Brown Note D'Lite Questions

[burnsbabe]

Hey folks! First time posting, so please rein me in if I overstep anywhere.

My father-in-law recently, and very generously, gifted me a Brown Note D'Lite ODS 22/33 he'd built from a kit in the early 2000s. He's a gear nut, and I'm just getting into electric guitar (teaching myself, it's slow going). He gave me a rundown of all the functions when I was over there, but it's a lot to remember. I've been playing and practicing through it regularly, including doing some exploring of settings and such, and a couple things have come up that I want to ask about.

Just today, I flipped the brightness switch for what's probably the first time since playing around with it at his place. Wow what a change. It's really drastic. What is this doing inside the amp? I'm generally playing at pretty low volumes, with both the Volume and Master knobs not much higher than 2. I live in an apartment and would like my neighbors to not hate me. My basic googling suggests that this kind of switch has an outsized effect at especially low volumes. Is that right?

Second, this amp is designed to be "easily" switched between 22 and 33 watts, running 6V6s and 6L6s respectively. It's got a switch built into the board for when you're changing over. Then it has to be rebiased and, as I understand you're good to go. It looks like he's given it to me with the 6L6s in it. Would I be better off given my low volume, practice only kind of situation, swapping it to the 6V6s? Again, based on what I think I know, that'd let me access more of the sweet overdrive this amp is supposed to be capable of at a lower volume setting, yes?

I'm attaching an image just for fun. The green tolex is gorgeous. Let me know what you think, and if I'm missing something big somewhere. Thanks!

[timrobertson100]

What a lovely gift, and welcome.

Rather than repeat, I’ll just suggest reading this.
https://www.premierguitar.com/amp/dimed ... 2651044458

The effect is indeed considerable at low volume.

As for 6v6 vs 6L6, and 22/33W. I’d think it is unlikely to make too much difference, until you’re at a higher volume (e.g. with a drummer) because you’re always going to be driving the power section with a low signal. I’d recommend keeping it as it is, and just enjoy playing it. If you really wanted, you might consider an attenuator between the amp and speaker instead (I’ve not had much success with them).

[sds1]

Wow what a change. It's really drastic. What is this doing inside the amp? I'm generally playing at pretty low volumes, with both the Volume and Master knobs not much higher than 2. I live in an apartment and would like my neighbors to not hate me. My basic googling suggests that this kind of switch has an outsized effect at especially low volumes. Is that right?

That's right. The bright switch enables a capacitor that bypasses high frequencies around the preamp volume pot.

When preamp volume pot is at 10 the bright cap effectively does nothing.

The closer to zero you get on the volume pot, the more pronounced the effect.

[burnsbabe]

Thanks for the confirmation on the brightness switch, folks. I'll probably crank it for a few minutes the next time I'm home alone and see what it sounds like at a higher volume. I don't get a lot of opportunities, but I assume I'm still a good neighbor if it only happens occasionally. We live in a loud neighborhood anyway.

[burnsbabe]

From the linked article:

High-gain and classic British amps have big bright cap values of 500 pF up to 5000 pF (or .005 µF). Large bright caps like that over a 1-megaohm pot really push upper mids and give you searing overdrive. Such big cap values are generally not good for clean tones and can sound “honky” when you turn the volume down.

Yeah, this is it. I couldn't have explained how it sounded, because it wasn't totally good. I played around anyway for a minute just to see, but "honky" kinda covers the sound quality for sure. I'll have to pull out the diagram to see what the value on the cap is.