need help buying distortion pedal for metal etc.

reading a lot, listening a lot, getting advice from amp builders and particularly wild experimenting and trying out stuff on my own.

 

Bet you still can't rock the nation!

You need a GT 10 for that.

 

I own a Cube 15x and agree. It's a great amp for a beginner, but the power squeezer isn't really that useful. I used the power squeezer initially, thinking, like the manual said, it would get me "Great overdrive at low volumes". I realized the truth after a while - it just turns down the volume and ups the gain slightly and it loses a lot of punch in the process... Somehow doesn't feel the same. The energy is gone and it's more fuzzy, less clear so to speak. I realized that it sounds way better if you set your gain up and your volume low without touching the power squeezer... My power squeezer hasn't been used since I discovered the right way to get distortion.

I'm still not fully satisfied though. This may be a noobsy question but anyone knows how to get that really "clean" distortion. I dunno how to express this, my distortion is a bit muddy. The best example I can think of the sound I want is Sum 41 in songs like Fat Lip, Over my head, and The Hell Song. I love their distortion. How do I get that tone?

 

i don't know anything about sum 41, but here's my general take on "getting" a certain tone: google up the artist and the equipment he uses, understand the signal chain and how they get their sound. gain sculpting has become a pretty complex art with time; it's not just "stick your guitar right into the amp after it's been on for 2 hours and the tubes are sweating, crank everything and go" anymore. especially on the record, production makes a HUGE difference to how things sound. a lot of factors add up. most of the time, however, you can get close (rarely spot-on) to what you're looking for by understanding the original artist's gain architecture.

googled up some stuff: https://gc.guitarcenter.com/interview/davebaksh/

also checked out two of the songs you mentioned briefly - it's pretty much what he says - what i hear is guitar into amp run relatively clean. when i say "clean" i mean that he isn't pushing the amp too far - its mostly preamp distortion, with the gain set moderately. there is probably some processing as well, an EQ and possibly an exciter before the board. but it's mostly guitar into amp.

i'll be very frank about one thing here - you aren't really going to get close to an SLO100 (or even his DSL, for that matter) with a cube 15 but i guess you know that.

i would suggest taking a heavy channel on your cube and backing off the gain a bit. slight scoop on the EQ with a decent amount of treble for sparkle. keep the volume levels moderate, and you should be in the ballpark. or atleast somewhere around it.

 

Thanks, will try!

 

I've Got a T-rex Bloody Mary for sale. Email me if interested at heartofmayhem@hotmail.com

 

so people, here are some CLIPS! the 5W was the scond amp i built, the marshall 2061x was the fourth i think. thanks to raj.hendrix for the guitars and the badass playing.

https://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1046495&content=music

 

Flood, that's cool!

 

Totally kickass....raj's superb playing is playing a big part in it too. After years of delay I have decided to rekindle my 18W/Vox project this month. DIY ftw!

 

dude, where'd you disappear? you and tallkein were the only reason i signed up on these stupid boards!

thanks for the props... how do you like the amp tones themselves? keep in mind they aren't treated at all, and the onboard presonus preamps are mediocre... i fooled around with compression and EQing later and found that this was a great base recording to work with.

personally i'm not a big fan of my 5 watter, it's a workhorse of sorts for me to try different things based around two noval tubes and an octal power section. right now it's wired in a sort-of trainwreck fashion (except as a low-power class A kekeke), so it's highly likely the circuit will change drastically soon.

 

Work etc man..currently sitting at home jobless...in the middle of possible a career path change. But on the flip side, it could give me some time to do this long pending stuff

BTW, what happened to the RSJ forum? It has been offline for months.

