Tube Amp Question

[savethematches]

So, I bought one of those Crate V50-112 tube amps that were on blowout from MF last winter. Stock distortion tone was weak and muddy. I replaced preamp tubes and the speaker, effectively curing the muddy problem, and partially improving the gain.

However . . . I still want more gain. Right now, when I put my Arion Tubulator in front of the dimed out gain channel, I can get the tone I want, albeit a bit noisy. I would like to just get the tone from the amp channel and forget the pedal.

Any cheap/easy recommendations for this?

[seeker]

Any cheap/easy recommendations for this?

Can do easy. Replace amp. With what is what determines if it's cheap or not.

Seriously, when you say more gain, what -exactly- do you mean? More distortion? That would mean changing internal components. You'd have to not only know how to do so safely, but also know what redesign would be needed to achieve your ends. Honestly, I'd stick with slamming it with a pedal.

The only other solution I know of would be to put in hotter preamp tubes. Some JJ stockers, such as Eurotubes, screen their incoming batches and cherry pick the hotter ones to sell at a premium price. It can make a difference if you're close, but sounds like you're probably farther away than what that might get you.

[Ethan]

What kind of speaker did you put in there? If you have a lower-wattage speaker, it will break up faster thus giving you more distortion, but if you're into a crisp sound you'll lose definition. The right tubes can help too

[FrankieIII]

Try a higher output pickup in your guitar, or check the pickup height of your existing bridge humbucker pickup. Raise it up closer to the strings for more gain. I'm assuming you're using a humbucker. If not, do so immediately...lol...

You could also try using a Hot Plate which allows you to turn up the master volume of your amp higher for more drive and then control the overall volume with the Hot Plate.

[savethematches]

Thanks for the input. I think I've already tried most of your suggestions. I replaced the crappy stock speaker with the only thing I had available, a 12" PV from an old Studio Pro which was 60 watts of solid state fury. It made a drastic difference, adding a lot of mids that just weren't present before.

I also replaced preamp tubes with some that I got from a fellow HFC'er, Ruby tubes, IIRC, and they helped as well. As for the pickup, I've got an Anderson H2 in my Jackson and a Dimarzio of some flavor in my old Fender. Both guitars scream like banshees.

I remember reading that someone here used to do mods for PV Classic 30s, so I was wondering if something like that might be available for this amp. Any ideas?

[FrankieIII]

Then try a Boss "Metal Zone" pedal to make it a fire breathing dragon without having to modify the amp.

[backinit]

I don't think that particular line of amp is supposed to have much gain to start with. Possibly some internal mods might help, but I'm not sure it would be cost effective. Get something with higher gain and AB them (if you like the crate's cleans)

[bubs_42]

Thanks for the input. I think I've already tried most of your suggestions. I replaced the crappy stock speaker with the only thing I had available, a 12" PV from an old Studio Pro which was 60 watts of solid state fury. It made a drastic difference, adding a lot of mids that just weren't present before.

I also replaced preamp tubes with some that I got from a fellow HFC'er, Ruby tubes, IIRC, and they helped as well. As for the pickup, I've got an Anderson H2 in my Jackson and a Dimarzio of some flavor in my old Fender. Both guitars scream like banshees.

I remember reading that someone here used to do mods for PV Classic 30s, so I was wondering if something like that might be available for this amp. Any ideas?

If that uses 12ax7's then $100 bucks will get you a Soldano HotMod. I believe it mounds in the V2 position and it basicly adds a another stage of gain. Worth a try, or you can trade up to a Crate VFX...LOVE MINE i'm trying to get another in a 1x12 combo.

[grahams98]

I had a Crate 30 Watt (VC30) tube amp that I also got on blowout 8-10 years ago. The gain channel just never sounded good when you dimed it so I ended up playing it on the clean channel and put stomp boxes in front of it. I ran a old UK built Marshall Shredmaster which that amp took really well. At 50 watts that has got to be stinking loud with a lot of head room before it really breaks up, I remember my 30 watt being as loud as an AC30 (which is what they were trying to copy) and similar to an AC30 it wasn't really happy until you cranked it up. I've cycled through a ton of amps (vox, boutique, mesa, fender,digital modelling) in the last ten years in search of a two channel amp that does gain and clean really well. I've come to the conclusion that unless you spend 3k on a purpose built boutique amp (and often even then) that you give up clean tone if you want super high gain and vise versa. I finally just found a few amps that do the one thing they do really well and bought some great pedals.

