need help getting a strat to work

[wjdunham]

I left that at the 2 x 100uF for a 50W amp. Dogears yelled at me and made me change my 100 Watter to 220uF's but I left this one at the smaller value.

[talbany]

I also built a "tweaked" DLite and that's what I'm in the process of trying to get to sound good with a strat.

Sorry to regress here is this a D-Lite w/2 6V's...If it is 2 10uf caps for V1 is a bit high in my opinion on the clean channel w/220-150-- 6V output section... Especially if your output iron is on the small side...I would build it with 5uf through out keep the plate voltages above 200V... 150k slope....01-.0047 couplers v2 100k drive/level a 100k resistor to input of drive 120 input to level.. If it sounds thin at that point with happy tubes I would up the level to 250k first... If it's too muddy which I doubt after the 5uf switch you can drop the value of the resistor feeding the od level a bit.. A little here goes along way.. changing coupling caps can alter the quality of the breakup..The first place I look to tweak is resistor values first before caps.. Going down in value on the slope sends more signal through the bass and mid caps making the amp in effect brighter...Going up in value on the mid cap...047 shunts more of the low-end mid-range to ground thining out those frequency's the OD lives for..If you lower the value of the mid cap to .01 and go up in value on the slope you won't hear a drastic change in mids in effect robbing Peter to pay Paul.... Good luck..


Tony VVT

[wjdunham]

I used the "tweaked" DLite schematic which I believe was intended for 6L6 (which I have), the power supply string is modified for the higher voltages for 6L6 (I'm currently at ~430V). I also think the DLite 44 kit I bought came with a heftier OT. Looks to me like the schematic is very close to a 50W version of the early 80's grail tone version posted in the files section. I changed the tone stack to skyliner hardwired in rock mode and started my tuning from there.
The 10uF's on V1 seem OK to me, I've gotten rid of the muddy OD and the clean channel is still nice, not too bass heavy. I can keep the bass control set at high noon, a little lower if I start to crank up the volume. Seems like the last bit of fine tuning to get a little more girth on the single coil bridge pickup can be had by trying different V2 output resistors and/or V2B coupler.

[talbany]

I used the "tweaked" DLite schematic which I believe was intended for 6L6 (which I have), the power supply string is modified for the higher voltages for 6L6 (I'm currently at ~430V). I also think the DLite 44 kit I bought came with a heftier OT. Looks to me like the schematic is very close to a 50W version of the early 80's grail tone version posted in the files section. I changed the tone stack to skyliner hardwired in rock mode and started my tuning from there.
The 10uF's on V1 seem OK to me, I've gotten rid of the muddy OD and the clean channel is still nice, not too bass heavy. I can keep the bass control set at high noon, a little lower if I start to crank up the volume. Seems like the last bit of fine tuning to get a little more girth on the single coil bridge pickup can be had by trying different V2 output resistors and/or V2B coupler.

Cool sounds like you got it.. Good Luck

[wjdunham]

I changed the .005 to .02 V2B output last night and played with it for while. It fattened up the strat a bit more, Really sounds nice with all the pickups, almost getting the EJ violin like tones with the neck pickup. That's probably more playing capability than the amp at this point. I need to play with the LP more to see if it still sounds good with the HB pickups in all positions. The bridge position with the Les Paul is absolutely scary, perfect for that Rush Limelight intro. The last bit of tweaking might be to lower the 30pF master bypass, to smooth out the brightness of the single coil bridge pickup just a little bit.

One question I have is how do people use the mid-boost switch. I don't have it on a relay, and I'm not sure I really like it. When engaged I can get the OD to saturate more, but the tone might be too "honky". do people use it selectively for leads or sections of a song, or do they just leave it on or off depending on the guitar, room, speaker etc... I'm sure there's no right answer, just curious to hear how others use this. The PAB on the other hand is very useful at this point, a slight volume increase and huge added bite.

One thing I'm finding is that these amps require a certain playing style to really shine. Single note lead runs can be made to really sing, but the same setup is too much for thick chords. To be able to bounce back and forth between single note runs and rhythm playing really takes a different rhythm style, less is more here maybe. Seems like most of the great LC or RF clips using these amps they are playing more like a sax or trumpet soloist would. Either that or I still don't have things quite set up right with the amp.

