Video of new production Trainwrecks

[Colossal]

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPoBMmJji3M

Comments

[Gibsonman63]

Nice. No hum, nice bloom. Clean to mean is there. The playing is obviously there.

New production?

[Colossal]

New production?

They look like it to me as they have the Olde English script lettering on the faceplate.

[M Fowler]

He was struggling to find a good tone is all I can say, typical of Express and Liverpool.

Sorry Dave you asked.

[selloutrr]

Yes New production.

It could be the Youtube quality but the Amps sounded gritty to my ears?

I'm not sure how to describe it but they didn't go as mean or as smoothly into bloom as the other TW I've heard in person. It was as if they were compressing before the full bloom.

I'm going to assume it's operator's choice of eq and style of playing as well as the Engineers choice of Preamp, microphone blending, outboard gear, and EQ.

It is nice to have a sample with a nice signal to noise ratio.

I would have liked to have heard the amps straight with a single Ribbon mic with no EQ only microphone placement and volume to load the room.

[lions den]

Yeah, the Liverpool sounded very muddy especially with the LP. I was considering trying to build a Liverpool, but if that's anything close to what they sound like, I'll stick with my Express build.
Sean

[ampmike]

Was it me or were the logo"s kinda lite up or glowing?The express sounds better than mine.Mine is a 6v6 though,I thought the amps sounded pretty good.Im sure there are guys here on TAG who can build wrecks as good as JM can. Mikey

[selloutrr]

To my knowledge JM is still more less just cloning off of one of ken's old amps. All the NOS parts dried up after 4 or 5 builds. Making them basically what TAG does + a logo.

[ampmike]

Well that encouraging to hear,My express is a B grade and so is the rocket,Im finishing the liverpool hopfully today or Monday.I have nor tried a Mas.Vol. in the other 2 builds.
Now those amps do not have them,right?Maybe Ill skip the master in the Liverpool,I can always add it later.Those 2 amps just sound a bit tighter then mine.And the harmonic feedback seems to do it a bit better than mine,Im sure he is using all Nos tubes?What should we be paying for a average set of NOS tubes in the express?Again there is a lot of variables here,Cab,Mics,speakers, tubes, guitar.But the new wrecks Ive seen on the tube built by JM in my opinion sound pretty darn nice sounding.Mikey

[Colossal]

Well that encouraging to hear,My express is a B grade and so is the rocket,Im finishing the liverpool hopfully today or Monday.I have nor tried a Mas.Vol. in the other 2 builds.
Now those amps do not have them,right?Maybe Ill skip the master in the Liverpool,I can always add it later.Those 2 amps just sound a bit tighter then mine.And the harmonic feedback seems to do it a bit better than mine,Im sure he is using all Nos tubes?What should we be paying for a average set of NOS tubes in the express?Again there is a lot of variables here,Cab,Mics,speakers, tubes, guitar.But the new wrecks Ive seen on the tube built by JM in my opinion sound pretty darn nice sounding.Mikey

Mikey,

I have a post phase inverter master in my Liverpool test build. It's there for evaluation and I'm kind of doubting it will make it to my final build. It does several things that may or may not be desirable depending on your tonal goals and style of playing. a) it does mess with the feedback loop so the lower you go, the less your Presence control will have an effect. b) it messes with the relationship between the preamp and poweramp. The PPIMV reduces the signal going to the power tubes so you reduce power tube distortion as you dial down. c) it loads the phase inverter so that you start to get more distortion there. In a Liverpool this makes for a more gainy/modern aggressive sound and with the volume cranked it can be pretty badass, but! it does start to lose the clean-to-mean transitional control (more dirt in your clean) and it really does change the overall Trainwreck tone. The amp does have a lot of gain so for late night jamming, it is still enjoyable enough with the volume cranked but the master way down. Still it will get fizzy and that can be a dealbreaker for some. It's just a tool.

In regards to the JM-built Trainwrecks in the video, O'Ree is using 30W Celestions and they do stay a little cleaner and tighter longer than a 25W Greenback. I found the amp tone in the video to be a little stiff and brittle. As previously stated though, this may just be the result of the recording (so I won't pass judgement) but I definitely prefer 25W speakers. They just seem so much more organic and less nasally/congested/trebly. I also think pickups play a BIG role with these amps. I have a PRS Singelcut with 245 pickups (PRS's version of a PAF). The distortion is harder and more brash than with my 7 strings with Dimarzio PAF7s; big difference. The PAF7s are way more balanced sounding and smooth. The PRSs are very bold and hornlike, very vintage sounding, loud but just not as polite.

[vibratoking]

I'm not impressed with that clip. There is some clean to mean, but the clean is not clean enough for my taste. The mean could be OK, but that type of playing does not suit an Express IMO. Chunking lows metal fashion is not what an Express does well and that sound is really obnoxious for me. If they wanted to show it off properly, they could have found a player with a style more suited to the amp.

[selloutrr]

keep in mind the video has a pretty high ratio of compression. even if the microphones where not compressed (I'm going to bet at least 2:1) then you have the video editing software and finally the youtube conversion.

Every little part matters in the TW builds so any corners cut get you farther away from the authentic suddle tone of the amp. It's true if you use the basic parts with the correct values it will pass signal and be an amp. however it may or may not lack some of the character of an original amp.

My thought is even with an amp to clone from (which IMHO takes the special personal quality and skill of making a botique amp away). The current new production parts used have to be the same or at least very similar to the TAG BOM. other then direct line card Pacific iron. Anyone who follows that and voices the amp with NOS tubes should have as good if not better then current production Script writing TW amplifier. Not to take anything away from JM I'm sure the amps are good, but IMHO they still a far cry from KF builds. The first 4 -5 JM builds other then operator error sounded very close to KF. That just points more to the parts used makes the amp. (in the context of having an amp to clone from) Ultimately it's knowning how you want it to sound and knowning how to manipulate the circuit to do what you want. that was the magic of Ken.

[redshark]

I think the reason why Matt ORee's trainwreck demo doesn't sound better is the tubes. He has new production tubes in those demos. He said that he gigs with the amps 3-4 times a week and can't afford to spend 400 dls. a year in NOS tubes to keep his amps running.
That is why i don't think his amps and demo are representative of what the new trainwrecks can do.
I say that cause I struggled a lot with my express build with tubes and lead dress until I made it sound the way I feel a real wreck should sound like. That means rolling lots of tubes, experimenting with bias and also with lead dress.
JM I'm sure builds a trainwreck inside (soldering, lead dress and parts) as good as Ken's. The diference is tubing the amps. Ken had a bigger stock of tubes to work with and at the time he was building amps he didn't care spending time tubing the amp until he was happy with his girl.
That ain't gonna happend nowadays. So whoever buys an amp from JM has to be willing to spend good money to tube it right until he is happy.

[vibratoking]

So whoever buys an amp from JM has to be willing to spend good money to tube it right until he is happy.

I think a buyer spends good money to get a JM built Wreck. Aren't they something like $5000? Now you're saying that the buyer has to spend more good money to get it to sound right by buying better tubes? Hmmm...I would expect $5000 to get a damn good amp, not one that still needs fine tuning.

[redshark]

Sorry if my words came out wrong. I'm sure the amps come sounding awesome but if anybody wants the accuracy of the old school trainwrecks that we all know came with siemens el34's and a combination of tungsram and Ei preamps I don't think they will come tubed like in the 80's so if you want same preamp and power tubes that Ken used to voice the amp I think people should try to get them on their own.