Monthly Archive for May, 2007

epiphone valve junior

Published
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kubton
on May 28, 2007
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The evj if you didn’t know has become something of a sensation because of it low price making it an great platform for modding. There turned out to be a lot of people like me. Who were always interested and in amp building or modding but were put off by some concern like the spending all the money for the components and not having it work, not having confidence when it came to both theory and practical knowledge, not having the skill or just the fear of deadly voltages. One or combination of these reason stopped me and others. Then the evj came along. $99 dollars for a head(even cheaper on ebay) it was the the perfect platform platform for modding. It saves the cost of buying cabinet, chassis, power transformers, etc that would easily cost more than the whole amp. Also because of it popularity & the fact that it is still in production a lot of people own them or can purchase them which so it comes with a large knowledge base and somewhat of a community. I personally had great success modding it and am planning on doing more with amps.

For those of you that missed it there was a 300+ post thread on 18watt.com. Unfortunately that site is current off line and the spin off site sewatt.com is not on line yet at the time of this writing. The massive amount of knowledge and helpful people aren’t accessible at the moment. Most of the stuff I have been able to find on line deals with the hum and noise problem of the version 1 amp and no longer a problem with the current version to amp.

I modded my evj combo to give it more of a marshall sound but change the values & you can make it sound more like a fender. I want to list out the mods since the wealth of knowledge is not currently available. I also want to note that I did not come up with these mods and they have been performed by numerous people.

WARNING THERE IS DEADly AMOUT OF ELECTRICITY INSIDE OF A TUBE AMP. IT CAN INJURE AND KILL YOU. IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOT NOT WORK ON THE INSIDE OF YOUR AMP. IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH IT DO NOT DO IT. IF YOU ARE ON THE INFLUENCE OF DRUGS(LEGAL OR ILLEGAL), ALCOHOL OR SIMPLy ARE NOT IT THE RIGHT FRAME OF MINE TO DO SOMETHING POTETNAILY DEADLY DO NOT DO IT. AND NEVER ASSUME THAT CAPS ARE DISCHARGED. If YOU WANT TO ASSUME THAT DO NOT WORK AN AMP.

The two simplest mods also yield the best results.

Tubes

The sovateks the evj comes with are pretty bad. One I had rattled horribly. The consensus opinion is the replacing both the el84(6bq5) and 12ax7(ecc83) with jj’s sound great. Both are available at the Tube Store and my favorite Tube Depot. Also tried the a Tung-Sol 12ax7 which was different but still good. Maybe a little more aggressive sounding. My favorite though was the jj 12au7(ecc81). Which sounded great especially the clean sounds. If you didn’t know you can use the replace the 12ax7 with low gain 12at7(ecc82) and 12au7. These are easy mods any on can do because you don’t even have to open the amp up.

Output Transformer

I have read a lot of very knowledgeable amp builders state this was the most important component of a amps sound. Now i am a believer. I replaced the the puny little stock ot with a Hammond ESE. The ESE is almost as large as the stock power transformer, A DSE can be used, the heyboer, weber or even the outrageously expensive kit form mercury magnetics. The ESE really opened up the sound & a tight low end emerged. It was a totally different & better amp after that. Pretty darn close to what i thought a single ended amp should sound like. For $35 it was a great value. And easy also. You can reuse one hole and drill another for the bigger ot that you choose. Hook up the wires according wires up according the the info on your new ot and your done. You may need to get some of those crimp on plug the attach to the board though also. Most knowledge people think the ESE & DSE is the best bet for this amp because it impedance is prefect for it. I can’t stress enough how much difference this made.

Speaker

I haven’t changed the speaker myself. This is mainly because i read so many reports of people ending up not liking the new speaker and returning to the stock one. Though some people that dislike ceramic switch to the weber alnico with good reportedly good results.

Board mods:

Here is a list of the some value changes to get close to the sound of a fender, marshall, or vox. In no way is this a definitive list and it assumes that of have the V2 with most of the problems fixed(this version has a r10=1k & r14=240r.) you can check turretboards also has a list of components with the values and correct wattage if other mods. Also the sell high quality drop in boards for the evj. So if you don’t want to mess with stock board or screwed up your amp beyond fixing you are in luck.

