DIY Overdrives For AC30?

[bluetone]

My AC30 is damn finicky where overdrives are concerned. Drives that sound good on my Marshall are buzz city on the Vox.

Can anyone recommend a project particularly suited for this amp?

Thanks!

[Rodgre]

It's funny. I was just testing a bunch of overdrives with my AC30 not more than 5 minutes ago, and as you know, they are very finicky when it comes to pedals. Honestly, my favorite overdrives are simple boosters like the Fetzer Valve. That makes my Vox sound like itself, only more broken up. It's still loud, though. I end up using a Menatone Top Boost in a Can and a Nobels ODR-1 to drive it for live gigs. Check out the Runoffgroove English Channel and Matchbox. Those work pretty nicely with my Vox.

I find that darker pedals sound nicer through my Vox. Stuff that has too much high-end fizz just sounds awful.

Roger

[snoof]

My EC has GOBBS of high end!!  I have to turn the treb and cut knobs pretty low to avoid the icepick thang.  Maybe mine is not working correctly, but I would def not recomend the EC for an AC30.

[bluetone]

Yeah, a good boost is always the best way to go with an AC30.

I guess I just want another flava; something that has it's own thing going on, yet meshes well with the amp. I don't really want to build a "AC30 in a box" because, well, I already have the amp.

What's up with that Gaspedal Carb overdrive that's supposed to mesh so well with the AC30? Is it another diode clipper, or something more interesting?

[ulysses]

steer clear of the '95 hotcake.. the rog 18 works well - check the layout in my gallery.

one tip for the ac30 is - turn that bastard all the way up - then the buzz goes away - dont ask me why it works - it came from arons observation that the more gain am amp has on tap the more likely it is to reject the pedal.. so take away the gain on tap by turning it right up and your distortion pedals wont buzz..

unfortuntaly the last thing you need with the gain right up is a distortion / overdrive pedal.

cheers
ulysses

[petemoore]

  Just diddling with an AC15 to get nice distortions from it.
  Used a buncha pedals, really easy to get 'rough' mid/high frequency response, grainy like it needs wet sanding then sandable primer, lots of sanding, with a 'konk-tone' where I'd greatly prefer 'punchy' attacks.
  Just about any-clipper then through a Mini-Booster to smooth/fatten/cause punchy tones to work.
  Dist+>Mini-booster wins hands down in the PB position for 'generic distortion grind' sound, RATs, ZW44, TS, Bad Monkey [actually the BM was pretty cool, too bad it lasted only a few bypasses].
  The Dist+ does have a treble control, across the diodes is a Cap>Pot to ground [where the cap was].
  FF and TBMkII  also work good, but I used some LP filtering on them too.
 

[DougH]

One thing you might consider- AC30's have a bright cap (130p IIRC) on the volume pot. If you remove this or make it switchable it might help overdrives work better with this amp.

I built a homebrew AC15 derivative (no bright cap) and my pedals work real well with it.

[Rodgre]

That bright cap reminds me.... I tend to use the Normal channel more than the Brilliant channel. I've also had good luck with the Zoom Power Drive with the gain all the way off and boosting the bass. Then again, that's basically a means to get my AC30 to sound like it's turned up when it's not.

My AC30 is just too loud for small-midsize clubs. In the studio, I can open it right up and get the tone I want. Live, it's a matter of using pedals for everything. Kind of a shame.

I also wanted to mention that a Rat with the Filter adjusted for a darker tone works well for that "90's Britrock" tone.

Thinking about it more, it also really depends on what guitar I'm using. I mainly use Jazzmasters and without a boost pedal to beef up the bottom end, they tend to accentuate the fizziness when using distortion pedals with my AC30. My Epiphone Riviera with humbuckers can have a more solid tone, but I really rely on the Jazzmasters most often.

Roger

[DougH]

Well, as you can see, everything affects everything.

[birt]

they really sound best without any pedals. normal channel on max volume

[joelap]

www.plexipalace.com in the Vox board there's a few individuals who have done extensive mods to the AC30 Custom Classic (I am assuming we are taking about custom classics here).

I am a proud owner of a Custom Classic with the same complaints as mentioned here.  I have a very hard time finding an OD to match the vox... I've found a bad monkey works well (the extra low and high controls are a GODSEND on the top boosted vox), but also there's a popular mod which involved simply removing the 120pf bright cap... you can replace it for a lower value, but really all it needs is to be removed.  It SERIOUSLY tames the uber brightness and will make it much more usuable with different overdrives.  I have yet to do any of the mods to my vox currently, but I even have a new Heyboer Output transformer that I have yet to throw in.

The guy who does the mods if you want to send the vox to him is Lyle Caldwell.

I've actually been trying to build a custom overdrive pedal specifically tailored to vox amps.  So far, no such luck and not much time!

[DougH]

Tone controls, dudes, tone controls...

The post-distortion ability to roll off highs in a pedal will do wonders for an overly bright amp.

[liakos]

i use a highway 69 through my ac15 and i love it!give it a try

[searoad]

for a pedal says english channel i put it before the dirt pedal (sd1) and it comes very good sound 

[petemoore]

  jfet stages are a good bet.
  Adding Jfet stages has some of the same values as adding a tube stage. one or more soft edged clipping stages can add some nice extra grind to an already distorted amp, the gain structures can be tuned...try early gain stage source bypass R/C values, bass taming near input stage, mid to late stage LP filtering, or opposite..
 

[grolschie]

My Laney LC50-II can get buzzy with ODs at lower volumes. I found the G2D Custom Overdrive to be the smoothest OD, but enough meat for blues/rock. Not heavy stuff though. The Digitech Bad Monkey is good too. It's naturally quite dark and can be modded. A ProCo Rat can sound ok if the filter knob is used quite a bit. My Laney has a 5k treble boost which brings out the buzz/scratchiness in any pedal. Tweaking that helped.

[petemoore]

  See "Discrete Tube Less" thread...
  I was going to mention CMOS, both are worth a look.

[Steben]

Put a switch in series with the teble bleed cap on the volume control. Off with pedal, on without. Done.

[trevize]

why build yourself a power breaker?
my band mate runs his ac30 at usable volume level but the amp is on the verge of breaking up.
Then you add the minibooster I built for him and your done.

His problemis that the alnico blue are damn loud!
one way to tame the volume of that monster could be a less efficient speaker.

I'm not a fan of vintage 30 but I heard an ac15 with a vintage30 and it had an acceptable volume.

[earwax]

I am interested in the gaspedals carb found over on www.gaspedals.net.  Anyone know how it works?