Friedman "Naked" Amp - Ideas?

[Weathered]

Lately, I've been listening to a lot of the A Perfect Circle stuff, and I'm madly in love with the guitar tone. Apparently the majority of the tone is an amp that started life as a late 70's Superlead with some preamp mods - available in a replica for the "reasonable" price for $3,500. I currently have a 50W Plexi that never quite sounded right (it's the Ceriatone layout, and I certainly don't love his boards), so I'm thinking of overhauling it with something resembling a Naked.

What would you guess is going on under the hood? I'm guessing stock Superlead power amp, with what could be similar to Jose/Jackson mods on the preamp....

[selloutrr]

It's a bit more then a Mod'd super lead.

Most of the tone is from reamping a take from modeling amp and heavy pedal saturation.

If you like the tone they have live look at running a bogner and VHT combination.

you can probably get close to the tone at home by cutting your mids bump'n your bass and treble. now roll up your mids until you just hear the effect now down just a .... turn the treble down just til the bright smooths out and bring the bass down until the cabinet stops buzzing.

Throw a compression pedal pre your other effects and add a distortion pedal.. FX to taste. Enjoy.

[paulster]

I believe the Naked is a Naylor preamp of some description into a Marshall power amp.

You might start looking in that direction, or see if Dave will do you a mod to get to Naked kinda specs rather than buy a full amp.

[Weathered]

I believe the Naked is a Naylor preamp of some description into a Marshall power amp.

You might start looking in that direction, or see if Dave will do you a mod to get to Naked kinda specs rather than buy a full amp.

I did find references to Naylor stuff - I haven't ever played one, but apparently they are pretty darn similar to Budda, and I've loved every Budda I've tried.

I'm more or less exploring options to try on my own build to get something in the ballpark - it definitely isn't as bright (at least recorded) as the typical Marshall mods, and I like that.

[Colossal]

Perfect Circle is great! Fantastic guitar tones.

[Weathered]

Perfect Circle is great! Fantastic guitar tones.

Indeed. It's different from most of the heavy guitar tones out there - smoother and just "different" - not really Marshall or Mesa.

Thinking I'm going to gut the Plexi chassis and put a 2204 in the circuit, and then start modding to make the amp smoother and "bigger". I've got a set of turret strips on the way from AES that will be perfect for this....

[Colossal]

Thinking I'm going to gut the Plexi chassis and put a 2204 in the circuit, and then start modding to make the amp smoother and "bigger". I've got a set of turret strips on the way from AES that will be perfect for this....

I think that's a great approach. You'll get some fantastic tone out of a 2204 modded preamp. Most of the variations on the Marshall theme out there (Bogner, Splawn, etc) are modded 2204 type preamps. Billy Howerdel uses a C# standard tuning as well which sounds massive. Gotta keep the amp tight to maintain the separation and note definition going down that low. I love progressive bands which go for a very wide sound (Rush, APC, etc).

[erigm]

I had a Laney AOR50 head, that was modded to 2204 spec (and a thousand other specs that were in and out of it ... it was my test mule). I did the Naylor SuperDrive thing to it (relatively easy), and tried it with both a Marshall type presence feedback circuit, and the Naylor type presence feedback circuit. I preferred it with the Naylor type. You should be able to do this to your Ceriatone relatively easily. You may not have the extra tube, or room, to do the fx loop, but it's not necessary, although it does contribute to the tone a bit. That said, Budda doesn't use it ... and as you said their amps sound great!

[erigm]

I had a Laney AOR50 head, that was modded to 2204 spec (and a thousand other specs that were in and out of it ... it was my test mule). I did the Naylor SuperDrive thing to it (relatively easy), and tried it with both a Marshall type presence feedback circuit, and the Naylor type presence feedback circuit. I preferred it with the Naylor type. You should be able to do this to your Ceriatone relatively easily. You may not have the extra tube, or room, to do the fx loop, but it's not necessary, although it does contribute to the tone a bit. That said, Budda doesn't use it ... and as you said their amps sound great!

And I just noticed the last post was 3 years old.

[xtian]

Zombie metal thread! Run!

[mhartman]

Here's a schem that I found on the web a while back. I'm not sure if it is accurate or not, but it might be helpful to you.

[fusionbear]

My next build is going to be a 18 watt version of the "naked" schematic. But, Instead of the loop on that schematic, I will use Merlin's serial loop from the 1st edition. I use a 12AT7 in parallel. 51K on the plate, 25uf/2K on the cathode.
Since I am going to build it in a combo, I am going to use .047's as coupling caps from the pi to the power tubes instead of the .022's of that schem. Another deviation is the stock 1M pots for the gain and the standard marshall values for the tone stack. I have the turret board wired and populated. Now I am just saving for the rest of the parts. Oh, i forgot, i have a Scumback J75LD that I will be using with it....

[mhartman]

My next build is going to be a 18 watt version of the "naked" schematic. But, Instead of the loop on that schematic, I will use Merlin's serial loop from the 1st edition. I use a 12AT7 in parallel. 51K on the plate, 25uf/2K on the cathode.
Since I am going to build it in a combo, I am going to use .047's as coupling caps from the pi to the power tubes instead of the .022's of that schem. Another deviation is the stock 1M pots for the gain and the standard marshall values for the tone stack. I have the turret board wired and populated. Now I am just saving for the rest of the parts. Oh, i forgot, i have a Scumback J75LD that I will be using with it....

Cool. Can't wait to see / hear it.

[fusionbear]

Oh, yeah, I will be using 6V6's for power at about 355 B+

[fusionbear]

Here is the board:

[IMG768]http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u223/fusionbear/KIMG0009_zpsj9k6ynv5.jpg[/img]