Recently picked up "Lori 1985"+ Hard Rock Cafe gig

[eazilyled]

Congratulations! Proof that each wreck has its own character, real or clone!

How about a dry / dry rig at the next gig?

[Reeltarded]

GUTSHOTZ!

K, very nice pair of amps! Congrats!

[MCK]

This amp is my new favorite, which is something after owning my '89 since new.

If you ever decide to sell your '89 or even one of your clones of the '89... Dibs!!!

[geetarpicker]

Thanks folks! Even though the circuit in this '85 is almost identical to my 89 it's quite noticable the differences when you play it. I can't quite guess if it's just the transformer set difference as even the gain is a bit less, even if I swap the same set of tubes between my two Express amps. I do know this '85 uses different pots than my '89, and their taper is quite slow... heck it's quite clean up to about 10-11am, and at 3pm it's pretty crankin' but still has more to go when you then dime it. It's a little looser but more extended in the bass, and if anything the bass knob seems to have more range. If I use the bright switch it can get even brighter than my '89 so it still has the ability to take your head off, but like I mentioned before is quite balanced without the bright switch on at all. It's not quite as wild in the controlled feedback department, probably as it's perhaps just a little more flat in EQ response with not quite as much upper mids. It can perhaps get a little too compressed for wide open heavy rock, and in that department my '89 is the tighter sounding amp. That said I'd say my '89 is more suited to a Strat which is more naturally mid scooped, where as this '85 might see more action with my Les Paul though it works well with either.

I was also real happy to get inspired with building a new wet/dry pedal board setup specifically for when I gig with a Trainwreck type amp. Typically I've always loved the direct feel of these amps without any pedals in the front end, but in the studio I've often added ambient effects at mix down. Back in the early 90s shortly after getting my first Express (with some tips from Ken Fischer) I put together a wet/dry rig but with a twist on the typical way it was done at the time. He described to me a simple circuit for pulling a line out off the 2nd speaker jack, then I ran that into a Yamaha SPX900, a power amp, and out to a 1x12. Then I ran the 1st speaker jack straight to the 4x12 cab for the dry signal. The net result was that my dry tone was not effected in any way, but I was able to hear some studio quality effects on stage. 10 years prior I had done a similiar setup where I fully attenuated a '70 Marshall 50 down to line level, split it to two channels one with an MXR rack DDL and then reamped it all with a Crown DC300 into two 4x12s. That said, the way Ken showed me worked much better as the amp ran straight to the dry cab, and the effects were only tapped off the speaker circuit at such a small high impedance load as to not effect the basic dry signal in any way.

The idea of using a powered monitor for effects came from seeing some recent videos of Larry Carlton and Robben Ford doing the same with their Dumble rigs albiet using rack processors. That said by using small decent sounding pedals (with "drykill" switches) I was able to get the bulk of it all down to just a pedal board + monitor and no heavy rack at all.

Cheers,
GK

[geetarpicker]

Somehow got a duplicate post, so here's a pic instead>

[Mark]

Good score Glen. Do you think gutshots of the two amps will be on the cards or do you see this sort of thing as still taboo?

In the scheme of things it is interesting to see where there were variations to the circuit, though as far as I can tell they seem to be a pretty standard circuit, which is not to take anything away from the amp. Simple is very good.

Look forward to hearing it.

[Scumback Speakers]

Congrats on your 2nd Trainwreck acquisition, sir!

[dorrisant]

Wow... Another one... Congratulations Glenn! Can't wait to hear it!

[Dugmore]

Somehow got a duplicate post, so here's a pic instead>

geetarpicker, can you explain why you need the mixer for this setup?

Thanks!

[geetarpicker]

Good score Glen. Do you think gutshots of the two amps will be on the cards or do you see this sort of thing as still taboo?

In the scheme of things it is interesting to see where there were variations to the circuit, though as far as I can tell they seem to be a pretty standard circuit, which is not to take anything away from the amp. Simple is very good.

