low budget chime. is it possible?

[thinskin57]

i had a 212 LSS that had killer chime. i liked it better than any AC30 i've ever heard. however, i had to sell it due to money issues. kept my tremoverb because that suits my music better. in a perfect world, i'd have kept all of my amps. but i DO miss that EL84 chime every now and again! are there any budget EL84 amps out there that can deliver respectable chime? great cleans w/a hint of hair on them? i see Bugera has a 20 watt el84 amp. no dealers in my area though. any other suggestions?

 

[YellowJacket]

i had a 212 LSS that had killer chime. i liked it better than any AC30 i've ever heard. however, i had to sell it due to money issues. kept my tremoverb because that suits my music better. in a perfect world, i'd have kept all of my amps. but i DO miss that EL84 chime every now and again! are there any budget EL84 amps out there that can deliver respectable chime? great cleans w/a hint of hair on them? i see Bugera has a 20 watt el84 amp. no dealers in my area though. any other suggestions?

Don't spend $$$s on a poo-gera. Don't waste money on crappy stop gap amps that will just drain your funds. 2 or 4 THD yellow jackets should be just what the doctor ordered, depending on how much power you need. A pair will give you about 15 - 20watts and a quad will yield between 30 - 40watts. http://thetubestore.com/yjcd.html
I'm vouching for these things because I have them and I use them a lot!

Yellow jackets work great on Mesa heads, especially on the 'spongy' power setting when the amp is set to 6L6 bias. This keeps them from dealing with too much current, like in a marshall. The clean is brown, warm, and downright brilliant with these things. My friend used to own a tremoverb and when we tried them in his combo, he was wondering why he spent $2000+ on a used top hat amp. The gain tone can perform, but it is definitely an interesting tone. There is less lows and more pronounced mids. I really like the crunch tone with the yellow jackets when my 2 channel Dual Rectifier head is running through a 100watt marshall cab.

Just another thought:

If you have money above the $100 required to spring for a duet of yellow jackets and want more versatility out of your tremoverb, I would suggest building a 2 x 12 speaker cab. You can load it with an Celestion alnico gold and a Celestion G12H heritage and you'll definitely get into that warm and chimey territory you want, probably moreso than the lonestar special. The Lonestar Special came stock with a c90, which is a very dark sounding speaker. The Alnico gold is super chimey and the g12H is SUPER warm. If the G12H Heritage and Alnico Gold are too expensive, a Hellatone 30 / Hellatone 60L speaker combo from http://www.avatarspeakers.com might be just what you need. Check out my thiele build thread for a great cab design, both for crunch and cleans! http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=37817 If you have a tremoverb combo, you can also experiment with swapping one v30 out for a Mesa badged celestion c90. That apparently gives better cleans and lead tones. I haven't tried this yet but I am going to!

Lastly, if you are totally stuck on a new amp, check out BlackHeart amps. I understand they have some low power chimey things going on.

 

[thinskin57]

i had a 212 LSS that had killer chime. i liked it better than any AC30 i've ever heard. however, i had to sell it due to money issues. kept my tremoverb because that suits my music better. in a perfect world, i'd have kept all of my amps. but i DO miss that EL84 chime every now and again! are there any budget EL84 amps out there that can deliver respectable chime? great cleans w/a hint of hair on them? i see Bugera has a 20 watt el84 amp. no dealers in my area though. any other suggestions?

Don't spend $$$s on a poo-gera. Don't waste money on crappy stop gap amps that will just drain your funds. 2 or 4 THD yellow jackets should be just what the doctor ordered, depending on how much power you need. A pair will give you about 15 - 20watts and a quad will yield between 30 - 40watts. http://thetubestore.com/yjcd.html
I'm vouching for these things because I have them and I use them a lot!

Yellow jackets work great on Mesa heads, especially on the 'spongy' power setting when the amp is set to 6L6 bias. This keeps them from dealing with too much current, like in a marshall. The clean is brown, warm, and downright brilliant with these things. My friend used to own a tremoverb and when we tried them in his combo, he was wondering why he spent $2000+ on a used top hat amp. The gain tone can perform, but it is definitely an interesting tone. There is less lows and more pronounced mids. I really like the crunch tone with the yellow jackets when my 2 channel Dual Rectifier head is running through a 100watt marshall cab.

Just another thought:

If you have money above the $100 required to spring for a duet of yellow jackets and want more versatility out of your tremoverb, I would suggest building a 2 x 12 speaker cab. You can load it with an Celestion alnico gold and a Celestion G12H heritage and you'll definitely get into that warm and chimey territory you want, probably moreso than the lonestar special. The Lonestar Special came stock with a c90, which is a very dark sounding speaker. The Alnico gold is super chimey and the g12H is SUPER warm. If the G12H Heritage and Alnico Gold are too expensive, a Hellatone 30 / Hellatone 60L speaker combo from http://www.avatarspeakers.com might be just what you need. Check out my thiele build thread for a great cab design, both for crunch and cleans! http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=37817 If you have a tremoverb combo, you can also experiment with swapping one v30 out for a Mesa badged celestion c90. That apparently gives better cleans and lead tones. I haven't tried this yet but I am going to!

