This is exactly what I did with my Alembic preamp, which is basically a rather high voltage typical Fender 2-channel preamp. Jerry Garcia did the same thing. Ran one channel into the next with the two in series. Very versatile. The early tone controls and bright switch allow you to boost the treble, then make rich harmonics...then use the later tone controls to de-emphasize the treble. That allows the basic guitar sound to get treble boosted and then treble cut, ending up about the same. But the distortion that's generated in between those two tone control points only goes thru the treble-cut. That really takes the "Fizzy stuff" treble off of the distortion, while allowing the guitar to come thru less altered. And of course you can also do other things like use both bright switches on for some REAL bright boost. Etc. etc. Very versatile. The real question is whether to have the ability to bypass the first channel to have the option to run thru just one channel should you desire.
At 19:07 you turned a knob and got some insanely nice sounds, what was going on here? I'm a bit lost on the status of the controls at that point but was that just the regular vibrato channel?
That was on the new high gain channel through the normal input. I'm fairly confident I was adjusting up the master volume to push the phase inverter and output section a little more. You can hear how there was a lot of tendency towards feedback, meaning it was getting VERY loud in the room.
@@KleyDeJong That tone is quite NICE. I have a 1965 pro reverb but i wouldn't dare do this to it as it's almost nearly all original. However I have a '65 Super Reverb Reissue I picked up from guitar center broken (blown screen grid) that might be a prime candidate for this. I want that sound you got. Oh also, what speaker and mic was that? Thanks for posting this !
Hold up - you repurposed the vibrato to use as a gain stage instead? So the vibrato is disengaged altogether? And this is a cascaded setup, not a typical PPIMV volume with normal channel tonestack changes?
@@KleyDeJong Sorry, let me clarify - does the vibrato and reverb still work on channel 2? Around the 9:30 mark you mentioned you removed the tremolo function, wasn't sure if that was deliberate or necessary for the newly cascaded funtion or incidental side point. I guess my concern is keeping vibrato and reverb funtions...have a 79' UL I'm very curious to change to channel 1 and/or cascade for more versatility like you have done
This is a great channel mate. Thanks for sharing the info. Right now I have a Twin Reverb 65 Chasis with PT and a 79 Ultralinear Twin Reverb OT. I'll build the amp from scratch, but can't decide what to do. How do you compare this Blackface High Gain Mod to the Trainwreck you have done on other vídeos? I want something versatile that can offer good cleans and great saturated tones, the amp on the vídeo certainly sound amazing. Specially after removing the tone stack on the normal channel.
hello, beautiful mod! but would you be willing to send the layout with all the changes? being Italian, some details in the translation escape me! thanks if you can
Hey man! I was curious if you’ve done anything different to dial in the sound more since you’ve done the original mod. Was reading some comments about what you were going to change or try and was curious what updates you have on the mod. Thanks!
Kley, I really appreciate you doing this! I recently got into amp building in the last few months and have found your channel and Reddit post (I think that is you?) really helpful. I have been searching for videos or sound samples of a cascaded blackface such as this and wondered why more people haven’t done it. What are your thoughts on the amp after doing the mod? Do you think these cascaded channels could be tweaked into a useable super high gain amp, similar to how the Mesa mark series came about? Thanks again!
Great question Adam, I don't know why there is not more of this done in the community. I played it again today and it is a very fun amp to play. Definitely has some Dumble or Mesa type tones to my ear. I absolutely think there is potential here. I plan on doing some more aggressive tweaking of the 'Normal' channel based on the following: - The treble and bass controls on the normal channel are much less effective. I did some sweeping of them later in this video and they have surprisingly little effect on the overall EQ. - The amp is very sensitive. The gain controls really need to be kept at 50% or lower. Pushing above that it starts to squeal a lot. Many high gain amps implement fixed voltage dividers, so that makes sense to me. I may also look to add a cap or some resistors to even further keep things under control. - The vibrato channel is affected. Disabling the mixing of the two channels at the phase inverter has increased gain even on the vibrato channel. Some more resources I'm looking into: www.tdpri.com/threads/blackface-ab763-experiment-high-gain-series-mod.1059543/ robrobinette.com/How_the_Saldano_SLO-100_Works.htm
That’s a really interesting observation about the normal channels tone stack not being as effective. The Mesa Mark has an early tone stack as well and seems to have a huge impact on the high gain channels. Do you think it may something to do with the vibrato tone stack also cutting so much?
