The ultimate "blues" amp? If you close by, feel free to try

[myles_rose]

The ultimate "blues" amp? If you close by, feel free to try

 

For years I have loved guitar players that had certain tones. Most of them are dead .... Roy Buchanan, Michael Bloomfield, and others.

 

In any case, I am what most folks think of as "old" ... 53. I grew up on 60's San Francisco Acid Rock, the blues, and the earlier days of rock in general.

 

I am thought of as a blues player by some that don't have any sort of refined taste and are easily impressed I guess, but I have always sought a certain sort of amp for playing the blues.

 

I have used many different amps, and as I play more types of amps, work on more of them, and fiddle with them, I learn more and more. I am always coming closer, and for the first time in my life, I think I can see light at the end of my amp purchasing tunnel, so to speak.

 

The first trick with blues amps, is a clean front end, without a lot of front end gain and a LOT of headroom. The older Black Face era Fender amps, and those before, had this quality. You (or at least I), want the compression and distortion, and touch sensitivity, to come from the power stage, and not the preamp stage.

 

Most amps today don't have the headroom in the front end, as they are high gain amps. If you use pedals in the front end of these amps, the input gets overdriven and the tone becomes indistinct in many cases. Some amps like pedals, most do not.

 

My amp of choice most of the time was a Fender Deluxe Reverb, but the problem here, was that you did not have the ability to get a certain sort of front end character at times, and the amp at times was a little under gunned for some venues that did not have a sound reinforcement system. I love the 6V6's, but at times wanted a bit more 6L6 character, or even KT66 character.

 

What had happened the last week working with a number of players was pretty exciting. One of the players was using an original TS-909 or 808 or whatever, tube screamer with one of my amps after using it on one of his. I was showing him the effects of a low impedance high output device (the tube screamer) vs. the effect and loading of a high impedance low output device (his guitar pickups).

 

Basically, over many hours and days actually, we came up with the magic combination that made everybody very happy. You can set the distortion character of the front end, using the amps volume control, and with the "preamps" volume controls, and the overall level with the "preamps" line out level control (set to instrument ... which is not all that common on most amps).

 

The "magic" preamp ....

 

This is a THD Univalve. Maybe most of you know this as an "amp" and never thought much of it as a preamp, but when my friend told me the cost of his "original" Tube Screamer", the Univalve, even as a "preamp" only, had a pretty nice cost

 

A LOT of playing was done to dial in the THD. Just about anything we plugged into it's tube compliment was terrific, so it was very difficult picking the favored choice (which all of us did not agree on in the end by the way). It was sort of like a Miss World contest or something .... pick the best .... but all the others were hard to turn away from.

 

In the end, the Univalve configuration (for me, and two studios, and 4 players):

 

V1 - a NATIONAL NOS 12AX7 with a rating of 100/108

 

V2 - a NOS JAN Philips 12AT7 with a rating of 90/135

 

V3 (power tubes) - two that get changed around ... one is a 6V6 NOS Mazda with an output of 52.7mA at test reference voltages that on a "spec tube" produce 45mA. AND ... NOS 6V6 RCA Blackplate with an output of 40.5mA at reference voltage.

 

......................................

 

For the power amps, three amps were used:

 

Amp 1 - Fender Twin Reverb Re-Issue. Stock with the exception of the following:

 

Output tubes are NOS Tung-Sols with a current draw of 29mA per tube. These have a #6 GT rating.

 

V1 is an NOS RCA 12AX7 with a rating of 75/83 ( sometimes referred to as an FST "Fender Soft Touch" rating).

 

V2 is an NOS JAN Philips 12AX7, as these are pretty easy to come by at a rational price. This tube also has a similar rating ( 75/75 ), and in V2 (Vibrato Channel / Reverb Channel), is the input most used.

 

The Phase Inverter is an MPI.

 

......................................

