My Twin Reverb doesn't like pedals

[Sharper]

Hi there,

I just bought a 65 twin reverb reissue. The clean sound is astonishing, as expected.

But I thought I would be able to get some crunchy sounds out of it with some nice stompboxes. I own a MI Audio Crunchbox and a Barber Small Fry. They both sound great on my hot rod deluxe, but sound horribly ugly on the TRRI. I mean like if you crank up a transistor amp.

Is it possible that the speakers need to break in? Or that I need to get the right pedal for it? Or is it just for clean sounds and that's it?

I'm already considering selling it and getting a DRRI. Will I end up with the same thing, only smaller? Or does that one get crunchy when cranked up or driven by pedals?

I appreciate any thoughts...

Thanks. :)

[Offshore Angler]

Man, that's 85 Watts. You'll need to crank it mightily to smooth out those pedals.

Just for grins, why such a big amp? Are you playing big venues?

[twenty4]

Pedals work well with TRRI's. Spend some dialing it in. I found pedals work well with the bright switch off. Good luck!

[NTBluesGuitar]

If you go DRRI, it's not quite the same thing...wattage notwithstanding. The DRRI runs a pair of 6V6 tubes instead of the paralleled pair of 6L6s in the Twin. The tube saturation and overdrive sounds would differ somewhat because of that. Nothing too terribly major depending on how picky you are about that sort of thing.

The circuit is pretty much the same.

As OSA asks, it really depends on the venues you're playing. But you'd be hard pressed to go wrong with the DRRI.

[phantomman]

As a semi-pro player, Fender's Twin Reverb has been my "go to" amp for the last 38 years and I currently own two (one of them a '65 re-issue like yours). I use one pedal -- a digital amp simulator -- and I can git pretty much any vintage tone I need, at any volume level. I'd recommend spending some time with your rig and fine-toonin' both the tone controls on the amp and the parameters of your stomp boxes. It took me a week to get my pedal set up to my specs and in fact it's still an evolving process. That said, it is possible that your amp simply does not like those pedals......try some alternatives an' don't be afraid to experiment.

Best of luck, HTH

[Sharper]

Ok, this might sound just stupid... But the main venue I play is my bedroom. :p

Like I said... I have a HRDx... And it was more than enough for me (volume-wise), but the clean sound just wasn't enough. I'm getting pickier as my ears evolve... I was gonna try different tubes and speaker, but because of the technical problems the HRDx's are known to have (and I'm experiencing some of them), I decided I should go for something with a better craftsmanship.

But I could get some nice overdriven tones, even at low volumes with the crunchbox, small fry, RAT, tubescreamer (these last 2 handmade, by me )... They all worked pretty well, and sounded very natural. So I thought the solution to my problems would be the perfect clean tone + stompboxes.

I just plugged it in yesterday. I'll put in some more effort when I get home from work.

Another thought: I heard I can remove 2 of the power tubes, but that it causes some strain on the ones left on it. Is it OK, like just a little more stress, or would it shorten the tubes life considerably and you would advise against it?

Thanks again for all the contributions.

[NTBluesGuitar]

You need to be sure you pull one tube from each pair to try that trick. It's just removing one of the paralleled tubes from the pair...so, either the inside two, or outside two when looking at all four in a row.

Also, by pulling two tubes you aren't stressing the amp, but you are wearing the remaining two tubes faster because they are now running into half their matching load - the amp really wants to see 8 ohms after you pull two of the tubes. You can cure this (and reduce the volume slightly further) by disconnecting one speaker from the 8ohms-in-parallel (4ohms actual) wiring, which will get you back to matching impedance/load.

This assumes you're running the 2x12 Twin RI and not the 1x15 Twin RI Custom.

[phantomman]

The Fender HRDlx's notorious propensity for self-immolation is well-known an' well-documented here on the TFF (I myseff was a victim of this amp's pyrotechnics) so there's leetle to debate there. As to yankin' a pair of power tubes out of a Twin, there are some here who might recommend that as a viable option. But I do not share that view. If you wanted a 40-watt amp you should've bought a 40-watt amp IMO. YMMV

[curtisstetka]

This assumes you're running the 2x12 Twin RI and not the 1x15 Twin RI Custom.

What kind of idiot would do that?

[phantomman]

What kind of idiot would do that?

Think of it as a Showman combo with a built-in reverb tank, Curt.

[curtisstetka]

I only mention it because I have a 1x15 Twin that TJ's working on presently. I cannot wait to disturb the neighbors with that.

[NTBluesGuitar]

What kind of idiot would do that?

Hmmm....?

FYI, Phantomman, Curtis has a Twin RI Custom with the 15" speaker, and awhile back I assumed he had the 2x12 when offering some support on it. So, I'm the idiot.

Now I have that amp in my grubby little hands and am REALLY offering him some support on it...support of this kind:



(Curtis made me post it, y'all, even though it's far from done yet)

[NeoFauve]

Ok, this might sound just stupid... But the main venue I play is my bedroom. :p

Whether or not that is stupid would depend on how big your bedroom is.

Why you refer to your bedroom as a venue is none of our business.

[phantomman]

Ten foot by twelve foot?!?!?

Now that's what I call a bed!

Hay-ell......I know some folks in a trailer park whose double-wide ain't that big!

[CJ Neel]

Use the volume on the crunch box to control the volume of the amp. Set the twin @3 and turn down the volume on the crunch box. The amp will be in a good spot there, and you'll get good crunch at bedroom volume.

[Sharper]

Hey there.

Thank you all for the advices and comments (lol - for some of the comments). Very valuable, and I will experiment with the suggestions.

I'm still not sure about exactly what happened, but last night the amp was just fine with my little boxes of canned overdriven tube sound.

Maybe it also reads this board and realized that it would be replaced unless it started to behave like it should :p

But my 2 more realistic options are:
- Some sort of break in? Speakers, tubes, mojo, whatever. Last night was the 2nd time I turned the amp on.

- An overloaded outlet? The first time, I had the amp plugged in the same power regulator as my PC. Maybe it wasn't getting all the juice it needed. Last night, I decided to plug it in a separate wall socket. Does it make any sense? Maybe because of the PC, or the low spec power regulator (at most 1kva, I forgot to check, but I believe it to be lower)... I don't know...

Another thing that is making me a little uncomfortable: the amp hums a little bit (doesn't really bother me). But when I turn reverb on, it gets louder, and then it bothers me. Could there be some grounding work needed? I read it before somewhere, but I believe it was about the HRDx (which, by the way, has no humming problems at all, reverb or no reverb).

Anyway... Last night I fell in love with it. My oh my... What a beautiful sound. I feel a lil bit sorry for it, as it deserved a better guitarist lol, but not everyone gets a perfect match ;)

[Kap'n]

I'm still not sure about exactly what happened, but last night the amp was just fine with my little boxes of canned overdriven tube sound.

It happens....

• Line voltage fluctuations can make a difference sound
• little intangibles, slight setting variations, humidity?
• Mental state

I remember one practice at my house. I went through a half dozen amps wondering why everything was sounding like crap.

I finally figured out it was me.