@@adamfosson209 I'm honestly not sure. I believe it may have something to do with how hot my signal is throughout each gain stage. I increased the fixed midrange resistor to 20k vs 6.8k so there is a fair bit more midrange. The higher the midrange resistance the less effective the tone stack is as a whole - but 20k isn't crazy. I'm going to do some more diving into the high gain components.
Hi Kley. My next amp build will be a one channel Deluxe reverb with tremolo deleted but on the first gain stage I'm going to add Rob Robinette's cascade mod without the input jack and maybe a Marshall tone stack.Basically I'm adding another gain stage maybe using a 6AV6 or half of a 12AX7. Just wondering your thoughts on that? Very cool videos btw!
Cool video as always!! A question: have you ever mod a push-pull amp with the triode-output-stage mod to decrease the output power? I wanna make that one on my bassman style amp, what do you think about it? Thanks for your contents 🔝🔥
Do you use both EQ simultaneously when plugged into the first channel? Love your stuff man. Sounds really great!
That sounds killer!
This is exactly what I did with my Alembic preamp, which is basically a rather high voltage typical Fender 2-channel preamp. Jerry Garcia did the same thing. Ran one channel into the next with the two in series. Very versatile. The early tone controls and bright switch allow you to boost the treble, then make rich harmonics...then use the later tone controls to de-emphasize the treble. That allows the basic guitar sound to get treble boosted and then treble cut, ending up about the same. But the distortion that's generated in between those two tone control points only goes thru the treble-cut. That really takes the "Fizzy stuff" treble off of the distortion, while allowing the guitar to come thru less altered.
And of course you can also do other things like use both bright switches on for some REAL bright boost. Etc. etc. Very versatile. The real question is whether to have the ability to bypass the first channel to have the option to run thru just one channel should you desire.
beyond stoked I found your channel. wanting to mod my amp and this is great content!
Thanks, glad to have you!
Nice work. Cool video. Thanks for posting.
Thanks Dan!
Is the layout diagram below for this high gain mod?
Sounds pretty great!
Ha! Love the face at the end Kley, that says it all! Sounded great, keep these types of videos coming and you'll grow quickly! :)
Thank you, I had a lot of fun with this one!
At 19:07 you turned a knob and got some insanely nice sounds, what was going on here? I'm a bit lost on the status of the controls at that point but was that just the regular vibrato channel?
That was on the new high gain channel through the normal input.
I'm fairly confident I was adjusting up the master volume to push the phase inverter and output section a little more. You can hear how there was a lot of tendency towards feedback, meaning it was getting VERY loud in the room.
@@KleyDeJong That tone is quite NICE. I have a 1965 pro reverb but i wouldn't dare do this to it as it's almost nearly all original. However I have a '65 Super Reverb Reissue I picked up from guitar center broken (blown screen grid) that might be a prime candidate for this. I want that sound you got. Oh also, what speaker and mic was that? Thanks for posting this !
@@nikonmikon8915 That would be sweet! I used a wgs g12c speaker and an sm57 mic.
Hold up - you repurposed the vibrato to use as a gain stage instead? So the vibrato is disengaged altogether? And this is a cascaded setup, not a typical PPIMV volume with normal channel tonestack changes?
No, the vibrato channel is stock. The normal channel can cascade into the vib channel.
@@KleyDeJong Sorry, let me clarify - does the vibrato and reverb still work on channel 2? Around the 9:30 mark you mentioned you removed the tremolo function, wasn't sure if that was deliberate or necessary for the newly cascaded funtion or incidental side point. I guess my concern is keeping vibrato and reverb funtions...have a 79' UL I'm very curious to change to channel 1 and/or cascade for more versatility like you have done
@@eyedunno8462 I did remove the tremolo for reasons not related to the cascade. It wasn't working properly and I didn't use it much.
