Rangemaster not good

[lightningfingers]

I built the rangemaster today-and what a disapointment it was. Little treble boost, hardly any distortion :cry:  not what I had imagined at all.
Does anyone know of any soundclips I can compare mine with?

I don't get it :evil:  I bought the transistor from steve daniels and used the values he sent with it. I know the transistors good because I checked it with a hFE meter.

EDIT: is it supposed to turn off when the boost pot is right down?

[RDV]

I built mine with one of Steve's trannys also, but it rocks into a tube amp. It does not rock into a SS amp. There should be quite a bit of boost there and a lot of treble if wired correctly.

RDV

[lightningfingers]

Hmm...so I need a tube amp, this is why mine is not rocking.

Thanx

[RDV]

EDIT: is it supposed to turn off when the boost pot is right down?

The boost knob on a RM is a bias control, so all the way down it may shut down completely.

Read this thoroughly, it will help:
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/Rangemaster/drm.htm

RDV

[bwanasonic]

Hmm...so I need a tube amp, this is why mine is not rocking.

Yeah, the Rangemaster is not a sound unto itself. The magic comes from what it does to the input stage of a vintage style tube amp. I did get some interesting sounds running one into a Music Man 110 (Solid State preamp), but not really the *classic* RM tone at all. I prefer to run the RM into a somewhat dark and slightly dirty tube amp.

 BTW- I originally used a tranny from Steve and the values he advised, but still had to tweak the resistors to get it to bias at around 7v. I would advise a trimpot for at least R2. The next one I build will have trims for R2 and R4. See if you can take your build to a local music store and try it into a tube amp there. I took mine with me when I tried out the little Traynor I bought recently.

Kerry M

[lightningfingers]

I will (hopefully :? ) have a tube amp soon as Im building a AX84 P1 so i'll try it out on that when its up and running.

Thanks for the replies people :mrgreen:

[will]

Hi,

Hmm...so I need a tube amp, this is why mine is not rocking.

Yeah, the Rangemaster is not a sound unto itself. The magic comes from what it does to the input stage of a vintage style tube amp. I did get some interesting sounds running one into a Music Man 110 (Solid State preamp), but not really the *classic* RM tone at all. I prefer to run the RM into a somewhat dark and slightly dirty tube amp.

Kerry M

Just wondering how well the FET classic amp emulations from Runoffgroove and Doug’s  Meteor work with the Rangemaster. Does this sound like the real deal?

Regards,
Will

[bwanasonic]

Just wondering how well the FET classic amp emulations from Runoffgroove and Doug’s  Meteor work with the Rangemaster. Does this sound like the real deal?
[/quote]

Good question! Anybody try this yet?

Kerry M

[RDV]

I know I like an RM in front of an FF!

RDV

[lightningfingers]

Thats wierd because I put my RM infront of my fuzzface, and sure enough the good tones were there but most of it was just hiiisssssssssssss :?

Anyway I tried it with my buddy's tube amp today and I take back everything I said, it ROCKED :twisted:

Also there are plenty of good tones to be had if you put it before a tube pedal. Even into a solid state amp :wink:

[RDV]

Thats wierd because I put my RM infront of my fuzzface, and sure enough the good tones were there but most of it was just hiiisssssssssssss :?

Uh...I forgot to mention that part.  :wink:

RDV

[zenpeace69]

I built one with one of smallbear's transistors and it rocks pretty well.  You need a cranked tube amp to slam with it, though.  Overdriving SS circuits is at the least underwhelming and at the most quite unappealing.

[brian wenz]

Hello Hello-
   If your amp has a good master volume control on it the Rangemaster can sound pretty good with the pre-amp cranked and the master volume set low-to-medium. [This works on tube and solid state amps.]
I've gotten great RM sounds when the tranny was biased anywhere between 4v  - 7v.   It just depends on your amp and guitar set-up and what your ears want to hear.
Brian.

[Johnny G]

I recentlly built a rangemaster clone useing an AC151 germanium transistor i found in my school elecronics labs (i actually found about 30 of them, had to test every single one and only about 5 or 6 are usable for anything)

when i used it infront of my  marshall MG series amp it sounded ok but not to great. what i did find however is that when i put my Mosfet Boost infront of it and drove the hell out of it there was some seriously nice distortion. very crunchy and full yet some how very clear at the same time (clear being the opposite of muddy in this instance)

im tempted to make an overdrive pedal using a mosfet to overdrive one of the other germanium trannies. i think it was RoG who did the same thing but with a JFET