ezietsman
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Tokai-SA
ActionArnie wrote
i vote no tele. ?
A Tele with the 'right' bridge pickup rules the guitar world. 8)
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shaunf
ez wrote
This is how you do a demo:
=
Maybe go easy on the delay and avoid the 3 minutes of feedback ?
What I don't get is why he keeps turning around and fiddling with the amp to get more gain. I can dime my amp volume and still have a fair bit of clean headroom with just the guitar volume backed off.
I tried to record something this morning, but it came out horrible. The ipad mic couldn't handle it. No matter how much I dropped the mic input level, when I wound things up, it clips the mic.
makepeace
maybe try put it quite a bit further away? or do it outside? sure way to piss the neighbours off at any rate ?
shaunf
I had it as far away as I could get it in the room I have them in. Surprised I didn't get a knock a my door from security as it was!
shaunf
Ok, so this isn't really a proper "Demo". Wasn't playing anything in particular, but rather just tried to capture some of the amp's character, and this seems to me to be about as good as it gets trying to record a loud amp through the onboard mic of an iPad. I had to set the level of the mic to almost zero to stop it from clipping. Anyway, hopefully you get the idea until I can get something better done.
First bit is with the guitar volume set at around 4, second bit is with guitar volume dimed. Amp set with volume on 6, Bass, Middle, Treble and Presence all on 5, VVR on around half power, and nothing changed between the 2 sections.
Flame away! ?
Norman86
duuuuuude..... why no download option ☹
shaunf
Sorry Norman, you should be able to download now.
Norman86
thanks... cleans sounded very reverby?!
shimmery actually! and the drive... you sure you didnt use a different amp?
just kidding.. nice drive hey.. but was the volume for that a lot lower?
Or did it just compress that much?
shaunf
Thanks Norman. It's not a great clip at all, I know that, but yes you're right, The cleans are quite shimmery and warm. Interesting comment about the reverb too, because the recording it totally dry, with no reverb in the recording or added afterwards. I also don't really feel when playing it that it doesn't sound like it needs reverb.
The amp does compress a lot when under drive, and so the volume increase when winding up the guitar volume is marginal, however I think the ipad mic is compressing more that it actually does in real life.
Kalcium
shaunf wrote
To the rest of you nutters, I'm going to try to record a clip with what I have, this weekend. If it gives an reasonable idea of the way it sounds I'll post it. If not, you'll have to wait for someone helpful with a decent recording device and mic to help me out.
I did offer my red box as a means to record it and the offer still stands if you're keen.
shaunf
Kalcium wrote
shaunf wrote
To the rest of you nutters, I'm going to try to record a clip with what I have, this weekend. If it gives an reasonable idea of the way it sounds I'll post it. If not, you'll have to wait for someone helpful with a decent recording device and mic to help me out.
I did offer my red box as a means to record it and the offer still stands if you're keen.
Sorry dude! Must have missed that. What is this "Red Box" you speak of?
Keen to try anything! Preferably including a guitarist with a little more talent than I! ?
Kalcium
shaunf wrote
Kalcium wrote
shaunf wrote
To the rest of you nutters, I'm going to try to record a clip with what I have, this weekend. If it gives an reasonable idea of the way it sounds I'll post it. If not, you'll have to wait for someone helpful with a decent recording device and mic to help me out.
I did offer my red box as a means to record it and the offer still stands if you're keen.
Sorry dude! Must have missed that. What is this "Red Box" you speak of?
Keen to try anything! Preferably including a guitarist with a little more talent than I! ?
It does speaker emulation, it goes between the amp and the speaker and then allows you to tap that sound but with its own speaker emulation added, its useful for going straight into a desk instead of using a mic
makepeace
i LOVE the sound of the second part of that! not so much mad for the cleans, but i guess the recording doesn't do them justice. i'm embarking on building an amp i've designed to do the TW thing at lower output. probably going to end up between 7 and 12W, and will start on it soon and will post a brief build thread. also planning on 'mini' plexi, hiwatt, and bassman. quite excited for it.
edit Shaun, which PT did you use for your trainwreck?
shaunf
Ja look, to be honest I don't think any of what was in the clip does the amp any justice. I was just fiddling around on the ipad yesterday, found one of the "soundcheck" recordings I made trying to get the ipad to record without clipping, and on a whim decided to share it on the basis that anything is better than nothing.
The OT I used is a Heyboer HTS9384.
arjunmenon
shaunf wrote
It's interesting you mention Two Rock. I have a book at home called The Tube Amp Book by Dave Hunter. In this book is a large section on Trainwreck and some interviews with Ken Fischer. Now I don't want to talk out of turn, but I seem to recall him mentioning Two Rock, and if I'm not mistaken it was in the context of not being too happy with them for some or other reason. I'll dig it out tonight and if I find anything interesting or insightful, I'll post it here, but from memory there could very well be some of the Trainwreck DNA inside those Two Rock amps.
Fellow forumite Nicholas L loaned me his copy of Dave Hunter's book.
You're right. Ken Fischer does mention Two Rock (i think it was before they were part of PBG) wanting to use a few ideas from the Rocket.
KF didn't mention Two Rock in a good way.
shaunf
One final update I'd like to make to this build that I thought might help some of you fellow builders:
When I originally built this amp, I included blocking caps, with a 1 meg resistor to ground between both the input and the grid of V1, and well as between the volume control and the grid. I was told this was necessary to block DC from the guitar as well as the amp controls when you run the VVR at low levels.
During startup of the amp, I had some issues with DC on the guitar pots as well as the amp controls, even with these blocking caps in place. I discovered the caps I had used were leaky and removed them. Since the amp was then working well, and the little bit of DC present when the VVR was set low didn't really bother me that much, I hadn't gotten round to installing new blocking caps by the time we recorded those demo clips a few weeks ago.
At this point I was pretty happy with the amp. It sounded pretty awesome with the VVR set anywhere from between 1/3 and 1/12 and higher, but below that it wasn't great. The sound thinned out dramatically and it was quite buzzy. With the volume cranked, the drive tone also sounded a bit splatty. In short, I was happy with the amp, but still preferred my Marshalls.
I happened to be chatting to one of the Hall brothers, who designed the VVR that I used in my amp, a few weeks later, and in that conversation something rather important transpired. I was alerted to the fact that the blocking caps I had initially installed and subsequently removed, are not simply to block DC from the pots of the guitar and amp controls and prevent them from sounding scratchy, but in fact they are ESSENTIAL to the tone of the amp, particularly with the VVR set at lower levels.
On hearing this, I reinstalled some new blocking caps and my goodness, what a difference! The bass is tighter all round, the splatty distortion with the volume cranked is no longer there, and there is no hint of buzziness at any VVR level.
I can honestly now say, this amp is now truly completed, and is my firm favourite.
