Got my combo cab from GabKits today,  (beautiful cab, by the way, pics tomorrow), only one thing missing, the shielding material on the underside of the top of the cab. Not really missing, just not part of their design. Just wondering which you guys think is better for shielding, a modern shielding plate or an older fender type screen shield?

+1 on break in time. As frustrated as i was, i took the advice of everyone here. And resisted the urge to mod. I'm glad i did. I may modify mine to the latest specs Nik has put out which should tighten the bass up, but i may not. Also, i have found as many others have the od and pab are almost a must together.  Both tonestacks together can lead to mud

What kind of tubes/speakers/effects are you running? I have a BM running thru rather old and flat eminence legend speakers and i have a very "straty" strat and it is far from ice picky. Just curious...

@Tone Control @Greg: Thank you very much for the advice and insight, i always very much appreciate it! You are very much correct in that higher quality amps will show flaws in your equipment and in my case playing style i put guitar down for a few years and i am getting all my muscle memory and technique back and it shows with your settings my strat sounds very nice indeed, however, my epi sheraton sounds either very dark or very twangy, which i think reflects more on the fact that even though it is one of the "better" korean made epis, the pickups and running gear are crap and the BM only magnifies it.

I have been playing around literally all day with different guitars, speakers, and pedals through the amp, and yes, even though the GE-7 added some nice sparkle, what it took away outweighed it, as did my tubescreamer, which i have never been to fond of anyway. i have my pedal board reduced to my dyna comp, my way huge swollen pickle fuzz, and my boosta grande clean boost, and the sound is much improved. my nos pre amp, tad power amp tubes, and speakers will be here tomorrow, but i still have no cab Gabkits is making me a 2x12 for the amp, and i have no idea when it will be done, what a drag.

Tone Control and others, do you use a c-lator on your BM? I have one on order, and i know alot of people swear by em and they seem to really smooth out and balance the BM out; do you find this to be true.

sorry for the rambling post, but thanks very much for the advice!!

you are right JD, i just noticed he has a 100 watter, so it prolly works a lil differently than mine does, but either way, ya no impedance change should be needed

i think instead of all the tweaking and surgery i've been considering, i'm just gonna dial in the tone controls to a pleasing setting then use my old faithful Boss GE-7 to boost the brightness and dial some of the bass out when i want it. i really think like all the other have said that i've been overthinking this whole thing, i mean i'm supposed to enjoy this, right? cheers ya'll and happy monday!!

Gregg

nah, all you are doing with the half power switch is running the output tubes in triode mode instead of pentode mode, that's how it drops the wattage down. the impedance switch should remain at 8 ohms if you have an 8 ohm speaker.

I agree with all of you, my BM is the best amp i have ever played through, i don't want anyone to misunderstand and think i'm dissatisfied with it, i love it! i really enjoy how interactive all the tone controls are and how the OD can go from mild to wild. it is second only to my much loved and much missed blackface princeton reverb, but let's face it, by the time i got it was almost 30 years old and modded 99% of the time my BM amp is perfect, it is by far the warmest fullest sounding amp i have owned, and i have owned a ton of amps over the years, and every day it just gets better; there's just that 1% of the time that i wish it was a lil brighter, a lil less bassy, and the post od tonestack could be either easily adjusted or bypassed, that's all.

it is kinda frustrating. i'm actually considering disconnecting the post OD tonestack all together and converting my PAB to the pickmaster cleanboost Mod just do i don't have to deal with it anymore. grrrrr

@ Hiderek: Your english is fine, bro! it is actually better than some for whom it is the first language! As far as the Sag switch, it is a basically a heavy duty switch with a large ceramic resistor mounted to it that sits across the center tap of the HT Leads to simulate having a tube rectifier instead of a solid state one. tube rectifiers tend to "Sag" and drop voltage a little when pushed which makes the amp sound "spongy" (think of an older tube amp and how they respond when pushed) Nik came up with the solution when i asked if i could have both a tube and solid state rectifier in my BM, but the power transfromer does not have a 5 volt tap.

As far as the Sovtek tubes go, I have to agree with bluesfenderman, i think my initial response was a bit of a honeymoon/crush phase, because now, even though i have the proper brightness, the are a bit harsh and not very warm. I have a pair of ANOS GE Long plate 12AX7's for V1 and V2 coming from KCA NOS Tubes, along with a CV4024 for the phase inverter spot, which come highly recommended for D style amps. I also have a pair TAD 6L6WGC tubes coming to swap out mt lil 25 watt NOS JAN Phillips 6L6WGB's which, while sweet sounding are not going to last long in the BM, even with the reduced plate voltage.I also will be picking up some TAD 6L6GC-STR long bottles and winged SED'S just to try em out.

I still plan on swapping out the bass pot, slope resistor,  possibly putting 3 different values on a 3 way switch, and adding some additional bright caps on all three volume controls on 3 way switches, just to have a little variety, and maybe adding a Local Negative Feedback Loop. Also my c-lator was ordered yesterday, which should help smooth things out and add some brightness.

