I sometimes use a Zen Drive which is a great pedal.  It sounds good with the OTS but I have found that the Zen can be tricky to dial in.  Some people get very frustrated with it. 

The OCD sounds very good and it's a bit easier to zero in on.  It's a no brainer recommendation for anyone who is looking for high quality overdrive. 

If you are looking at a drive or boost pedal from a builder you feel good about and you like their sound clips, chances are it will do just fine in front of the OTS.

I found out from Nik that the trimmer is on the tail resistor of the phase inverter.  He suggested adjusting it by ear paying special attention to the overdriven sound.  I will also check to see if it affects the voltage on pins one and six of the phase inverter tube similar to the PI trimmer on an OTS.

My Expression has an internal trimmer that looks like it adjusts either the negative feedback loop or voltage in the Phase Inverter section.

How should I set it to get the best tone?

What does that look like if you measure at the phase inverter?   I've used the trimmer to match the sides of the PI.  Never checked at the tube. 

The Super Lead is my friend's amp and he was asking about biasing because he got some new tubes.

I missed the 50k trim pot on the layout drawing.  I was looking at the 27K resistor near it.

Of course, once I looked inside the amp it was pretty obvious.  His new tubes are in and biased as suggested in the Weber Bias Calculator.  450v on the plates - 38.8ma.  Sounded great on the first test drive.

Sorry for the dumb question.

Take one screw down to a good hardware store and see if you can find a match in stainless steel.  Metric or SAE it souldn't be difficult to match the threads.  If you need black and can't find it, you can color the head with a Sharpie, Magic Marker or paint pen.

The washers are called cup washers or finish washers.  You might be surprised and find them at the hardware store, too.

If not, jam4jaudio is an ebay store that carries them in black or silver.  Search 'speaker cabinet finish washers'.

KSS 'the musician's hardware store' is an e-store that may also have these items.

Hi,
Anybody got a Layout drawing for where to drop in a bias pot in a 100watt Super Lead?

I think really quality pickups play a big part in getting that warm tone that still sparkles on the top end.  I have had good luck with Sheptones and WCRs.  Stephens Designs or Holmes might be even better if you can afford them.  Check out the websites and see what you think.  My OTS handles it's part of the equation, no problem.

The Rock switch is always on.  Deep switch off.  Sometimes I do use the bright switch even with single coils.
My internal trimmer is set around 900 to 930.
Treble around 4-5.  Mids all the way up.  Bass about 1 1/2.  These settings are not carved in stone.  It's surprising to me that sometimes it's beefing up the bass just the right amount that puts me into the SRV ballpark.
Volume between 8 and full up.  The input volume has a definite affect on the drive channel as well as the clean volume so I keep this in mind.
I've been experimenting with keeping the Ratio full up and using the volume and level to even out the volume between the drive and clean channels.
The Level ends up low around 1 1/2 and the Volume often ends up backed down to around 8 or a little less to accomplish this.
There's not a lot of difference between my clean and drive sounds really.  I only need enough drive so the chords in the stop sections of Hideaway soften up and compress.  Maybe a little more for something like Lookin' out the Window.  Once I get there, I can adjust my tone by how I play.

I've been playing all morning noodling along to the cuts on Couldn't Stand the Weather using my Nitro finished Partsocaster with Lollar Blackface pickups into my OTS. 

Reverb and subtle delay through a Kleinulator in the effects loop. 

Drive channel set to just overdrive if I dig in.

No problem at all getting tones to match the cd.

I love this amp.

For what it 's worth, I own many of the speakers mentioned in these forums including EVM 12L, JBL D120, G12H-30/Vintage 30 combination, G12M, G12K-85, Weber Blues in various wattages and others. 

When I had to pick one speaker to put in my OTS combo cab that the guys at GabKits built for me, I picked the ET 12-65 from Warehouse guitar Speakers which is a Celestion G12-65 clone. 

