Just for the hell of it, while waiting for some Eminence speakers to try, I put a Weber Ceramic Blue Dog I had sitting around in the 112 combo cabinet I'm using with the OTS. To my surprise, it sounded great in there. Can get very nice Knoplfer-esque sounds in the clean channel, and you can nail the classic British OD tone (think the opening chords of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks). I'm not what I'd call a rocker, more into blues and jazz blues, so I might not keep that speaker in there permanently, but I thought that I'd report my findings to add to the general knowledge pool.
Nice to know, I have a 1x12 with a Ceramic Blue Dog in it, might have to plug the Overtone in and give it a whirl
Celestion G12-65, I have two vintage ones in a semi open backed solid pine 2x12 and the tone is unreal, Robben Ford/Carlton tone no kidding.
Before that I had Weber Silver Bells, but the difference after changing to the G12-65's was astounding. They really take this amp from nice tube tone to undeniable 'D*mble" territory.
S&M = Sami & Marin layout. You guys have all seen Marins vids online Im sure, his tone is incendiary. The S&M includes the mods implemented to achieve this sound (great phrasing not inlcuded )
I just finished my first build (a 5F1). I kept an online journal regarding the process of putting it all together. I talk about the process and there are pics as I made progress. Please check it out. There will be finished pics, audio, and video up there soon.
Thanks Justin. I'm about to start my build in a couple of weeks. I'm in the process of setting up a blog with the intention of documenting the process.
It's a different kind of signal handling. In the Overdrive, I approach gain levels that are extremely intense; within the linear region, I have a signal gain capability of one million. So if you stuck 10 microvolts in, you'd get 10 volts back. And I do it with stability, and it's still very musical. The best way to approach an Overdrive is real slow. Walk up to it, look at the knobs, have it turned down real low, and then get a feeling for it. Learn what to do with your fingers to make it respond well. If you walk right up to it, it has a tendency to absolutely frighten some people. The secret control on the Overdrive's panel section is the ratio control, which controls how much overdrive is fed back into the circuit. If you turn that up, it's Rock City.
True, don't know how long it took me to discover this twiddling with my Overtone (ages) but it sure is the key.
Drew up a faceplate for the 5F1 chassis in Adobe Illustrator. Fit well on mine. Thought Id share here. Files attached as JPEG and Adobe Illustrator file.
Cat
***Disclaimer - print it and check it against your chassis before you go and have an expensive faceplate made! If for some reason your chassis is different to the drawing I've posted, its your job to find out. I wont be paying for your mistake if you find your shiny new faceplate doesn't fit
Check: and http://www.gregorhilden.de/index.htm On ampgarage there are some, not very detailed, pictures of his dumble . I think Hilden is a very nice player; plays nice melodies and always in the context of a song.
That was a great clip. Tone wasnt as "thick" as your typical Dumble tone, but still very very nice.
The question becomes: once you start where do you stop. ie: if nick gets concerned with making the build process 'builder friendly' it will get to the stage where he'll be asked to include step by step instructions and besides the time and effort this consumes it also throws up a whole heap of legal and safety issues.
In the end, if you aren't competent enough to build an amp using the drawings that Nik makes available then you shouldnt be attempting to build a device that uses lethal voltages in the first place.
I sympathise with people finding it difficult to keep track of what they've done on big and complex builds but if you really want to a computer based solution as described above, it can be achieved with the current layouts and some skills in photoshop.
Thanks Cat! I really appreciate that you took the time to warn me and point me in the direction of some good safety resources. I'll be sure to do as you say. Thanks again!
Justin
No worries calis, I didn't want to sound patronising but its really important to know your stuff when working with high voltages, Id hate to hear of someone getting hurt because noone bothered to take 5 mins to point them in the direction of some saftey instructions.. If you do some reading and ask a lot of questions you'll be fine, there's nothing that cant be done with a little know-how.
Definitely watch the videos by Gabi (soudgaragetales.com) too. Really helps to see him do each stage.
Good luck, I'm sure Ill see you round the various forums.
Then go here http://music-electronics-forum.com/, sign up, go to the amp forums, then the 'build your own amp' section then the 'tweed builders' section and read all the posts you can find on 5F1 builds.
Building amps can be fun and safe, but for God's sake if you don't know exactly what you are doing at any point ask questions on forums until you get the answers you need.
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