Tone Stacking

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 5 Jun 2004 11:57 am

This is for any and everyone but I know Brad has done research into this so Yo Brad!--

I've just blackfaced my Dual Showman Rev. and done some other stuff and it's cool and all but I can't escape something....there is a tonal essence that I just can't find in any of my Fenders and there is a little bit of it in, of all places, a PV Classic VT that I've chopped into a head amp. I wish I could describe it but tone, like color, is a bitch to put into words. Words like "pearly", "3D", "vowel-like" come to mind. I think I'm talking about the mids but it's really the overall shape of the sound. The Fenders have all the punch and the twang that I don't get anywhere else but there's something that I can't seem to find that I do find in that VT. Anybody know what I'm trying to say? Do I?

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 5 Jun 2004 2:13 pm

I don't have a VT, but I have a blackface Twin and several "tweeds". The thing about guitar amps is they tend to have really good mids, but the steel guitar sounds better, to my ears, when it's scooped. That being, that the top and bottom have to be really good.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 5 Jun 2004 7:09 pm

Jon,
The Fenders use 6L6 tubes that tend to have a scooped mid range. When you push them the scoop becomes more apparent. The Peavey Classic uses EL84s which are more english unscooped sort of sounding. Similar to EL34s. I like the sound you are talking about quite a bit myself.

Right now my favorite amp is an old Showman with 6L6s in it. I can't get a Class A pearly mid range sound out of it but I'm digging how it sounds.

If you want to make it easy on yourself checking out tube amp tones pick up a THD BiValve. It has it all.

Bob

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 6 Jun 2004 8:52 am

Yeah--a bivalve isn't in the cards but I've wanted one since they came out just for that reason--as a born tweeker that idea of plug & play mix & matching with tubes is totally hip.
This morning I'm a little happier with the Dual Showman after doing some more internal fine tuning. I am way into the scooped mids but I think there is a specific freq range that I am looking for here that will make me ecstatic if I can nail it down.
BTW--the Peavey I'm talking about is an old (80's I think) hybrid--solid state front, 2 x 6L6 power. VT series. It only works for steel with the mids turned to zero and it will get nasty sounding with the treble a half a hair off of its sweet spot but this little catch-in-the-back-of-your-throat pearl/vowel sound is in there.
Name that frequency!

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 6 Jun 2004 11:02 am

Jon, the Twin and most fenders have what I'd consider a huge midrange dip at around 500Hz. On the Twin, you can flatten things out and bring out more of that vowel like midrange by taking the bass knob down to about 2.8 to 3.2, midrange up over 6, and treble wherever sounds good. This is how you remove the scoop. I'd also agree that the 6L6 tube has a kind of hi-fi scoop when driven, but I think you're dealing with a tonestack issue.

I've messed with shifting that 500Hz midrange dip up to around 800Hz by changing the slope resistor from 100k to 56k. 800Hz is where a lot of steelers like to dip midrange, especially on Peavey amps. I've had my Twin at both settings and found the stock setting and the 800Hz setting to both be real cool. I think I'll add a switch so I can choose on the fly. Maybe a pot or maybe a multi position switch to have more choices.

In your case, I'd start by bringing the bass control down around 3 and see if you can bring out more of that mid you're looking for. Remember that on the Fender, most of the tone control happens between 2.5 and 4 on the dials. With the Twin tones set at say 5,5,5, you're going to have a very mid scooped, bright, and bass heavy sound. It's the characteristic Twin sound. But, that tonestack will give you a huge variety of sound if you hone in on that zone around 3 on the dials.

Brad Sarno

Mark Herrick · Post by **Mark Herrick** » 6 Jun 2004 12:42 pm

What Brad said about lowering the bass, increasing the mid and flavoring with treble is exactly what I was told recently by another local steel player...

