trainwreck trauma?!?!?!?!??!

[Curranproducer]

Alright- After some phone help I have gotten a few things sorted out in my amp building life!!! things are quiet and loud all in one fell swoop and tone is surrounding me on all fronts. Now I want to ruin my life again by trying to get this FX loop to work in my express. I am gonna run voltages off of from by B+ for V1 to the FX loop tube, I have my heaters hooked up, and I am using the weber fx loop schematic. I was told to try and put the loop in between the V1 and V2 stages of the express. After the tone stack but before the V2 midamp. I have also been told to go right before the PI. If I go after the tone stack do I wire it in before the .002uf and 100k section or after it?

[beasleybodyshop]

I think you have to ask yourself what are you looking for in a loop? For me, transparency comes to mind. A tube loop is not going to give you a transparent option. You are better served with a SS loop. Tube loop is going to color the sound of the amp, period.

If you must go the tube loop route I suggest you contact Dexter Tudoran at Riot Devices. He builds a nice compact tube loop out of a Russian submini missile tube that is almost transparent and will last a long time.

[Curranproducer]

the tube loop is something I just want to conquer, I want to make it work and i already have the hole cut and socket mounted in the amp. I also have tons of parts and really just want to get this bad bear to run properly in this trainwreck, I also plan to drop one into a fender twin I have here at my shop and i always experimemt first on my trainwreck before I do any major mods to existing amps.

[10thTx]

For me, transparency comes to mind. A tube loop is not going to give you a transparent option. You are better served with a SS loop. Tube loop is going to color the sound of the amp, period.

I bought a Klein-u-lator solid state FX loop from Ceriatone. After playing it for less than an hour thru two different amps, I found a buyer for it and sold it. It was sold within 3 hrs of opening the package.

I felt like it took a warm tube amp tone and made it sound sterile removing the warmth of the tubes. I did not care for it at all. In fact, I preferred the tone of a Boss digital delay or Carbon Copy delay in the passive effects more than with the solid state FX loop.

And then I built a tube D'lator instead which I was very happy with. Yes, tubes color the tone but I felt like the solid state FX did the same thing except NOT in a good way.

I use either 12AV7 or 12AY7 tubes in my FX and I am happy with the transparency of the tone. Both of my amps now have an active FX on board using 12AY7 tubes.

Here is a sound clip of my amp with the 12AY7 FX loop tube. Decide for yourself what degree transparency it has. (23w amp)

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single ... i&newref=1

with respect, 10thtx

[Curranproducer]

ok- I think I am going to abondone the FX Loop in the wreck, have an old silverface twin with a mastervolume that I have blackfaced, I want to pop a loop into that amp as well, I have been waiting to do this because i am hunting down a motor boating issue when I peg the amp at full volume with all the tone controls pegged as well. I can control the motor boating by turning the bass control to about four or five on which ever channel I plug into, but I wanted to fix that problem before i did the loop. I have unwired all the tremolo stuff from the circuit (it is still on the card) and slipped new fiber board between the two cards to get rid of crackling nightmares, and I had to recap the entire amp. The poer filters where replaced with JJ's and the blue caps where done with orange drops, I also removed quite a few ceramic caps and silvermica'd them as well, there are only like three or four old ceramic caps in there. I am using one watt resistors on the power filter section for my drop down resistors, but for all of my plate resistors I am using 1 watt metal film. any suggestions on the motor boating and I will move my loop idea into the twin

[beasleybodyshop]

10thTX,

I am not a fan of the klienulator either. It was basically trying to emulate the tone of a D-lator, which is not transparent what so ever. That may work well in the Dumble amps they were designed for, but in my experience ive discovered that tube loops tend to add too much color to whatever modulated effect i am inserting into the loop to begin with (and thats why we have loops right? To make our delay tone sound better).

A properly designed SS loop that can provide unity gain of the input signal should be, well, transparent. Good example of this is the loop Metroamp sells. Look at a few schematics for mesa boogie amps' loop designs that are transistor based - with the exception of the dual rectifier series , i find their loops to work very well.