[gtone]

I've come to the conclusion that unless you spend 3k on a purpose built boutique amp (and often even then) that you give up clean tone if you want super high gain and vise versa. I finally just found a few amps that do the one thing they do really well and bought some great pedals.

You might want to check out Phaez amps, sold on E-Bay through seller "Ontariomaximus" or directly through the builder Randy Fay. He's turning out excellent sounding custom amps based on classic circuits that he's modified over the years (he's a former audio systems engineer). His amps sound incredible and are very reasonably priced. The only criticism anyone's ever had of Randy is in his build quality. To keep costs down (many of his designs sell from $300-$600), he uses fairly run of the mill trannies and bulk purchased electronics, recycles Epiphone Valve Junior chassis as his build platform and keeps all wiring very simple point to point (no circuit boards or turret boards in his designs). Of course, if you want to pay an extra couple of bills, he'll go with Orange Drop caps, Mercury Magnetics trannies, high quality wiring, etc. - so you kinda gets what ya' pays for.

After playing through my Phaez head ($400) for the past 18 months, I couldn't disagree with you more about having to pay boutique prices to get a a broad band of bitchin' tones from clean to cranked. I read your comments about the Fulltone OCD pedal, one I've tried and like very much. I have a Duncan Twin Tube Classic Distortion I like even a bit more than the OCD (different flavor) and I never play it through the Phaez. As good as the Twin Tube sounds, the Phaez's distortion is so much better. Matter of fact, the Duncan pedal would likely be gone except I still use it to overdrive my Champ or vintage Kalamazoo.

Here's a clip of a DaisyCutter circuit similar to mine, but with an EL84/6V6 power tube combo (my dual EL84's have a little less bite, but are a little sweeter with a fuller "bloom"):

Price is around $350 for open chassis head; $400 for closed head

[grahams98]

I've come to the conclusion that unless you spend 3k on a purpose built boutique amp (and often even then) that you give up clean tone if you want super high gain and vise versa. I finally just found a few amps that do the one thing they do really well and bought some great pedals.

You might want to check out Phaez amps, sold on E-Bay through seller "Ontariomaximus" or directly through the builder Randy Fay. He's turning out excellent sounding custom amps based on classic circuits that he's modified over the years (he's a former audio systems engineer). His amps sound incredible and are very reasonably priced. The only criticism anyone's ever had of Randy is in his build quality. To keep costs down (many of his designs sell from $300-$600), he uses fairly run of the mill trannies and bulk purchased electronics, recycles Epiphone Valve Junior chassis as his build platform and keeps all wiring very simple point to point (no circuit boards or turret boards in his designs). Of course, if you want to pay an extra couple of bills, he'll go with Orange Drop caps, Mercury Magnetics trannies, high quality wiring, etc. - so you kinda gets what ya' pays for.

After playing through my Phaez head ($400) for the past 18 months, I couldn't disagree with you more about having to pay boutique prices to get a a broad band of bitchin' tones from clean to cranked. I read your comments about the Fulltone OCD pedal, one I've tried and like very much. I have a Duncan Twin Tube Classic Distortion I like even a bit more than the OCD (different flavor) and I never play it through the Phaez. As good as the Twin Tube sounds, the Phaez's distortion is so much better. Matter of fact, the Duncan pedal would likely be gone except I still use it to overdrive my Champ or vintage Kalamazoo.

Here's a clip of a DaisyCutter circuit similar to mine, but with an EL84/6V6 power tube combo (my dual EL84's have a little less bite, but are a little sweeter with a fuller "bloom"):

Price is around $350 for open chassis head; $400 for closed head

Cool...I'll check it out and would be really happy to be wrong in this case. The reason I settled on the OCD was that acts like a tube amp when you lower the guitar's volume and can also double as a tube screamer type boost when you lower the gain with the volume up. My drawer full of old distortion pedals all seam to color the inherent tone in my amps and loose articulation. One amp I've played that is crazy good in either channel is the 65 Amps Soho but it fits in the 3k category.