Use the Tone Stack Calculator available at the Duncan's Amp Pages site and you can see all this graphically:
http://www.duncanamps.com/software.html

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 6 Jun 2004 1:14 pm

Yeah--I've been messing around inside and I've been playing with the dials. And with that Duncan calculator. I have also done the 56K slope resistor. I too am considering making it switchable because of constantly changing my mind on my preference.
What I wish I could do is just identify exactly what it is that I like in that solid state front end and then try to target that freq. area. So far the exact nature of this sound is escaping me. I know that my Evans FET500 Custom does not have it. But this VT Classic does--but it is too limited in other ways to use.

One thing I did achieve with this blackfacing job is the ability to finally properly bias this amp and at the moment I'm digging the sound of JJ's running hot.

I need to borrow someone's graphic eq. Maybe that will help me ID the freqs I'm wanting.

Tim Whitlock · Post by **Tim Whitlock** » 7 Jun 2004 4:54 am

Jon - i just wanted to chime in to let you know you're not alone. When I started playing steel, I was using an 80's Peavey Classic VTX, leftover from my rock n roll days. Solid state pre-amp and two tubes for output. I know the sound you're talking about and it's very hard to verbalize. I always somehow pictured steel ball bearings as my visual image of this sound, but "pearly" is just as good. Some part of the midrange frequencies of the amp gave it a thicker and shinier sound than the Fenders that I now play. Your post reminded me how much I miss that little tone coloring. I eventually sold that amp to a kid and wish I still had it. If you find a mod that will add that element to a Fender amp, PLEASE post it! Thanks!

Ken Fox · Post by **Ken Fox** » 7 Jun 2004 5:13 am

Itis an opamp front end, not so unlike the steel amps that followed the original Session 400 era. I have a Mace VT with original Black Widows. The Classic (2 - 6L6), the Deuce (4-6L6) and the Mace (6-6L6)were a great sound all their own. I actually preferred the earlier series (non-VT) as they were all discrete transistor front end. I used my Mace last time I gigged. I had great tone and a presence on stage I can never get with my Fender amps (and I own a bunch of classic Fenders). The tone is not as scooped and the mids really cut thru the mix.

jim milewski · Post by **jim milewski** » 7 Jun 2004 6:23 am

I like the VT better than the Twin, I wanted to buy a Music Man, but the prices were way up there, I knew Peavey made hybrids similar to the Music Mam and found a Classic for $150, I put a 15" BW in it and although the tone controls don't very a whole lot, it fell into a real sweet range, only 50 watts or so, but a great sound, then I went up to a Heritage, (actually bought two, and selling one) which had a tone circuit more like a Nashville and 4 output tubes, and to my ears better than a Twin, actually the Classic is better sounding than a Twin for me, and you can get these amps for a lot less $, and no preamp tubes to mess with, as Jon said, they have their own sound, and a good one at that, if I had to own amps made by only one company, it would be Peavey in a heartbeat[This message was edited by jim milewski on 07 June 2004 at 03:07 PM.][This message was edited by jim milewski on 07 June 2004 at 03:09 PM.]

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 7 Jun 2004 11:38 am

I will continue to pursue this. But meantime.....I spent around 12 hours blackfacing the Dual Showman Reverb this weekend--the job itself took a couple of hours (I'm a novice) and figuring out why the amp didn't work and repairing it took the rest of the time. But in the end I had removed the master volume and pull boost, converted the bias pot from bias balance to bias adjust, did the other BF stuff and tinkered a bit more with some component values on the reverb. Biased the JJ power tubes a bit hot. I took the amp out last night and I am SUPER pleased with the results. I don't know if the warmth is the result of the BF'ing or of the tube biasing but right now I much prefer this amp to its SF sound, even though I've read that many steelers prefer the cleaner SF Fenders.
I've got more tweaking to do but this is a real winner right now.

----Ken, Jim, and especially Tim--I'm gratified that you guys know what I'm talking about with the VTs. We need to coin a word for this sound for future reference. Spreglep or something. [This message was edited by Jon Light on 07 June 2004 at 12:41 PM.]