Recommend crunch pedal for Epiphone Valve Junior

[davidallancole]

Hello All,

I have recently finished re-building an Epiphone Valve Junior.  I have set the circuitry up similarily to the Fender Champ.  There are no capacitors on the cathode resistors of the 12AX7 and I included the feedback resistor as well.  So this makes for a fairly wide-band clean amplifier (at low volumes anyways).

What I am looking for is a pedal that would help me produce a light blues crunch up to an AC/DC type of crunch.  Nothing extreme here, I have my Metal Zone pedal for that.  The type of pedal I am looking for would basically be a pre-amp just like the Metal Zone pedal and should not rely on the tubes in the Valve Junior to gain any of the distortion sound.  So effectively the Valve Junior is used as a power amp.  I play quietly at home just to let you all know as well.

Any help would be appreciated so that I don't spend needless money finding what would work for this.  Currently manufactured products as well as DIY projects are both welcome. 

Just a note, I tried a Bad Monkey recently and the treble was not there.  It was like your rolled your tone knob on your guitar right down.  Is this pedal made to give you a boost through a Marshall type of amplifier that already has lots of treble?

[mantella]

tube screamer?

[davidallancole]

I am wondering if the Tube Screamer would be short on treble like the Bad Monkey?

[davent]

I've got a SHO on the beadboard right now and love what it does into my clean Fender 5F2a type build.

dave

[newfish]

Rangemaster.

Or try substituting R2 on the V.Jr. for 1M (if this isn't already part of the Champ rebuild...)

Worked a treat for mine.

[Ben N]

I know you wanted to keep the amp clean, and I get that, but I honestly think you will be a lot happier with the sound of boosting the amp than a crunch box through a small amp and speaker. (BTW, you didn't mention whether the VJ is a head or a combo, and what you are playing it through. This might make a difference.) I also think your instinct about a Tubescreamer is dead on--it will sound liike utter crap through a small amp at low volume. If you do go with an overdrive, my recommendations would be an LTD or Timmy for a bit of both pedal OD and boost, or OCD or Boss OD-3 for straight OD. All of these are DIY-able, although the Boss is cheap enough and complex enough that it may not be worth it, and the OCD is available in a cheap (an excellent sounding) Dano clone.

[davidallancole]

Thanks for the responses guys.

davent - I will check that SHO out.  Are you playing your Fender very loud?

newfish - Your saying replace that 68k resistor on the input with 1 meg?  What for?

Ben N - I have the combo amp.  I replaced the speaker with a Blue Marvel from a Peavey Rage and it sounds a little more modern in tone.  I wanted to keep the amp clean since I can't play loud.  I play when the babys are sleeping.  I have a booster built up for the odd time I can crank it, but for the most part I need the best sound I can get at the quietist volume.  Do you know the name of that Dano clone off hand?  Also, do you mean Danelectro or Dano from Beavis Audio?

[petemoore]

  Before the volume knob there's a 1 meg resistor in the signal path.
  Making this less than huge [1meg] certainly does let more signal through, when I first saw that on the schematic...wow...big one there guys but why ?!

[Caferacernoc]

You just want to buy something, not build?
I'd say a Timmy or Subdecay liquid sunshine. Both are very "open" sounding mild overdrives with good dynamics.

[davidallancole]

I removed everything in that area.  I have the 0.022 cap connected directly to a 500k pot.  I also added master volume to it so I can get pre-amp distortion with the first pot and overall volume with the second.

Another thing I should have mentioned is that I want to keep the Valve Junior clean so that I can put a reverb or delay pedal after the overdrive pedal to make the sound bloom up a bit.

[Brymus]

The DOD 250,or Rangemaster both will kick the input of your EVJ really hard and give you some nice crunch.
I have an EVJ that I modded extensively,the 250 will give you more crunch than the Rangemaster but both hit the amp hard enough to give you distortion from the pre amp tube as well as the pedal.
Lately I have been very happy with a modified BMP driving my EVJ (drop C tuning) before that I was using my Dr Boogie almost exclusively.
The Rangemaster has a more vintage overdrive sound,the 250 and BMP more heavier.

[Ben N]

The Dano OCD clone is the Cool Cat Drive (not the "Transparent Overdrive"). I have used that, the Boss or an old DOD FX-50 (a very OD IMHO) with my Vibrochamp for the very reason you mention, and they all sounded pretty good. They can't put back the bass you lose just because of the amp, but they don't rob you of any more, either.

[davidallancole]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all of the replys.  I will go over them tonight.  I think the Danelectros will be the ones I look at.  The Transparent Overdrive is a clone of the Timmy mentioned above?

[MikeH]

I like a crunch box with the gain rolled down to around 10% through my champ for those tones.  Turn it up to 15% for ac/dc.

Also- speaker choice is going to matter a lot here.

[kungpow79]

For crunch I think the OCD is killer.  And you can back off the gain and get something more subtle. 

I've also been enjoying my BSIAB2 recently.  I use a Tubescreamer, set up in boost mode to the drive it harder and it sounds real good.  I think it adds in the missing frequencies.

[petemoore]

  Nothing in the chain is immune from evaluation.
  PU>Cable>Boost>Dist>Input tube>Output tube>Output Iron, Speaker
                            ^Power Supply Iron/FWR/Filter^
  Most of the distorter tricks that work on power tubes work on power tubes, this is no different than a larger amplifier in this respect:
  That said, it can't bounce bass from a cabinet as strong as a larger amplifer.
  Since it's a small amplifier and I like thin grindy tones, it is a good platform for said RM booster, anything else that doesn't 'swamp' the bass yet gets a good low-mid or above tone.
  Full range the volume must be decreased or it may sound 'swamped', that said at "X" volume it can get a very full bass tone.
  If the little horse is to look large, the surroundings must be scaled or otherwise made to the scale is difficult to determine.
  Get it sounding great, then mic it [ whole nuther topic though ]!   

[jkokura]

A timmy could be a great option given your responses. After that my vote is a tubescreamer. If that doesn't make you happy, there are dozen other kinds of build you could try.

Jacob

[Ben N]

The Transparent Overdrive is a clone of the Timmy mentioned above?

V1 was. I'm not aware of anyone having reversed V2. Dano claimed that their Chinese subcontractor had done the cloning, and they didn't know about it until it was exposed at FSB. (Sure, they didn't...) They supposedly reached some kind of understanding with PaulC, and V2 is supposedly a different circuit, but I don't know. It does have some internal switches for tweaking, and the reviews I've seen say it sounds different, but I don't know how much stock I put in those things. The Timmy is not a hard circuit to DIY, no more complicated than your typical opamp overdrive, and PaulC has confirmed the DIY schematic (available elsewhere).

Edit: I should add that if you're buying, the Timmy is very fairly priced if you buy from Paul or an authorized reseller, less so from ebay. There has been a wait, though.

[Brymus]

Also you can add a master volume,this will allow you to enjoy some real tube OD from the pre-amp (RM ,250) without waking the baby.
Basically at low volumes any good sounding (in your opinoin) OD pedal will work.(just you tube for sound samples)
The ROG DD,the Dr Boogie are two excellent DIY choices.
I use an RM with the amps MV turned down for late night AC/DC when the mood strikes.

[davidallancole]

I build the basis of a tubescreamer on my breadboard the other night, and once I took the diodes out of the feedback loop, it sounded great.  Effectively I had a clean booster then. 

MikeH - Can you recommend a good speaker for this application?