teaser of a new amp

krash · Post by **krash** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:47 am

Thanks guys. I am about to record some more clips with some pedals (clean boost and the Tube Screamer) and with a "hot rod" mod to the amp (smaller cathode res. in the "rock" gain stage for much more gain). I also have two albums I am currently producing that will get 100% of the guitar tracks recorded with a Serena. It's really my favorite amp to play and a breeze to record.

I know you guys are a bunch of amp builders and I will be happy to share tech details of how to build an amp like this, but hopefully you might also steer some of your non-amp-building friends my way if they need an amp like this.

RJ Guitars · Post by **RJ Guitars** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:45 am

Oh Yes... I build for the sheer joy of it... I have this other career thing going on and I'll happily steer the production builds to you. I play exclusively at church so I'm always trying to get tone without being too loud.

The talk has really been buzzing in our local group about the sounds of this Revelation amp... your new clips are killer!

I've been building for about four years now and have always focused on the low wattage stuff. I've never gotten tone like yours directly from the amp. I use a "Bad Monkey" pedal and a BOSS sustain pedal to really get my lead tones right...

My 6SN7 push pull triode amp was built by Jason of Boozhound Labs. He's a great builder and really the one that taught me how to build amps. Info on http://www.boozhoundlabs.com/12sn7-geetar/

Post by **Allynmey** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 5:12 am

Josh, is the Serena similar to the Firefly? Sounds very good on your site! Congrats!

krash · Post by **krash** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 1:53 pm

Well it uses a dual-triode in push-pull, cathode biased like a Firefly. But it has a long-tail PI rather than self-split and runs at higher voltages, and of course the preamp is entirely different, with only one volume, one tone, and a switch to switch in an extra gain stage.

I am biasing the amp hotter than a Firefly and also running the plate voltages higher. Originally I designed it for a 6SN7 but determined that those tubes were going to be trouble down the road and changed to 12AT7/12AU7

RJ Guitars · Post by **RJ Guitars** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:29 am

Josh, What kind of trouble did you expect from the 6SN7's? Availability, reliability, or just a tone issue? I tend to always have my 6SN7 PP amp cranked and I haven't had a failure yet... it's been my primary amp for about a year now.

I've been looking at building something with a 1626 triode pair in Push Pull... has anyone ever used them for push pull in guitar amp configuration? I know the stereo guys love them.

Post by **Allynmey** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 5:44 am

RJ, the 6SN7 is getting harder to find (non-microphonic). Komet will be discontinuing the Connie due to this fact in it's current form.

Allynmey

krash · Post by **krash** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:41 pm

What Allyn said re: 6SN7.

Additionally, there are an abundant supply of different 12AT/U7s out there, all kinds of cheap, NOS, current production, varying tones and qualities, etc. Plus the advent of the ECC99 from JJ looks very promising. Gives the Serena a user-tweak element that you can't really get with a 6SN7. So a Serena owner can go get a variety of 12AT/U7's and keep them in boxes, swapping them out for different tones.

Not only that, since this is an amp that runs flat out nearly all the time, I wanted it to be cheap and easy to retube, and I didn't want to set up my customers with the prospect of having to find non-microphonic 6SN7s a couple of times a year.

krash · Post by **krash** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:05 pm

BTW here's another clip showing the Serena doing jazz duty.

http://revelationamps.com/media/bossy.mp3

Normster · Post by **Normster** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:09 pm

krash wrote:BTW here's another clip showing the Serena doing jazz duty.

http://revelationamps.com/media/bossy.mp3

Oh man, now you've got my attention! Tone and playing are superb!!!

krash · Post by **krash** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:38 pm

Normster wrote:Oh man, now you've got my attention! Tone and playing are superb!!!

Yeah and howabout that drummer... he's a MACHINE!!

Johnhenry · Post by **Johnhenry** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:01 pm

Krash, It's voiced very nice, and there is alway's room in this world for small amp's, some of us never get to play in front of 10,000 screamin fan's,

My fav Album, Layla was mostly recorded with a couple of Champs modded by somebody in Florida,
keep up the good stuff,
Johnhenry

Zippy · Post by **Zippy** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:01 pm

krash wrote:One of the potential-customer questions I have fielded is about like, why don't you drive this amp into a load-box with a line out (like a MiniMASS) and then run the line out into a SS power amp so you have truly variable output amp... and that's an intriguing idea that I may experiment with in the future.

This thread has been in myhead while I've been doing the daily drive. If you are already getting satisfactory drive/distortion/tone from your output section, could you pad that and use it to drive a set of, say, EL34s? If you put a master on the EL34s and run them below their onset of distortion, you could have a continuously variable output without resorting to a line out, outboard amplifier, or multiple output transformers.

krash · Post by **krash** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:02 pm

thanks Johnhenry...

FWIW I posted a buncha new clips with the Serena with some pedals. Check em out

Cool early ZZ Top tones in there. Feedback on demand. fun fun fun. Now I just have to turn this thing off long enough to go record some clips of some other amps ... the 72 page is looking kinda bad with only those quick & dirty clips.

http://revelationamps.com/serena.html

krash · Post by **krash** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:06 pm

Zippy wrote: This thread has been in myhead while I've been doing the daily drive. If you are already getting satisfactory drive/distortion/tone from your output section, could you pad that and use it to drive a set of, say, EL34s? If you put a master on the EL34s and run them below their onset of distortion, you could have a continuously variable output without resorting to a line out, outboard amplifier, or multiple output transformers.

Well I think part of the magic of the amp is the interaction of the OT, speaker, etc. So really a much simpler solution, if you only need clean power, is a MOSFET power stage and a MiniMASS or some other kind of reactive attenuator to give the pad output. I haven't tried the amp with just a resistor across the output of the OT and a resistor-divider feeding a line out or something like that. I have considered that though.

sportster4eva · Post by **sportster4eva** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:35 pm

A little late in on the thread, but you nailed it with that little amp! VERY nice, as is your playing. I wanted to comment on a possible sub for the 12at7. Cheap and somewhat plentiful with similar characteristics is the 12bh7a.
Just about every old TV set I have cannibalized has had a couple of these babies in it. I made a couple of adaptors so I could use 9aj base tubes in one of my homebrew creations, as well as the 7ac based octal tubes. Works pretty good, but requires a widely adjustable fixed bias setup.
Excellent work man! Keep it up.
Paul

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