New Member - Trainwreck info

[MatteoLP]

Hi everybody! My name's Matt and I'm Italian. I came into this forum while searching for informations about Trainwreck Amps. I watched GK's video with the '89 Express and of course the '59 burst, and I fell in love with that tone. I find great how Glen works with the volume knobs to get those amazing clean tones, and then switches to the bridge pickup and plays that powerful blues in Eminor. That's THE tone I have in my mind!

I obviously can't afford a real trainwreck, but Glen told me he built two clones and he gave me the link to this forum: he told me I'd have found all the informations I need in this forum.

I and a friend of mine (who is expert in these kind of things) thought about building an Express Clone. So I was just wondering where to find some good schematics, wiring informations, layouts, photos, etc...

Thank you all guys, and of course, sorry for my english

Matt

[paulster]

Welcome, Matt.

Browse to the Trainwreck Files section and right at the top you'll see a sticky entitled 'Express Documents'. This has the correct schematics, layouts and bill of materials, and is a great starting point to learn about what you need.

Then ask plenty of questions in the Trainwreck Discussion section and you'll find plenty of people to help you out in your quest to get a fantastic sounding amp.

Whereabouts in Italy are you? I'm fortunate enough to be married to an Italian, and it's a wonderful country!

Paul

[MatteoLP]

Thanks a lot Paul, I'll check them out immediatly!

Wow, nice to know about your wife!
Well, I'm from Northern Italy, 70km north far from Venice. The landscape here is really nice, there are hills all around and it's a pretty quiet place to live in.

[M Fowler]

Welcome Matt,

Glen steered you the right place and I know you are going to enjoy this forum.

Mark

[DerStever]

Welcome aboard - great people and lots of help here - !!!

[jhaas]

Welcome Matt, good luck in making your part of Italy a little less quiet!

[MatteoLP]

Thank you all guys!

@jhaas: eheh earthquakes are coming!

Just a question: how many watt does the Express have?
I'm doing also an attenuator for the amp I'm gonna build, and I need the power value of the Express..

Thanks again!
Matt

[Structo]

You probably know this already but the Express can be tricky to build and play.
I haven't built one but recently completed a 6V6 Rocket which I like a lot.

The Express seems to be a pretty radical amp and can be finicky about lead dress and component selection.

I read far more posts with guys having trouble getting their Expresses operation right than any of the other Trainwreck designs.

The playing part also seems a bit tricky, as you have to be able to ride your volume control which a lot of players don't do a lot of.
These appear to be very bright amps and Glen has admitted that he runs long input cables to attenuate some of the highs.

I think these amps only put out about 35-40 watts but by all accounts they are loud as hell!

I was tempted to build an Express but after reading all the information here I decided to go with the Rocket.
In it's stock design it is made with four EL84 tubes.
But several here have built it with larger tubes.
It has a AC30 flavor where as the Express is more Marshall, high gain Marshall!

The Liverpool seems to be in the middle of these two amps.

[paulster]

It's 35W nominal, so something in the region of 50-60W when cranked would be a good ballpark figure.

It certainly sounds louder than a 35W amp though, so an attenuator is a good thing to have.

[MatteoLP]

I was tempted to build an Express but after reading all the information here I decided to go with the Rocket.
In it's stock design it is made with four EL84 tubes.
But several here have built it with larger tubes.
It has a AC30 flavor where as the Express is more Marshall, high gain Marshall!

You're right, I've heard of many guys in other forums who think the same as you. Anyway I showed the schematics to my friend, and he told me that's not impossible to build, maybe it depends a lot on the components chosen.
I also read somewhere about a player who referred to the Express as "a marshall with steroids"
BTW what can you suggest me? Do you think I'd have better starting an easier amp? I'm looking for a very responsive amp which allows me to go from a powerful distortion to brilliant clean tones, and I found the Trainwreck Express the one for me.

@ paulster: yeah, I absolutely need an attenuator, I don't have a recording studio like Glen and I could not turn it so loud at home in anyway

[MatteoLP]

Sorry for disturbing again.. Hope not to be a pain in the neck with all these questions!

Well, I thought twice before starting to build an Express clone, since it'd be the very first time for me, so I thought I would have better starting with something easier... I took a look at the Discussion section, and read about bancika who built this Express-inspired 2W amp:

https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.php?t=10979

I listened to all the clips and thought it worths to be taken into my consideration. This might be a good point to start. Maybe, when I'll achieve more experience and familiarity with this kind of things, I could try something bigger. But by now that 2W amp really surprised me!
Also, that could be a great amp for home recording, even without any attenuator.

What do you think about it? What's your point of view?

Sorry for being so monotonous, but I'm trying to make up my mind about the tone I'm looking for

Thanks again,
Matteo

[Ken Moon]

Buona sera, Matteo

Believe it or not, the 4-4-0 Studio is not a whole lot easier to build than an Express.

The biggest difference is the use of the dual tube for the power amp, so there's one less tube.

But you still have to get the lead dress in the preamp right, and I wouldn't recommend either amp for a beginner - but there's the rub - an easier amp like the AX84 P1 or P1-eXtreme just won't have the tone you want, so you have to decide if you're ready to build a higher-gain amp, or settle for something less tone-wise, to get the experience.

Actually, a P1-eXtreme (2-tube amp) with a 12BZ7 preamp and KT77 power tube, a good speaker and a boost pedal in front, is very nice in a classic/crunch rock vein, but it won't get the bloom-into-feedback effect like the Express or 4-4-0.

The 4-4-0 does have good support, and more sound clips are available here (I'd highly recommend the custom Heyboer output transformer over a generic Hammond):

http://www.chappellamps.com/amplifiers/ ... _kits.html

[paulster]

I'll concur with exactly what Ken said.

The difficulty with an Express build is really down to the lead dress and making sure that you have everything just how it should be in order to get it to tread that fine line between an amp that sounds alive and one that sounds dead!

It's the preamp that's the difficult part to a low-power equivalent will still have the same issues to overcome but will have the (dis)advantage that it will be a much quieter amp.

People here have build Expresses as their first amps and it can be done as long as you takes things slowly, have patience that you might need to wait for some answers if you have questions or problems, but it can certainly be done.

If you'd rather build up some confidence in building then you probably want to attack a completely different build first, but that's not going to give you a Trainwreck sound. Then again, if you did something like a tweed Deluxe then it wouldn't go to waste as everyone should have one of these in their recording arsenal (hmmm, must build a Deluxe one of these days!).

If you think you've got the personality to be able to do it without feeling like you're in too deep or will enjoy finding solutions to the challenges and problems then I'd say go for it.

[MatteoLP]

Ok, we'll think about what to do, thank you all guys!
Just one more question: I had a chat with my friend, but he can't understand the italian for "lead dress".
Could you explain just in a few words?
thanks for yuor patience
Matteo

[Ken Moon]

lead dress - I can see how that one would be hard!

No, it's not a piece of womens clothing made of soft metal.

The lead refers to wires in the amp (I guess the term comes from component leads).

To dress the leads properly means to put the wires in the proper places, following all the rules you'll find here about spacing between wires, angles that wires should cross, how the wires approach the pots and tubes, etc.

So paying attention to lead dress means being very careful about the exact placement and routing of wires (and components too I guess).