All Aboard! - Trainwreck Express Build Thread

shaunf · 2012-09-21T10:28:00+00:00

So, after 5 months of research, collecting parts, cold sweats and a few nightmares, my final parts order is waiting for me at the post office to collect this...

All Aboard! - Trainwreck Express Build Thread

shaunf

bottledtone wrote: I'm gonna be different and not ask about playing it.. ?
Do you sit and stare at it? It's just so pretty, I would look at it like it were art. Every brush stroke.....um.... you know what i mean ?
Before finishing an amp I sometimes find myself setting the toneknobs and flipping switches as if it were working already. yeah lame haha.
Its truely beautiful.

Thank you! Means a lot coming from an accomplished builder like you.

As you know, I am a novice builder. This is my first scratch build. As someone with more than a passing interest in art in many forms, I have to say that I really enjoyed putting it together as if it was a piece of art, rather than just for pure function. Looking at that gut shot of the amp you built for Sean, I can see you share this view and clearly impart a huge amount of time and effort into even the visual aspect of the circuitry.

I played it for about 30mins last night. The VVR works great. I'm really happy with the tone at all but the lowest levels where it loses a lot of its character. As far as the overall tone goes, I'm happy with the sound I heard coming out of the speakers, but one thing I've learnt just rolling a few different tubes though this amp to find a low microphonic complement, was that the tone of this amp changes significantly with different tubes. Far more than my Marshalls change when rolling the tubes I have access to. I'm going to spend some time over the coming weeks trying different combinations, which will ultimately lead me to the tone I finally decide to settle on.

Interestingly, I used a brand new set of Winged C EL34's to startup this amp, and have been running them for about a week now. Yesterday, I swapped them out with the set of NOS Siemens EL34's I bought especially for this amp. The different in tone and character is like night and day. Certainly not what I expected when swapping out a set of power tubes.

Nicholas-L

I would stare at it as well and just twiddle the knobs :-[

I find myself staring at the SLO at times thinking oh yeah baby what a sexy beast.

shaunf

Just to add, it's worth noting that the VVR allows me to scale the whole amp down to around 10% power. At 100% power, my B+ voltage is 410V, and at 10% a measly 41 volts. The amp is useable right down to 10%, however from a tone perspective though, it just sounds run-of-the-mill, like any other amp at low volume. From about 30% power the amp comes alive, with all of its tone and dynamics coming through. It's a hoot to have notes blooming and singing feedback on demand, at slightly loud bedroom levels.

Nicholas-L

That's super awesome dude. ?
All you can do is keep jamming hehe

ezietsman

shaunf wrote: Just to add, it's worth noting that the VVR allows me to scale the whole amp down to around 10% power. At 100% power, my B+ voltage is 410V, and at 10% a measly 41 volts. The amp is useable right down to 10%, however from a tone perspective though, it just sounds run-of-the-mill, like any other amp at low volume. From about 30% power the amp comes alive, with all of its tone and dynamics coming through. It's a hoot to have notes blooming and singing feedback on demand, at slightly loud bedroom levels.

Firstly, congrats on that amp. It is a thing of beauty. I'm very envious. You obviously are a natural at building them ?

I've realised too that the VVR is something that will help you tame the volume, make an amp truly playable in most situations, but going down to 10% voltage (That I think is far far less than 10% power, prob down to 0.5Watt or something), will not do good things to the tone. Guitar amps are meant to be played loudly and they sound better louder. Its not only a "overdrive the valves" thing, the volume must be sufficient and the speakers must work a bit before they start sounding the way they should. This is perfectly normal I think and perfectly reasonable. Slightly loud bedroom levels is where I play my 18 watt too, it sounds so much better there than with the VVR all the way down that I'd rather play unplugged than play like that. Without VVR an amp like this is unplayable in almost every way. Playing a Trainwreck amp clean is a crime against everything that is good in this world ?

shaunf

ez wrote: Playing a Trainwreck amp clean is a crime against everything that is good in this world ?

Agree with everything in your post, except this last bit. These amps have a really really nice, and dare I say unique, clean tone.

