Hi there,
Would you suspect a useful and workable result if you were to say,
Implement a full Trainwreck preamp section into a Fender Deluxe reverb build that was foot switchable. So, to truly have separate Deluxe reverb preamp board and separate Trainwreck preamp board (both with accompanying tubes).
They wouldn't have to be bullseye clones of each amp but, to have a very Fenderish channel for cleans, then being able to footswitch in a Trainwreck preamp section for good grinding rhythms and aggressive soloing. And to be able to back off the guitar volume knob for that real nice Trainwreck clean up for other things.
Does anyone see any issues with this? I think it would be great, if made to be workable.
It would be for playing classic rock, 60's, 70's, 80's, necessitating a good variety of tones.
Considering that application, of which Trainwreck amp would you choose to have the preamp from?
Whats ya think?
Thank you and best,
Phil Donovan
trainwreck preamp for switchable channels build
Moderators: pompeiisneaks, Colossal
trainwreck preamp for switchable channels build
I’m only one person (most of the time)
Re: trainwreck preamp for switchable channels build
The main issue you will run into with this idea is that a trainwreck preamp is generally pretty clean. It does have a lot of gain and this causes the power tubes to clip first, followed by the cathode follower. You are into some pretty heavy square waves before any preamp distortion happens at all. And then the preamp distortion (by itself) is
not really what the sound is all about. The preamp drives the power amp into overdrive.
To pull off an idea like this you are going to need to include at least a "fake PI" tube as part of your TW preamp. I've put a PPIVMV into a couple of expresses and the sound of just the PI overdriving is close (but not identical) to the sound of the full thing. So, this might work ok. I"ve seen some folks simulate a PI by just using 1/2 of a 12ax7 (so kinda just another gain stage). I don't know how well that works.
I've always thought it would be cool to implement a full on TW PI and drive it into something like an interstage transformer to get the signal back into mono. But I've not found an off the shelf transformer that seems right for doing this sort of thing.
Mike