 

Amp 2 - New Fender Pro Reverb. This was a real winner, as it has a single Jensen C12N, and has a bit more clarity and definition as there is not the slight phase cancellation of two speakers that will always be slightly different due to construction differences.

 

V1 and V2 are the same as the Twin Reverb configuration and ratings. V6 is also a 12AT7Y MPI.

 

The output set on this amp are the GT-6L6GE's in a #5 rating, and may contribute to some of the other differences besides the single speaker and this amp also has a deeper cabinet than the Twin reverb. These are biased at 30.2mA per tube.

 

......................................

 

Amp 3 - GT Solo 45. These amps were specifically designed for pedal use and have even more front end headroom than the Fender amps, but with the "Univalve Preamp", the gain into any of the amps could be tweeked so closely and easily, that the headroom on these amps was not a factor.

 

V1 - 7025 and a rating of 92/100

 

V2 - 7025 with a rating of 108/116

 

V3 - 12AU7

 

V4 - GT 12AT7A with a rating of 75/83

 

V5 - 12AX7A NOS GE MPI

 

Power tubes are GT KT-66HP's with a #7 rating and biased at 30.5mA with 505 plate volts.

 

......................................

 

In any case, it has been pretty eye opening, and for the high gain crowd, the "UVpreamp" will also turn your Fender Twin Reverb into a monster gain machine that will rival any Marshall, Bogner, etc, if you don't need the channel switching aspects and just want to go to the moon or something. Actually, with an A/B/Y switch you could .... I'll stop now ... that may be another study.

 

So, for those folks in the Los Angeles area, feel free to drop me a line if you want to try this out for yourself. We can arrange something.

 

For you folks that already have Univalve amps, it just expanded your amp collection if the UV is not your only amp. It even might make some of my SS stuff sound really great come to think of it .... but I need to get a few weeks on this rig first.

 

Regards,

 

Myles

[Gabriel E.]

Too cool.

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by Gabriel E.:

Too cool.

Gabriel ....

 

You live in what may be my favorite city in the USA.

 

Not on my subject, but had to mention that!

 

Myles

[Sylver]

I knew you were gonna say the Univalve. Maybe I'll get one someday, but they are a little over budget for me.

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by Sylver:

I knew you were gonna say the Univalve. Maybe I'll get one someday, but they are a little over budget for me.

Sylver...

 

Find one maybe on E-bay ... they have made over 1000 of them so far, so some will probably show up from time to time from folks that wanted channel switching or something.

 

Myles

[Tedly Nightshade]

I'm not familiar with the Univalve, although I love both Class A and single ended tube amps.

 

Does it have a preamp line level out, or are you using the speaker out somehow?

 

I've done similar things using an old Ampeg V4, which has a preamp out, as a very nice distortion box for a second amp.

Ted

[lrbreez]

How much $$$ is the Univalve, the Yellow Jacket, and the 2x12 cabinet?

Buddy

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade:

I'm not familiar with the Univalve, although I love both Class A and single ended tube amps.

 

Does it have a preamp line level out, or are you using the speaker out somehow?

 

I've done similar things using an old Ampeg V4, which has a preamp out, as a very nice distortion box for a second amp.

Ted

Ted,

 

The Univalve has a transformer isolated line out. There is a lot of apparent and probably not apparent to me as I am not smart enough, engineering that went into their line out. On most every other amp I have ever worked on, the line out is a simple padded signal. The THD line out is much more than this, and it is quite different and very usable. It has two levels, Instrument and Line ... so when you plug into the front input of a normal guitar amp, you dont overload the amps input and turn things to mush.

 

Its line level is great to the board the way one would use a DI box.

 

On top of the two levels, there is a pot to adjust the level. You set your amp for the loudness level you want, and then adjust the Univalve for the character and amount of distortion or whatever. Between the volume on the Univalve, the real panel level control on the Univalve, and your amps volume controls, you can get a extremely wide range of tones, compression, distortion, at any level desired. It is pretty awe inspiring, and I am not always easily impressed. You can take this even further by changing the tubes in the Univalve.

