Colorsound is terrible through my tube amp

[dachshund]

I have a few circuits breadboarded including the Colorsound Tone Bender, from this schematic,
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/tb3cs_sc.gif

The circuit is working fine when played through my solid state amp - I get plenty of distortion, the pots work as described. When I plug it into my Deluxe Reverb I get a farty, horrible sound with no sustain. My guitar is a G&L telecaster, with fairly hot pickups. The one circuit that works the same through both amps is a simple opamp distortion, the Liquid Drive.

Any suggestions? I'd like to get sustained distortion through my DR, but not by overdriving the amp: we play a lot of C&W so I need the clean sound, and I'm looking to get the fuzz or distortion from the pedal.

Thanks in advance.

[markm]

Sounds like ya need a Comp if you wanna get sustain. 
A terriffic OD for Country is the OD250, that's what I mainly use.

[dachshund]

OK, that's pretty close to the Liquid Drive,
http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/liquid.php

Interesting - I've been looking at the Orange Squeeze, so I'll give that a try.

Everyone raves about their GE transistor circuits, so I keep trying...
Thanks.

[markm]

OK, that's pretty close to the Liquid Drive,
http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/liquid.php

Well, yeah but, not really.
Similar design and components but to my ears, the similarity ends there. 

[Chris Brown]

It's probably your amp...

This week my twin reverb went out (tubes) and I'm playing through a reissue blues deluxe... My observation is that the deluxe is built to break up too early to really work with the higher gain builds...

My GE fuzz face is my most used "distortion"... I also use a Distortion Pro and one of my own circuits... it's like a TMK distortion.. to many knobs...  - anyway - with the deluxe these are basically useless (especially the FF) with the amp volume above 2... the stompbox's sounds get squashed into a farty & compressed mess.  They sound a little bit better through the fx loop but still not stage worthy. Needless to say I left the high gain stuff at home for this weeks gigs.

Since it breaks up so early I am getting some pretty heavy sounds out of my deluxe with an overdrive (heavily modded 808... i call it the 666) and also a rangemaster with the input cap switched to mid boost.

Side note: With my 1981 Ibanez as50 (seth lover neck and 59paf at bridge) i get a much higher output than with my strat and if I want to keep the amp breakup down (to about the same as with my strat) I plug into input 2... helps a little bit.

from what I've read on the amp newsgroups you can re-tube a deluxe to get more clean headroom.... I wonder if this could help us with the squished fuzz deluxe thing...

Anybody know more? I'd love to get more clean headroom with this deluxe even though I only use it as a backup.


Warm regards,
Chris Brown

[R.G.]

I get a farty, horrible sound with no sustain.

... and this is one of the standard descriptions of grid blocking or misbiasing.

Item 1: is there as any DC voltage on the output of your effects devices?

Most tube amps are DC coupled into the first grid. Most SS amps are AC coupled, meaning DC blocked. A DC offset can misbias the first stage and give you this problem.

Item 2: What signal level compared to your guitar's signal are you sending into the amp? When you overdrive the grid of a capacitively coupled tube (that is, the second through last tube stages) then the grids conduct when the signal swings positive. The charge builds up on the input coupling cap and make for a more "off" bias voltage shift until the charge is bled off by the grid leak resistor. Big signals make for grid blocking.

from what I've read on the amp newsgroups

Stop doing this. There is essentially zero reliable content in any usenet newsgroup anymore. Usenet newsgroups quit being usable sometime around 1999 or so.  It requires a very thorough grounding in amp technology to sort the wheat from the chaff on usenet anymore, so it's useless to learn from.

[Doug_H]

Sounds like ya need a Comp if you wanna get sustain. 

Yeah, if you want to compress the garbage sound he's already getting...

Sounds like you have a fundamental problem of some sort with the overdrive box itself. Check the suggestions R.G. made.

The answer to fixing a problem is not always "get more gear".

[markm]

 
Sorry but, I was under the impression he was looking for more sustain on the clean side.
I guess one of us misunderstood what he was asking.....probably me! 

[Doug_H]

Sorry but, I was under the impression he was looking for more sustain on the clean side.
I guess one of us misunderstood what he was asking.....probably me! 

Fuggetaboudit. I understand how people interpret posts differently.

I guess I get a little testy when I perceive someone suggesting to build more stuff when it sounds like the stuff they've already built isn't working right.

An overdrive that is working properly should compress some on its own. After that, if you need more sustain, well that's another issue entirely. His problem sounds outside the category of what I would call "working properly".

[wampcat1]

totally off topic from your pedal problems, but if you are a country picker why the choice of a fuzz? 
Just curious.

