I have a friend who owns a '59 Fender Bandmaster. I've blown thru it, and REALLY like it. He also does his own tech work, and has built a few kits that all came out great. He has offered to build the Weber 5E7 Bandmaster clone for me(gratis!), and it sounds like one heck of a deal at around 500 bucks, plus I can get the cabinet covered in something other than tweed(which means I will own my second purple amp;-D). I'm looking for opinions on this regarding component swaps. I don't have $1000+ to throw at a HarpGear, Sonny Jr., etc., and need a bigger amp. Any thoughts on capacitor changes, etc. to better suit harp are much appreciated.
Here's my good freind Carlos Colina playing through a Bandmaster modded by Sonny Jr.-this was just before Sonny started building the 4-10. Carlos gets great tone from this amp-I have played through it a few times myself-just the right punch. I will try my best to get the tube complimets and so forth-great amp!! Carlos was good freinds with Paul Delay-he stayed with Carlos for a while back around 2005.
Last Edited by on Apr 04, 2011 1:18 PM
Dan Treanor has (or at any rate had) a 5E7M built for him from a Weber kit that he felt worked very well for him for harp--I believe he had it built pretty much to Weber's specs. You might also look at Mark Burness's suggested Bassman 5F6a mods (go to his myspace page), what he suggests for the front end and tone stack of the Bassman should apply to the Bandmaster as well.
I played through Dan's amp a couple of times. It's a great sounding amp. He had a 5E7M with vintage series Weber speakers. You won't go wrong with that amp. The builder made no changes to the circuit and used the components supplied by Weber. I specifically asked Dan and the builder, Victor, that question.
Thanks for the vids and advice, all. This sounds like what I will probably do! A couple more gigs and I'll have the cash in hand for it. As for it only being 26 or so watts, I'm fine with that. I don't play with super-loud folks much anymore, and I would rather a 'tween size amp that I can still crank enough for good tone without being TOO loud. Check this vid out. What I want to point out is that I'm playing onstage, unmic'd, no line out thru my 5-watt Epi V Jr, and running only thru the 12" single speaker. Granted, this was a subdued tune, but it projected pretty good for being only 5 watts. The cons? I'm not completely dimed on it, but close, so no head room...and although it projected into the room, I had trouble hearing it when we were playing more upbeat numbers throughout the night. I don't solo thru the amp in this vid, just playing rhythm and comps(special guest and friend Patrick Williams and I switched off on solos on the vocal mic-and the crappiest solo I played of the night).
I am certain that the 26 watts and 3-10s of the 5E7 would be plenty for me.
And Tom, yes, I would be interested in the tube setup Carlos used if you can find out-that sounded killer!
5F6H--true, I should have been more specific. I was alluding to the coupling cap changes (up to .1); increase in preamp cathode bypass cap size; increasing preamp dropping resistor size to lower V1 plate voltage; possible elimination of the bright cap on the bright channel and addition of small bypass cap on the other channel's plate resistor to create a "normal/dark" configuration rather than "bright/normal" one; possibly splitting V1A and V1B into both grid leak and cathode biased inputs, along with upping the grid load resistor on at least one channel to better suit high impedance mics; possible addition of a largish bypass cap to the V2A cathode resistor. Although as you point out they are different circuits in many respects, I'd think that these changes might benefit the 5E7 for harp as well. But if I'm wrong, please set me straight, as I'm considering these changes to my own upcoming 5E7 build, along with your idea for a fixed bias/CFSI switch.
Last Edited by on Apr 05, 2011 8:47 AM
"you going with the version with presence or the one with a full tone stack? just curious".
Not sure which to choose-if the 'tone' knob is nothing more than a treble cut, I don't see the need, if there is a separate treble knob.
On the tubes, I automatically assumed I'd wanna rip 'em out as soon as I get it and put in my own upgrades. That's why I'm curious as to what configurations have been used by folks. They're gonna probably put cheapies in there to keep costs down, understandably. ---------- Todd
Todd, I'd opt to keep the presence personally, the 5E# circuit naturally has some mid character just with Bass & Treble controls. Bluefinger on the Music Electronics Forum has built a 5E#/5F# hybrid, but with the 5E7M tone stack...he is expressing significant doubts on its useability for harp.
Don't be put off by a tube's price, Weber kits come with Shuguang Chinese tubes, often quite warm sounding, if a bit "fizzy", Shuguang don't make a 12AY7 so you won't get one of those with it...some Shuguangs are OK, so give them a fair crack before binning them. I would suggest that the builder allows the negative bias voltage (bias pot) to sweep down to around -65v at pin 5 of the 6L6s at it's most negative setting.
Last Edited by on Apr 05, 2011 11:33 AM
I lifted this info from Dan Treanor's myspace page.
I've had several folks ask me what I'm using to play my harp through. Here goes. I have several amps that I use, but my number one amp is "The Victor Bluesmaster". This is a amp that my friend and master tech, Victor Creazzi, aerofirewp@yahoo.com hand built for me. It's a Weber kit clone of a 1959 Fender Bandmaster. www.webervst.com All point to point hand wired. I have 2 Alnico Weber 125s and a ceramic 150F for the speakers. This speaker combination is perfect for the harp. It has been re-tubed with a AT in V1, a AY in V2 and a AU in V3. It uses a copper rectifier, not a tube. This gives a much tighter bottom with less sag. The amp was constructed using a true tone stack instead of the presence control. The circuit is wired according to the original 5E7 circuit. It pushes about 35 watts, and can be quite loud when it has to. This is by far the best harp amp I have ever had or heard!