 

I am not using the speaker out, in fact, I am not using a speaker connected at all ... another cool feature ... built in load, and a built in Hotplate also.

 

Again .... its the most versitile amp I have ever owned, and the finest sounding and playing amp I have ever owned, regardless of cost.

 

I am more than happy to let anybody that lives in my area try it for themself, and I have a few amps you may A/B with, such as some Fender Black Face stuff, Marshall stuff, Rivera, Mesa, SS amps, various speaker cabbs ... open back, closed back, ported, etc.

 

Myles

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by lrbreez:

How much $$$ is the Univalve, the Yellow Jacket, and the 2x12 cabinet?

Buddy

Buddy ....

 

I may be off on these figures, so you may want to verify this with THD at www.thdelectronics.com or email them I believe at info@thdelectronics.com

 

But ....

 

I think the amp is $999.00 Retail

 

I think the Jellow Jacket adaptor is $50 which includes a really nice JJ EL-84 tube.

 

I think the 2x12 cabinet is $799 or $749, but might be off on that too. Go A/B that cab sometime with a Marshall 1960 cab, or just about any other 4x12 or 2x12 ... open or closed back, doesn't matter .... and let me know what you think!

 

Myles

[Tedly Nightshade]

It's all about gain structure, and that situation has the control you need, and a built in DI to boot. Very cool.

[freddynl]

I'm almost as old as you are myles (51) and recently started gigging again , mostly jazz but occasionally blues.. And I am very satisfied with my "old" blackface concert (approx 1983)..

Actually I bought this amp to have something at home that time ,since I stopped gigging in 1980 and that time I sold most of the gear including a twin reverb, which I regretted later.

In the past I had a showman, two twin reverbs, a meazzi (nobody ever heard of that one ) but so far as I can remember, the concert amp is somehow sounding way better as the twin reverbs and loud enough anyway..with a brilliant blues and jazz sound!

I am in fact looking to find the same model to have a backup...

So I guess I found my ultimate blues amp.

 

By the way did you ever try a 1983 concert amp?

[philbo_Tangent]

Myles -

 

I still stick with Fender amps.

 

I'd much rather buy an old Bassman or similar amp for 200 or 300 bucks, change out the electrolytic capacitors, refurbish it & retube it, than to shell out kilobucks on the new high-octane amps that are now on the market.

 

My favorite amp is my first one - a '63 Vibrolux Reverb blackface with the original 10 inch speakers. When I crank it, there is nothing in the music stores that comes close to the sound - for blues and straight-up rock, anyway.

 

Phil Koenig

Tangent Studios

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by freddynl:

I'm almost as old as you are myles (51) and recently started gigging again , mostly jazz but occasionally blues.. And I am very satisfied with my "old" blackface concert (approx 1983)..

Actually I bought this amp to have something at home that time ,since I stopped gigging in 1980 and that time I sold most of the gear including a twin reverb, which I regretted later.

In the past I had a showman, two twin reverbs, a meazzi (nobody ever heard of that one ) but so far as I can remember, the concert amp is somehow sounding way better as the twin reverbs and loud enough anyway..with a brilliant blues and jazz sound!

I am in fact looking to find the same model to have a backup...

So I guess I found my ultimate blues amp.

 

By the way did you ever try a 1983 concert amp?

freddynl....

 

I have played 80's Concert amps a lot, as a good friend of mine was the designer of that particular amp. The designer and head of R&D for Fender at that time was Paul Rivera. If you ever have questions on that amp, you can get to him from www.rivera.com

 

Its a great amp to say the least.

 

Myles

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by philbo_Tangent:

Myles -

 

I still stick with Fender amps.

 

I'd much rather buy an old Bassman or similar amp for 200 or 300 bucks, change out the electrolytic capacitors, refurbish it & retube it, than to shell out kilobucks on the new high-octane amps that are now on the market.