It provides a very full sound with a nice spectrum of lows, mids and highs.  Sounds great with my Tele, Strat and Les Paul and it's a great bargain.

The original OTS was supposed to be a clone of D Amp #124.  The owner apparently had  the opportunity to play a number of original Ds and said that #124 was his particular favorite of all the ones he had played.  This is the version you hear in Marin's and Sami's sound clips.  It has a certain brightness to it that a lot of people like.  This is what is now referred to as the S&M (Sami and Marin) version.

After this circuit was out for a while, Jack Zucker and Gil Ayan collaborated on some mods to "smooth out" the tone and make it somewhat warmer or less bright.  At  this point most of these mods are in the stock Ceriatone OTS circuit.

Both of these use a PAB (PreAmp Boost) circuit that takes the treble/mid/bass tone stack out of the circuit when it is engaged.  This results in a boosted, mid heavy sound in either channel when it is used.

The HRM (Hot Rodded Marshall or Hot Rubber Monkey) version has three internal trimmers to shape the PreAmp Boost sound.

The "Zucker" circuit and the S&M circuit are both conducive to a player friendly sort of compression and sustain.

The HRM is said to be offer a bit more articulation which may feel a bit stiffer in a good way to faster players.  And it offers the internal three way tone stack for the preamp boost function.

You can't really go wrong with any of the versions of this great amp.  Pick the one that appeals to you and choose the wattage you want.

You'll hear a lot of players say they run the Volume between 5 to 7 depending on whether they are using humbuckers or single coils.  I would agree.  I often run mine higher, even full up.  I'd qualify that by saying my internal trimmer is set low, around 9:30.

For the OD cahnnel I often want a tone that's really close to my clean tone just with a bit more drive and compression.  To get this, try turning the Level all the way down and the Ratio all the way up.  Then balance the volume between the two channels by turning up the Level.  Mine ends up around 2.

Kind of a saturated clean and a fairly clean overdrive.

I don't think I've ever had to turn the Master past 7.  Usually nowhere near that.

The tone controls, especially Treble and Mid affect the overall volume also.

Check to see if your volume is still low with the PAB on.  Since that disengages the tone controls it may tell you something.

FWIW I do the same thing.  I have the K-uLator, a boss dd6 and an EBS Dynaverb on top of the amp.   A number of players around here leave their loop effects on top of the amp on a small board.

To find a case, search Tuffbox on eBay.  Their 1885 fits on top and has room for these three pedals.  The carpeted interior dimensions are 18 x 8 x 5.  The exterior is about 20 x 10 so it's a decent fit.  I fastened some 1/2" tall amp feet under the bottom with small machine screws, nuts and lock washers so the board clears the handle.

These cases are not state of the art for touring pros but they are sturdier and easier to use than the soft bag and board setups that are popular these days.   The 1885 is only $29.95 plus $18.95 for shipping.   I've used them for a while and they hold up pretty well through the stresses of the small club scene.  They come in a gray color with black trim so I painted mine all black to go with the tolex on my combo.

For jams I don't even bother with any pedals in front.  Just a tuner and the OTS footswitch.  I've seen some guys adjusting their pedalboards trying to approximate the tone of the OTS, but I haven's heard anyone laughing.

Drive or boost pedals sound fine straight in to the front end of the amp.

Some players (Sonny Landreth for one) like to run delays, phasers, etc. into the front also because of the drive characteristics they may add to the signal.

If you prefer to run delay, reverb or other modulation effects in the effects loop, it has been my experience that the Kleinulator definitely improves the way they sound.

The Kleinulator is more than just an impedance matching device so you probably want to read up on what it is and what it does to see if it holds any interest for you.  I have used Boss, Line 6 and EBS pedals in the loop and they sounded OK, but I feel that the improvement added by the Kleinulator was worth the expense.

I don't personally have any experience with the various rack mount units available.

PS:  Did you check oput my reply to your question about cabinets and speakers?