Documenting Express clone performance...

[redshark]

OK guys first Merry Xmas everyone!!!

I would like to document the way my express performs and see what people think.
The amp is a little bit louder with EL-34 siemens than it was with the NOS tungsol 6V6's that it came to life with. I think both tubes sound good but is a little bit more full with EL-34's
Bias settings on both...
EL34's 42mA 410 plate voltage.
6V6 25mA 414 plate voltage.
It was running on preamp v1 and v2 JJ ecc803 and a balanced sovtek 12ax7 on v3.
I switched v1 and v2 to old ecc83 mullard (not long plates) and it seems that it makes it a little bit less bright and feels not as loud as with JJ,s.
I play it with a jcm800 2x12 cab with 2 celestion rola G12-65 both 15ohms in parallel to a total load of 8ohms.
The living room where I play it is naturally a bright room. I know this because before I used to play a JTM45 clone and in the bright channel it was ear piercing but when taken to a bar or a studio for live playing had to put presence at 1oclock instead of 0 at home and it wasn't still too bright.
I'm sure the express out of this room will be darker but here i can use the bright switch only on the milder 100pf setting, or off.
The amp is gainy but cleans well. The most dynamics I get is with my LP Jr. (50's wiring) with a Lollar low wind P-90. Cleans amazingly good and this pickup makes a complex amp even more complex. The 250k pot on the tone control helps me stay clean until volume on 5 if I want to by rolling that midrange off.
My other 2 guitars are a LP classic with 50's wiring and WCR pickups, a darkburst on the bridge and crossroads on the neck. Here it becomes interesting because the neck (CR) cleans well with both controls volume and tone but the bridge (DB) always keeps some edge unless soften the pick attack is how I can get clean. The DB pickup is a hot one altough when I played orphan Annie in Nashville (courtesy of Glen) I remember it didn't feel as gainy. probably is the long cables he uses that attenuates the signal somehow and playing to his super broken-in greenbacks. I'm using a single orange coil lava cable. The other guitar is a heritage H-535 with not 50's wiring but very mild Seth Lover pickups. Here this pickups really sound good but I have no help from the tone controls to scoop midrange, here the tone control does what is supposed to do. Playing a hollowbody with the express can be problematic if very close to the speaker cabinet for feedback reasons but with a certain distance and a good mutting technique with both hands is posible to get really good tones.

I tried to use my pedal board with only tuner and wah but I got noise, probably because is a powered pedal board and the high gain of the amp amplify the garbage of that power supply. I will try batteries.

I will post pics soon of the guts, and I will keep experimenting with preamp tubes. I feel that this experience of playing a TW inspired amp makes you as a guitar player learn to see the volume and tone knobs of the guitar from 0 to 10 and not from 10 to 0. The amp performance is powerful and the job here is to tame the beast.

I will appreciate comments about all this....thanks!!!

[marcoloco961]

Check out some of the posts on Dana Hall's VVR3 that are here on the forum. This seems to be the method of choice for taming down the gain on these amps while keeping as much of the tone as possible at lower volumes.

I believe you can order the kit through Dana (UR12) for around $50.00. They are a fairly easy install and work very well on the Wreck from what I have read here. There are clips in some of the threads to give you an idea of how they work.

Pedals do introduce alot of noise into the Wreck circuit. I imagine the cheaper the pedal the worse the interference. Pedals with a good power supply filter might not be as bad. A few people have plugged their pedal board through my Express and still had a decent sound. But I had someone try to plug in through a cheap one the other day and the noise was horrible. Any noise at the input is a bad thing with the high gain amps.

Merry X-mas Everyone.

[redshark]

Here are the pics of my build.....

[redshark]

One more.......

[M Fowler]

Hey that looks good and yes the Express is a beast to tame. keep playing the amp to break her in trying different tubes and in V3 as well which doesn't need to matched either.

