JazzGuitarGimp wrote:That's some great tone, ic! When I read what you said about how it sounds like a compressor when cranked, I immediately thought of my 5E3 clone. After listening to your clip, I realize you meant compressor with regards to a clean tone (the 5E3 only shows this attribute when heavy overdrive / distortion is present, and it's one of the things I love most about that amp). So, just to be clear, you did not use a compressor, either in your guitar / amp signal chain or during the mix-down, right? Great tone, and great attack! Congrats!
Cheers,
Lou
Exactly. When I made that clip the amp sounds clean but has sustain, kind of like if one were to have used a compressor. It was not feeding back either.
Last night I tried some boxes through the amp with very good results, TS-9 sounded very good.
IC, give us a clip of a ts-9 and a eric johnson Fuzz tied together, Y corded to low input jacks man! PLS! lol!
Here is a clip with the TS-9. I don't have a Fuzz Face, but I do have an old AC powered Hot Tubes (the one without a tube in it) and a y cable. I'll have to try it out.
ic-racer wrote:Here is a clip with the TS-9. I don't have a Fuzz Face, but I do have an old AC powered Hot Tubes (the one without a tube in it) and a y cable. I'll have to try it out.
I will be posting the PC board copper pattern. It is on a computer not hooked to the internet that I use for graphics, so I have to convert the file.
I only put eyelets on my board where there were ones on the original. But, for tweaking, anyone building this may want to place many more eyelets.
(This is obvious to most, but for the lurkers out there that have not built many amps) The inclusion of eyelets lets you unsolder and change a component from the top of the board. Otherwise, with all the solid-core wires going to this board, even after removing the 4 nuts holding it down, it won't lift up to get to the back of the PC board to unsolder a component.
"You feel like you're floating on a football field filled with marshmallows." -Dumble
I've been thinking about pc boards / eyelets, and it seems to me it should be possible to emulate an eyelet in a pcb by using a large hole with a large pad on both sides. Say, a 0.125" plated hole with a 0.250" pad on both top and bottom layers. I haven't tried this yet, but I intend to.
I've successfully soldered/desoldered components from the 'wrong' side many times with standard size PCB through holes. There has to be a pad area on the component side, ie a two sided board. I am not a fan of one sided PCBs anyway. A bigger eyelet-like hole would make it easier.
JazzGuitarGimp wrote:I've been thinking about pc boards / eyelets, and it seems to me it should be possible to emulate an eyelet in a pcb by using a large hole with a large pad on both sides. Say, a 0.125" plated hole with a 0.250" pad on both top and bottom layers. I haven't tried this yet, but I intend to.
Cheers,
Lou
I have been contacted about a PC board but I'm not a commercial enterprise. Are you planning on making one? There may be some interest.
I have two layouts. One is bigger overall but still has the correct component sizes. That one might be better for those building this in a bigger chassis. I'll post both of them. I can confirm that the design is "smoke free!"
"You feel like you're floating on a football field filled with marshmallows." -Dumble
Reality check first before I start working on the dropping string. I don't normally play any of my amps with the reverb and distortion and delay units going into the front, like I'm doing with the Manzamp.
So, I took the exact same pedalboard setup and plugged it into my HRM on the clean channel with the master all the way up (like a non-master amp) and the Manzamp sounds much better.
This is encouragement to keep working with the Manzamp as it is providing me with something I don't already have.
On the bench I started by replacing the 2k2 first dropping resistor with 22k. Not a good idea. In fact I could not find any versions of the Precision power supply with such a high first dropping resistor but I'm experimenting to see what happens. It makes the EL34 plate and screen too high, I got 520V on the plate. I biased it to 30ma but while playing (not on startup) it blew a fuse. Not sure why but I'm not going to investigate it. I'm just going back to the 2k2.
Next is to try the 22k in place of the 10k second dropping resistor.
"You feel like you're floating on a football field filled with marshmallows." -Dumble
520v on the plates of an EL-34 is not that high ( Early Marshall Plexi voltages)..I would leave a 22k in there and find out why it blew.. Perhaps you have a bad 34!
With 518 on the screens a 22k should get you under the 300v max rating 12ax (50v cathode)range on the PI (w/24k tail) Music Man Dumbles (same PI) running 700v use a 47k dropper there..Cathode follower should be sitting somewhere between 150-180v
Tony
Last edited by talbany on Sat Feb 09, 2013 7:28 pm, edited 12 times in total.
" The psychics on my bench is the same as Dumble'"
I checked with ic-racer for his support posting an editable schematic and layout. He conveyed supporting this posted so TAG forum members can work somewhat cooperatively to refine this.
This could allow any doing this project to easily share their tweaks & mods.
Please note the layout is not what ic-racer used and he already posted an excellent visio type version & a schematic drawing . However, this is editable and may be useful in that regard.
PLEASE check for errors & compare with ic-racer's schematic and layout. This is also posted in the editable schematic section:
Very nice sounding amp IC!! And...wonderful job as always Jeff on the documentation.
Forgive me for not reading through the whole thread looking for an answer...but I noticed that the schematic does not identify grid stoppers on the power tubes.
Is that by design?
Again....really great stuff guys and many thanks for sharing!
Dave O.
