Traynor YGM-3

[Andy Le Blanc]

Here's a clean example. Neat layout.

[Wayne]

Just like mine with one exception - mine has cap cans (would be bottom left in your picture) and not those sticks of dynamite.

Andy - do you know what the composition of the pF sized caps that look like tantalum electros?

W

[Wayne]

I should have took a better look before I posted - this isn't like mine at all!

Never seen an amp with V1 up front like that, but what a great idea. Did this one come with a schematic? Do you have any idea what year it is?

W

[Andy Le Blanc]

There's a scheme at schematic heaven.

It is refreshing to see different layouts.

Those caps are ceramic, they use an old color code, they're 500 pf, 10pf, 47pf.

There's a clear date on the speaker, Aug. 73'.

[Wayne]

Ceramic???

Here I thought they were some special mojo-containing dielectric. I got the color code - it's just a color representation of the 3-digit code on more modern capacitors, e. g. YEL-VIO-RED or 472 for 4700p.

My YGM3 sounds, for lack of a better word, grainy. I know that's the adjective people usually attribute to ceramics, but it's hard to say whether they mean the same thing that I do. I might try swapping those out for something a little more tone friendly and see if that helps.

Thanks, btw, for posting the pic. I googled earlier to show a buddy what eyelet board construction looked like and found what I believe is a gut shot of the re-issue. It's laid out as your picture, with V1 up front near the inputs.

W

[Andy Le Blanc]

Sometimes ceramic is good , sometimes not so good. There really isn't
anything magical, unfamiliar maybe. This is a customers, He wants me to disable the verb,
tremolo, and "clean up" the signal path. He loves the tone stack,
that's unusual. Ive also put in a bias adjustment. The hard part is to do
all that with out removing parts or wire, so it can be put back together as original, fun fun fun.

Changing the layout in a build can allow you to make the best advantage of
the tube, you can do point to point, to a degree, the long leads of this style build
are problematic, you can hear the wire when you shake the chassis.

[Wayne]

... He loves the tone stack,
that's unusual. ...

Three cheers for unusual customers!

Sounds like he's waiting around for the discovery of the Bass Mate. Basically the same amp, but cathode biased with no trem or verb. A buddy of mine runs 2 at gigs, with a boost pedal up front for solos - sounds killer. At last count, his Traynor collection was over a dozen. Where's the "green with envy" emoticon?

The reverb in those things sounds great - the only problem is there's 5x too much of it. A resistor in series with the pot wiper (4 or 5 Meg if I recall correctly) will cure that.

If your client is a hi-ish gain kinda guy, somewhere I've got a text file with instructions on converting the trem tube to an extra gain stage with minimal wire movement and (I believe) no additional parts. Didn't try it myself, but sounds plausable.

W

[Structo]

Very clean inside.

And good job getting the whole thing in the photo and in focus!

Those ceramics are kind of a different take on the old tropical fish caps, eh?

Those carbon film resistors aren't original are they?

Nice.

[doctord02]

Interesting. My old YGM-3 didnt have the V1 placement like that either. I have gut shots posted in the pictures section of the Traynor Yahoo group: if you are a member there this link will work...

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/tr ... -3%20guts/

edit: attached gut shot

[Wayne]

OK - that one looks more like mine and yes, I did look it over this time before saying that!

Other than the one coupling cap, that looks all original. Sweet.

I see yours has the same tone stack as mine, built on the backs of the pots. Do you like how it sounds? How does it behave when you turn the volume up?

I've been poking at mine for a while now between other jobs and for the life of me I can't make it sound good loud.

W

[Andy Le Blanc]

That looks like the couple others I've seen. Maybe different production runs.

A long while back I found a traynor and got it with the purpose of tweaking it.
Traynors used to be wicked cheap, but I soon discovered, I couldn't get a good
cranked tone either. I'd swear it might be the paper they made the component board out of.
In this one you can here wire moving, its bad.

But the the owner loves it, and a real character too. He can peg the thing,
and get a distortion character that stands out, with a pair of el84, and not
piss off the bar patrons

Yes those carbon resistors do seem to be original

[Wayne]

That looks like the couple others I've seen. Maybe different production runs.

They're obviously very handmade - I've been in a handful and I don't think I've seen two alike.

A long while back I found a traynor and got it with the purpose of tweaking it.
Traynors used to be wicked cheap, but I soon discovered, I couldn't get a good
cranked tone either. I'd swear it might be the paper they made the component board out of.
In this one you can here wire moving, its bad.

I wonder if the output primary reflects a load that's too far "above the knee" - that would explain why they don't crank well.

But the the owner loves it, and a real character too. He can peg the thing,
and get a distortion character that stands out, with a pair of el84, and not
piss off the bar patrons

...distortion character that stands out - that's an awfully polite way to say it

[Andy Le Blanc]

got to be polite.....

I've had concerns about the opt too, the amp pictured has a paper hammond

opt; A 1339 HAMMOND 98695

pt; A 1314 79465 (H in circle, hammond?)

[doctord02]

I traded mine away a while back. I never really cared for the Bax style tone stack they used. You could crank mine up loud as hell, but it had a funky kinda bark to it, and never really got sweet when it finally distorted. But you *really* had to crank it to reach that point. Up to that point it was loud and clean. Great pedal platform. I just decided that before I started rewiring into a EL84 'wreck I'd just sell or trade it to someone else since it was a nice clean example.

Bit of trivia - a modded YGM-3 was the base amp the Snider "New Jersey", "California" and "Chicago" amps were born from. The New Jersey sounds pretty much like a EL84 Express to my ears.

[Wayne]

Yeah, that tone stack ain't a winner in my books, either. Some Guitar Mates were built with a Fender/Marshall stack, albeit with odd values. They sounded better. I put similar tone controls in mine, but something is still off - it still sounds like poo when it distorts. 'Bout ready to pile it in a corner and tinker with something else.

A bit more trivia - that amp, with the exception of the output tubes, is almost a direct rip-off of one of the Princetons. Traynor was known for that - several of the early models look very familiar if you're used to looking at Fender or Marshall gear. As more and more people realize this, the prices for good clean specimens are going up. It's still, however, cheaper to buy a "poor man's Plexi" (YBA-1) than it is to buy the real thing.

W