[redshark]

What is the estimated breakin time for this amps and what changes am I expecting to hear once is brokenin? I think is caps mostly...right?

[marcoloco961]

What is the estimated breakin time for this amps and what changes am I expecting to hear once is brokenin? I think is caps mostly...right?

Nice looking build. Are you using the Gold Lion KT77's? I would love to hear some clips of the amp running on those tubes.

Not sure on an estimated break in time. On my first build I did notice that the amp seemed to sound better the longer it was played through. When first fired up, it would be a more shrill and abrupt sound to it. After about 30 min. of playing I would notice that the sound had smoothed out some. I don't know exactly why. Some say the caps need to be conditioned. Some people even have a way of conditioning the caps by bringing the volt up slowly on a variac over a several day period. I forget what that is called.

I think new tubes need a while to break in also.

Do some experementing, see if you hear the same thing after an hour or so of playing. I would be interested in knowing what your take is on the sound variation after a good warm up period.

[redshark]

No, those kt77's went to another amp that I serviced. Mine is running with Siemens EL-34's. I first started the bias at 42, then moved it to 40, now on 44 and I'm liking it with 44mA.
I tried to put a pedal board with a tuner and a wah. Since is a powered pedal board I got noise from it . Then last night I put a battery on my wah but I didn't like how it sounded. When I moved the pedal to the front and is on I get hiss.
I knew that the express is a temperamental amp when put effects in front but I didn't know it was this bad. Probably because from the input jack there's no 33k grid resistors. The signal goes through the shielded cable and is applied to the grid, that is why this amp has so much gain and not so much lost of dB when volume turned down. Who knows!! it sounds great!!

[angelodp]

You might want to try out an airbrake. I also implemented the VVR in my Rocket and between the two devices and I can dial in the prefect volume level.

[redshark]

I like better the idea of an attenuator more than a VVR or any other circuitry. Seems to me this amps would change their dynamics with things added to it.

[angelodp]

VVR on my Rocket is quite transparent, and really serves to knock down the levels. The VVR was not meant to take levels down to bedroom play, but it seems quite useful for scaling to a room.

I like better the idea of an attenuator more than a VVR or any other circuitry. Seems to me this amps would change their dynamics with things added to it.

[redshark]

Rocket is a very diferent circuit than a express or liverpool, it might work but I wouldn't like any compromises with the level of performance that I already got and really enjoy. I will definitely try an attenuator if needed. Here I would like to have Glen's advice, I think he prefers the hotplate more than any others he had tried.

[Noel Grassy]

Your amp turned out great redshark! I'm curious about the various voltages you've measured in this circuit. So far there are only about 10 amps whose voltages have been documented in the files section. You know, empirical data aquisition. Listing your VAC at the wall will be informative as well.
I liked your comment about how an Express changes your impression of the guitar's volume control. 0~10 is so right.
I'm in the process of wiring my Lester to the 50s layout.If I like this layout better I'll probably hunker down and change the pots and wiring in my Epi Sheraton.
Thanks for your informative and thoughtful notes on these fine tone tools,

Noel Grassy.

[redshark]

Thanks Noel!!, yes very happy with my amp. I think it sounds better everyday, smoother and smoother. I love this amp!! I think the attention to detail when building is what makes it work this way. It's very complex when it's clean, this makes it sound like if a mild chorus or reverb was on, kinda 3-d sounding.
I have to say that I think the magic also comes with the 50's wiring thing which I highly recommend when playing an express. My LP jr. with a single Lollar low-gain p-90 sounds amazing!! i can go from funky clean to hard rock distortion. Unbelievable!!

[redshark]

Noel here are my voltages taken quickly:

V1 pin 1 204 pin 6 177.2
V2 pin 1 262.6
V3 pin 1 206.8 pin 6 210.6
V4 pin 3 408
B+1 409
B+2 392
B+3 312.7
B+4 293.8
B+5 278

Biased at 44mA
Running Allyn's pacific set.