High Gain Rocket

[RJ Guitars]

Thanks Dana - 2 watts when playing nicely with others and 3 watts plus with attitude. It kinda seemed like it was similar levels to a champ.

I think my hairs grayer than yours. I'm going to try that with my 6SL7 version of the rocket and see how it sounds.

Look for the schematic of the Normster Rocket with Reverb... jumper over the drive stage & reverb tank of that circuit and you'll have what I got. I soldered all the resistors and stuff right on to the socket leads. It can certainly be done cleaner if you do a little planning and it only takes about a half dozen little parts.

It also strikes me that this might be the ideal way to do an effects loop as well. You can bring the effect back in with a little boost. If you put a footswitch across the gozinda to the gozouta then you could have either boost or effects... so many options to try.

BTW - My hair is prematurely gray.

What is wrong with the Twins? I have their Blue shirt also. I save it for really special occasions. My son is moving to NY - yuck, Hope he doesn't expect me to wear a jeter jersey. I wouldn't be caught dead in Yankee stripes!

rj

[RJ Guitars]

On the rocket you can also change the mid cap to a .002 and the treble cap to a 500pf. This gives you a perceived earlier breakup and a thicker, gainier type tone. Not radical but some folks like it.

We shouldn't let this little bit of info pass unnoticed. Tubedog may have something here that could takes us another step beyond amp cloning 101.

Also, when I see this kind of info I always wonder about going the other way. Super Duper clean has it's place and the great Rocket chime might just jump out a little more... just a thought and a couple other things to try.

rj

[UR12]

Thanks Dana - 2 watts when playing nicely with others and 3 watts plus with attitude. It kinda seemed like it was similar levels to a champ.

rj

Champ (Per Fender's Specs) puts out 5 watts RMS and is single ended

[Structo]

I put passive effects loop jacks on my 6V6 Rocket.

It allows me to run my pedal board through my Dumbleator FX loop to the amp.

[Zippy]

Thanks Dana - 2 watts when playing nicely with others and 3 watts plus with attitude. It kinda seemed like it was similar levels to a champ.

rj

Champ (Per Fender's Specs) puts out 5 watts RMS and is single ended

He was probably recalling my Blackface Champ. "Similar levels" was the comment - hard to compare much more. One, as you note is 5W, SE, into a single small speaker vs 2-3W driving a 2-12 cabinet. The difference in speaker efficiency will offset the minor difference in power.

I want to hear with it with single coil pickups! Got anything interesting, RJ?

[RJ Guitars]

Yeah the intended comparison would apply to sound pressure levels. The amps are otherwise unique... although with the middle pickup full out on a Strat and the amp at about 11 O'Clock, it does the "Layla" thing really well. It was rumored that Clapton used a champ for the Layla sessions... maybe a meaningless data point, but a cool lick you can pull out now and then.

From my view the important thing to take is just how surprisingly loud those little tubes can be.

rj

[mclmk8d]

rj, that extra gain stage really hit the spot; something Michael would love as his music usually is on the dirty rather than the clean side of town.

[andrew]

Hi all, I always wanted to do something with that extra triode. I did RJ's gain boost on my Kt66 Rocket and it added a tougher element to the amp . It didn't produce "metal gain" but just beefed things up. It is really worth trying out. Thanks.

[dr. who]

Sounds great RJ.

[angelodp]

Very cool rj. Rock-it

ange

[mickephoto]

3 years later...does anyone have a layout of this Rocket Triode Boost? Showing how to implement on a non-reverb Rocket would be helpful.

[Gaz]

I think it was smart adding the stage after the tone stack, which is quite lossy compared to, say, a Marshall. This way the stage won't be overdriven as hard as if it was added before the TS. It also should make the tone controls a little less effective too, since there is overdrive being created after it in the signal chain. I think this is good, and would keep their operation similar to the original Rocket.

I've added a stage before the TS and a pre-PI master and can tell you it sounds bad with that tone stack. Since turning up the treble cuts the bass and dips the low mids it starts to get that "can 'o bees" sound similar to a poorly EQ'd Mesa Mark amp or worse. I attributed it to it making the stack more effective since most the overdrive was happening before it, rather than after in the orginally design. Hope that makes sense.

[RJ Guitars]

Mickephoto,

Sorry I missed this earlier. I drew it up way back when I first implemented it and I used to keep it on the "How to" section of my web page... maybe I should recreate that.

This is nothing especially clever, it is simply the reverb recovery implemented as "Normster" presented it on his reverb Rocket. As mentioned above it is not setup in the ultimate high gain configuration but a more subtle "boost". It is also extremely useful as a recovery stage after an effects loop. I have done that and would be curious if anyone else has tried it as well.

In the meantime, everyone look these over and see if they make sense... I don't see anything wrong but it's been a long time so I'm not sure why I didn't post them before...

thanks,

rj

[hans-jörg]

Hi,

I built the Rocket with your 4th stage (footswitchable as boost). This one comes in parallel to the main signal. My dfaughter, which is playing the amp is very happy with it. There is still the privious 220k (like in your layout - but no more in the schematic, I saw) from grid to ground which is fine, enough gain for solo boost (although I didn`t try without )
I wonder that I can find it in your official site no more, thats pity.

Btw.: I read here from Tubedogsmith lowering mid cap to 0,002 and rising the 50p to 500pF will bring a earlier breakup. Have to try that because my daughter puts the gain allway up to 10 to meet her fav. gain structure (LarMar and Attenuator are working hard meanwhile ). Should reach that earlier.
Will give this tip a chance.
For same aproach I want ask, if I lower the filter (anode is 60µF with GZ, and screens are 47µF) at screens would it result in a mor mallower tone?
Because now the sound is very stiff/hard and the lows are a really Bang (with Epi SG). For me it sounds like a too high filtering. Though the Rocket schem shows 80µF for the main. T
he rest is 22µF btw.

Best

Hans-Jörg

[M Fowler]

You can definitely go with lower filtering on a Rocket and get a nice smooth amp, look at the Zwreck or a 5f6a and see how low the filtering is and they sound great.