F.C.T.Mod MESA TREMOVERB MOD.

[GNZ]

HI!
I m new, and I don´t speak english very well, but i wan to share this to you.

I made a mod to my tremoverb, and the name is F.C.T.Mod ("full chupalo turbo mod")

I have some years of building amplifiers for pleasure, and two years ago I bought a tremoverb head because when I first heard it, I thought that stood out among the Rectifiers, but except for adjusting the Bias and mod the Loop to series, i let it do what I always thought it do best, demolishing walls. i never think that modern channel was lifeless, or too buzzy, i love the big open sound of it.

Vintage hi gain was not ok for me, but, i have others amplifiers that cover that area very well, so I never care about it so much.
I always feel on that channel that someone put a blanket on the speakers, very compress and without presence. so, i just find the blanket and I take it away.
I was looking on the schematics and see that the orange channel has after the eq something that literaly it is a blanket:

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/9528/tremvrb2.gif

it takes high`s to the ground, so I just pull off the 22k resistance and chazam!!! the channel comes alive, but it does not sound so diferent to the modern channel, so I change the eq 47k resistor to 33k to made more round mids and the 500pf cap to 250pf to take off some higs, but not in the same way that the blanket do.

now the orange hi gain chanel is not "vintage" (it never was), but a lot less scoop and less harsh than modern, diferent than modern, with presence round mids and very usefull, and the clean channel has the blanket away too!!

I dont recomend to do it if you are a beginer, its hard to work inside, it has very litle space to work, but realy, if I`m do this post its because this is the best thing that i do for my rectifier, PERIOD!!!


Soundclip:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=9404237

signl-chain:
Mac- L6ux1- audix i5 mic - Mesa 4x12 V30 traditional cab - Tremoverb - sommer cable - strat/ash body/one piece maple/gotoh510ft, 3x EMG SA single coils.

Orange channel mod VS Red modern channel, same setings, gain on 14:00, flat 12:00 eq, 21:30 precence, no reverb, red chanell master on 20:30, orange chanel on 21:00, tube rectifer, bold.
orange channel first.

no post eq or compression.

best regards!

 

[YellowJacket]

Nice work, the orange channel sounds so phat!!

 

[vitor gracie]

It would be nice to see what some others like Mosta-tone or 94TremOVerb think of this mod. The TOV is my favorite amp of all time.

 

[GNZ]

for me Orange channel was dark, not fat, now I feel it very fat with precense. I dont change the way of saturation or armonics texture, I change the eq curve, so its the same feel, more fat and with more natural presence.

to make a grafic reference idea:

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/8528/imagen3n.png

so, the first curve was the original way that eq work plus the blanket (thats its the "standar" eq curve of a normal tonestack when bass, mid and treble are at 12:00, it is the start point plus the blanket ), and the second curve its my mod. you can se that I move the mids point and take away the high-cut (the blanket). its not the exact grafic description, but its very close I think.
you can see how a tone stack works here:

http://www.duncanamps.com/tsc/index.html

 

[YellowJacket]

I know a good number of people here complained about the 'blanket' in vintage mode. I think this mod would appeal to them!

 

[94Tremoverb]

That really is a Blanket Circuit isn't it .

It would be very easy to make it switchable too, you just need to prevent LDR10 turning on, which happens when you have Orange cloned to Modern. I might look into this... Vintage is the mode I use least, but I do like it sometimes as it is, so I wouldn't really want to lose that.

The other thing I would like to look at is that Blues is too dark at low gain settings - when it's down to nearly clean, to get it even nearly bright enough you need the treble and presence up full, and it's still not quite right. I use it like this sometimes because I like to switch between *true* clean (so I need the Orange channel for that) and just-broken-up.

To be honest I haven't really got into modding mine much though, I can get most of what I want out of it stock, but with better tubes. (OK, I did fit a variable bias to it as well.)

 

[GNZ]

by the way, this mod can be aply to every recto Orange channel, I dont have another recto to try.

 

[GNZ]

That really is a Blanket Circuit isn't it .

It would be very easy to make it switchable too, you just need to prevent LDR10 turning on, which happens when you have Orange cloned to Modern. I might look into this... Vintage is the mode I use least, but I do like it sometimes as it is, so I wouldn't really want to lose that.

The other thing I would like to look at is that Blues is too dark at low gain settings - when it's down to nearly clean, to get it even nearly bright enough you need the treble and presence up full, and it's still not quite right. I use it like this sometimes because I like to switch between *true* clean (so I need the Orange channel for that) and just-broken-up.

To be honest I haven't really got into modding mine much though, I can get most of what I want out of it stock, but with better tubes. (OK, I did fit a variable bias to it as well.)

Yes thats why I just pull of the resistance, I wan to deal with the opto later. meaby with a 3 position switch instead of the clean/vintage hi gain 2 position switch.

 

[YellowJacket]

You guys are horrible. Making me want to play around with my expensive tube amp! Man, I'd love to mod my Dual to go from clean to vintage high gain. If I could put in an extra volume pot to equalize the channels, that would be AMAZING. Although 3 channels are unnecessary at high volumes, there are always sound turds to deal with and when running my gear super quiet, using the volume knob to get a clean tone isn't feasible.

 

[vitor gracie]

I have had long conversations with Monsta about Trem O Verb mods. I am happy at the moment with my amp but would like to bring this up:

Which one of you TOV owners uses and actually LIKE your Tremolo on the amp?

