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high gain delima

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4/28/2000 5:51 AM

high gain delima

I very much like the sound of my amp, but on occasion I would like to have an over the top high gain sound. this is somthing my 2-gain stage 15watter just can't do. I don't think SS stomp boxes would do, I've been spoiled on the responsivness of tubes for too long. I'm thinking of maybe building a tube preamp to get the mega gain I want. I'd like to hear suggestions for some preamp designs that would be good. so far, the only one I've seen is the Mesa/Boogie markI preamp on this site. I have an old EQ pedal and would like to use it for the tone controls, it would be easier to sculpt the tone that way, and i wouldn't have to spend money on pots, caps, ect. let me know what you guys think would be best way to acheive this.
Ricky

4/28/2000 6:02 AM

a stompbox WILL do it. a ss stompbox set with the distortion all the way down and the volume all the way up, or anything that will boost the signal will give you tons of TUBE gain. it doesn't matter that it's solid state. it's simply sending a hotter signal than your guitar can put out to drive the preamp tubes into higher distortion. i use a boss e.q. pedal with the volume slider pegged and it works great. as long as the pedal isn't creating the distortion, but just making your tubes drive more, you get 100% pure tube drive without hampering the tube tone your amp makes. believe me, i wouldn't do it if this weren't the case---i'm a tube tone fanatic ! many people do it this way.

and by the way, some distortion pedals won't do it as good cuz if you turn the distortion all the way down, even with the volume all the way up they won't put out any extra signal. you just gotta find one that does. rat pedals for example don't work good at all for this purpose. but pedals like the boss e.q. are great cuz they aren't distortion pedals in the 1st place, so no worry about some ss distortion getting in there.

dale

4/28/2000 12:57 PM
Jeff L	Yeah, that's the same method I use. I use a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive with Vol at '10', tone at '5' and the O.D. at '0'. It works like a charm and it does'nt take away any of the tube sound. -Jeff.

4/28/2000 1:41 PM

Menatone, 2205 Circuit, Ken Gilbert 's Preamp

Ricky,

Ricky,

At the NAMM show I spent some time with Brian Mena, who makes the Menatone line of pedals. I played thru all of them, and the LATEST 'King of the Britains' pedal, along with the ''Red Snapper', impressed me quite a bit. The "Red Snapper' is a gain/mid booster that's perfect for an amp whose tone you love, but just isn't quite there in terms of gain. The first pedal Brian describes as a "a hi-gain FET Marshall preamp and tone stack, with master volume", and that's exactly what it sounded like to me.

Of all the diode-clipping circuits I've heard, the only one that I use personally is the one from the Marshall 2205/2210 preamps. This design can get very high levels of apparent gain from two gain stages, while maintaining pick attack. If you've heard 2205/2210's sound fuzzy, that may be because the gain channel's 'volume' control (dirty master) was turned up past 8 - this will add a little more gain and a LOT more fuzz, to my ears, and will also lose a lot of the pick attack. This is an easy mod to do, and to un-do if you don't like it - let me know if you're interested.

I also downloaded Ken Gilbert's preamp schematic - COOL DESIGN! I have it here if you want me to send it to you - he mentioned his web site where it can be had in another post, but that was a while back. It looks like a fairly involved project to build, but I'm sure the end result will be worth the effort (Ken, I assume this is OK with you?)

Ray Ivers

4/28/2000 5:10 PM

quote:
"The first pedal Brian describes as a "a hi-gain FET Marshall preamp and tone stack, with master volume", and that's exactly what it sounded like to me"

. Just wandering if you had seen Jack Orman's circuit.Very Marshally, good pick attack(bite).
http://www.muzique.com/lab/minipre.htm
Stan

4/29/2000 2:27 AM

quote:
"I also downloaded Ken Gilbert's preamp schematic - COOL DESIGN!"

thanks for the nice words, ray.

i will say that there is MORE than enough gain in the lead channel to satisfy just about anyone... at the spl levels i generally play it it ends up inducing instantaneous feedback. sometimes that's good, but only sometimes.

the design has changed a bit since that time, but not too much. i'm working on an updated schematic. if you build it the way it looks on that schem it should sound pretty good.

i believe i've got a link to it from the tubestuff page:

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Garage/5701/tubestuff.html

kg

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