Tube tests, long and ongoing

[212Mavguy]

Jeff, some amps are more sensitive to what tubes are socketed than others. In this case, a very simple circuit allows more variety in the first place as far as tube choice as well as having those choice changes exhibit more noticeable differences, One preamp tube amplifies the guitar signal enough to drive the power tube, and a rectifier tube to changes the wall power from AC to DC so that the amp doesn't hum like a utility power substation.. If you built your own Champ circuit as some of us have, (one of the easiest and least expensive, huge bang for buck)) it opens the door to a new level of enjoyment because the amp teaches your fingers and thought processes new things while you work on it and your ears, as they are, cant help but learn muuuuuuuch more while dialing it in, tubing it, and adjusting it. Those ears will be your best friend on stage, because the same amp sounds different in different rooms, and because of the training they get while being so involved in the building and voicing and amp for yourself they will recognize those nuances to the very real benefit of you and your audiences! big bob gave a wonderful description of what he thinks tone is, I agree wholeheartedly.

 

"For some tone is just the tonal characteristics of the tube, and does not include things like attack, deterioration, articulation, breakup, sustain... I include all those things in the word tone. "

 

Very similar to the things I listen for...a partial list and very helpful at that. As a starting point, think of your tone as having low, lower mid, midrange, upper mid, high, and presence components to start. You can hear them in a single note. Pluck it and pretty much let it die and you can use all the above terms to describe how the instrument and amp together behaved. Go to your amp's tone stack, hit that note, and change the bass knob, hit it again just changing that bass knob. Repeat for the other tone control knobs you have, it was a very big thing for my anally analytical mind to wrap around the idea that a single plucked note on an electric guitar has all of these components! I kinda pooh poohed the idea at first... Go to a high note, do it again, try on three or four instances, with a wide range between the notes used.

 

Now do it all over again and apply big bob's descriptions. Seriously. Great benefit.

 

Another way to train your ear is to tune strings with open tuning, no fretting and tuning between fourth intervals listen for the first odd harmonic and first even harmonic of the root string after plucking the second, get rid of the wobble so that the harmonic notes sustain. If you use your tuner at the same time you can see how good your ears are! As your ears start to become more used to listening for those harmonics your overall ability for tone shaping improves,

[TalismanRich]

The tube swap boogie is one dance I've managed to avoid, although I did pick up a pair of EL34s a few months back to try in the Patriot. But is sounds so darned nice with the 6L6s in it that I just can't bring myself to mess with it.

 

Right now its got Sovteks in it, and I have a pair of JJ 6L6s and some TAD EL34s on the shelf. Maybe on some cold rainy day, I'll give them a whirl!

[big bob]

One thing to remember is that it's super easy to change tubes in this amp. I can open her up, change all the tubes, and close her back up in less than 5 min. Access is on the top with just 4 thumb screws.