I have to say that in just the really short time that I've actually played through this amp, I really now appreciate my guitar's volume pots, and am glad I made the investment in some really slow taper pots. On my Les Paul, with the amp's volume control up halfway (Which is already deep into overdrive territory), and my guitar volume anywhere between 1 and 5, I have a sparkly crystal clean tone, 5-7 starts with a bit of hair, 6-7 brings on the dirt, and 7-10 removes heads from shoulders.

shaunf

While we're talking VVR's, I thought it would be interesting to compare the VVR technology that I installed in this amp, to the "Power Scaling" functionality in my Marshall AFD100.

Firstly, they're not the same. The VVR in the Trainwreck is totally variable, in that B+ Voltage and Bias voltage are simply scaled according to some ratio, and the transition is smooth. The AFD's power control is stepped, in that there are defined points around the dial where the power is stepped up and down, and a fair bit more intelligence in that the amp actually calculates the optimum bias at that particular power level and rebiases itself at each power point.

I agree with ez, in that the Trainwreck VVR probably scales down to around 1 watt, whereas the AFD will go all the way down to 0.1watt. Again something that differentiates them is that the AFD sounds a hell of a lot better at these low levels compared to the Trainwreck. At 1 watt, the AFD is already coming into it's own, whereas I reckon the Trainwreck is at at least 5w or so before it starts to sound good.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw this out there, because a lot of guys seem to think the power scaling in the AFD is the same technology as these VVR modules, when in fact they're not.

ezietsman

By clean I don't mean you shouldn't use clean tones, just that you don't put them on 2 and use pedals for dirt. The way you are doing it now is the way Ken intended them to be used I would imagine.

Interesting what you say about the AFD and the stepped power control. I wonder if there is in fact 'calculation' or if there is a few settings for VVR for which the bias is hardwired into the amp, such that it sounds decent at any of those settings. Getting VVR to work just right with a fixed bias amp is tricky, my friend in JHB built a plexi then converted it to a JCM800 (22 watt version with 6V6 power t00bz) with VVR and he said he had to play a bit to get the VVR to scale the bias correctly.

shaunf

ez wrote: By clean I don't mean you shouldn't use clean tones, just that you don't put them on 2 and use pedals for dirt. The way you are doing it now is the way Ken intended them to be used I would imagine.

Absolutely! That is absolute Heresy! No pedals shall ever plug into this amp. Ever.

Interesting what you say about the AFD and the stepped power control. I wonder if there is in fact 'calculation' or if there is a few settings for VVR for which the bias is hardwired into the amp, such that it sounds decent at any of those settings. Getting VVR to work just right with a fixed bias amp is tricky, my friend in JHB built a plexi then converted it to a JCM800 (22 watt version with 6V6 power t00bz) with VVR and he said he had to play a bit to get the VVR to scale the bias correctly.

I believe there is some sort of calculation that takes place in the AFD. In general it has some very clever bias circuitry, which allows you to use pretty much any octal tubes in the power section and even use a mixture of different types all together, and the bias circuitry will make it work. (Not saying it will sound good, but the bias circuitry makes it possible)

Nicholas-L

I would love to see the actual circuit to those amps some day, just to grasp what they did with the power scaling part ???

singemonkey

Beautiful. Congratulations.

Danny-B

shaunf wrote:
Absolutely! That is absolute Heresy! No pedals shall ever plug into this amp. Ever.

So much pedal hate ?

An exquisite build. So so cool.

shaunf

Danny B wrote:
shaunf wrote:
Absolutely! That is absolute Heresy! No pedals shall ever plug into this amp. Ever.

So much pedal hate ?

Nah! I like pedals. Just not with this amp. ?

Reinhard

Fantastic! Congrats ?

shaunf

Reinhard wrote: Fantastic! Congrats ?

Thank you! I'm really enjoying the amp.

singemonkey

Danny B wrote:
shaunf wrote:
Absolutely! That is absolute Heresy! No pedals shall ever plug into this amp. Ever.

So much pedal hate ?

It's simply that it is wrong to simulate the sound of a driving amp on an amp with a great drive sound. It'd be like having a Ferrari with a little speaker in the steering wheel that makes loud engine noises when you're driving at 50km/h.

VVR or power scaling would be like if you could shrink your Ferrari to matchbox size with you in it, so that you could gun it to the max and still not even break the speed limit. ???

