SonnyD4885
194 posts
Feb 28, 2012
1:36 PM
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i have a 1965 pevy 12in encore 65 amp and i just don't know how to make it sound good and suggestion? on how to turn the
knobs in a good direction so i have a good sound
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Greg Heumann
1510 posts
Feb 28, 2012
5:18 PM
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Hi, Sonny
Your amp, if I have it right, has:
2 12AX7 (preamp/reverb return)
1 12AT7 (mixer/reverb drive)
1 12AX7 (driver)
2 6L6GC (P-o-w-e-r!)
A lot of power and a single 12" speaker.
First and foremost, there is a HUGE amount that has to do with the player (thin tone will always be thin tone) and microphone technique. Are you able to get sounds out of other amps that you like? What are you using for a mic?
With that said, with a tube setup like the above, I can predict without even seeing it that it is harsh and feedbacky as hell. First thing I would do is yank out that 12AX7 "driver" tube and replace it with a 12AU. This will help get the gain down into a more harp friendly region. If that isn't enough you can lower the gain of the 1st tube too, but that will also reduce the effectiveness of the reverb.
Turn the treble or tone control pretty far down - good for most amps. You can always turn it back up if you need more definition.
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/Greg
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SuperBee
86 posts
Feb 28, 2012
5:33 PM
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Hi Greg, (and sorry if this is hijacking, I think it's relevant but maybe I'm out of line. My aPology Sonny, if so. )
Just wondering about that driver tube. I guess I just don't really understand the role. I have an amp with SS preamp but a 12ax7 driver. From your post above I'm gathering this is responsible for the gain. But if the amp has a pot to control the gain there's maybe no point changing out that tube? Except maybe to get a bit more usable range in the gain control?
Dave
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Greg Heumann
1511 posts
Feb 28, 2012
6:00 PM
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Do not confuse gain with volume. They are not the same thing. If you plot input level vs output level, volume is represented by the distance from 0. Gain is the SLOPE of that line. In other words, a higher gain amp will rocket from quiet to the most volume it can produce with less difference in input signal.
We like to lower gain for harp because microphones are much better at coupling to sound waves the amp is producing (which is where feedback comes from) than guitar strings and pickups are. Yet amps are usually setup with enough gain for guitar players to get hendrix style feedback. It is WAY more gain than is required for a mic to drive the amp to its maximum power.
As for the driver tube - there are multiple amplification stages in many amp designs, to amplify the tiny signal from a microphone or guitar pickup until it is strong enough to use as the input to power tubes for final amplification. The "driver" tube is the last stage of this process - it "drives" the power tubes.
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/Greg
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HawkeyeKane
746 posts
Feb 28, 2012
8:02 PM
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@Greg
You know, that's one of the hardest things for a harp player to make a guitarist understand about gain. I told our guitarist not to mess with the gain settings on my Vypyr amp. Didn't listen of course. If he'd turned up the pre-gain it prolly wouldn't have hurt. As it stood, he turned up the post-gain, and I was on my Akai DM13, my hottest mic. The feedback was horrendous until I realized what he'd done. Ughhh....
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Hawkeye Kane
Last Edited by on Feb 28, 2012 8:03 PM
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KingoBad
1054 posts
Feb 28, 2012
10:51 PM
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Hawkeye,
Does that mean you are allowed to turn your guitarist's volume down when you want? I think turnabout is fair play...
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Danny
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SonnyD4885
195 posts
Feb 29, 2012
5:44 AM
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thanks Greg this will help and yes your right and i have not tried any other amp i live in a small town where amps are not available to me to try and i have a Shure Pe dynamic mic
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HawkeyeKane
748 posts
Feb 29, 2012
7:06 AM
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@Kingo
We all kinda put up with his antics because he's honestly one of the best guitarists in town. But he's butted heads with everyone in the band at some point. He kinda considers himself an authority on all subjects, and gets bossy when he sees something he deems incorrect. Thus we've nicknamed him Der Fuhrer auf der Fender. He's never touched my knobs since I got it through to him why harpists take gain in moderation though.
The one big incident I've had with him was an electrical one. My 'Zoo 2 has of course been Heumannized (Greg, I'm still thinking of getting a dedication tag on her), and therefore properly powered, lined-out, and grounded. We had a buzz in the PA not long after I first got it, and he was convinced it was the 'Zoo's line into the board. It wasn't really, but he was dead set on putting a ground lift on my amp. Well, as you might guess from the 'Zoo's steel chassis, that's a one way ticket for 120 volts to whoever touches it or plays through it. We probably argued for half an hour about it, and that's when he figured out the buzz was coming from a bad channel on the PA.
Aaaaand....my rambling is starting to take over Sonny's thread. Sorry Sonny.
Whew! I will say this though. Any you guys ever notice how liberating it feels to rant about guitarists every now and then? ;-)
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Hawkeye Kane
Last Edited by on Feb 29, 2012 11:36 AM
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