Note: All resistor values on chart can be .5 watt but not all resistor on board can be that low.

click pic to increase size.

I will post more evj info later.

loopton

Published
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kubton
on May 27, 2007
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Homemade loopers are pretty run of the mill. Lots have been built since they are useful and and super easy. This one has a twist that I found at the EA forums. It can be switch to feedback the signal to the effects loop back trough the loop. The pot controls the amount of feedback. I labeled the switch to activate the feedback loop danger because it really needs a warning. Crazy sounds are possible but it is a good idea to start with the feedback knob all the way off an creep it up until you know what you are going to get. It definitely should be used with caution. A couple diodes can be install to add a simple clipping section. That should tame it a little and add clipping of course. Oh yeah, it will of course provide you will a normal effects loop if that is what you wish. A simple build that only requires:

4 mono jacks

2 switches

1 pot(250-1 meg)

If you tinker like me you probably have the parts lying around somewhere. There is a wirng diagram i worked up to help but sure to check out the thread at ea.

burnt bunny furrr!

Published
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kubton
on May 25, 2007
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I built this clone of the Shin-ei Companion FY-2. i call it “Burnt Bunny Furrr.” Fuzz doesn’t seem like a good adjective for this thing. A fuzz face it is not. It is over the top and then some. The paint job was done by my little woman Kelly Jean. I think the art work is perfect for some strange device from 60’s Godzilla infested japan. Cute and weird. This is a good project. The originals go for big bucks on ebay. It probably will be used sparingly by most normal people because it sounds like a chainsaw so spending a bunch of dough doesn’t seem like a good value. Its a pretty easy build also. I use a board from ggg which made it real easy. Not for everyone but if you need Godzilla fuzz it is the only way to go. Defiantly not you run of the mill effect. Schematics and layout also available at ggg.

harp mic

Published
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kubton
on May 24, 2007
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The is a harp mic based on the i-mic. It is a super easy build, cheap build and works great. My harmonic skills are pretty weak but it not like this will only record harp. I have used it for vocal into an amp and micing that amp. Is that weird? It is a dynamic mic and will work like one.

A lot of people have built these. Harp player have been somewhat forsaken by mainstream equipment makers so they are good at doing it themselves. Mine was built out of a lotion container of my wife’s saved from the trash. It was perfect for this because under the screw on lid is a plastic top the was easy to cut a whole to mount the cartridge in. Yhe whole think was built during the a Newer Sopranos’s(you can’t miss anything because nothing ever happens anymore.”

Here is some links to pictures of other builds:

harmonica typepad
harmonica masterclass (towards bottom)

Here is the make magazine link to constructing it:
make

The schematic is in French so I drew my own(forgive my art skills.)

I used the kobetone 25lmo32 available at mouser. They have the 2 other parts also:

jack

10k pot

There are a lot of elements of to use of course ebay etc. and a near infinite amount of case options. I keep my eye open for a cool cases at the junks shops.

crystal clear

Published
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kubton
on May 23, 2007
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The Green Oak Crystal is one of the best soft synths put there & definitely powerful free synth. It can eat up a lot of clock cycles but that is worth it. The is a lot tweakablity including had drawable amplitude & filter envelopes. The best feature imho is the patch breeding(I really love the choice of nomenclature.) It is a random feature that also so control. It mixes two patches together with a variable amount of mutation. What you get I guess would be their offspring? It is often a nasty(in bad way) sound patch but some times in is wonderful or with a little tweaking becomes wonderful. pressing The breed bottom can be a spring board for creativity and quite inspirational. It leads to sound the aren’t just run of the mill. Maybe the world doesn’t need another digital bass sound but it could use a digital bass breed with a bell sounding pad etcetera. It is a knob tweakers dream that will not cost a dime.

glitchy

Published
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kubton
on May 22, 2007
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Glitch is my favorite pluggin. And it is free. It is a multi-effect unit. An effect the can be used more like a instrument. You can apply a wide variety of effects via a step sequencer. So different beats get different effects. Rather than automate a series of effect in your daw to mangle loops you can step up this single effect to mangle them. Or like me you can keep the tape running and a screw around with endless and go back and sample the cool sounds you make. It is simply endless fun.