TJ, did you know we even have a Gand Ole Opry here?
http://glasgowalls.blogspot.com/2007...-ole-opry.html
Pete
TJ, did you know we even have a Gand Ole Opry here?
http://glasgowalls.blogspot.com/2007...-ole-opry.html
Pete
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
Well there's Polish in all three of our houses then - my's part Polish, I'm part Polish, Pete's
I find the 5F6 is a good all rounder - being a Strat and Tele man and growing up in a house where they had both kinds of music (country and western - thank you Blues Bros) it invariably rubs off - the fact of the matter is that C&W has it's main roots in English, Irish and Scottish folk music amongst other influences - there's a coupla shows a week on Radio 2 (which I'm sure Pete's aware of) so we're not too bad off for getting some... be interested to see how much clean you can get outta that sucker - mine's pretty good all the way up (I use std o/p pups) unless I give it some welly and then she just kicks over...
Thinking about building a 5E3 from Kap'n's schemo - gone off the idea of building an O-clone
If I could find a road to get away it wouldn't be too soon....... Shipwreck Moon.......
I can't tell what the amp's really like until I get it out on a gig. Bedroom volume sounds promising though. There seems to be plenty of nice bright top end which is just what I need for country, especially since I'm using humbuckers. I'm not sure about the bottom end though, I might try changing that slope resistor to 56k.
I thought about connecting in a 220 K in parallel using a DPDT switch, which would give me around 54k switchable. The other thing I thought about doing is changing the front baffle board for pine. Alternatively, our local DIY store sells sheets of spruce. I know that spruce is used in flat top guitars so it must be sonically desirable. Any opinions?
Pete
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
The baffles on these are birch ply. It's the one good part of the cabinet, and you shouldn't need to muck with that. YMMV
"...pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field;
that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little,
shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."
-Edmund Burke
By NTBluesGuitar
Thanks TJ. That's good to know. I thought they were made of cheap MDF.The baffles on these are birch ply. It's the one good part of the cabinet, and you shouldn't need to muck with that. YMMV
Pete
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
Funny that - only last night I was reading about guitar cabinet design and there's a school of thought that argues you'd want your cabinet wood to be fairly neutral - others argue that pine is desirable - I personally would go for something as stiff as possible (within reason) to ensure maximum projection and minimal coloration but it's your call - I suppose spruce, being denser, might be fine... I'm sure you'll get plenty of response on this oneOriginally Posted by TONESEEKER
If I could find a road to get away it wouldn't be too soon....... Shipwreck Moon.......
I didn't want to open a can of worms on this one. In my ignorance I just assumed that Fender would have used some cheap crap material. However if there is very little to be gained by changing it I'm cool with that.
Pete
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
Pine is good because it's light. Birch ply is good because it's strong, but lighter than MDF. MDF is desirable in the audiophile arena (or so I've read), because it's solid and won't affect sound so much; yes it's cheaper than pine, a plus for the cost department.
Will pine change the sound over MDF...I'm sure it will a little. However, physically, the speaker is isolated on the baffle and it's already birch ply, so that's the area the would most greatly affect sound, IMO.
I'm betting the dimensions of the cabinet, when thinking of it as a chamber for air to be pushed, affects the sound more than the material it's made from.
Just my pair o' pennies.
"...pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field;
that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little,
shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."
-Edmund Burke
Apparently any open backed cab has a figure of 8 shaped dispersion (if you look at it from above) whereas a closed back is as you'd expect - forward dispersing... and there's not a lot to be gained by wasting time trying to engineer an open back cab in terms of porting - or trying to optimise a closed back guitar cab by porting it - bass guitar yes - six string no...
As I have another coupla spare pennies as well - MDF is good for hi-fi because it's almost dead tonally - but not so good for guitar cabs - in fact it's awful IMO... in fact I had a coupla ported Peavey PA cabs that were made of MDF and they actually started mis-shaping after a while (my guess is that the MDF was taking on moisture over time)... they sounded terrible after a while...
One of the best cabs I've ever used was an early 70's Laney 4x12 made entirely of 3/4" birch ply with a center brace that ran from front to back - it had the original 30w greenbacks in it and suited the Boogie SOB head I was using perfectly - that was a rockin' rig... no good for country but great for straight ahead rock...
