Trade proposition with a friend

[Cliff Schecht]

My lead singer managed to secure two McIntosh amps for free and has had them sitting around I think for a few years. He mentioned today that he wanted to have me check them out, which of course got me all sorts of excited being that I don't get to play with much audiophile gear. Then I dropped the idea that perhaps I could build him an amp to trade for those McIntosh amps and he was totally happy with that notion. He plays a SS Fender 100W thing that was relatively cheap and doesn't sound terrible as far as cleans go, but the distortion channel is unusable. Now I'm in the process of looking over the 100's of amp designs trying to figure out what he would like. We do a lot of blues, blues rock, country/blues/rock (think Charlie Daniels and the Band) and also some more modern alternative songs, usually stuff that goes over well in a bar (i.e. everyone knows the song).

So I'm not quite sure what to build him. I'm thinking some sort of Marshall Plexi style amp as of now but I've only played a Metropolous clone onstage once, that's really my only hands on experience with a 60's style Plexi. I must say that the amp sounded great and had a nice lead sound but these don't always clean up so well with high output pickups. Point me in a direction, what should I be looking at? I like simplicity in an amp, I'm not a fan of multichannel stuff or a ridiculous amount of controls. I'm of the mindset that if you can't do it in one or two channels then you are trying to do too much with too little or are just doing something wrong .

I'm also kinda curious about something like a Rocket, maybe a big bottle variant, but the amp really needs to be versatile and have both a great clean and distortion sound without pedals. The singer and I both like to keep it simple onstage, it cuts down on equipment troubles immensely. But I posted this in the "Technical Discussion" because I'm really open to anything and would like to do something other than an Express for him. How does a Liverpool sit next an Express?

[M Fowler]

Cliff you can build a tube amp into that Fender SS 100 cabinet by getting a chassis built at PM Sound Technologies to fit it. Recycle is good no!

[paulster]

I'd recommend a low power 5E8-A tweed Twin, which is a great rock n' roll amp, unless he needs more gain than that.

The downside is it gets brutally loud despite its 'low power' moniker (especially if you use it with a pair of Golds, which really suit it) but he's going to be competing against a Wreck so I doubt that is too much of an issue anyway.

With the channels jumpered you can get a really nice range of beautiful clean to fairly mean from the volume control alone.

I wouldn't go for the Liverpool as it's so similar to the Express. It's still a lead amp, so you'll both be cutting right through in the same midrange band, with similar tonality. It also doesn't clean up as well as the Express, which could be a limiting factor.

A big bottle Rocket could also be a winner.

[Cliff Schecht]

Cliff you can build a tube amp into that Fender SS 100 cabinet by getting a chassis built at PM Sound Technologies to fit it. Recycle is good no!

They don't sell chassis anymore. Besides, we use that amp as our practice PA.

Paul: I'd love to build a 5E8 and may eventually do so for myself. But the fact that it uses two rectifiers and 6 other tubes I think would be a bad thing, I don't want to build him something that is going to cost an arm and a leg to retube.

I agree with the Liverpool, I listened to some clips and heard how similar it sounds to an Express.

A big bottle Rocket would be mighty cool, I've been wanting to do a Rocket build and I think he would love the sound of the amp. I'm also looking at a 2203 Plexi style build as a potential candidate. I'll probably end up building a few amps and let him choose what he wants.

[Structo]

Yeah, RJ and Rawnster got me interested in building a big tube Rocket.

The schematic is the Shepard one with reverb and KT66's.

I used the 6V6 power section that my chassis already had but I can hear the possibilities of even more powerful tubes with this amp.
My goal is to build a KT66 reverb amp down the road.

The big bottle Rocket seems like the perfect cover band amp.
Cleans up well with the guitar volume and does the clean to mean well.
The pan reverb in them also sounds very nice but will require another tube.
You can tweak the resistors and caps to give you whatever tone you like, from a sparkly AC30 tone to a darker blackface tone.
I'm glad I finally tried it and I wish I had the funds to build a proper one tomorrow, but still not working so that will have to wait.

[selloutrr]

Bassman or bandmaster with a phase inverter master

[paulster]

Cliff

Drop one of the 12AY7s and use a 100K parallel resistor on the voltage dropping string to make up for the lack of it, and you've already got the preamp down to 3 tubes with the correct voltages. I've done this and added bright and parallel triode switches so I can still get the same combinations as you'd get on a 4-input amp but with a single input.

Then use a single GZ34 but put in a pair of octal sockets so you can use a pair of 5U4 rectifiers if necessary or a single 5U4 for more compression and you've got exactly the same number of tubes as a big bottle Rocket.

It's a wonderful sounding amp.

[M Fowler]

http://pmsoundtechnology.com/My_Homepag ... Page1.html

EDIT: Well now that is strange as hell he had that message up and then he had it down sold me a chassis and now he is back to not selling chassis

[azatplayer]

Im in the midst of building a plexi/ tweaking it to be mine...
Got a 50 watter done last week, dont like it. I really like the bassman/jtm, but it gets flabby when pushed, but has great cleans. I converted the plexi build to a JCM800, as i figured having a controlled gain could be cool, but it had too much gain...
So, will be watching to see where you go, as i have a bunch of EL34 gear that needs to be put in something!
Ive done the EL34/6L6'KT66 rocket build and it was/is great.
But i now have those style of amps, and need an amp with a little more gain.

[Cliff Schecht]

I'll probably be doing a 6L6 build for him. It will be a nice compliment to the EL34 sound and I know we can deal with using a good sounding distortion if necessary. He (we) are in love with that Fender clean sound so it really makes sense to go that route. Something like a Twin or Bassman probably, although I think I'll avoid the Tweed era stuff for him, I've always got my 6L6 5C3 build that he can use if wants that sound. A 5F6 style circuit is something that I'm heavily considering as well, beautiful cleans and takes pedals well. Perhaps I'll add provisions to use KT66's instead of the standard 6L6's for a bigger sound.

I keep coming back to the big bottle Rocket too. I'm just so enamored with the idea that I'll probably build one anyways just for kicks. If he likes it, I'll build him his own .