Hello, I recently got my first tube amp. It was built by a local guy who has a very good reputation for repairing and building tube amps. It is a single ended amp, loosly based on the features of the Univalve. Both octal and noval sockets, switch for the tube type, voltage switch, triode mode switch, two independent chanell with footswitch, switchable effects loop with return level compensation, 2 different mid freq voicings for the gain chanell. As you can see a lot of features, but since it is a little complex we have some problems. Since the guy is mainly a technician and not a musician I am not sure how to describe them so I will ask your help about how my sound problems will translate into technical suggestions. Most of my problems are related to the gain chanell, wich has medium-high gain, like a raw rectifier. The amp has JJ ECC83, and JJ EL84 or 6L6. First of all I think the amp has a bit too much gain in one of the stages. I say this because even if I back up the gain to about 10 o clock the sound is a bit fuzzy and muddy. I believe this could be solved by adding another pot for controling the gain in the second stage. Is this correct? Second, I feel it isn't tight enough. I play a lot of muted dropped D cords and I feel the bass is more on the fuzzy side than on the tight, agressive one. How could this be improved? Third, what should the level for the eff send be? Is there a standard about how much V should be at the maximum when the level is cranked? Thanks in advance for answering my long questions.