Having said that - I'm going to experiment with pine if/when I build a 5E3 type because it's not the first time this subject has come up and quite a few guys have said they liked the sound of it here - apart from it's also being light in weight... but it's a case of what you can get your hands on... I had a whinge about the thickness of the baffle in my Dv cab but now I'm using the ext cab everything seems to have settled down - and having done the reading on it - I'd rather spend the money on parts for something else
If I could find a road to get away it wouldn't be too soon....... Shipwreck Moon.......
I'm one of the guys who really likes a nice solid pine cabinet. Does it have an effect tonally? I'm not sure. It's certainly a lotttttt lighter which is a huge plus for me.
I think the magic of the tweeds is a sum-of-all-the-parts thing. Sure an 'authentic' cab would be nice but I'd certainly not go out of my way (especially financially and if your cab is structurally sound) to get one. FWIW, I think you'd get more bang for your buck/quid/euro by upgrading the tubes. I'm a fan of old Tung Sol 5881s in that circuit. For me, nothing else sounds as good. Unfortunately they're helluva hard to find (especially on this side of the Atlantic) and can be pricey.
Regardless, and If it were me, I'd buckle it up as it is and play the circuit in a bit until you get more used to it and then see if you want to change it.
Pete, if there are any suitable gigs coming up I'd be happy to bring my pine-cabbed 5F6A along for you to try if you like.
Best,
Tommy.
Thought I could let this thread die but I have one more small problem.
Every few minutes of use, the amp tone gets very middley and I have to reset the standby switch to get the tone back. That happens with or without the FX loop bypassed. It's as if the bass just disappears. Any ideas??
Pete
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
Could be a solder joint coming open as the amp warms up.
Inspect the related connections to the Bass control to start with.
"...pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field;
that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little,
shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."
-Edmund Burke
OK, final post. I've fixed it. Thanks TJ, the problem was a capacitor wrapped around the base of a turret. The solder hadn't quite got that far down. I took the opportunity to wire in DPDT switch which puts a 220 k resistor in parallel with the 100 k slope resistor. Switching it in gives fuller bottom end and any downward shift in the upper mids is compensated by the bright boost switch (500 pF capacitor after the bright cap as per JTM45). The tone is fantastic and the switches give added flexibility. I am delighted with amp I have now. Thanks again to everyone for all your help.
Pete
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
That's great news, Pete! ENJOY!
"...pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field;
that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little,
shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."
-Edmund Burke
This just goes to show - you can't beat the sound of a good straight ahead amp design - no channel switching or other fancy shmancy gimmickry - the signal to noise on these things is off the map compared to what they were!!
Pete's added a few little touches like the tone stack switches (which also served to fill the holes left but the push buttons on the old HRD - I generally don't use my guitars with HB pups for live work but would be tempted to add these to mine if I did) and has actually got that S/R circuit going which he reports adds the tiniest smidge of noise but nothing too noticable - so he can use his effects unit live and can bypass if he ever wanted to use it in a noise critical situation... Great work Pete - I was confident you'd get there and you've even brought a new twist to these with those switches - well done!!
If I could find a road to get away it wouldn't be too soon....... Shipwreck Moon.......
I realize this is an older thread, but I'm new to the forum and really interested in doing some PTP stuff with my old HRDx iron. I would really appreciate any layouts for the 5E5A conversion or something similar. Thanks a lot guys.
This probably won't get noticed here. If you start a new thread, not only will you get more input from knowledgeable people who have done similar projects, but i think a lot of members would find it interesting.
FWIW - TJ is THAT guy -
I had one done for a friend - GREAT amp!!!
his pics of the wiring he does should hang in an art gallery!!
Kenny Belmont
>:^{I)>
I couldn't remember that it was TJ, but I knew it was done.
I've been waiting to hear back from TJ. I've seen his website and it's convinced me of the tweed pro conversion. In the meanwhile I was hoping there was a layout of that circuit floating around so I can start accumulating components.
Not sure what your email handle is, but I replied to some recent requests and sent on the layout diagrams.
Let me know if it wasn't you and if you still need them.
"...pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field;
that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little,
shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."
-Edmund Burke
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