When the Rig is Dialed in....

[GhostJam47]

it's so nice.

In one of those periods where I'm very happy with the whole rig start to finish. The whole pedal board (7 pedals) is in the rotation, sometimes all on at once. Base tones are great. Multiple flavors of overdrive, reverb, and delay that all work well together. The jams have been flowing.

Anyone else in one of those good periods?

 

[Sarnodude]

No... I have a persistent issue with my mini-wah.
I have too many other projects at the moment, and now that I work afternoons, there is never enough time. Work is the curse of the guitar-playing class...

 

[GhostJam47]

No... I have a persistent issue with my mini-wah.
I have too many other projects at the moment, and now that I work afternoons, there is never enough time. Work is the curse of the guitar-playing class...

Ain't that the truth.

Is the wah a mini-Cry Baby 535Q? The curse of options...it can always sound better (if only in our heads)

 

[arct]

I am. Each gig a joy. I'm hoping it lasts!

rct

 

[Cyberi4n]

I am. Built a mini-pedal pedalboard, have really dialled in my tone through an Egnater Tweaker 15w head and matching cab, and am really pleased. Main axe these days is an Epi LP Standard with ProBucker pups and coil-split, and I’ve not been so happy with either my tone or my playing for years

 

[Intune]

My jam buddy leaves his rig at my place with his collection of 9 different boss pedals. He can never get it right. Always knob twirling, you can’t hear him or he’s way to loud.

He’s been working away a lot so I went through his entire board and set everything up so the volumes are even. We jammed this pass weekend and he didn’t even notice.

I didn’t say anything and neither did my brother but man it was a good jam. We could actually hear the rhythm player now.

 

[GhostJam47]

My jam buddy leaves his rig at my place with his collection of 9 different boss pedals. He can never get it right. Always knob twirling, you can’t hear him or he’s way to loud.

He’s been working away a lot so I went through his entire board and set everything up so the volumes are even. We jammed this pass weekend and he didn’t even notice.

I didn’t say anything and neither did my brother but man it was a good jam. We could actually hear the rhythm player now.

Haha nice.

The hardest part for me was getting the overdrives (FD2->Timmy) set up so all combinations are sound good and same volume. It's not quite perfect, but within a couple minor tweaks that I have a good handle on now. The Timmy is so easy to dial in gain, clean boost, or eq.

 

[Intune]

Yeah exactly. The most time spent was getting the volume for each just right. If a little higher volume with some dirt going into a solo that’s ok.

I just set everything flat and when down the chain. Getting them all correct or as close to volume/tone wise not to get things all muddy.

 

[Stratbats]

Yep.

 

[SIngles Forever]

it's so nice.

In one of those periods where I'm very happy with the whole rig start to finish. The whole pedal board (7 pedals) is in the rotation, sometimes all on at once. Base tones are great. Multiple flavors of overdrive, reverb, and delay that all work well together. The jams have been flowing.

Anyone else in one of those good periods?

Yeah my obsession has paid off. 3 greats amps, 8 great guitars and a homemade pedalboard with everything I could possibly need.

 

[soulman969]

I am. Built a mini-pedal pedalboard, have really dialled in my tone through an Egnater Tweaker 15w head and matching cab, and am really pleased. Main axe these days is an Epi LP Standard with ProBucker pups and coil-split, and I’ve not been so happy with either my tone or my playing for years

View attachment 507727

The Tweaker is one amp I have very little trouble getting what I want out of. It took a bit of tube rolling to tweak that a little more but I enjoy it so much more now than I did with the stock tubes and even then it still sounded good. Just not exceptional.

There's a lot of built in tone swapping to be had within the amp itself and it takes any pedal I've used with it like a champ. Tough little bird too. I've had it for about six years now and it's completely trouble free. For a low cost tube amp that's good too.

 

[The_Whale]

iThe whole pedal board (7 pedals) is in the rotation,

What are they?

 

[GhostJam47]

What are they?

MXR Custom Comp-->EHX Nano Pog-->Q-Tron-->MiniCrybaby 535Q-->Fulltone FD2-->MXR Timmy-->EHX Canyon Delay-->Strymon Flint (reverb/tremolo)

(dialed in, but a bit sloppy haha)

 

[s5tuart]

No pedals. Straight into a 1980's Mesa DC3 that sings with new valves in it!

 

[Cyberi4n]

The Tweaker is one amp I have very little trouble getting what I want out of. It took a bit of tube rolling to tweak that a little more but I enjoy it so much more now than I did with the stock tubes and even then it still sounded good. Just not exceptional.

There's a lot of built in tone swapping to be had within the amp itself and it takes any pedal I've used with it like a champ. Tough little bird too. I've had it for about six years now and it's completely trouble free. For a low cost tube amp that's good too.

agree. It does a lot of things very well. I’m on the USA Bright Normal Vintage setting, which suits me for the blues/rock stuff I’m playing. Took a while to get there though. Bought the amp S/H and it’s had all the tubes replaced. And now it’s running through the matched cab as well. I’m on the hunt for a second used cab to get some sort of mini stack thing going on, but they’re hard to find on the market in the U.K.

Pedals keep rotating too. Since the beginning of the week it’s been

Guitar > Wah > Tuner > Sugar Drive > Trelicopter > Ninety Orange > Flashback Mini (Reverse) > Wampler Reverb > Amp

but I’m gassing for a Wampler Tumnus mini, so one of the above may need to go

Might take off the Tremolo actually. It’s one of those effects I love but can never seem to make work for me

 

[soulman969]

agree. It does a lot of things very well. I’m on the USA Bright Normal Vintage setting, which suits me for the blues/rock stuff I’m
playing. Took a while to get there though. Bought the amp S/H and it’s had all the tubes replaced. And now it’s running through the matched cab as well. I’m
on the hunt for a second used cab to get some sort of mini stack thing going on, but they’re hard to find on the market in the U.K.

