kinda OT- Blue Voodoo 60 H

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

The amp is acting weird. It is getting strange, gated sounds on the distorted channel. I intend to retube it, and call it good.

However, since it's on my bench, I opted to pry it open and have a look around... I was quite impressed.

Inside, the circuit consists of metal film resistors, WIMA capacitors, and (wtf?) RC5532N opamps and 2N series transistors, as well as tubes, optos, and other assorted junk. I assume that the trannies/opamps are outside the signal chain.

I would like a schematic of this monster. I seriously need to squeeze more treble from it, and would reeeeally like to have a schemo for this. If there is not one available, I could post pictures if anyone is interested in trying to reverse it. I doubt anyone would try to build this thing (as it's about $300 used!) but it could be good for modding purposes.

if the reversing idea bothers anyone, feel free to PM me, and i'll modify my post.

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

well, i've drawn up a rough schem of the tube section of the amp (essentially, the preamp). I'm absolutely exhausted and I am not sure that the tone controls are dead on... the stack looks a bit messed up.

if anyone wants a schemo of the channels, i'll go ahead and make a schemo on my comp... which will definitely look nicer than what I have right now...

tomorrow, mod time.

BTW, this amp is outrageously difficult to take apart. I am horrified at the thought of reassembling it. I should have made an exploded diagram, or something...!

[syndromet]

It would be cool to make a Jfet version of the High gain channel. That amp has some serious metal-tones.

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

i was thinking on that, but it has such a flabby bottom end that it just doesn't seem practical... better to just build a Dr. Boogey, or something.

I also question the accuracy of my reversing. i'm probably going to take pictures and reverse later, because this schemo i've drawn is reeeeeeally weird. It looks like it would work, but it doesn't look what I think it should look like...! There are zero (read: not a SINGLE ONE) cap-resistor parallels in the signal chain (tone stacks aside)!!

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

well, the amp is reassembled, but not working.

the heaters don't seem to turn on. I went in and checked the filament wiring (looks fine) and other tranny connections (also look ok) but to no avail. i'll be at this for a while, i suppose.

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

UPDATE- found a dead fuse. after replacing, the amp started up... and then died again.

guess i'm burning fuses, somehow. damn.

[syndromet]

Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun to debug. Best of luck.

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

well, i got it. they connection between the power tube board and the main board was doing something weird, and closing a loop. now, the amp lives again.

The added treble is quite a blessing. now, the tonestack actually seems to control something!

[wampcat1]

totally speculating, but the opamps are probably for the fx loop, the opto's are probably for switching.

bw

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

probably. I drew out the tube sections, which create the clean/distorted channels and (i think) the phase splitter.