How Does better sound, just wondering. Built my first express last week.
What did you not like, and what do you like now? I am so far happy with my first express build, but I have only two other EL34 amps for comparison, a non master 50 watt Marshall and a Blackface Super Reverb modified for El34's. Really not a fair comparison. Have only heard a real Express on the internet,hard to compare. Saw one at the Nashville amp expo last year but did not get to hear it Just ordered Glen's cd to get some idea of express tones.
My clone has been to harsh sounding not sure if it was the caps or Pacific transformers, or my lead dress. I built it twice trying to learn to like it.
Crazy loud and treble. I don't like the presence circuit either very unstable.
So you could say it's now more Fenderish, lower bass, pedal friendly and for me usable. Not TW Express really but I like amps that I can actually use.
Mark, I'm surprised the express didn't work out for you in stock form. What caps did you use? My express is loud but is not overly bright, I even tried the "Ingrid" and "Trudy" mod to put the ceramic cap in parallel and had to put it back to stock because yes, it might be bigger sounding but it gets too overwhelming. There might be something in your lead dress that is not right. With the express moving a wire a milimeter could make a big diference.
Interesting thread... I do like the Ingrid mod on my Express clone. I have never really cared for the presence and I keep a NOS Phillips 5751 in V1. I keep the volume around 9:30/10:00 for most of my playing too - I don't need all of that saturation for my playing. It is fun to have it there though!
Glad you have it where you like it Mark! I appreciate all of your coaching these last few months.
Must be Express redo season. I recently went through mine as well. All I really did was clean up some lead dress, sheild the input wire, and went through a dozen or so 12ax7's till I found one she likes (previously had a RCA blackplate 5751 in there). Now it's much quieter and has even more gain. Love it! Oh yeh, I also put my Mullards away for a rainy day, and dropped the RFT's back in.
Mine was pretty bright when I first built it, but you guys helped my tweak the PI and I used polysterene caps in a couple of places and it is just fine. In the begining, the problem was more me than the amp. A Marshall will let you hide some slop behind the distortion, but the Express tells it like it is.
Mine was never really too bright but I just copied the lead dress to the point of making it look like the pictures of real trainwrecks that I could get and also used correct solid core wire. If it seemed bright at times it was when using certain speaker cabs but with a 4x12 using old prerola weber clones is round and smooth. If I play out bright switches need to be used to cut trough.
M Fowler wrote:Today I said screw it Soldered the PI tail resistor to ground. Took out the presence pot, added a 250kL Cut pot and bias a pair of 6L6's.
Inserted a 12AT7 phase inverter tube along with two NOS 12AU7 for V1 & V2.
Now I like my Express just fine. Sounds 100% better.
Mark
Ain't a thing wrong with doing it your own way. Ken probably would like seeing people try different things. If someone had not tried and changed things along the way you wouldn't even have a wreck amp,marshall or others.
OK,Im in,just retubed mine with 6V6"s.I really only have 2x12 cabs here,Marshall,Boogie Fender.I have never had a 40 ft cable as well.Do you guys thing the cab and the cable would be a huge diff.?It really does not sound all that bad right now.Im installing some new pots in my Les Paul.
Next it will be learning the technic in playing a wreck.Glenn and ever Oree have a nice thing going with backing off on the vol at those perfect times in there playing.With all these nuances combined the Wreck becomes the perfect storm and really challanges your playing.All in all when you get the right technic its a killer amp!!!Mike
Send it to me and I will tweak it to kick ass. I didn't say anything about returning it, but rest assured asses will be kicked.
If you want to dull it a little doink around with plate bypass, Mike. Try 100pF-1000pF. PI plates are fair game for taming too, but the fake input capacitance thing happens over the preamp plates.
There is a point where it won't dull it as much as start to peak it out a little like a cocked wha though. Easy does it.
Signatures have a 255 character limit that I could abuse, but I am not Cecil B. DeMille.
I have had my TWE clone for about 5 years now, I built it because I could, its was sitting in the spare room for most of that time, Now I want to have a go at taming the gain on this thing.
I have read about others changing tubes, resistors, adding a choke and so on.
As it stands at the moment, it has a shit load of gain, it also has a very "icepick" tone up high.
I really want to get the smooth creamy distortion everyone talks about, I would also like to use the Volume knob above 1 or 2.
Is there a site where all TWE mods are gathered, or any advice others might have, Thanks for your time.
Please see the pics I have added, give you some idea of what I am dealing with.
Regards Peter
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Soldered the PI tail resistor to ground. Took out the presence pot, added a 250kL Cut pot and bias a pair of 6L6's.
Sounds 100% better.
Just ordered Glen's cd to get some idea of express tones.