Look forward to hearing it.

Yes I still want to keep the peace with the KF family and will continue to refrain from pics.

That said, this '85 is almost identical in the parts selection and schematic spec found in Francesca. The pots are different though, and mine has an 820 ohm resistor at the input of V2 which appears to be added at a later date as the wire to it shows glue from originally being down tight against the chassis. My '85 also has the reverse wired bright switch found in Francesca, unlike the revised way of doing it as found in my '89 and most later wrecks I've seen. B+ runs almost exactly what my '89 has about 416v or so when biased at 45ma, though that's with the hot wall volltage here usually around 125v.

[geetarpicker]

Somehow got a duplicate post, so here's a pic instead>

geetarpicker, can you explain why you need the mixer for this setup?


Thanks!

It's simpler than it sounds but here goes. Basically with this kind of setup all the pedals are post amplifier, in parallel. Typically most pedal boards are series wired in front of the amplifier. It's like running effects the way a sound man will do it on a PA or in the studio, or even in a DAW program. The advantages are way less noise, the effects are never washed out from heavy amp gain, the dry tone is not compromised at all, plus you then can plug straight into the amp. I definately prefer to plug straight in with a Trainwreck Express/Liverpool for best control from the guitar.

I'm running the mixer for the effects mixing. I'm simply running the 4x12 off the Faustine attenuator for the dry signal. Then I take the Faustine's speaker emulated line out and run that to the pedal board, splitting it with a Y box on to the first 3 channels of the Mackie mixer. Then the 3 pedals are connected to the mixer with insert cables like they were rack devices in a PA setup. The output of the Mackie mixer then goes to the powered monitor. All of the pedals are set for 100% wet, and have "killdry" options selected so they do not pass ANY dry signal (only wet when kicked ON) and actually go totally silent when clicked OFF. The effect level on each pedal is simply set wide open, and then the mixer controls the amount of level each pedal in the monitor. It does reguire two channels for the sound guy when miced up, though in this case the wet side can be a direct line, the dry side must be a mic.

This kind of setup works very well for blended type effects most notably reverb and delays, but doesn't work too well with Tremolo, vibrato, nor gain devices.

Another way to do this is to fully reamp the fully blended effects AND the dry signal through a power amp and multiple cabs. This is probably the more common way to do it. However I like this hybrid approach as the dry amp isn't colored in any way. Another option would be to run a 2nd microphone to the Mackie mixer for the effects "send" which would perhaps help the tone of the effects but it wouldn't make any difference to the dry sound. Also, the speaker emulated out of my attenuator is pretty decent for a signal that will be processed by the effects anyway, plus the mixer has some EQ to tweak the emulated speaker line side of the thing.

[lions den]

Glen, have to agree that wet/dry setup is hard to beat. I've tried to do everything else to work in traditional loops/in front of amp and it just doesn't compare to the dry direct sound and having effects surround the amp.

So the challenge is getting all of the gear down to a manageable level, and looks like you've done a great job of that.

I've gone to the Express, 2X12 cabinet one speaker for dry, one speaker for wet, small 4 space rack for effects and attenuator.

Same idea, use line out of the attenuator to feed the wet side of things, then brings effects back in parallel to keep the dry signal in good shape.

Went with a Scumback M75 65 watter for the dry tone, and M75 LHDC 65 watter for effects. The ground control loop and mixer setup works great to blend in effects in parallel with each other, and also allows for remote control of things like tap tempo, Repeat/Hold, etc. Also using EH 44 Caliber pedal to power the wet side, all pretty compact and effective.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1009329676 ... 1733509186

https://picasaweb.google.com/1009329676 ... 1078316802

[redshark]

Glen any youtube demo of this amp coming soon?

[wsaraceni]

Glen any youtube demo of this amp coming soon?

this!!!!

[Lublin]

Congrats, Glen! Well done and enjoy her lots!