Current Setup
I have a Marshall MG100RCD (100Watt solid state head) with a low end Marshall 4x12 Cabinet. I can get some nice enough tones out of it with my Schecter, but it doesn’t really stand up to a quality amp when driven hard. I.e. it goes all rubbery and gross if you crank it, so it’s not really 100Watt capable. Besides all this, the master volume pot is scratchy as hell, often fading to near no volume and back again, and the reverb circuit is apparently dead (the tank seems to be fine however).
I run my guitar straight into a noisy as hell volume pedal (which really needs to be fixed up) and from there straight into the amp.
I also have a Boss Metal Zone which sits in the cupboard reminding me of my metal days.
Obviously I’m less than pleased with this setup, so enter Ye Olde Grande Guitar Amplification Project ™
Ye Olde Grande Guitar Amplification Project ™
I’m building a rack based amplifier consisting of a stereo 36W power amp, a stereo modular preamp stage, and some combination of EQs and Compressors etc.
The power and pre amps are being built completely from scratch, the power amp over half way completed already, while the eqs and compressors will be bought (probably from Trade Me).
Pre Amp
This is largely undefined, however I plan to use a PCI bus style system to link several gain/filter modules.
There’s vague plans to have the largely active signal path routed through solid state switching which will be midi controllable. The idea being that order of modules and levels of parameters can be dynamically altered.
As far as gain stages go, I’m planning to start with an EF86 to get a good clean sound, followed by a switchable boost stage made up of both halves of a 12AX7 running at a reasonably low voltage.
Power Amp
This section consists of two separate channels, modelled loosely on a combination of the power stages of a Vox AC30 and an old Marshall 36 Watt.
Each channel has a 12AU7 in a long tailed pair configuration driving a quad of EL84s. The quad can be switched to a duet to halve the power and create different head/foot room characteristics through the output transformer (which is rated at 40 Watts for each channel).
After the power tube section, there is a kitset LED Volume Unit meter, visible from the front of the case.
Comments
This is obviously going to be a Brown-Bier violation ;) — brehaut
Well I don’t know about that, its going to be 100% valve amplified, and there’s only going to be one knob for each channel in the power amp, so that gives us 100/1, or 100. Pretty good compared to others if you ask me — scott
