"AMERICAN WOMAN" PEDAL

[Doug_H]

l;kj

[tcobretti]

What do you guys think about the "chip in and buy an American Woman so we can reverse engineer it" idea?

I'd be happy to dram the schematic myself, but I've only drawn a couple and fear that the results would suck.

[Doug_H]

;lkj

[brian wenz]

Hello Hello-
    I don't think this thread was hijacked at all!  I'v enjoyed where it's gone [never really got completely off-topic....just sort of "augmented"].
Great work, everybody!
Gotta find that Tech 21 circuit. though!
Brian.

[Jim Jones]

Hi Brian,

I'm pretty sure Randy was using Garnet amps of some description, either the 50 watt Pro's or the 100 watt BTO's.  Contrary to popular belief (i.e. Aspen Pittman's book ), BTO did not stand for Bachman-Turner Overdrive...it stood for Big Time Operator.  BTO, the band, didn't come along until five or six years after the BTO amp first appeared.

Gar Gillies still has a shop here in Winnipeg and has been building limited runs of new Herzog's as well as being the repair guy for all things tube in town.  He's a fantastic gentleman!  Actually I just met Gar and his wife on the street on my way into work this morning.  

Jim

[brian wenz]

Hello Hello--
   Thanks, Jim!
Hhmmmm....Winnipeg is starting to sound more and more like a cool place to live...
Brian.

[csj]

Yeah, Doug...I'll try to do a simple soundclip of it. I'm backed up too with non music related chores. I'm hoping you do it to your Firefly so we can hear the difference. No offense meant to  Mr. Delft at all but I had always considered the Moonlight somewhat of a disappointment. It never quite lived up to my expectations but I do appreciate his approach to low watt builds and I enjoyed building it and when I get around to it I'll redo the tone stack to see if I've been missing something. I like this mod though. The amp literally becomes a stompbox. Let us know how you decide to switch it in and out Doug. I haven't thought much about it yet. Mine's also going to need some eq control on the back half. Something to keep the highs from getting buried.


Oh, yeah...
Both Traynor and Gillies are greatly under appreciated in the general history of musical instrument amplification... in my very humble/amatuer opinion.

[Jim Jones]

Hey Brian,

Winnipeg's a cool place to live alright - friggin' 16C here today!  Man this summer has sucked...  

csj - I agree Gar and Pete are living legends.  I've never met Pete but Gar thinks highly of him so that says something to me.   I visit Gar at his shop (706 St. Matthews here in Winnipeg!) from time to time and he's always willing to share things he's picked up in his many years in the field.

I never call him Gar to his face though - he's Mr. Gillies to me.  

Jim

[Fret Wire]

Nice looking amp Clay, is that cedar? This sounds interesting. I used to do it with a ss into a tube, but it can't be the same. I started on a Prineton Reverb, which you know is a clean amp. Later I bought a small ss Peavey because it had a headphone jack. It could cop the Champ clean sound, but the distortion sounded horrible as expected. It also had a pre-amp out. So I tried running the pre-amp out into the PR, and it sounded pretty good, in an out of control kind of way. Much better than it's own dist. I like to try that again with a tube amp into a tube amp.

That tech 21 schem does sound very interesting.

[csj]

Fret Wire, you know your wood too (uh, ... no Enzyte pun intended). It's beautiful isn't it...yes cedar. I've got the good fortune to have a carpenter as my best friend. He's working right now with this very rare wood (so I'm told) called Kauri (sp. ?). I think it's from Australia and very old.
I like the reddish tinted woods myself...especially cedar and padauk.

Mark Hammer (if you're still reading this), do you have the schematic of the Rat mods which come close to this sound that you mentioned?

Clay

[Doug_H]

;lkj

[John Catto]

Doug, why don't you just pop a relay in there and power it off the heater voltage, that's how I've always done channel switching in amps, no reason you couldn't use one to switch the whole thing. Labeling on the part aside I think I'd put a bigger load resistor on there, you don't want the amp to go "no load" for any reason.

[Doug_H]

[;lkj

[Ben N]

I agree Gar and Pete are living legends.

Is Pete Traynor still among us?  I thought otherwise (for quite some time now), but I'd be thrilled to find I was wrong.  Anyway, it is way cool that you know Gar Gillies.  The local amp legend around here (Long Island) is Jess Oliver, of Ampeg & Oliver fame, and, like Gar Gillies, he is said to do some tech work mainly for his amusement, but I have never gone to see him.
Ben

[Jim Jones]

Hey Ben,

I hadn't heard anything about Pete passing away?  I just did a Google search and found this page that says he was on hand last year for the unveiling of the new YCV40A  http://www.guitarists.net/gear/view.php/Guitar_Amplifiers/Traynor/YCV40A..html

Yep, there are a bunch of people out there who have a lot of knowledge to share - I want to be a better sponge and absorb as much as I can!

Jim

[Ben N]

Yikes!  For once it is very good to be wrong!  Thanks!

[Ben N]

Yikes!  For once it is very good to be wrong!  Thanks!

[jmusser]

I read on that quite awhile back, because I love the "chello" sound that Randy got. For a long time, I thought it was keyboard. It seemed like he ran a small amp into his main amp prior to Garnet building the Hertzog, and Garnet built it, because he didn't want to work on Randy's smoked amp anymore. I believe "Hertzog" was the name of a character in a book Randy was reading at the time. I can get that sound dead on, by using a DOD Big Fat Pig Distortion in front of a Russian made Big Muff. I will check out that pedal sample to see how close it is. I love his sound of that era (and of BTO), it was very unique, and Burton Cummings was an awesome singer. What a group!

[csj]

Herzog was the name of the lead character in a book by the great author Saul Bellow. The book is a little reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities"... kind of like the follies and foibles of upper crust men struggling to come to grips with aging/mortality and loss of vigor and sex appeal. They have small flaws in their character which lead them to make mistakes which end up being enormous. Very funny but a little sad.

Sounclips to the "moonzog"...very hastily recorded on the cheapest possible gear...warts and all. I just tried to make as much noise as possible. Don't hit the MP3 link...it'll ask you to sign up. Forget that. See if the Hi-fi link will work for you. Headsets are highly recommended.

[Fret Wire]

That does have a different sound, nice. BTW, I liked the Octave clip too, nice tone on that.