Express too bright

[moselle]

Where can I tame this a little?
Note; I should say it's too bright with a Strat.
With a LP it sounds pretty good.

[geetarpicker]

Give us some more details of your complete setup...amp, speaker, cords, tubes, OT, circuit wire, guitar pickups, type of attenuator is used, B+ etc...

Also how far are you turning up the amp and can you use the bright switch or not?

[JamesHealey]

The lead dress around the first two stages and the distance between the cathode and the anode wires makes a difference to the high end.

They're a funny beast are express' and take a lot of controlling to get the right sound.

[JamesHealey]

the way i've found best to control the express..

Is A, use good Iron.. Heyboer or Pacific or Stancor.

The latter two being the prefered choice, and really pay attention to the lead dress because this really makes the difference between an overly bright amp and a rather dull muddy one, use the right materials too!!

[passfan]

Where can I tame this a little?
Note; I should say it's too bright with a Strat.
With a LP it sounds pretty good.

You may have been better off leaving this in your other thread so the people here can see the changes being made to the amp. You could also report on what effect those changes are having on your sound as well. Did you swap out the 250k wrong value pot for the 1 meg yet ? Did you install the switch to go between the 100k and the 47k resistor leading into the tone stack ?

[Jackie Treehorn]

Change the 10k tail resistor and 470 ohm cathode resistor in the phase inverter to 39k and 1k respectively. I like a 68k feedback resistor, too.

I'm a strat player, myself. Those couple changes make the amp far fatter and remove a lot of the hiss. You might like the 250k treble pot with this configuration. I use one in my main amp.

But, if your amp is unstable, it will sound bright in a rough and grindy way, sort of like an 18 watt marshall. If it oscillates with all the controls dimed, you might try changes in the lead dress or some rewiring, too.

[breakfastbuddy]

to get the high pich sound out is to , chose a small OT . or one with weak
laminations , the saturation in the OT is importent ,
put a parralelled cap with the high cap . on a switch . put in a slope resistor .
and adjust the size of the grind stopper , the higer the lower are the frekvens . dont use jensen highpitch speakes , use a celestion k 100
they are bass heavy ( the last advice is maybe to much )

[selloutrr]

There have been several posts pointing to the current hookup wires ability to transmit frequency as the reason for the bright highs a lot of builds experience. The original tw amps used a non irradiated PVC hookup wire that in simple terms was lo fidelity and lost a lot of the high end while traveling threw the circuit.

[KellyBass]

The lead dress around the first two stages and the distance between the cathode and the anode wires makes a difference to the high end.

This is absolutely, positively true and can't be stressed enough!!!

[moselle]

Wow!
Lots of great info here.
I will have to retrace my step and follow directions.
Thanks very much for the instructional input.

[DerStever]

What should the lead dresses look like then?

[KellyBass]

Study the francesca pictures in the files section of the website...or in Mr. Worley's wonderful build guide.