More 'life' to high plate cleans

[JD0x0]

I've got a 50W high plate, non-HRM that is lacking a bit on the cleans, single coils and buckers. Sounds a little too 'flat' dark and a bit too much compression. I like the somewhat 'singing' violin like quality, but the cleans dont sound '3D' and lively enough, especially with more mids dialed in (which I like for the OD)
Had a new production tung sol in V1 Plate voltages were roughly 10V low, swapped it out for a brand new one, and the plates went back up to about 190V. Sounded better, but still lacking. bright switch helps a bit, but causes ear fatigue and can get a bit harsh, so I often flip it back off within a few minutes
What's the best course of action to liven the cleans up? Should I add the NFB back to V1? I'm considering just dropping the plates to 180K/150K because I'd like some more dynamics from the clean channel, too. I dont think it needs to go all the way down to 100k, though. Thoughts or suggestions? Should I attack this one triode at a time? I attached an image of what I believe to be a fairly accurate representation of the preamp in my amp.

[Charlie Wilson]

Hello, you can try 150k/2.2k and 120k/1.8k on V1. Henry(Redplate amps) suggested that the 120k as the first plate resistor. Just know that anything you do to the clean side will affect your OD. You may also try a bright cap on your master volume. This will also brighten your OD. Some of the builders are doing a bright only on clean mod. There is a recent post about that you can read up on.
CW

[10thTx]

5751 as V1.

[norburybrook]

a Dumbleator can help as well as there's 2 bright switches that can be used.

I'm think I'm going to take my high plate 102 to a low plate and see if that makes any difference. If we could get the lovely fender cleans on these amps as well as the overdrive it would be great.

I've a feeling though that no one's seemed to have managed that. I think perhaps the ODS has a definitive signature, core sound and if it's not for you then perhaps a different amp is the order of the day.


I have a friend who's built 10 or so Dumble ODS type amps of every variety and spent months tweaking testing etc but after a good number of years he's recently settled on an Express with two Boss modded blues driver pedals as his main gigging rig now.

My Bluesmaster definitely has a better clean sound than the 102, I suppose in an ideal world, have the bluesmaster for clean and the #102 for dirty



Marcus

[aflynt]

a Dumbleator can help as well as there's 2 bright switches that can be used.

I'm think I'm going to take my high plate 102 to a low plate and see if that makes any difference. If we could get the lovely fender cleans on these amps as well as the overdrive it would be great.

I've a feeling though that no one's seemed to have managed that. I think perhaps the ODS has a definitive signature, core sound and if it's not for you then perhaps a different amp is the order of the day.


I have a friend who's built 10 or so Dumble ODS type amps of every variety and spent months tweaking testing etc but after a good number of years he's recently settled on an Express with two Boss modded blues driver pedals as his main gigging rig now.

My Bluesmaster definitely has a better clean sound than the 102, I suppose in an ideal world, have the bluesmaster for clean and the #102 for dirty



Marcus

I took my #102 "system in a box" amps to lowplate. I'm pretty happy with the clean/od balance now. The differences between my amps and a stock #102 circuit are 100k/1.5k plate/cathode resistors, OD level integrated HF taper (dual OD pot, one half adjusting resistance of .001uF HF Taper between 68k and 168k), a 250k bass pot with 5.6k tail, no master bright cap, and integrated dlator w/lnfb disabled. I also have a built in bypassable Belton brick-based reverb in them.

Gil Ayan has a really nice idea for bright on clean a few threads back, if you want to keep the highplates, though. I've discovered that I'm kind of more of a lowplate guy myself as I play closer to the edge of breakup a lot and the lowplates seem to be easier to get in that cranked Fender zone. That being said, I play a fair bit in "medium gain" territory with my amp and am really happy with it for that as well. Here's a "meduim gain" clip with my amp through a Suhr Reactive load into a Two Notes Greenback 4x12" IR (I'm aware of the tragically bad ending, btw ):

https://soundcloud.com/aflynt/breakaway

-Aaron

[norburybrook]

the other alternative is to just leave as is and accept that ODS amps aren't all things to all men. Also it depends on what you're doing as a player. If your a session player then people want your sound to fit the track your playing on, if you're doing your own thing then you can hone your sound to what you want.

Someone like Mike Landau who's playing I love , hates master volume amps, and I can understand why. He gets all his OD from pedals and he sounds great when doing so through Fender hot rod Deville's

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=fe ... 6AD66B007C


I think because we can tweak more easily than your average player, we tend to do so rather than learn to really work with what we've got

having said that....I'm going to do as you'e done and revert to low plates



Marcus

[aflynt]

I think because we can tweak more easily than your average player, we tend to do so rather than learn to really work with what we've got

Hah! Guilty. I don't have a single stock guitar or amp in my possession.

-Aaron

[ayan]

I've never played a 183 type of amp before, so I'm not sure if what I'll say will help. Adding the V1b loop will make the clean sound duller, guaranteed. I personally think that all of these Skyliner amps, especially the ones with high plates, need some kind of brightness cap on the 1 Meg master volume. You will see that various values have been documented: 15 pF in S/N 124 (low plate) to 68 pF in S/N 102 (high plate, the RF amp). I know that the amps I mentioned have the V1b loop in place, so someone could argue that if you have no V1b loop, you may not need a brightness cap on the master. Of course, once you add the brightness cap, you may struggle trying to get the OD tone you like in a non HRM amp with an overall master volume. Last but not least, do you play with a Dumbleator and FX through the loop? That makes the clean duller still, and the overdrive creamier. Yes, the single biggest limitation of these amps IMHO... what's good for the clean is bad for the OD and vice versa.

