Tube amps and cold weather?? Very week sounding cold amp.

suedehead · Dec 3, 2008

i thought so, but def wanted to make sure before i did...i found my dual rec to give that little extra mojo after it warmed up decently.

212Mavguy · Dec 3, 2008

Last week I was talking to some buddies in another band and the rhythm guitar player's amp was acting up at the input jack he said. They had a gig that night. I got my beloved Maverick out of the storage unit at about 30 degrees or so, took it to the club, fired up the tube heaters, let it warm up 45 minutes, and it worked wonderfully for the rhythm guy. His tone was never better. Improved the sound of the whole band. Lots of patrons were coming up and telling the band how good they sounded. I felt like a proud papa.

Took his amp home, Crate Blue Voodoo head, the input jack was fine. Revoiced preamp with tubes from my vintage collection, found the driver tube was bad but the power tubes were still very strong. Found out his instrument cable was old. Have seen that a lot where an old cable shorts out in the last few inches next to the plug. Will snip and solder both ends a few inches and he'll be like new there.

nomad100hd · Dec 3, 2008

i would have taken it apart and changed the tone stack and bias of the stages to re-voice it. However good tubes can do wonders!

212Mavguy · Dec 4, 2008

The Crate Owner was a bit of a redneck type of guy. I did make the bias for the output tubes a tad hotter. Modding the pre was out of the question, actually that amp sounded pretty decent for what it was designed for. It has decent iron, and I did not feel like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

nomad100hd · Dec 4, 2008

i just like to mod, it's an addiction. The blue voodoo i heard really didn't sound half bad.

Jak0lantern01 · Dec 5, 2008

My Mesa's always seem to get louder after playing for a while. I get yelled at all the time by by bandmates for 'turning up' even though I didn't touch the thing. This usually happens about an hour or so into playing.

nomad100hd · Dec 5, 2008

not sure how this plays into effect, but as power passes threw the speaker it heats it up a little raising the resistance. I bet the same thing happens to the OT. This might change the sound a little making it sound louder.