It is difficult to make out with recorded stuff, but the 18W sounds great to me. I have always heard that tube amps need to be played and heard in person to understand their magic. I can't really claim to have enough real life exposure except for a Marshall DSL in a German music shop. What is the speciality of Trainwreck style wiring?(too lazy to look it up myself)

 

definitely. playing a tube amp for the first time is magic, really. and a cranked amp (ear protection advisable!) is... my god. unreal. the sunday morning i spent recording is still soaked into my skin... on a record, everythings nice, but playing one of those beasts just makes you want to play more and more and more. and better too. i wouldn'T want to play anymore if i was stuck with solid state/modelling, honestly. i can't turn back from tubes.

anecdote - i bought my first tube amp off ebay, it was a WEM control ER15, simplistic as hell with about 15W and one volume and one tone. i had to sell it cause i was short on cash, but between then and buying my next tube amp, also off ebay, i didn't play at all. it just felt.... dead. guitar rig and amplitube couldn't cut it. i spent almost 6 months not playing guitar.

the trainwreck... on the face of it, it resembles a fender circuit. the difference is that it has three gain stages and no cathode follower - the EQ and volume are immediately after the first stage and cause an insertion loss of about 10 dB i think.

BUT - after that, there is little to no attenuation between the stages. with modern high gain amps, there is a lot of high gain in each stage with attenuation in between. also, there's no master volume - so it's like you're whacking the power tubes all the time.

the classic trainwreck express is a 50W amp. my variation is only trainwreck inspired to an extent, it does not work or sound like one. that being said, it has a very unique tone. will probably play with it for a while before trying something different - maybe a pentode preamp this time. perhaps an EF86 or an E280F (for kicks).

the tr

 

Cool. I only have experience with the Marshall 18W circuit, which is similar in its simplicity and ability to push the power tubes. My gut feeling is that one can simulate modern high preamp gain stages with a good pedal. I am planning to build my tone around an 18W and various boosters and ODs. And probably a Dr. Boogie pedal for the OTT heavy stuff.

I guess simpler tube amp designs have fewer components compared to SS/ higher gain tube amps and should provide pure tone at the expense of versatility. I am going to add a Vox channel and a VVR based power scaling too. That should do the job as I mostly like blues/blues rock.

Can you tell me about how you got your WGS Reaper? I was planning to go for local Samra speakers. I had contacted Roy Chvat of Guru amps and he recommended the guy.

 

"simulate" is the right word - but there is definitely an audible difference... the pedal is usually a lot more compressed. IMO, a good high gain amp would be really distorted but have a certain openness or clarity to it, with a good note separation that i just haven't heard from a pedal so far. and i've played a lot of pedals the cool part is the gain responsiveness to your pick attack when playing a high gain amp.

that being said, i'm not a big fan of all high gain amps - mesa comes to mind. not my kind of sound. big fan of diezels and particularly bogner. killer killer playing experience.

i lugged the WGS reaper and veteran 30 across with me from my american holiday. best deadweight i ever carried. never heard of samra, but if it's that chennai dude making v30 clones for 900 and alnicos for 2200, be prepared for a frustratingly long wait.

the marshall circuit is amazingly rewarding. go for it, really.

 

It is the same guy. At those prices, I'm prepared to wait. Anyway, first I need to make the amp head(Oh wait, first I need to find a job :think

I have found multi-stage distortion designs in pedals(especially ROG type FET amp sims) to sound better than generic one stage clippers. They have atleast some openness, clarity and dynamics.

That Big Muff clone sounds pretty insane. I have a Tonefactor Huckleberry which is a pretty tame classic fuzz. Being a FuzzFace type circuit, it has amazing sensitivity to the guitar volume knob. It is also fun to drive it with a Rangemaster or use it to push a Tubescreamer for some unique but usable tones.

 

yeah, the swine flu took equal amounts of tweaking, improvisation and guesswork... i'm still trying to nail the sound i'm looking for. will have a new PCB layout ready soon that would serve as a generic muff experimentation breadboard of sorts.

the problem that my friend had with samra was that he was simply not interested in building 1-2 speakers for him. maybe i'll look this guy up for an alnico - 2200 is ridiculously cheap. i'll be doing a 5F6A sometime, so a set of alnicos is pretty much a must.

 

Shite!..I'll only be ordering one or two at the max. Worst case, Ansar has some imported Celestions on offer.

 

check your PM.