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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Re: Brown

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5/5/1999 5:24 PM
jason	Re: Brown Doc, How about if your heaters were run from a stand alone 6.3v transformer with it's primary tied to 120v and a variac connected to the main power supply transformer. No need to worry about cathode stripping because the variac wouldn't be changing the heater voltage. Would this type of a hook up cause any type of ground problems resulting in hum or shock? Just a thought... jason

5/5/1999 8:14 PM
R.G.	Keeping the filaments at rated voltage, you're pretty much free to lower B+ all you like, and have it be non-damaging. I would think you'd want to find out what primary voltage sounded best to you and then do something like the Vintage AC adapter to nail it each time without having to haul and diddle a variac.

5/6/1999 5:41 AM
GFR	Just remember to rebias as you change B+.

5/5/1999 7:57 PM
MKB	Hello Doc. Perhaps Mr. Randall Smith could explain, as he did basically the same thing by patenting the use of a PT primary tap to lower amp voltages (on the Dual Rectifier, I think). I'm surprised he didn't patent the Variac trick.

5/6/1999 12:29 AM

Yes, the brown sound is associated with the great EVH. But it was actually an inline light dimmer switch, not a variac that he used to originally get that sound. It was done so he could practice at "Lower Volumes" and still get that cranked Marshall sound.
My goal here is to try and come up with a pedal of sorts that I can incorporate as many of the spectrums as possible, bluesy, to brown, to all out shred.
Is the Matchless Hot Box more of a pre-amp than a distortion pedal?
Doug

5/6/1999 3:47 AM
Mike Burgundy	Re: Hotbox It´s a Distortion allright. If you want something even more versatile, have a go at the Matchless Dirtbox. This thing is truly stunning. Now, does anyone have a schem on that one?

5/6/1999 5:45 AM
GFR	When the Bogner Triple Giant and the GT Trio were developed everybody wanted the EVH "brown" sound. This was before everybody wants SRV sound. Anyway, both of these preamps have channels designed to give you "brown sound" (Bogner - brown channel, GT - scream channel), altough I don't know if they succeeded. You can find their schematics at Steve Ahola's site.

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