Why an adapter?

Look at the schematics at the ceriatone-website. The 5 pins in the original-plug are just ground, OD, Boost, OD-LED and Boost-LED (ground is in the middle).
If you want to switch OD/clean just connect/disconnect the OD- and groundpin.

Cut the connector of your Vox-footswitch and solder the cable to a 5pin-Midiplug.

That's all.

Good luck
Andreas

The main thing is the connection between the master-volume-pot and ground (marked with „1“). The higher the resistance, the higher the volume. If you cut the connection, you will  have maximum volume.
So I cut the connection , and solded a second pot between the 1M master-volume and the groundbar. Several experiments showed, that another 1M-pot works best (smaller resistors worked well at bedroomlevel, but not in a band-context).
I ordered a 12V-relayboard on ebay (8€) and used it to bypass or activate the second volume-pot. You can use the contact “U” (marked with “2”) for power-supply.
The already-assembled relaycard has a LED to indicate the relay’s status. So you can see wether the volume-boost is on or off.
There are several ways to switch the relay itself (powersupply on/off). I decided to use the footswitch plug that my OTS Mini already had (marked with “3”).
Contacts Y1 and Y2 switch channel and OD-boost if connected to ground. Z1 and Z2 are just power-supply for the LEDs.
So I disconnected Z2 and used it for switching the relay. Z1 now supplies all LEDs in the footswitch.
I still had a 3x footswitch (from a TC G-Sharp), but you can add a third switch into you existing Ceriatone-footswitch as well.

A perfect place for the volume-boost-pot was the existing hole in the chassis, where the power-indicator of the amp was before (see photo above). I placed the relay-LED directly above it.
The power-indicator moved above the power/stand by-switches.

In addition to the internal power supply and reverb (I reported under “Pics of completed Overtones“ (last post) – which did not seem to interest anybody ;-) I wanted to add a foot-switchable volume-solo-boost, because I use my mini ots in a second band since a while.

It’s simple, the parts are cheap and it works perfectly. So please ask, if your are interested in a more detailed description.

Andreas

Nobody seems to post anymore. Where have all the ceriatone-owners gone?     

Just finished my Mini-OTS with good working simple build-in-reverb


In addition to my HRM50, which has it's place in our rehearsalroom permanently, I ordered a Lunchbox-OTS
as a bedroom-amp (it's placed in my office actually).


The amp itself was built by ceriatone.
The cabinet is my work, built from simple pinewood, stained in mahagony-red.
The finish is glossy clear lacquer, normally used for boats.

I really wanted a build-in reverb, so I just put a "tc hall of fame" on top of the chassis (held
by magnets - so it can easily be removed).

To get rid of the external power supply I chose the following solution:
I ordered a voltage converter (12V-9V, usually applied to cars) and solded it to 12V and ground
inside the amp. The 9V output of the converter was connected to a low-voltage-jack I installed in
the chassis.

To make the reverb-control accessible, I mounted the frontgrill with magnets. A lug at the top of
the grill allows to pull it out easily.

The tube-protection at the rearside is welded 5mm round-bar steel.


Well, it sounds great with a single g12-65.
Especially the implementation of the reverb unit without external power-supply (which
was nothing but an experiment at the beginning), was a success.


For anyone interested, I attached some pictures to make things clearer.

Andreas

Hello together,

I just installed a simple mod, I'd been thinking about for a couple of weeks. So I thought I should perhaps present it for anyone who's interested in this
solution.
First, I really like the "Bright"-function, activated by pulling out the volume knob, for clean and "fenderish" chordplaying. On the other hand, I don't like
it activated in overdrive-mode.
So, I planned to make it foot-switchable.
To realize this, I first installed a 12V-relay, that shortcuts the two contacts at the back of the volumecontroller.
The relay itself is activated by shortcutting an additional 6mm female plug, I put into the amplifiers backside (see picture: it's the
plug on the very right side).
This plug is connected with my G-Major (also in the cab), which can be switched with a midi-footcontroller (of course a normal footswitch would work as
well).
To keep it short: It works perfectly. No noise while switching and my hands free for playing ;-)

I added some pictures to show how it's done.


http://www.bluefrontcafe.de/temp/amp_top_marked.jpg
http://www.bluefrontcafe.de/temp/relay.jpg
http://www.bluefrontcafe.de/temp/amp_rear.jpg
http://www.bluefrontcafe.de/temp/amp_front.jpg
http://www.bluefrontcafe.de/temp/display.jpg


Andreas

Hello everyone,

I've got a really annoying problem with my Ceriatone HRM 50.