[butwhatif]

Cool. I tried that and will never go back. Mainly a LP thru mine, and it's makin me happy. It makes me play the bridge PU more, and I use an old 50s paf. Cream to scream city. Chords r thick, but it's a cool d sound. If you tweeze the hi end, w/the treb bleed, snubbers, and master byp, you'll be gettin it. I never use the mid boost--

[dobbhill]

What speaker(s) are you using?

[butwhatif]

EVM 12L is still my fave, but I have cabs w/ celestion, jensen, jbl, eminence, peavey sheffield, jensen mod, oxford.

[wjdunham]

Same here - two 16 ohms 12L classics wired in parallel in an open back cabinet. The speakers are new and have not been really broken in yet, hopefully they'll warm up a little. (what's the typical break in time for a new speaker like this?).
I also built a TL806 cabinet with a 16ohm Celestion Vintage 30, a totally different sound, good for a more bluesy tone.

Thanks again for all the help, I feel like I'm getting to know this circuit a little better, changes are making things incrementally better in stead of heading all over the place.

[talbany]

what's the typical break in time for a new speaker like this?).

In general 50 hours.. You can help that out by hooking up a 9-12V AC transformer sit and let it hummmm...Helps loosen the spider faster.. You want to keep an eye on it though so don't do it while your sleepy..If your a suckey player after 50 hours of break in the speaker won't sound as good as if say Hendrix broke it in....


Tony VVT

[Bob-I]

what's the typical break in time for a new speaker like this?

IMHO very little. These very high efficency speakers like EVM and JBL need very little break in if any. Like stereo speakers they're designed for max tone and power out of the box. Guitar speakers and lower efficency speakers need to break in and can change dramatically over time.

I have a newly reconed EVM and even after 10 or so gigs I can't hear a difference. It sounded great out of the reconer.

[butwhatif]

One speaker I noticed w/a break in period was the jensen mod 12-110 --at first it (they 4x12) didn't sound focused at all, but after a year or so they began to lose the cold edge, and develop a more laid back knarly sound, kinda like some '69 greenbacks that i have in another cab. Not the same sound, but the same feel.

[wjdunham]

what's the typical break in time for a new speaker like this?).

If your a suckey player after 50 hours of break in the speaker won't sound as good as if say Hendrix broke it in....


Tony VVT

That explains why those vintage speakers are so pricey! Will mine sound better if I break them in with a recording of Hendrix

On a different "note" - I played with the master bright cap last night. I found it a much larger change than I was expecting, both to the overall gain and to the tone. I tried 30pf, 15pf and 10pf, the difference between them wasn't so big, but the difference between 10pf and nothing was pretty big. so big that I was sure I had 100pf in stead of 10pf. I'm using silver mica caps that are labeled 100j or 150j - which according to the data sheets I could find indicate 10 or 15 pf, not 100 or 150pf. Without the caps the amp was rather dull, 10pf is a little too bright. I can try 5pf, but seems like 15 should be what I need based on all the schematics. Also, I was playing with the master set to bedroom levels, where I would expect the cap to have a bigger effect. What do people listen for when setting this cap value?

[dobbhill]

FWIW, I like mine best without a brite cap on the master, but I play a Tele through Altec 417C's.

[Bob-I]

On a different "note" - I played with the master bright cap last night. I found it a much larger change than I was expecting, both to the overall gain and to the tone. I tried 30pf, 15pf and 10pf, the difference between them wasn't so big, but the difference between 10pf and nothing was pretty big. so big that I was sure I had 100pf in stead of 10pf. I'm using silver mica caps that are labeled 100j or 150j - which according to the data sheets I could find indicate 10 or 15 pf, not 100 or 150pf. Without the caps the amp was rather dull, 10pf is a little too bright. I can try 5pf, but seems like 15 should be what I need based on all the schematics. Also, I was playing with the master set to bedroom levels, where I would expect the cap to have a bigger effect. What do people listen for when setting this cap value?

First off, get a cheep cap meter and check them. There's a big difference in cap values.

Second, get the master to at least 10:00 where the effect of the cap is less. You'll see that you need more like 20pF to really hear that dramatic difference you're hearing with 10pF at bedroom volumes.