After playing through this amp, I had planned to build one of these when I came across a Super Sonny at a very nice price.
you can simply order without the tubes and they knock off $30, and you can put that toward higher quality tubes, or you can gamble and see what you get for $30 and take them out if need be.
the copper rectifier that joe mentioned comes stock.
looks like Treanor went with the full tone stack.
That might be good for feedback issues, allow to cut out the mids better, but listen to Mark. Presence is certainly good for cutting through the mix better and with a slightly smaller watt gig amp, that could well be a plus
The Weber 5E7M appears to have the "presence" pre set at "12", albeit with a slightly smaller value presence cap. So you don't "lose" presence with the enhanced tone stack. Not a big deal to alter the preset if required...not that I probably would.
I believe the Weber chassis has a place for a ground switch which is unused--couldn't you use that to put a presence control and have both? I realize that would put the pot over into AC country, but since it just goes to ground I'm not sure if this would make a difference--or you could use shielded wire just to be sure.
I seriously lack the techie-speak that some of you have, so in layman's terms, what exactly does the 'presence' do-is it essentially a 'gain' control, driving the power tubes harder? As for the tone stack, my 'tone' control on my modded Epi is no more than a treble control. Would the one you guys speak of for this amp be the same? if so, it sounds like apples and oranges. I do like simplicity, but also like to have options at my fingertips. And I greatly appreciate everyone's input on this-there's no such thing as an uninformed gear buying decision with this forum around! ---------- Todd
Presence is a high frequency boost, usually at a higher frequency than even the speakers can handle, or certainly at the edge of their capabilities. It is usually after the tone stack, but tapped before the power tubes, reinjected right at the speaker. Put simply, a little bit of the output signal at the speaker is injected back into the circuit at an earlier, "out of phase" point. This cancels out a little bit of the potentially available signal, smoothing frequency response & reducing gain (in the process can make the amp more stable). This is called "negative feedback/NFB". The presence control is a tone control on the NFB loop, boosting very high end (so high it has less of a negative effect on feedback from your mic). It's good for helping cut/edge. In most Fenders with Presence I leave it all the way up (as it is pre-set on the Weber 5E7).
Randy Landry's tone control on the Epi mod is a "high cut" tone control, a cap bleeds high end to ground, the cap is progressively "turned off" as you wind the tone pot clockwise. The 5E7/5E7M have dedicated treble & bass filters, I find that these are often more desirable on a large 2x6L6 amp because often you need the bass control to shelve low frequencies that would otherwise make the amp muddy, there is more risk of this muddiness with a high cut pot on a 2x6L6 amp. Many smaller amps are just fine with just a high cut pot as they simply cannot make the same amount of bass as a larger amp without compressing.
A simple high cut pot in the 5E7/5E7M circuit would also probably increase gain in an unhelpful way.
you speaker choice and your tube biasing will probably have a bigger effect on your overall tone than presence.
Mark, what do you suggest in weber speakers for such an amp? they have do darn many options? but picking out something a bit more likely to be successor up front would be the best strategy here, even if it costs a bit more
tmf714 - The rectifier in the photo is a Reflector/Sovtek/Saratov product (black base), the word Svetlana used to apply to St Peterburg/Svetlana Electronic Devices (SED winged C - brown base) products but the name was more recently bought by Mike Matthews of New Sensor Corp fame & now applies to Saratov/Reflector/EH manufactured products. The power tubes would appear to be of Svetlana/St Petersburg/SED origin (note rectangular cut outs in the plate material, that the TS5881 do not have)?
Marsh do amazingly cost effective work, I know of a guy who received a 2x10 brown Vibroverb repro for £1500GBP, unbelievable!
Walter - Here in the UK Weber speakers are pretty expensive when considering the Chicago vintage series...Stephen Schneider (HTownFess) & Jim Rossen would be much better qualified than me on that front.
But if you asked me about speakers period, I'd opt for 1xFane Medusa & 2x Eminence 102 ;-)
Last Edited by on Apr 06, 2011 5:34 PM
I built a Weber 5E3 kit with stock treble bass presence several years ago and it came out great. I used the stock power transformer that has two sets of high voltage secondary windings with one suitable for 6l6 tubes and one suitable for 6v6. I made the choice of secondaries switch selectable, thus it was easily used with 6v6 or 6l6 with appropriate bias adjustment. I preferred it with 6v6 and it was nice as a medium volume amp. If you plan to do this, make sure you get a multitap output transformer as the choice of taps will depend on the power tube used. The Weber trannies worked fine. I used .1 mfd Mallory 150 coupling caps but otherwise built it pretty much stock. My amp had two Weber alnico sig 10 speakers and one big magnet ceramic, I think a Weber P10N, I liked this combo alot. Another nice and easily done mod is to have switch selectable fixed or cathode power tube bias. I sold the amp despite the great sound because I was (and am) way over-amped.
No post since April.. How did it work? I recently build a 5E4aM... It is the same circuit but with 2 "10 speakers. I find it a little edgy, but in many other ways it's good. I find the middle useful. It brings in a lot of fidelity in this amp sound. I will try some other speakers to see if i can decrease the edge a little.. Maybe a pair of black eminence 1028K or a pair of Eminence Alpha in thi
Unfortunately, it never came to fruition. That's about the time the wife and I began having serious issues, which have since come to a head, and now I'm sleeping single in a double bed... But, I digress. Hopefully things will even out, and I can either get the 5E7 or some other monstrous amp-but now just ain't the time... ---------- Todd L. Greene
Sometimes life stinks. It's no fun when nobody complains on your bad farts anymore. I know, i've been there too..
My amp works better since i found some clumsy mistakes i done on the middle control i felt like i should go in here and correct what i said before about the middle control. Now when i connect it like it should be its not as useful anymore. When or if you build one you do not need a 5E7M.
Last Edited by on Nov 07, 2011 2:54 PM