The volume-level started to change while playing with my band some time ago. From time to time the amp got louder - gain also raised massively. It also started to feedback microphonically.
I took the amplifier to my tech, who changed the preamp tubes. Everything seemed to be fine after this, but now, just two weeks later, the same problem appeared again.
Obviously the main problem is not fixed.

1.) Any idea what it could be?
2.) I am looking for a qualified tech, who could be able to find the main reason for this hardware fault in germany. Any recommendations?

Thanks a lot
(clueless) Andreas 

Thanks for your help,

this helps to calm down again after getting aware, that parts of my amp were missing.
Anyway - refering to the sound I wasn't missing anything at any time :-)

Andreas

What kind of sound-changes would I have to expect, if I tried reconnecting the capacitor and reinstalling the missing resitors?

Andreas

Hello,

I recently bought a used OTS HRM 50 Watt (build 2011 by Ceriatone), which works pretty well by now.
When I opened it to install a HRM-bypass-switch, I mentioned, that the environment of tube 1 seemed to miss some parts compared to the schematic offered by ceriatone.

Is this some kind of mod you saw before?

Andreas

Here's my one.

I put my G-Sharp directly into the headshell (without the c-lator, because a.) I didn't like how it coloured the sound and b.) it wasn't technically necessary).

The was no problem with the space inside the headshell at all, all tubes are in perfect distance to the rackeffect.

The rearview shows, that I added a midi plug for the G-Sharp (which also works perfectly to control the solo level) and a switch for the hrm-stack (at the right side) which is usually off.

The cabinet was a closed one, but I opened the upper half of the backside to "open" the sound of the G12-65 (working together with a V30 at the bottom of the cabinet). This combination sounds great.

Andreas

foa: Thanks for your answer.

It's a pity I can't reproduce the failure on purpose. The amp was built by ceriatone. Only my c-lator with the connected g-major was in the loop.
But....I opened the amp before this odd thing started to happen, to mount the "hrm on/off-switch" into the chassis.
It can't be the switch itself, because I used it for many weeks before (it was just connected to a wire hanging outside the amp for test puposes) and it worked well.
- It still does, but now it is screwed into the chassis.

Maybe I really caused a lose contact, I just don't know where I should start searching for it.

Andreas

Hello there,

my OTS HRM 50 behaves somehow strange since a couple of days:
While practicing in our rehearsal-room it happened, that the preamp-output on the clean channel escalated dramatically for a second. The input-led on my g-major
turned red at once. The sound was loud and gainy for a second. After a moment the amp worked as usually again.

This odd situation repeated several times, but seemed to get rarer with proceeding practice-time and a warmed up amp.

What could be the reason?

Please help
Andreas

Hello there,

I own my Overtone HRM 50 for just over 2 month by now and have been playing it in our practice room most of the time (where I have the opportunity to test it even at higher volume levels).
First of all: I still love it. It's the amp of my dreams, the one I have been looking for for decades.
One thing I was insecure about was, if it wouldn't be too "special". Of course I love this typical Dumblelike-tone, but would it be versatile enough to fit the style of my band (from chimy-clean to marshally-lead)?
- It did! And how it did. It is definitly the most versatile amp I've been playing over ever. The cleans are adorable and the lead tone (which I push a little with a booster when soloing) is screaming, whining and blooming like crazy.

But ---- I had to switch off the hrm-tonestack to reach this degree of satisfaction. Not that the leadsound with hrm-tonestack on was bad, but a little bit to trebly and "narrow" for my taste. I am not a gifted technician, so to my great relief this mod was very easy.

The second unexpected thing was, that to my surprise and against the advice of forum members, I don't find the C-lator, which I bought with my amp, very useful for the "sound-design". Certainly I definately need it, when I put reverb or delay into my amp's loop, but I've been reading plenty of post recommending the c-lator as a tool to influence the sound into a more "positively compressed" direction.
I like the sound without the c-lator positivly better. I seems kindly chiselled, smakier (strange word) to me. But, like in many cases, this is probably only a question of taste.

...whatever: I still enjoy my amp, looking forward to many sessions and gigs to come with a sound I am finally satisfied with :-)

Hi there,

my OTS HRM 50 has a half-power-switch (pentode/triode mode).

May I use it while the amp is running? Shouldn't the amp at least be in standby-mode?

I think, this question refers to all tube-amps with power-switches. That's why I posted it here.

Greetings
Andreas