[grahams98]

I've come to the conclusion that unless you spend 3k on a purpose built boutique amp (and often even then) that you give up clean tone if you want super high gain and vise versa. I finally just found a few amps that do the one thing they do really well and bought some great pedals.

You might want to check out Phaez amps, sold on E-Bay through seller "Ontariomaximus" or directly through the builder Randy Fay. He's turning out excellent sounding custom amps based on classic circuits that he's modified over the years (he's a former audio systems engineer). His amps sound incredible and are very reasonably priced. The only criticism anyone's ever had of Randy is in his build quality. To keep costs down (many of his designs sell from $300-$600), he uses fairly run of the mill trannies and bulk purchased electronics, recycles Epiphone Valve Junior chassis as his build platform and keeps all wiring very simple point to point (no circuit boards or turret boards in his designs). Of course, if you want to pay an extra couple of bills, he'll go with Orange Drop caps, Mercury Magnetics trannies, high quality wiring, etc. - so you kinda gets what ya' pays for.

After playing through my Phaez head ($400) for the past 18 months, I couldn't disagree with you more about having to pay boutique prices to get a a broad band of bitchin' tones from clean to cranked. I read your comments about the Fulltone OCD pedal, one I've tried and like very much. I have a Duncan Twin Tube Classic Distortion I like even a bit more than the OCD (different flavor) and I never play it through the Phaez. As good as the Twin Tube sounds, the Phaez's distortion is so much better. Matter of fact, the Duncan pedal would likely be gone except I still use it to overdrive my Champ or vintage Kalamazoo.

Here's a clip of a DaisyCutter circuit similar to mine, but with an EL84/6V6 power tube combo (my dual EL84's have a little less bite, but are a little sweeter with a fuller "bloom"):

Price is around $350 for open chassis head; $400 for closed head

Cool...I'll check it out and would be really happy to be wrong in this case. The reason I settled on the OCD was that acts like a tube amp when you lower the guitar's volume and can also double as a tube screamer type boost when you lower the gain with the volume up. My drawer full of old distortion pedals all seam to color the inherent tone in my amps and loose articulation. One amp I've played that is crazy good in either channel is the 65 Amps Soho but it fits in the 3k category.

Just went and checked out a few on youtube and really like the demo on a Custom made Phaez 20/10 tube which was demo'd crystal clear as opposed to the really cool but sadly not gig friendly (for my gig) wide open Marshall tones I heard on the others. I grew up playing Les Pauls through a Marshall stack and still love those tones but I have moved on to tele's and strats through smaller amps like my current AC15 in order to not get lost among the 6-10 people I'm normally on stage with as I mostly just add color, textures etc.

[gtone]

The Phaez's I've played have solid cleans, although that's not highlighted on the videos. Granted, there are amps which are better suited for playing jazz or country, but the two circuits I played (push/pull medium gain Princeton-esque dual 6V6 circuit and my "Vox on steroids" DaisyCutter w/EL84's) both had exceptionally vibrant, alive sound stages in lower gain modes, albeit with two distinctly different voices. I'm kinda partial to Voxish chime in clean to dirt settings perhaps, but I've never experienced an amp with a broader "sweet spot" than the DaisyCutter and I've heard/played some exceptional amps over the past 33 yrs. I told Randy he should send a head to one of the mags and tell them to do an article in the vein of "Boutique Tone on a Budget". FWIW, his build quality has improved over the years as well...

[savethematches]

If that uses 12ax7's then $100 bucks will get you a Soldano HotMod. I believe it mounds in the V2 position and it basicly adds a another stage of gain. Worth a try, or you can trade up to a Crate VFX...LOVE MINE i'm trying to get another in a 1x12 combo.

The HotMod sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. Would it work with my amp? Where would I find one? Any info would be appreciated.