 

My favorite amp is my first one - a '63 Vibrolux Reverb blackface with the original 10 inch speakers. When I crank it, there is nothing in the music stores that comes close to the sound - for blues and straight-up rock, anyway.

 

Phil Koenig

Tangent Studios

Phil ....

 

Can't argue with you there! But .... in my area, a Vibrolux (also one of my favorite amps of all time) is a lot more than the $1100 or so retail of an S45 and the $995 retail of the THD.

 

There are also not than many 60's era Bassmans around here for $300 any more, so hang onto those for sure.

 

Myles

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by philbo_Tangent:

Myles -

 

I still stick with Fender amps.

 

I'd much rather buy an old Bassman or similar amp for 200 or 300 bucks, change out the electrolytic capacitors, refurbish it & retube it, than to shell out kilobucks on the new high-octane amps that are now on the market.

 

My favorite amp is my first one - a '63 Vibrolux Reverb blackface with the original 10 inch speakers. When I crank it, there is nothing in the music stores that comes close to the sound - for blues and straight-up rock, anyway.

 

Phil Koenig

Tangent Studios

Phil ....

 

Can't argue with you there! But .... in my area, a Vibrolux (also one of my favorite amps of all time) is a lot more than the $1100 or so retail of an S45 and the $995 retail of the THD.

 

There are also not than many 60's era Bassmans around here for $300 any more, so hang onto those for sure.

 

Myles

[overcomer]

ok, how do i use another amp as a preamp?, i have a 100 watt head and cab and want to use a smaller amp with it, but how do you hook it up? i am not savvy about all this stuff. there is an input marked "slave" odbm on the back of my amp and two other inputs for spkr cabs... how do you do what you are talking about? thanks,,,,

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by overcomer:

ok, how do i use another amp as a preamp?, i have a 100 watt head and cab and want to use a smaller amp with it, but how do you hook it up? i am not savvy about all this stuff. there is an input marked "slave" odbm on the back of my amp and two other inputs for spkr cabs... how do you do what you are talking about? thanks,,,,

You would need a power attenuator or an item such as a Groove Tubes speaker emulator for use with conventional amps ( http://www.groovetubes.com/product.cfm?Product_ID=1604 ) .

 

These are currently in use and on tour with Eddie, Steve Vai, Billy Gibbons, Joe Satriani, and were used by Chet Atkins also.

 

In ther case of the THD Univalve, it is designed from the get go as a power amp that can also be used as a preamp.

 

I also use a bank of GT Speaker Emulators for my own use, as that allows me to do things like use a Fender Bassman head as a preamp in a Rivera 100 watt head, and get a different sort of response.

 

Myles

[swiggy]

Very interesting, Myles.

Do you consider the Univalve + GT SE2 as the best way to go for live application direct to console ?

I'm still searching for the best "tube feel" to do this and I'm not satisfied with either the pod or the Mesa Formula Pre.

thanks for response

Vince

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by swiggy:

Very interesting, Myles.

Do you consider the Univalve + GT SE2 as the best way to go for live application direct to console ?

I'm still searching for the best "tube feel" to do this and I'm not satisfied with either the pod or the Mesa Formula Pre.

thanks for response

Vince

Vince ....

 

Not exactly. You do not need both.

 

The SE II is great in live applications for big rack rigs. It is also good in the studio, but you need a lot of different amp heads to use with it to get all of its versitility. Its for a different application than a Univalve.

 

The Univalve is a stand alone amp and preamp all in one unit. With a handfull of tubes, you can cover just about any sound .... EL-84 Vox/Matchless, 6L6 Fender and USA amps, EL-34 Marshall and Hiwatt territory.

 

With a 12AX7 in V1, 12AT7 in V2, and a NOS 6V6 as the power tube, the THD UV is perhaps the most fun and touch sensitive amp I have played, and all at Fender Champ levels.