Nicholas-L

singemonkey wrote:
Danny B wrote:
shaunf wrote:
Absolutely! That is absolute Heresy! No pedals shall ever plug into this amp. Ever.

So much pedal hate ?

It's simply that it is wrong to simulate the sound of a driving amp on an amp with a great drive sound. It'd be like having a Ferrari with a little speaker in the steering wheel that makes loud engine noises when you're driving at 50km/h.

VVR or power scaling would be like if you could shrink your Ferrari to matchbox size with you in it, so that you could gun it to the max and still not even break the speed limit. ???

Best explanation ever Singe ? :roflmao:

shaunf

singemonkey wrote: VVR or power scaling would be like if you could shrink your Ferrari to matchbox size with you in it, so that you could gun it to the max and still not even break the speed limit. ???

And here I thought you were a VVR fan...

Personally, I am very thankful for this technology. For the type of player I am at the moment, ie a bedroom hacker, the practical choice of amp would be a small, low wattage "bedroom amp". Problem is, these amps do absolutely nothing for me. Sure, some of them sound nice, but at the end of the day I need to have a tactile bond with each and every piece of equipment I own, or I will lose interest in it. To some extent, that bond is what motivates me. I just can't bond with the type of amp that is actually suitable for my purpose. I want the real deal, the amps that my guitar heros rocked.

So, since everything in life is ultimately a compromise, I would much rather own and play the amps that I love, albeit fitted with some clever technology that makes them usable for my purposes, while still maintaining much of their character that makes them special to me, than never playing or owning them at all, and instead using amps that I have no bond with, simply because they produce less volume and fit inside a lunchbox.

singemonkey

I am a fan. What I'm saying is that it'd feel the same (let's forget about the physics for now) driving a matchbox sized ferrari at 50km/h as driving the full sized one a (ok, I don't know I'm just going to guess) 250km/h.

Turning down the VVR, you can imagine the big amp getting smaller and smaller (warning. This does not actually happen ? ). It's still going balls to the walls, but you shrink it down to the point that the volume is bearable, right? Your 100W double stack is now coming up to your hip. It's still cranked to the same settings that Hendrix used, but the overall volume is diminished... meaning that you can have it cranked to the settings that Hendrix used.

No one gets to drive these amps the way they did in the old days that makes us go ??? ? It's not even a substitute to play that same amp clean but put a pedal in front that makes it seem like that amp driving. The amp then is just a prop to amplify the character of the pedal.

But with variable power tech, you get to hear 98% of that same sound of a 50W-100W amp driving. That's it. You get to hear it. Otherwise the most you could put on it would be a tiny bit of hair as you crank it to 2.5 and the audience starts to cover their ears.

shaunf

singemonkey wrote: I am a fan. What I'm saying is that it'd feel the same (let's forget about the physics for now) driving a matchbox sized ferrari at 50km/h as driving the full sized one a (ok, I don't know I'm just going to guess) 250km/h.

Turning down the VVR, you can imagine the big amp getting smaller and smaller (warning. This does not actually happen ? ). It's still going balls to the walls, but you shrink it down to the point that the volume is bearable, right? Your 100W double stack is now coming up to your hip. It's still cranked to the same settings that Hendrix used, but the overall volume is diminished... meaning that you can have it cranked to the settings that Hendrix used.

No one gets to drive these amps the way they did in the old days that makes us go ??? ? It's not even a substitute to play that same amp clean but put a pedal in front that makes it seem like that amp driving. The amp then is just a prop to amplify the character of the pedal.

But with variable power tech, you get to hear 98% of that same sound of a 50W-100W amp driving. That's it. You get to hear it. Otherwise the most you could put on it would be a tiny bit of hair as you crank it to 2.5 and the audience starts to cover their ears.

Couldn't agree with you more!

If for a minute we can get back to the pedal story though, my comment about not using pedals with this amp was possibly a bit misleading. In actual fact I believe that this amp doesn't take pedals very well, and further to that I believe Ken Fischer was rather anti-pedals, which was probably where my comment came from. I'm sure I'll try some pedals with it at some stage (not Drive pedals though, that would be silly), but of course the other problem is that the only pedals I own are a 535q Wah and a Boss DD3 delay. Lately I've been toying with the idea of getting my hands on a Tubescreamer to be able to hit the JMP's front section a little harder.