Pedals keep rotating too. Since the beginning of the week it’s been

Guitar > Wah > Tuner > Sugar Drive > Trelicopter > Ninety Orange > Flashback Mini (Reverse) > Wampler Reverb > Amp

but I’m gassing for a Wampler Tumnus mini, so one of the above may need to go

Good used loaded cabs are hard to find and empty ones cost an arm and a leg.

I got lucky and when Ampeg got out of producing guitar amps again I managed to pickup two 1x12 cabs loaded with Celestion V30s for about $100 each new. I've since swapped those speakers out for a pair of Eminence speakers I like better. So I can run the amp at either 4 ohms with both or at 8 ohms with a single 1x12.

That's another nice feature of that amp.

I have a Tumnus Deluxe and I have to admit that it's taken me a bit to get what I wanted out of it. I nearly sold it before I finally got around to spending a day working my way through it with several of my guitars with various pickups. It seems to be one of those pedals that requires more exploration because it can fill so many different roles well once you hit upon how to use it's strong points.

As far as the tubes go the fact that it can run any octal pair virtually tempts you to try that out. So I went from the stock 6v6s (ok but nothing special), to EL34s (it does Marshall much better with those), KT66s (a pair someone had given me) big sound and they run a little hot. I'd like to try Tung-Sol KT66s but would need to remove the metal retainers to get them to fit. So I settled on a pair on ANOS US made Tung-Sol 5881s. They sounded best with the US and AC settings I typically use.

I also revamped the preamp section with an RCA Blackplate 5751 in V1 and a JAN Phillips 12AT7 phase inverter to gain a bit more clean headroom. I was a bit shocked at how much better it sounded with that RCA 5751. More depth and more 3D. I guess that's why those tubes are so sought after and so damn pricey but I can't say it wasn't worth it. I like it much better with those tube swaps and cutting the V1 gain a bit makes little difference. These are damn loud 15w amps.

 

[Cyberi4n]

Good used loaded cabs are hard to find and empty ones cost an arm and a leg.

I got lucky and when Ampeg got out of producing guitar amps again I managed to pickup two 1x12 cabs loaded with Celestion V30s for about $100 each new. I've since swapped those speakers out for a pair of Eminence speakers I like better. So I can run the amp at either 4 ohms with both or at 8 ohms with a single 1x12.

That's another nice feature of that amp.

I have a Tumnus Deluxe and I have to admit that it's taken me a bit to get what I wanted out of it. I nearly sold it before I finally got around to spending a day working my way through it with several of my guitars with various pickups. It seems to be one of those pedals that requires more exploration because it can fill so many different roles well once you hit upon how to use it's strong points.

As far as the tubes go the fact that it can run any octal pair virtually tempts you to try that out. So I went from the stock 6v6s (ok but nothing special), to EL34s (it does Marshall much better with those), KT66s (a pair someone had given me) big sound and they run a little hot. I'd like to try Tung-Sol KT66s but would need to remove the metal retainers to get them to fit. So I settled on a pair on ANOS US made Tung-Sol 5881s. They sounded best with the US and AC settings I typically use.

I also revamped the preamp section with an RCA Blackplate 5751 in V1 and a JAN Phillips 12AT7 phase inverter to gain a bit more clean headroom. I was a bit shocked at how much better it sounded with that RCA 5751. More depth and more 3D. I guess that's why those tubes are so sought after and so damn pricey but I can't say it wasn't worth it. I like it much better with those tube swaps and cutting the V1 gain a bit makes little difference. These are damn loud 15w amps.

how does the Marshall sound better with El34s? In what way?

and holy **** $199 for a tube? I don’t think I paid that much for the AMP


Got the Timmy back on the board now, in front of the Sugar Drive. I love the sugardrive for my lead tone, that works just fine and is staying! So now the big question is ‘what do I use the Timmy for?’ And ‘would I prefer a Tumnus over the Timmy?’ The Timmy, well, it just doesn’t do it for me, it’s just never set me alight. I guess I love my lead tone, but I want a couple different rhythm tones. The amp at edge of breakup is fine for one, but another OD pedal for a different rhythm would be good, especially if I could stack it with the Sugar Drive. The timmy might have to be fiddled with again, but then again I could just ditch it and try the Tumnus, which I really like the sound of from the various demos I've seen.

oh and @GhostJam47 - HUGE apologies for hijacking the thread!

 

[Cyberi4n]

@soulman969 on a side note, the Tweaker 112x cab has two jacks inputs in the back. If I want to connect TWO cabs, is it head (main output) > Cab1 > Cab2?

or do I use BOTH head outputs, one to one cab and the other to the second cab? The manual seems to imply chaining them in ‘series’

 

[GhostJam47]

No pedals. Straight into a 1980's Mesa DC3 that sings with new valves in it!
View attachment 507783

That'll do it.

At my acceptable volume levels, it's gotta be a pedal platform though. One day I'll move out to the 'burbs

 

[Sarnodude]

Ain't that the truth.

Is the wah a mini-Cry Baby 535Q? The curse of options...it can always sound better (if only in our heads)

Yeah, that one. It's probably a power supply problem, I just need to find time to properly troubleshoot it.