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previous: A.S Re: 5150 Circuit Opinions -- 3/9/2000 2:47 PM

TMT

3/9/2000 3:58 PM
Stephen Conner	TMT Many folks think the problem with the 5150 crunch sound (and with many Boogie rigs!) is TMT... too many tubes. I used to be a gain freak metal shredder and I made up various high-gain designs. I generally found that the more tube stages you stuck in, the worse it sounded! Each stage seemed to make the sound more mushy and flat, and generally sap the dynamics and life out of it. Eventually it sounded just like a transistor fuzz box. I now much prefer the sound of fewer stages driven harder, with tiny coupling caps and no cathode bypass caps to prevent farting. 4 triode stages like this (excluding the PI) still seems enough for beastly shredding, especially when you get the power amp wound up too. So why not try bypassing a few of the preamp stages, and removing some of the components Peavey used to dump gain between stages. The other problem with the 5150 (AFAIK) is that even on the clean channel, the signal passes through all the tube stages! So you get lots of noise and a lack of dynamics. You could probably improve the clean channel a lot by bypassing most of the stages. Or you could trade it for a nice Marshall. Apparently, even though Eddie Van Halen endorses the 5150, he still plays Marshalls live and in the studio. Steve C.

3/9/2000 3:58 PM

Stephen Conner

TMT

Many folks think the problem with the 5150 crunch sound (and with many Boogie rigs!) is TMT... too many tubes. I used to be a gain freak metal shredder and I made up various high-gain designs. I generally found that the more tube stages you stuck in, the worse it sounded! Each stage seemed to make the sound more mushy and flat, and generally sap the dynamics and life out of it. Eventually it sounded just like a transistor fuzz box.

I now much prefer the sound of fewer stages driven harder, with tiny coupling caps and no cathode bypass caps to prevent farting. 4 triode stages like this (excluding the PI) still seems enough for beastly shredding, especially when you get the power amp wound up too.

So why not try bypassing a few of the preamp stages, and removing some of the components Peavey used to dump gain between stages.

The other problem with the 5150 (AFAIK) is that even on the clean channel, the signal passes through all the tube stages! So you get lots of noise and a lack of dynamics. You could probably improve the clean channel a lot by bypassing most of the stages.

Or you could trade it for a nice Marshall. Apparently, even though Eddie Van Halen endorses the 5150, he still plays Marshalls live and in the studio.

Steve C.

Replies:

Trace q{I used to be a gain freak metal s... -- 3/9/2000 4:11 PM