Greatest MIAB ever! - ROG Thunderbird

[Heph333]

Just finished my Runoffgroove Thunderbird last weekend, PCB by 1776. I'm still in awe of how good this circuit sounds.

I've been searching for a very long time for a good low volume cranked plexi tone. I've tried amps. Ive tried pedals. I've tried modellers. They're getting better, but not great yet. The closest I've come is the VSTs. But I really wanted to break free of the PC, so kept searching for something self-contained.
In a way, the sound of a cranked 1959 Superlead is the most difficult tone to box up because so much of it is not the amp, but rather the cabinet & sheer volume. So I realized that Impulse Responses & great reverb are essential. After that, came the search for emulating overdriven power tubes. That led me to the Runoffgroove Thunderbird.
Rather than try to emulate the circuit of a SL100, they emulated stages of the waveform. Preamp (clean gain really), Phase Inverter (asymmetric compression). Power tubes (hard clipping).

Playing Thunderbird through a 1960A IR and a Polara reverb into stereo monitors is the most magnificent sound I've ever heard come from my fingers. The bottom is full & rich without ever getting muddy. The highs are there, without being fizzy. But the crunch is spectacular. Whether into the clean side of my Shiva or DI into monitors, every distortion I've tried feels like something gets lost from the clean tone. Like a blanket got thrown over the amp. This thing makes my amp come alive.


The tone knob is really a character knob. From zero to 10 o'clock, it ranges from the normal to bright channels of the 1959SLP. Get it above noon & it gets into hot rodded territory. To my ears, at 3-4 o'clock, this sounds like the highly coveted S.I.R #36. Tight bass, crunchy mids and sizzle on the top end.

All I can say is that if you're after great MIAB tone, you gotta try this circuit.