You may be better off building more of an overdrive or the like.

bw

[markm]

His problem sounds outside the category of what I would call "working properly".

After re-reading the original post I would have to agree.

totally off topic from your pedal problems, but if you are a country picker why the choice of a fuzz? 
Just curious.

You may be better off building more of an overdrive or the like.

bw

Yes, I would think a mild OD is the ticket.

[dachshund]

I'll try to explain
To keep the sound clean, I keep the amp volume low enough that it won't distort. I mentioned this to explain why I don't want to rely on overdriving the amp in order to get distortion. Our sets usually mix in some classic rock with the C&W, and we occasionally get "all rock" gigs, and that's why I need to punch in some distortion on-demand. Plus, we mic the guitars, so I usually don't want to crank up the amp.

I just was perplexed as to why the Tonebender / 3 transistor circuits sounded so good through my SS amp, and very bad through the Deluxe Reverb. I realize there are nuances, but this is night & day different. In the meantime I'm off building an OD 250. I have a recent model Rat, and wanted to add a second pedal so I can set one at a slight crunch, and the other at "full fuzz."

If this sounds really unusual to you all, then maybe it's just my amp. So maybe this is my real question: in general, if the circuit works fine  with my SS amp, should it work about the same in a tube amp? It seems that people are frustrated going in the other direction, that the challenge is with the solid state amp.

I haven't had time to test the DC voltage going into my amp, in response to R.G. Maybe this weekend.

[scaesic]

I have a few circuits breadboarded including the Colorsound Tone Bender, from this schematic,
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/tb3cs_sc.gif

The circuit is working fine when played through my solid state amp - I get plenty of distortion, the pots work as described. When I plug it into my Deluxe Reverb I get a farty, horrible sound with no sustain. My guitar is a G&L telecaster, with fairly hot pickups. The one circuit that works the same through both amps is a simple opamp distortion, the Liquid Drive.

Any suggestions? I'd like to get sustained distortion through my DR, but not by overdriving the amp: we play a lot of C&W so I need the clean sound, and I'm looking to get the fuzz or distortion from the pedal.

Thanks in advance.

nice, another member of the asat club. i have a semi asat special, iv been toying with the idea of a solid classic though, if i got that and an archtop id never need anything else.

[dachshund]

And - ASAT with the 3 pickups. I couldn't believe I found one. I love it.

[Ed G.]

I have a few circuits breadboarded including the Colorsound Tone Bender, from this schematic,
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/tb3cs_sc.gif

The circuit is working fine when played through my solid state amp - I get plenty of distortion, the pots work as described. When I plug it into my Deluxe Reverb I get a farty, horrible sound with no sustain. My guitar is a G&L telecaster, with fairly hot pickups. The one circuit that works the same through both amps is a simple opamp distortion, the Liquid Drive.

Any suggestions? I'd like to get sustained distortion through my DR, but not by overdriving the amp: we play a lot of C&W so I need the clean sound, and I'm looking to get the fuzz or distortion from the pedal.

I suspect as R.G. does that either there's something wrong with the pedal or maybe you have the output level of the pedal too loud and it's driving the first tube of the DR crazy. These pedals were originally built when tube amps were standard gear, so there's no reason why it shouldn't work with a tube amp. How loud is the amp when you tried it out? Fender amps have been known to go into blocking distortion pretty easily, sometimes you have to turn the bass pot down or the low frequencies swamp everything out.

[rocket]

I ´ve a modified differential distortion (the schematic is around) and it souds HORRIBLE with my POD2 with any model but the deluxe and the budda twinmaster. It sounds good with my small tube amp (diy, 5W, EL84 or (better) 6V6).

I have the feeling that the frequency responses of the distortion and the models add up in an unpleasant way.

[scaesic]

And - ASAT with the 3 pickups. I couldn't believe I found one. I love it.

a special with 3 pickups? or a z3? i wanted one of those metalic blue flake z3's for a while.

[dachshund]

The "special". They also had a z3. It sounded nice, too. The special has the semi-hollow body so it's nice and light. But the sound is the thing, and this one just "had it." Quite a range of tones. They also had a couple of Tele's with the humbucker in the neck pickup, which was tempting.

[scaesic]

ahh, they sound amazing ey? its all about the special, those pickups and bridge, ahhhhh. iv never played a z3, is it more stratty?

[brianwenz]

Hello Hello--
      A Fuzz Face or Tonebender will not sound very good through a stock Fender Deluxe / Super / Pro / Twin Reverb amp.  Those circuits are a good match with English amps [Marshall, Vox, HiWatt.....]
Brian.