Dropping gain w/o affecting tone

[Gee]

Very interesting and informative thread.

BTW Leo used the split load in some amps. The Brown Deluxe (6G3) being one of them.

[roberto]

Yes, it's useful EG in the first gain stage of an HiGain amp to obtain a lead and a crunch with a bigger coupling cap and more low-end from a different "anode tap".

[iknowjohnny]

As you probably figured out, you need a trebly signal for a good distortion or it gets all muddy and flubby. That sound is very icy picky when used for a clean setting, not really a Jazz players dream! Well, if you use a small cap for your high gain setting and a bigger cap for the lower gain one, that could help to compensate for that.

True, but i am closing in on this issue now. It's much more balanced and i really think i can make it much better. Not to the point a jazz player would want it, but close enough so it'll be good for any form of pop music. But i didn't design it for clean tones. I designed it to be a dynamic enough to do high gain but still be able to clean up for that edgy tone that can sound quite sparkly and clean but breaks up as you pick harder. My goal was to make an amp where if you turn the gain down on the amp and turn to 5 on the guitar volume, it would yield a good clean. But you didn't have to turn the amp's gain down too much to achieve that, so when turning the guitar to 10 would take it into territory that has enough distortion to play most anything you'd need aside from metal or singing santana solos. And that would be had with a clean boost. Of course it helps to have a hotter bridge p/u with very clean singles in the mid and neck as i do in my strats. Mine are hot enough so that w/o a boost pedal i can get pretty singing stuff from it and clean witht the singles and volume control.

So thats where your observation comes into play....i need to make it so that when turning the guitar down to clean up it isn't too trebly. At this point it seems very good in this regard, but after these new changes the circuit seems very accepting of simple tweaks and i believe i will be able to make it even better. I'm just waiting till monday when i will have the amp in a place where i can crank it up and work on it. Not a particularly easy task in an apartment as you can imagine.

[RB]

My guess that this (the splitting the load) isn't done more often is because, A. Leo or Jim didn't do it so it isn't an option, B. it is in a place where there is a couple hundred dc volts, that makes it a place for failures if relays are used (Leo and Jim didn't have access to the solid state switching options that are available now), and I am sure that there will be some serious pops if this is switched with the amp on (a relay or toggle).

Leo did infact did do it. Check out the brown face deluxe, the stage before the PI (He did not switch it ). I totally agree with your points in B.

Once again try and find info on the mosfet/fet switching circuit used by Allyn Meyer that can be used to replace the switch in the komets.

[iknowjohnny]

Aside from that SS switching, what about a toggle and popping? doesn't the komet use a mechanical switch, and if so does it pop and if not, why not?