Lastly, if you are totally stuck on a new amp, check out BlackHeart amps. I understand they have some low power chimey things going on.

****!! i TOTALLY forgot about yellow jackets! i actually owned a pair briefly back when i was all about high gain and pristine cleans only. i also remember what a tight fit they were into my single recto head. that won't be a problem w/my tverb combo though. regarding speakers- i took out the vintage 30's (still have 'em) and put in some Warehouse speakers that i like much better- a Veteran 30, and an ET65. what a great combination. i would imagine i could just run two yellow jackets in either the two inside sockets, or the two outside sockets, right?

 

[YellowJacket]

Yup, one rectifier tube, and yellow jacket pair either outside or inside. It is incredible what they do for a clean tone.

Oh, if you are running 8ohms for the two speakers, be sure to plug them into the 4ohm input in your amp when only running two tubes. I would personally run the amp on tube rectifier, 6L6, and spongy on the variac switch. You really don't need more power than that to run EL-84s, even with the yellow jackets. Not a bad deal for $100, if I do say so myself. They sound fantastic with the tremoverb but I'm pretty sure the tremolo effect won't work when they are in.

****, you still have the v30s? I bet they are 16ohm, aren't they? I'm looking for an 8ohm one right now for a cab project =-(

 

[94Tremoverb]

The tremolo should work just fine - it's an opto-coupler bypass on the signal path before it gets to the power amp, so it doesn't care what tubes are in.

I must get more Yellowjackets... I've also heard that the Tremoverb sounds great with one pair of them and one pair of 6L6s - which you can do, you don't need to run them in fours because the Yellowjackets are self-biasing and ignore the amp's bias supply, so it also doesn't matter what the amp is set to.

You may be interested to know that I have an Alnico Gold in my Tremoverb combo, along with one of the original V30s. I was very surprised what it sounds like...

... just like a well-broken-in V30.

OK, not *exactly* the same (the Gold is a little brighter and has that distinctive Alnico metallic chime, and the V30 is a tiny bit darker at the top and still has that slightly harsh upper-mid spike - although it's so well broken in that's almost gone), but it's very marginal and you really have to listen closely to hear those things. If you didn't know there were two different speakers in it you might not notice.

So you can save a lot of money and just get a well-thrashed V30 if you want that sort of sound .

 

[YellowJacket]

Well worn v30s are AWESOME. I thought about getting an Alnico Gold but when I was listening through the tone examples on the Celestion site, I honestly like the G12H the best, hands down. They don't have a recording of the G12m but that is definitely one of my favourite speakers as well. I have to say, I really REALLY love the Hellatones from Avatarspeakers.com. I love that they get the breaking in process started earlier so we don't have to endure many hours of new speaker blues before getting good tone!


I am also very glad to hear the tremolo will work with Yellow Jackets. Oh, I only advocate running one tube rectifier, 6L6 bias, and the power band on spongy because it supplies less voltage thereby putting less strain on the resistors in the Yellow Jacket. I read over on the marshall forum how their heads were cooking one yellow jacket after another. You really WOULD have to rebias those amps to use these things, regardless of what THD says. After all, there is absolutely no point in straining the converters more than necessary for no change in tone. New tone for $100, who would have thought?

My long range plan is to get two more Yellow Jackets so I can run my dual with an Electra Dyne. I want to ABY the amps and use the Dual + Yellow Jackets for class A clean and brit crunch, and conversely, the Electra Dyne for clean and the Dual for gain and lead tones. It all depends on my mood. I want casters on all my cabs so my back stays healthy!! I am also wondering if there are Yellow Jackets that would work with a Dyne. I know that thing uses simulclass but I'm pretty sure some of the YJS are designed to run with that sort of an amp configuration.

 

[thinskin57]

Oh, if you are running 8ohms for the two speakers, be sure to plug them into the 4ohm input in your amp when only running two tubes

oh crap, i'm using the 4 ohm jack already because the Warehouse speakers are 8 ohms each. (originally had them in a different amp, otherwise i'd have bought them at 16 ohms each for the tverb) does that mean i'm out of luck using the yellow jackets unless i put my V30's back in (whereas they run at 8 ohms as a pair)?

 

[gonzo]

i use Groovetubes Substitubes in my mark 2b...
and get the chime.

i like them better than the yellow jackets.

either way, not a bad compromise at all.

