Steel String Singer

[greiswig]

Just wanted to say thanks to Max and Brandon in particular for their contributions to this thread. Really educational!

[Funkalicousgroove]

Max,

Obviously the one with the PAB engaged and the FET turned up would get a moderate amount of gain, but not even as much gain as a moderateley set tube screamer. What I loved about them is that the cleans would sustain endlessly, "Sing" if you will, and I didn't miss overdrive at all.

The one that had the Dumbleland setup with the 12au7/12bh7 driver setup wouldn't break up, however it did rattle all the walls in my house!

The early one had a very low value volume pot and wouldn't overdrive either.

[JimiB]

250K? I had a tweed bassman style in a while back that had 250K's for volumes and it worked great!

[Max]

Max,

Obviously the one with the PAB engaged and the FET turned up would get a moderate amount of gain, but not even as much gain as a moderateley set tube screamer. What I loved about them is that the cleans would sustain endlessly, "Sing" if you will, and I didn't miss overdrive at all.

The one that had the Dumbleland setup with the 12au7/12bh7 driver setup wouldn't break up, however it did rattle all the walls in my house!

The early one had a very low value volume pot and wouldn't overdrive either.

Hi Brandon,

so our general experiences with these kind of amps are likewise:

Breakup:
Some amps (one Dumbleland I know of): No audiable breakup at all.
Some others: A small amount of audialble breakup if you engage PAB and turn all the volumes all the way up.

Sustain:
Unbelievable clean sustain.

Harmonics:
Depending on the settings of the tone controls and the Step-Filters you can achieve sounds that sometimes reminded (I am looking for some appropriate words) of sounds ( e. g.) like a "chorus-effect" or a "guitar played with a bottleneck".
Especially the "Pentode-Amp" could deliver sounds out of a Strat that (stressed imaged) had a lot of the silky overtones of a steel string acoustic guitar.

This said, I wonder sometimes, if this "clean sustain" you perceive in the SSS and DLS for Guitar may perhaps be only what our ears perceive, but that the signal perhaps may be not unclipped in a technical sense.

Could it be, that the preamp stages of these SSS and DLS for guitar do some "clipping" of the signal (in a technical sense) but in a special, very controlled way (by means of special details of the circuit) to achieve some compression (sustain) and to produce harmonics, that you perceive as a natural component of a "clean" guitar tone (like a chorus effect can be used to give a more "acoustic" character e. g. of a 12-string to a Strat).

I can't express it better than you did: "I didn't miss overdrive at all."

Someone with a bit more of technical knowledge than me, once listening to the "Pentode Amp", later told me, that there must be somthing going on inside that has the effect of a "generator" of second order harmonics.

As many members of this forum of course will never have played a SSS or DLS I'll try to explain what I want to say by "distortion that you don't perceive as distortion" using the ODS as an example:

Some ODS I know of (e. g. #075) you can adjust in a way that (me at least) hardly hear any distortion "noise" that is in any way "seperated" from the tone. If you adjust an ODS this way, the rich harmonics, produces by the clipping of the OD-tube, are pereceived as a natural part of the instruments intrinsic tone. The ODS with such a character in the OD sound I like a lot.

Brandon, do you get what I am taking of? I really struggle for words. Does what I say here makes any sense at all for you and relate in any way to what you heard, when playing those SSSs?

If yes, how do you think a SSS or DLS achieves this "clean sustain"?

Max

[Max]

Double Post

[Max]

Double Post

[dave g]

It sounds to me like there's some sort of tube compressor circuit inside. Having never actually seen a SSS, though, I may be completely full of s***.

Something like this, maybe?

[Funkalicousgroove]

There is no compressor these amps have an unexplainable phenomenon! there is nothing strange in them at all. I think it's Dr D's mastery of lead dress and component selection, otherwise it's all regular old circuits.

I have no idea why it sounds the way it does, there was nothing out of the ordinary in the best sounding one I heard, and Electron Avalanche posted a schematic of the "Pentode Amp" preamp here: https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.ph ... sc&start=0

[stratcat62]

Is there some kind of limited positive feedback going on in the circuit? Just enough to cause the input to go on "endlessly" without getting out of control.

[FUCHSAUDIO]

It sounds to me like there's some sort of tube compressor circuit inside. Having never actually seen a SSS, though, I may be completely full of s***.

Something like this, maybe?

I saw it in the old Genelex data book years ago, but never tried the circuit out....anyone ?

[Max]

There is no compressor these amps have an unexplainable phenomenon! there is nothing strange in them at all. I think it's Dr D's mastery of lead dress and component selection, otherwise it's all regular old circuits.

I have no idea why it sounds the way it does, there was nothing out of the ordinary in the best sounding one I heard, and Electron Avalanche posted a schematic of the "Pentode Amp" preamp here: https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.ph ... sc&start=0

Brandon, I think you are absolutely right:

The only "secret" of this magic "clean sustain" of SSSs and Dumblelands may be the same one as in many other results of craftsmanship that people call "magical": They are "well done".

Perhaps the mastery of (technological) "Know How" of the craft or art, an inspired mind to arrange all the "well known" ingrediences of the cake in just the right balance and last but not least some passion to stay focused and uncompromised.

The general ingrediences of a "Chateau Petrus" are the same as in all red wines, a Shelby Cobra has an engine and four wheels and a Stradivarius Violin is made of spruce, maple and ebony in just the same general dimemsions as any other violin. Nothing Special but being very special!

If you pick out ten Dumble amps from the last fourty years, that are all different but magnific in your ears and fine incarnations of the "family character" they all share, and you look inside, you will not find any such a thing as special magic "Dumble parts".

There are fine Dumble amps (as far as I know) without Orange Drops, with standard Radio Shack shielded cable, without Dale resistors, without Sprague Atoms, not boxed in aluminium, with signal cables with a rather high capacitance and so on.

What always gives me a smile (if not a laugh) in regard of this:

Inside one of the most and best credited guitar amps of the world I find no prove at all for the truth of all this "marketing hype" statements of so many "High End" "Boutique" builders, that any amp, that does not have their

- True Sterling Silver Wire
- handmade transformers isolated by a special japanese papermill
- Silva mica caps made still by hand only by a secret Sioux family in Colorado

and all their other VooDoo stuff cannot be any good.

Maybe technological insight, inspiration, patience, passion and some good luck are the more importand ingrediences?

Cheers to all,

Max

[RHGraham]

Thanks Max, for all your posts, but in particular this last one.
Getting hung up on the bits and pieces, I think, detracts from the whole point.

Anyway, that's just me.
Carry on...

[Robbie]

Hi,

Can anybody provide an example of the "clean sustain" the amp provides?

Thanks,

Rob

[jujudubluz]

two rock's take on the sss, the custom clean... 100w

[IMG:800:436]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c301/ ... C100-1.jpg[/img]

[IMG:799:441]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c301/ ... 00Back.jpg[/img]

[IMG:800:333]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c301/ ... 0Innen.jpg[/img]

[IMG:800:338]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c301/ ... 00Oben.jpg[/img]


juju.

[Fischerman]

Thanks for those pics...kinda hard to see much of it because they mounted lots of stuff underneath the board...but better than nothing for sure.

What are those 'plates' underneath the tube sockets? The purpose?