 

The THD Univalve can also be used with no speaker, and used as a stand alone preamp, which I do currently.

 

Myles

[swiggy]

Thanks myles.

last question, how does the univalve react direct to the board ? does it bites the digital modelers ? (I hope it does)

Vince

[rebonn]

Go with the ultimate blues amp with natural tube break up with tubes on the pre amp and output stage.

Ala the Ampeg RH-50 head with 1 cab @ 8 ohms and 2 @ 16 ohms.

[Gabriel E.]

You live in what may be my favorite city in the USA.

 

Not on my subject, but had to mention that!

 

Myles

Thanks Myles. After 8 years of living here, I guess I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with the city. It's dangerous and corrupt but it's also really fun. Getting business done here can be tough (the locals don't have much in the way of a work ethic). Great roots music and great players can be found anywhere.

 

Let me know next time you come to visit - I'll show you where you can still get absinthe.

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by swiggy:

Thanks myles.

last question, how does the univalve react direct to the board ? does it bites the digital modelers ? (I hope it does)

Vince

They are very nice direct into the board, but you have to be pretty adept with EQ. Think of it as a really expensive tube DI box. In this way they are much nicer than the digital stuff. Sort of compare it in thinking to a plastic kids mic and a nice studio mic.

 

The best sound comes though, in the studio, with the most ease, when using the Univalve with a 1x12 cabinet with a nice mic in the conventional fashion. This is how "Layla" was done, with a Fender Champ amp ( 3 1/2 watts ) and a tweed deluxe (12-15 watts).

 

Myles

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by Gabriel E.:

You live in what may be my favorite city in the USA.

 

Not on my subject, but had to mention that!

 

Myles

Thanks Myles. After 8 years of living here, I guess I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with the city. It's dangerous and corrupt but it's also really fun. Getting business done here can be tough (the locals don't have much in the way of a work ethic). Great roots music and great players can be found anywhere.

 

Let me know next time you come to visit - I'll show you where you can still get absinthe.

Dangerous ???? Corrupt ???? Ever look at the news from Los Angeles?

 

Your food is better too.

 

Myles

[Gabriel E.]

Your food is better too.

THAT'S true! And in N.O., people don't iron their t-shirts.

 

That being said, there was a shooting at the barber shop down the block from me last week. Some guys out front got into an argument and one pulled a gun and started shooting. Some bullets hit the barber and a client inside the shop. Fortunately, neither were critically wounded. Fun!

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by Gabriel E.:

Your food is better too.

THAT'S true! And in N.O., people don't iron their t-shirts.

 

That being said, there was a shooting at the barber shop down the block from me last week. Some guys out front got into an argument and one pulled a gun and started shooting. Some bullets hit the barber and a client inside the shop. Fortunately, neither were critically wounded. Fun!

Last week? We had a few of those in L.A. last night

 

Myles

[michael saulnier]

Bump...

 

In case anyone wondered what I was talking about in the "In Myles we Trust!" thread.

 

guitplayer

[D_dup3]

Like philbo_...one of my favorite guitar amps was the Fender Bassman (& also Twin Reverb).

At some point perhaps you could share thoughts on it vs. other Fenders (or other amps) as a guitar amp.

 

Wasn't the Mesa-Boogie based on it?

[myles_rose]

Originally posted by d:

Like philbo_...one of my favorite guitar amps was the Fender Bassman (& also Twin Reverb).

At some point perhaps you could share thoughts on it vs. other Fenders (or other amps) as a guitar amp.

 

Wasn't the Mesa-Boogie based on it?

d ....

 

I have a lot of that sort of info on my website.

 

The original Mesa Boogie was a Princeton with a bassman output section, and who did this at first was a different person than most realize. The fellow that did this is gone, he died a number of years ago, but I think a lot of folks miss him a lot.

[D_dup3]

Thanks!

I'll be checking your site (will I find out the "mystery man's" ID?).