Bluesfendermanblues, have you tried the JB with a 250k ohm volumepot? It's specially designed around that value, if you use it with a 500k ohm pot you'll end up with a thin harsh sound. I once had a JB in a Les Paul copy, great thick rock sounds. Then I put some 500k pots in and the result was horrible!
Then something else. If I listen to recent Ford's sounds, say from 2008 to now on, I notice the bottom end is something I haven't heard in any Ceriatone OTS clip so far. It is very aggressive, tight and singing. Are you guys getting close to this? To me a lot of the 6L6 OTS' low-end can sound somewhat flabby/overly bassy. But I once read in a recent interview that Ford is using Sovtek 5881's just as Carlton is? I'd be pleased to hear if I'm wrong or not. Have a listen to the clip.
This is properly my favourite guitar sound ever, would love to recreate this.
I copyied the layout of the fender Robben Ford signature model which use 1 meg pots all around. This could off course have some sort of impact , but I doubt that the difference between 250k vs 500k vs 1meg would be night and day.
Regarding output tubes, all I can say is I've tried a lot of different OT tubes in my D amps and IMO the best is the Winged C svetlana 6L6. I've got NOS GE's, 5881 etc. but the winged C's are the beef.
my thoughts......regardless of the mods i have found that the pickups in your guitar will influence the amp the most.....especially humbuckers.....i have found that PAF like humbuckers are the best to achieve the robben tone....although my yamaha SG also gets close too. ... albeit the yamaha pups have quite high output.
i would suggest using some nice alnico pickups in your guitar and the rest is up to you and your hands. PAF's are great for this amp as they have clarity and match the amp well when it comes to the touch sensitivity from clean to dirty just by changing your touch and picking.
RF has many great tones on his albums and i guess like all of us... he changes his settings for each song and type of guitar depending on what is required.
I agree 100% with you on PAF-type pickups, being important for RF sounds.
Having read about RF using a Seymour Duncan combo of 59 in neck and a JB in bridge, I bout a set for my Les Paul...boy was I dissapointed with that bridge humbucker. Its all mid - no top, no bottom.
After this experience, I fitted the pickups to a strat, only to get same result.
I cannot believe that RF should have used a Seuymour D JO in his bridge pos. on ANY of his recordings. It's simply not his sound.
I have just swopped the JB for at Seth Lover, which I'm sure will deliver the goods.
..........I have tried your preampgain setting, high like 7-8 but I find it quite hard to balance the drive then, even with full ratio.
I play strats and tele like you and I also like the volume at 7-8 in order to 'feed' the amp like a humbucker guitar would with the volume at 5.
In order to get a proper balance between OD and clean, I have replaced the 100K Ratio Pot for a 250K pot and omitted the 180K resistor going into the pot.....I have simply shortet the 180k resistor with a small piece of wire.
With this 'mod' I can get a lot more OD volume - more than double the OD volume with the 100k pot, and now I have the Ratio at 5 (instead of before the mod, when I had to have the ratio knob at 10) - leaving me plenty of volume in reserve.
All this talk of investment... Aren't you doing it wrong? Invest in gold, oil, whatever. An amp or a guitar is there to be played. If you buy a Dumble and lock it up out of scratching fear you wasted a bunch of money in the (not unreasonable) hope the investment will pay out. In the meantime the Dumble or the rare Gibson Les Paul is becoming a dustbunny.
+1 We are looking at an upcoming stock bullmarket, so this is probably where you should invest your money. I don't believe a Dumble will increase 20% p.a. over the next 10 years. So calling it an investment is a joke.
Buy one if want to play one. And sell it if you don't like it. Good news is it will probably hold its value (given that it is an original and not one of the many fakes), so you don't lose money.
Just a note about internal trimers. The non HRM OTS has one as well. But Nik has a mod to place it on the back panel. However once you have set this..........
Agree, I've put my OD gain trimmer on the back, but I never tough it ...that is only to dial it back to where it sounds best, which I've marked with a white dot on the back.
You want a Bluesmaster, which is what Matt Schofield is using. Remember these amps needs a long burn in time and will keep evolving/maturing during its first couple of years.
Don't judge the amp until it has had at least 20 hours of burn in time. They sound pretty sterile out of the box.
If you like HRM pots on the frontpanel you better go for a Two Rock amnivirsary or a certain type of Glaswerks amp. These brands did extensive research to take the HRM concept a step further without ending in a humming amp.
FWIW I like my HRM od channel only with the PAB on. So I tweaked it at gig levels as a extension of the clean channel sound wise. Now it's untouched for almost 3 months(set and forget).
Erwin, what exact setting of the trim pots, did you settle on?
Great, that you got if fixed. But, please post the solution here - don't keep it to yourself - thats kind of like the purpose with having this forum please share
Sorry to hear about your experience with your new amp. The isssues you describe should take a professional tech nothing more than ½-1 hour to fix.
Don't quit on that amp. Nick delivers premium goods and takes pride in having satisfied customers. Get the amp serviced and let it burn in for 20 hour of intense guitar playing or connect a CD player to the amp and let it play for a week or so, and you'll be pretty amazed with what you 've got on your hands.
Off course, its not a Bludo, Red plate or Fuchs, but its a pretty nice amp for the money. And in time you can tweak it to reach a a very high quality level, once you get to know the amp.
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