I bet not one of you. (or maybe very very few)

I cant stand it and never use it. If you made a mod, you could tie in the 2 knobs and switches on the tremolo to control the mod. I suggested to Monsta a while back to have them be tailored presence knobs that where after the preamp to adjust the crazy high frequencies to fit different cabs for me. This could easily be a solo boost for each channel or a "Blanket removal knob" for each orange setting on the channels or just use the switches to "remove the blanket" and have the tremolo still be switchable using the jack in the back.

To me, there are a lot of possibilities in the amp. I feel like the amp trumps so many others (Including other Mesas) that nobody messes with the TOV because it can do so much. It will be great to see where all this goes. I think I may need to get a 3rd one now just to see.

 

[GNZ]

I have had long conversations with Monsta about Trem O Verb mods. I am happy at the moment with my amp but would like to bring this up:

Which one of you TOV owners uses and actually LIKE your Tremolo on the amp?

I bet not one of you. (or maybe very very few)

I cant stand it and never use it. If you made a mod, you could tie in the 2 knobs and switches on the tremolo to control the mod. I suggested to Monsta a while back to have them be tailored presence knobs that where after the preamp to adjust the crazy high frequencies to fit different cabs for me. This could easily be a solo boost for each channel or a "Blanket removal knob" for each orange setting on the channels or just use the switches to "remove the blanket" and have the tremolo still be switchable using the jack in the back.

To me, there are a lot of possibilities in the amp. I feel like the amp trumps so many others (Including other Mesas) that nobody messes with the TOV because it can do so much. It will be great to see where all this goes. I think I may need to get a 3rd one now just to see.

Yes, the tremolo sucks, the switches can be usefull, but the 2 knobs its hard to use to, because are so far away from everything and so close to the power suply that meaby degrade the sound a lot if you pass the signal thru them.

I just have a great idea!!!

the knobs can be use to control the amount of Voltage suply to the optocoupler to make it a variable resistance, just like the tremolo does but not with an ocilator, yes!!!

GNZ.

 

[jamme61]

alright now, reduce those caps, on the plate resistors, on V2 A&B to 100 pf, instead of .01(10,000 PF) and .001 (1000PF) and see how much high end you get.

 

[GNZ]

alright now, reduce those caps, on the plate resistors, on V2 A&B to 100 pf, instead of .01(10,000 PF) and .001 (1000PF) and see how much high end you get. I too changed the tone stack (on the red channel )to a 33K, 500pf like a Marshall with great results, for me.

yes, change caps on plate resistor its another good way to take hi end without put a blanket on it.

 

[jamme61]

Great post! some nice mod idea's for free! Thanks for the info and time on this.

 

[jamme61]

Great free info thanks

 

[GNZ]

tried your mod on the red channel (presence pot) it seems to work in a big way (no blanket) have to play it more to see if it's to much highs?

in red channel, the "blanket" i think it is necesary, because eq section is tuned way to bright, and the feedback loop is off (feedback loop make the power section more warm and clean).
wehn I took the 22k resistance away in the orange channel, also I changed the 500pf to 250p cap in the eq (now i have 390pf there) , so i compensate the higs taking some but not in the same way. if i wish to take away the the blanket of the red channel i think i will change the 680pf cap to 390pf or 470pf too, but preserving the 47k resistance, because i like that channel scoop and heavier, 33k makes the mid range more round.
you can change 22k blanket resistor to 33K or 47K or more to take just some of the blanket away.

regards!

 

[94Tremoverb]

While fixing another dead LDR and checking something that was said in another thread about the clean channel - and why mine doesn't seem to change the clean sound when cloned Orange to Modern - I made the interesting discovery that LDR10 is dead in my amp... ie the blanket is non-operational. Ha, I wondered why mine sounded so good!

I may get around to trying some of the other bits mentioned here eventually. Thanks for this thread, it made me realise that replacing the LDR would do the exact opposite of what I want.

 

[RoadKinger483]

This mod sounds really interesting, although I would like to make it switchable somehow to be able to keep both tones. Do any of you guys have pictures of the actual amp circuit board just to make sure I located the right components???

 

[RoadKinger483]

bump....

 

[Koreth]

Okay, I'm trying to understand this mod.

First off, the 22k? resistor, what exactly is being done here? Is one leg of it being lifted or is it being removed entirely? Is it being replaced with a jumper? The first would definitely help with blanket lifting. Removing the 22k resistor from the circuit not only removes it from the circuit, it removes .003µF cap, LDR10, and the 10k? resistor, basically taking that entire low-pass/high-cut filter from the circuit. If the 22k? resistor is being jumpered, that should make the blanket effect worse, by allowing the filter to have an even greater effect on the circuit.

Changing the slope resistor in the tone stack from 47k? to 33k? is cool, as that definitely does add a bit more low mids by shifting the break point of the bass control closer to the mids. I'm not sure that more lower mids are what a Recto needs, but it it sounds good to you, it is good.

Finally, I don't see how reducing the size of the treble in the tone stack is going to get you more highs. The treble cap and the highs control form a high-pass/low-cut filter. All reducing the size of the treble cap from 500pF to 250pF does is shift the break frequency away from the upper mids and futher into the highs, taking more upper mids out of the sound. I suppose a lack of upper mids could give the apparency of more highs as there's less upper mids to mask the presence of the highs, but I'm not sure reducing the amount of upper mids in the circuit is a good idea.

Just my two coppers