@@KleyDeJong Gotcha, thanks for clarifying! This is technically a Pre-Phase invertor Master Volume then?
@@eyedunno8462 yessir
This is a great channel mate. Thanks for sharing the info. Right now I have a Twin Reverb 65 Chasis with PT and a 79 Ultralinear Twin Reverb OT. I'll build the amp from scratch, but can't decide what to do. How do you compare this Blackface High Gain Mod to the Trainwreck you have done on other vídeos? I want something versatile that can offer good cleans and great saturated tones, the amp on the vídeo certainly sound amazing. Specially after removing the tone stack on the normal channel.
The high gain mod is a little more versatile and a traditional high gain experience. The train wreck is very responsive and unique.
hello, beautiful mod! but would you be willing to send the layout with all the changes? being Italian, some details in the translation escape me! thanks if you can
Thanks, check the links in the description!
@@KleyDeJong Thanks to you for giving me an answer !!! I go there immediately! a big greeting from Sardinia !!
Hey man! I was curious if you’ve done anything different to dial in the sound more since you’ve done the original mod.
Was reading some comments about what you were going to change or try and was curious what updates you have on the mod. Thanks!
The key is dropping more lows going into the gain chanel
Great video! Where did you purchase your shielded cable? Thanks
I bought it on eBay!
@@KleyDeJong what gauge do you use? Thanks
@@analogblues9606 22 gauge for almost all signal stuff.
@@KleyDeJong thanks so much Kley!😊
Kley, I really appreciate you doing this! I recently got into amp building in the last few months and have found your channel and Reddit post (I think that is you?) really helpful. I have been searching for videos or sound samples of a cascaded blackface such as this and wondered why more people haven’t done it. What are your thoughts on the amp after doing the mod? Do you think these cascaded channels could be tweaked into a useable super high gain amp, similar to how the Mesa mark series came about? Thanks again!
Great question Adam, I don't know why there is not more of this done in the community. I played it again today and it is a very fun amp to play. Definitely has some Dumble or Mesa type tones to my ear. I absolutely think there is potential here. I plan on doing some more aggressive tweaking of the 'Normal' channel based on the following:
- The treble and bass controls on the normal channel are much less effective. I did some sweeping of them later in this video and they have surprisingly little effect on the overall EQ.
- The amp is very sensitive. The gain controls really need to be kept at 50% or lower. Pushing above that it starts to squeal a lot. Many high gain amps implement fixed voltage dividers, so that makes sense to me. I may also look to add a cap or some resistors to even further keep things under control.
- The vibrato channel is affected. Disabling the mixing of the two channels at the phase inverter has increased gain even on the vibrato channel.
Some more resources I'm looking into:
www.tdpri.com/threads/blackface-ab763-experiment-high-gain-series-mod.1059543/
robrobinette.com/How_the_Saldano_SLO-100_Works.htm
That’s a really interesting observation about the normal channels tone stack not being as effective. The Mesa Mark has an early tone stack as well and seems to have a huge impact on the high gain channels.
Do you think it may something to do with the vibrato tone stack also cutting so much?
@@adamfosson209 I'm honestly not sure. I believe it may have something to do with how hot my signal is throughout each gain stage. I increased the fixed midrange resistor to 20k vs 6.8k so there is a fair bit more midrange. The higher the midrange resistance the less effective the tone stack is as a whole - but 20k isn't crazy.
I'm going to do some more diving into the high gain components.
Hi Kley. My next amp build will be a one channel Deluxe reverb with tremolo deleted but on the first gain stage I'm going to add Rob Robinette's cascade mod without the input jack and maybe a Marshall tone stack.Basically I'm adding another gain stage maybe using a 6AV6 or half of a 12AX7. Just wondering your thoughts on that? Very cool videos btw!
I have a PA 135 I would love to Mod. Would this work with that amp?
wow
Cool video as always!!
A question: have you ever mod a push-pull amp with the triode-output-stage mod to decrease the output power? I wanna make that one on my bassman style amp, what do you think about it?
Thanks for your contents 🔝🔥
I have not experimented much with output switching, thought I understand it is fairly simple and effective. I should do some testing and make a video!
Black Panel*