you've got. Just my 2 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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