 

[RR]

If you are willing to spend $650 to $800 (yeah, I know probably out of your budget) go for Maverick.

It doesn't have the bells & whistle like Lonestar Special like single EL84, dual EL84s or all quartet of EL84s but you can play the Maverick with quartet EL84s with the tube rectifier!!! YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH A LONESTAR SPECIAL unless some modifies it.

Since you own ToV the paradigm are similar. If you note the ToV is govern around the TREBLE control, in the Maverick its govern around the MID control.

Similarities include modes: ToV, Orange Channel, Red Channel dual modes.
Same with Maverick dual channels, dual modes on each channel.

You'll feel right at home with a Maverick. Maverick will give you all the in-between tones cleans to moderate gain and at comfortable hearing levels.

I too like EL84 chimes and thought about Matchless, Bad Cat, Dr. Z, Budda, Top Hat but the Maverick was more price friendly. Well got it off Craiglist for a great price.

 

[YellowJacket]

Oh, if you are running 8ohms for the two speakers, be sure to plug them into the 4ohm input in your amp when only running two tubes

oh crap, i'm using the 4 ohm jack already because the Warehouse speakers are 8 ohms each. (originally had them in a different amp, otherwise i'd have bought them at 16 ohms each for the tverb) does that mean i'm out of luck using the yellow jackets unless i put my V30's back in (whereas they run at 8 ohms as a pair)?

Use a serial wiring for the 8ohm warehouse speakers and you'll get 16 ohms. If your tremoverb doesn't have a 16 ohm output, you can do a bit of wiring wizardry to get the result you want. Basically, I'll explain how I set up my 2 x 12 to deal with that exact problem. I first of all built a series box. It has three quarter inch jacks wired in series. Secondly, I have both speakers wired up (with speaker wire) each to their own Quarter inch jack / cable, this means one cable per speaker. So you connect each cable to the 4ohm output on the amp for normal operation. BUT when you use the yellow jackets, you need 16 ohms so you connect both cables to the series box to 'magically' convert your speakers to series wiring. Then you plug the series box into the 8 ohm output in the amp.

If this is too complicated, buy 4 yellow jackets and run the amp like normal.

 

[thinskin57]

Use a serial wiring for the 8ohm warehouse speakers and you'll get 16 ohms.

so if i rewire them serial for 16 Ohms, does that mean that i need to plug into the 8 Ohm jack when i use a duet of yellow jackets in my tverb? let's go in another direction- what if i want to try 94Tremoverb's suggestion and go with two 6L6's simultaneously with the two yellow jackets? assuming i'm wired serial for 16 Ohms, which jack would i plug the speakers into in this situation?

 

[YellowJacket]

Use a serial wiring for the 8ohm warehouse speakers and you'll get 16 ohms.

so if i rewire them serial for 16 Ohms, does that mean that i need to plug into the 8 Ohm jack when i use a duet of yellow jackets in my tverb? let's go in another direction- what if i want to try 94Tremoverb's suggestion and go with two 6L6's simultaneously with the two yellow jackets? assuming i'm wired serial for 16 Ohms, which jack would i plug the speakers into in this situation?

Ok, I'll try to explain. When you only run two power tubes instead of four, it changes the way the amp 'senses' impedance, roughly by half.

4 power tubes (6L6s, Yellow Jackets, EL-34s, Mixture of 6L6s and Yellow Jackets). - normal operation. 8 ohm output into 8 ohm cab, 4 ohm output into 4 ohm cab.

2 power tubes - Affects Ohms. Cab has to be twice what the output is rated at on the head. Therefore: 4 ohm output into 8 ohm cab. 8 ohm output into 16 ohm cab. 16 ohm output into 32 ohm cab.

While I like needlessly complicating things, you might as well buy 4 yellow jackets. What is $200 for a 30watt class A amp anyway? Besides, it saves you countless $$$s in headache medication. This way, you can run 2 YJs, and 2 6L6s, 4 YJs, or 4 6L6s. Sounds better to me, at least!!

 

[Heritage Softail]

Well worn v30s are AWESOME. I thought about getting an Alnico Gold but when I was listening through the tone examples on the Celestion site, I honestly like the G12H the best, hands down. They don't have a recording of the G12m but that is definitely one of my favourite speakers as well. I have to say, I really REALLY love the Hellatones from Avatarspeakers.com. I love that they get the breaking in process started earlier so we don't have to endure many hours of new speaker blues before getting good tone!

I got to demo a Diezel 4x12 cab with G12H cones in it.... Excellent cab, seems to just have a wider freq range. This one has sat in the music store for at least 6 months. Still way too much $$$, like $900... I am now a fan of the G12H too.

 

[YellowJacket]

I love G12H 30s but it gets even better when you can combine them with well broken in v30s.