Ceriatone Forum

I picked up a 50 watt OTS.  I had been using a BF super reverb with an Ethos pedal, which is great, and I was hoping/expecting it to sound similar or better. I use mostly strats/teles and seems a bit brighter than I was expecting and the overdrive is a bit buzzier than I was expecting. I am running the volume on 5, deep and bright off, rock on, treble 4, mid 4, bass 3, OD 3 OD volume 4, master 3 presence 3. I have a Boss SE70 plugged in the loop. Are there mods available geared towards a smoother less bright tone, especially with single coils? If I turn the gain up beyond where it is it is unusable to me.

These amps should be "burned in" after about 20 hours of play time you will notice a smoother warmer sound. Your speakers could also be part of the problem. Raising the values of the V2 snubber caps will take some high end off the OD

Try it without the Boss in the loop, my experience with Boss stuff is limited but I do know they are not the same level of 'audio quality' as the OTS.

You should check the OD trimmer setting and this has a huge effect on the OD sound. Most people agree somewhere between 9 and 11 o'clock is good. I moved mine to the back panel so I can adjust it at will. SC's require slightly different settings to HB's

V2 snubber caps do make a difference. Pickmaster published some mods one of which was a DPDT ON-OFF-ON  switch to change the snubber cap values. I usually run it with the highest value, though I can't remember exactly what that was, I do know its way higher than the 330-390pF of the standard/modded OTS's.

I see you have turned your bass low.
Try this: Turn your volume(first pot on the left) up to 6-7.
Turn your presence all the way up. Adjust your tone controls to your likings.
Fine tune the presence.(set fairly high).

Alternately try this. Master 8,  ;D Volume 1-3, Level 6-7, Ratio 2-3 TMB to taste. I prefer the 6L6's cooking a little. I also use an attenuator at home/rehearsal but not at a gig.

Hi
also try Level on 4 and ratio on 6. If you turn the amp up it sounds less buzzy

This thread is interesting to me as well, as I have only Strats and both of mine have low output single coil pickups.

I'm sure I'm going to have the same questions on sorting my sound out with a new amp, I got my shipping tracking number today ;D so not much longer to wait.

The thing is you guys are suppling good advice and some baseline settings to get started with  ;D

Cheers
Brian

I bought it used, so I am assuming it should be burnt in. The cab I am using has a vintage 30 and a G12H30, which may be part of it, but the buzziness to the OD at higher levels seems to be there even threw other speakers. I'll have to look more into the snubber cap suggestion.

results are the same with out the Boss in the loop. Also the same with just a patch cord in the loop which I read was to help tame the high end a bit. The internal OD trimmer I think is at 9 or 10 o'clock.

Would an HRM/Bluesmaster be a little more tame in the OD dept?

A few things from an admitted bit of a hack...but I am a tone snob.

Much of this has been mentioned and I may have missed the others.

1) Volume (far left) has to be 7ish or better.  It will fatten a single coil up.  Without it its kinda lackluster to me too.

2) Speakers?  I am using Celestion mixed pair G12H30 and Vintage 30 from Avatar.  Great bass response.

3)I tend to temper the presence a bit around midway or less

4)Guitar:I use Kinman AVN blues pups on my strat with a SD Pearly gates in the bridge with nickle 11s.

5) The Kleinulator or equivalent is essential.  It tames the beast and is part of that great tone.  I add a reverb and delay in the loop.

6)Settings: If it sounds thin to you go more bass.  Mine is 6 to 7 with a Strat and 5ish on the treble.  I am using the bright switch up and rock on with the fat switch off.  Bright switches on on Kleinulator.  The tone is very sweet...clean is better, however.  I think this is a good amp for a Strat but you have to drive the volume  on the guitar to collect the OD.  Otherwist the single coils don't speak loudly enough.  I ALSO TURN THE INTERNAL GAIN UP TO AROUND NOON TO 1 O'CLOCK...Nik put an outside adjustment for me.  Admittedly it goes Vintage Marshall or similar in tone but that ain't a bad thing!

7) Now, having said all that...Personally I think the OD is better with an LP.  To me anyway.  I prefer the Strat cleans though.


Casken

Forgot to mention i changed the choke to a Fender (the model dumble used. theres a thread here somewhere) and it took away alot of the buzziness and warmed it up. I use a custom telecaster tone dimed. Rock, mid on, bright off, treble 4, mids 6, bass 4-5. Presence 4, volume 5-6, master to taste.

I tried this -
volume 6
presence - full
started with BMT all at noon.
bright off (I can't imagine a case where this is even needed!) deep off rock on
have the ratio/level at 3
master at 2

still way to much sizzle - even with the presence off it is way bright and the OD seems sizzly/fizzly, bass is farty. Lower bass to 2, still not good.

gave this a shot - no dice. I am thinking either it needs to have a mod (v2 snubber caps) or something else. I have read about the bright cap on the master also changing the value. I really didn't want to get  an amp and have to mod it to like it or change speakers. Also FWIW have a Fender Esprit with humbuckers and it's still not great.

Hi,

I thought the same way when I got the amp 1,5 years ago -  too bright and too much gain in the lead channel. The first thing I did was to turn the internal trimmer to 9:30 (clockwise)

For the first month I tried to get used to the controls, which effect the sound in very different way compared to typical old-school guitar amps. After a few months the sound got much much softer.  Of course I also learned how to use the amp...

After about one year of regular use I knew what I liked and what I didn't like in the amp. The lead channel was too bright to my taste, I compensated it always from my guitar while soloing. Then I decided to make the snubber mod, which tamed the highs nicely. I also turned the internal trimmer to 10-ish.

What you are describing makes me think, that the amp has not seen much use. Perhaps the former owner did not have the patience to "burn it in" and just passed the thing on?

In my opinion, the most important control in this amp (after the rock-jazz switch) is the volume, which affects a lot to the behavior of the rest of the controls. With single-coils, you should be able to open up the volume to 7-8 and still dial in great clean tone.  Then just start experimenting with the overdrive settings.

I have pretty bright-sounding cab (V30 & Celestion Century), but I'm getting great cleans and smooth lead tones with OTS - with both humbuckers and single coils. My only complaint is that the volume jump between clean and overdrive is not big enough with some preamp settings (even with ratio dimed).

Perhaps you could try treble bleed mod,... I installed this for my friend in his OTS and he loves it.

More about it here...
http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=1099.0 (http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=1099.0)
 ;)