As for me, I've used a 47 pF brightness cap in my low plate Skyliner for a long time; I use 68 pF on my 102 clone, but I seldom use that amp live. Still struggled with the cleans being duller than I'd like and sometimes the OD brighter than I'd like. Recently, I decided to try not using my loop anymore, primarily so that I wouldn't have to carry so much stuff to gigs. That meant that if I wanted any reverb and delay, they would have to come from my pedalboard. That being the case, it meant I would need some OD pedals since I don't like the sound of delay or reverb in front of an overdriven amp. Well, I had two gigs over the weekend where I tried this new approach and what can I say? The gratification factor was really high. The clean sound of the amp is much, much better without the loop. I use two OD boxes, one sounds pretty close to the sound of the amp's natural OD, the other a little less midrangey and therefore more neck pickup friendly. I have a boost pedal before both of those which I can use to stack two boxes and get more of an over the top type of sound. I carried 35 less pounds to the gig and I had a ball with all these new sounds available to me. The only question I had at the end of the night was why I had waited so long before trying this.

Gil

I've got a 50W high plate, non-HRM that is lacking a bit on the cleans, single coils and buckers. Sounds a little too 'flat' dark and a bit too much compression. I like the somewhat 'singing' violin like quality, but the cleans dont sound '3D' and lively enough, especially with more mids dialed in (which I like for the OD)
Had a new production tung sol in V1 Plate voltages were roughly 10V low, swapped it out for a brand new one, and the plates went back up to about 190V. Sounded better, but still lacking. bright switch helps a bit, but causes ear fatigue and can get a bit harsh, so I often flip it back off within a few minutes
What's the best course of action to liven the cleans up? Should I add the NFB back to V1? I'm considering just dropping the plates to 180K/150K because I'd like some more dynamics from the clean channel, too. I dont think it needs to go all the way down to 100k, though. Thoughts or suggestions? Should I attack this one triode at a time? I attached an image of what I believe to be a fairly accurate representation of the preamp in my amp.

[martin manning]

Has anybody tried a hybrid low-high-plate configuration? Marcus if you are going to convert your 102 to low-plate you could change V1 first and see how that sounds.

[Structo]

I started with a 2x6L6 D'lite.

I was never really satisfied with that amp, even with a lot of tweaks.

So I built a 100w ODS.
This amp was such an improvement in tone and feel over the D'lite that it quickly became my #1.
High plate Skyline, bright on clean.
I soon followed that build with a Dumbleator and it became my main rig.
Setting the preamp and master volumes up around 1:00 then controlling
the volume with the Dumbleator makes this a decent amp at any volume.

Best course is to build it to Dumble specifications and play it for 20 hours or so.
Get your voltages right, roll through some tubes before making any changes.

Then evaluate what you like and don't like and make adjustments accordingly.

Not sure if you use your guitar volume much but that is also a tone shaper so it is another tool in the box.

Gil,
When you used the D'lator, what kind of cable did you use to and from the loop?
Perhaps a lower capacitance cable could add some brightness back?
I do understand the load in and load out problems when using a lot of boxes.
Sometimes less is more.

And don't forget the V1a grid stopper as a tone shaper as well.

[martin manning]

BTW, my 124-ish low-plate amp has the LNFB loop connected and it has wonderful head-turning clean tone.

[ayan]

Gil,
When you used the D'lator, what kind of cable did you use to and from the loop?
Perhaps a lower capacitance cable could add some brightness back?
I do understand the load in and load out problems when using a lot of boxes.
Sometimes less is more.

And don't forget the V1a grid stopper as a tone shaper as well.

I used all kinds of cables. When I was playing "classic" type ODS clones, it was never much of a problem. After I switched to Skyliners everything changed. First I resisted the Skyliners, but then I started liking the OD more than that of the Classics. In my Classics I also had a 1uF bypass cap on the V1B cathode, by the way, which helped keep the clean sound lively, although not as fat. It's been a long time for me toying with these amps and I tried a thousand different things, but at the end of it all, I liked the OD and not so much the clean in my amps. The Skyliner (with V1B negative feedback loop) felt duller in clean and whatever I did to alleviate that messed up the OD sound. Again, I settled on the brightness cap solution, but the clean sound always felt "too slow," if that makes any sense. It's always been a balancing act. Not using the loop allows me to switch pickups, both in clean and OD, and the tone is always more dynamic. If anything, the amps feel more like a Marshall this way, in that they are not so picky in terms of what guitar one uses, or what pickup or pickup combinations one selects. It's something to try.

Gil

[rogb]

Loving this thread - like the old days

For me, low plate cleans - high plate OD sound the best overall.
I find I can't live without the low plate 100w + dlator (sometimes with bright(s) on) cleans so the OD will be a compromise it seems.

[norburybrook]

Has anybody tried a hybrid low-high-plate configuration? Marcus if you are going to convert your 102 to low-plate you could change V1 first and see how that sounds.

Ok I've swapped the plate resistors to 100k and the cathode's to 1.5k both Dale metal films. Didn't have any 10uF capacitors so I've kept them at the standard 4.7/5 uf. this is all on V1. I've a 47pF on the master from before.

I think I have a 22k on the V1a input although it could be a 33k looking at all the different layouts I've got!!! that might be worth a check too.


I didn't do a before and after today so it's hard to be 100% but I think it's changed things for the better. Certainly nice and sparkly and the OD is still nice and crunchy not ice picky.

what difference does the cathode capacitor values make? is it worth changing them to 10uf like the #124?

and...more importantly would changing the same on v2 make the OD sound more toppy , because if so then this is a good compromise as is.

Marcus

[martin manning]

Smaller cathode bypass caps result in a bass cut. I have 10uF on V1, and 5uF on V2. 33k for the V1a grid stop.