The OD tone will smooth out over time as the amp burns in. Try playing an mp3 player with the volume turned down a bit with some smooth jazz in to the amp to help burn it in. also, remember that the gain from the clean channel affects that OD channel so if you dial the clean channel gain up and down, it can smooth out the OD or harsh it up, and the OD trimmer on the rear makes a big difference on the character of the OD.

Also, i am starting to look at the HRM OD tonestack a little differently. I don't want to rehash it here, but the thread i started on my thoughts on the OD tonestack are here--------> http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=3048.0

@bluesfendermanblues: I will have to try the JJ'ss in V1 & V2 and the Sovtek LPS as well! thanks for the input and advice, it is always welcome!!

Sometimes, i think i have too much downtime and time to think. I was thinking of how the OD channel works on a D style amp, basically cascading V1 in to V2 to increase the gain and push the pre amp into OD (simplified, but a basic description). I was also thinking that when the OD channel is engaged on an HRM style, that both tonestacks are engaged, unless, of course the PAB is engaged, which lifts the Preamp tonestack, as we all know. Most agree that the "magic" or "mojo" of the OD channel comes thru best when the OD and PAB are both engaged on both HRM and Non HRM style amps. I was thinking about this, and reading some threads on ampgarage about the HRM tonestack and a lightbulb went off.

On an HRM style amp, when you engage the OD channel with the PAB off, both tonestacks are active; as one poster (i can't remember who) put it, with both tonestacks active it's muddy as hell and i tend to agree. i have yet to find tone settings i dig on the OD channel with the PAB off.

Now, i know that this is probably not an original idea, but i am going to attack the HRM tonestack as a completely separate entity, that is once i get the clean settings the way i want it (and i am darn close), i am going to tackle tweaking the HRM tonestack with the PAB engaged until i find the settings i really dig, and then with the use of my MEGA PAB mod do a little tweaking that way.

I'm  thinking that having the HRM tonestack more easily accessible, say like on the front of the amp is a great idea if it is approached this way, basically thinking of the post OD tonestack as having a totally separate eq tone stack for each channel, and that way the two tone stack aren't fighting each other or walking on each other. Again, probably not a new way of thinking, but i just thought i would put it out there, in case someone else hadn't thought of it, or might find it useful...

ok i think that made sense... have a lovely day, ya'll!

 

I absolutely will! The tubes should be here Monday or Tuesday. Bear in mind so far i am playing thru my old 4x12 loaded with ancient eminence legends. The real test will be when my 2x12 combo comes from Gabkits and my 12-65's come from weber. I may be back to square one at that point, but, hey it's part of the fun!

UPDATE:

I switched V2 from the JJ 12AX7 out for a 3rd Sovtek, and it smoothed the OD out quite a bit. very nice! I'm still gonna try a pair of the GE Long plate 12AX7's in V1 and V2 and a Mullard CV4024 in V3 from KCA NOS tubes, but for now i am happy and impressed! It can only get better...

Okay, so I started thinking about what could be making my Bluesmaster so Bass heavy and lacking the brightness i thought it should have. It was kinda frustrating, as the clean channel was almost where i wanted it, but lacked that Fendery shimmer that i craved, and the OD channel was just muddy fizz. Not what i expected. Sure i only had 40 or so hours in it, but still the basic tone should be there. I was ready to perform surgery, changing slope resistors, bass pots, adding treble bleed caps and all sorts of mods, but i got to thinking there has to be a better way, so i started playing around with one of the basic components that the D style amp seems fussy about. The tubes.

First i started with the pre-amp tubes. I had originally installed 7025 tubes from the tubestore.com based on the recommendation of a buddy of mine in all 3 spots. these are supposed to be high gain low noise 12ax7 tubes. they are low noise and high gain, but flat as a pancake tonally (at least in the BM), and they are made by God knows who, so i changed V1 & V3 to some Sovtek 12AX7WA tubes that i have had for about 8 years now and have seen service in my Sovtek Mig50, and my Ampeg J12 and have always sounded very good indeed. I also changed V2 to a JJ 12AX7 i had purchased just for the BM and voila, things instantly got better!! no more flat, boomy, over bassy dull sound on the clean channel. Hot Damn! However, the OD channel was still fizzy. Bummer.
Originally, i had chalked it up to the NOS JAN Phillips 6L6WGB being just not right for the amp. The voltage was just too high, and I couldn't bias them any lower that about 47ma or so, plus they would creep up to 50ma. they sounded like a nice overdriven blackface when pushed, but again the OD channel sounded poopy. I was about to take them out when i remembered my amp had a feature that others didn't... the Sag switch!. The nice thing about the Sag switch is that in my amp it drops the voltage across the tubes down to 425 volts, which allowed me a wider range of bias control from 35ma-45ma, just like it should be able to! So i set the bias to around 44ma, and they stayed there! Now the amp sounds even more blackface fendery on the Clean channel eith every guitar i put thru it, whether it be my old sheraton, my dano, or my strat, and the OD channel sings like no tomorrow! The bass is no longer loose or flabby with or without the deep switch on and i can actually utilize the bass knob! what a concept!!

I've never been so happy in all my life!!!  , and all it took was he flip of a switch yeehaw!

Cool to hear from someone that has actually used one, Greg. Thanks for the advice!