My take on Eric Johnson's Steel String Singer #005

[dorrisant]

No worries, I just thought you might have something I hadn't seen yet. Thanks for the response.

[jazzbass]

Hi Rootz and Dorrisant,

you are certainly right not to invade the field of builders who live from their work but at least..... where one can do deeper research on the original #005 Dumble or AN or HPD than has been possible up to now ?
Thanks, a hug.

Franco

[Guy77]

There you go, a non standard layout for 5 preamp tubes in a row. The HPD has a very different layout, which is allegedly a clone of the real deal. Nevertheless this should work just fine. Please note I do use the values I posted earlier. These values come from the HPD and Steel String Sultans.

Thanks for drawing out the preamp Bas, looks great! What software did you use?
Your section where the wires for the Hi Filter and Low filter connect look a little different than mine.
Do you connect them at the bottom of the 2 large caps at the bottom right in this pic?
Cheers
Guy

Capture7.JPG

[rootz]

Franco, look for files of the Steel String Sultan on Insta or Reverb.com. That would be a good start.

Guy, the first cap from the left goes to the reverb send. The signal comes directly from the plate of v1b, so you can slam the tank. I do not have a cathode bypass cap on my reverb driver and IIRC a 4meg7 resistor in the feedback loop around the driver. That keeps signal levels at the drivers grid manageable.

The next two go to the filters. The caps (and 100k resistor) to the filters are preceded by a 1meg//33p combo. In several Steel string sultans that combo is visible. There is a connection under the board that you can’t see, but this is the only wiring option that makes sense. Because: a) 004 had a trimmer right before the filters (or at least the Custom Clean and Silver Sterling do, as does the 004 (or should I say Two Rock) clone of Ceriatone). B) The 1 meg//33p combo is a ‘fixed’ trimmer. C) the high filter parallels yet another cap to a 1 meg resistor. Behind the filters is the 250k reverb return pot to ground. So 2 meg series resistance, 250k to ground. Sounds familiar? 002 has 820k series resistance and 100k to ground at the output of the filter section. That is pretty close in ratio to what I have in my current 005!

With gradual filter steps, the 1meg/33p combo doesn’t make the amp overly bright. Rather shimmering.i remember Brandon saying/writing the steps of the high filter are gradual in 005.

[Guy77]

Franco, look for files of the Steel String Sultan on Insta or Reverb.com. That would be a good start.

Guy, the first cap from the left goes to the reverb send. The signal comes directly from the plate of v1b, so you can slam the tank. I do not have a cathode bypass cap on my reverb driver and IIRC a 4meg7 resistor in the feedback loop around the driver. That keeps signal levels at the drivers grid manageable.

The next two go to the filters. The caps (and 100k resistor) to the filters are preceded by a 1meg//33p combo. In several Steel string sultans that combo is visible. There is a connection under the board that you can’t see, but this is the only wiring option that makes sense. Because: a) 004 had a trimmer right before the filters (or at least the Custom Clean and Silver Sterling do, as does the 004 (or should I say Two Rock) clone of Ceriatone). B) The 1 meg//33p combo is a ‘fixed’ trimmer. C) the high filter parallels yet another cap to a 1 meg resistor. Behind the filters is the 250k reverb return pot to ground. So 2 meg series resistance, 250k to ground. Sounds familiar? 002 has 820k series resistance and 100k to ground at the output of the filter section. That is pretty close in ratio to what I have in my current 005!

With gradual filter steps, the 1meg/33p combo doesn’t make the amp overly bright. Rather shimmering.i remember Brandon saying/writing the steps of the high filter are gradual in 005.

Thanks for explaining that Bas and thanks for taking the time to create the pcb board layout.
Excited to see your boards!
I used the 4.7M Local feedback on the Reverb driver as well and was happy with the result.
The reverb on this amp is really great, I even liked it better than the reverb on the JM amps.
Its so 3D sounding and gets very intense!
I used the 820K and 100K ratio too. In the end I went with the gradual increase on the High Filter liked you mentioned. There are a lot of great tone options with those gradual steps.

Cheers
G

[rootz]

I suppose the reverb quality depends very much on the tank with this amp. I like the reverb of my #94 with reverb much better. Tweed style mixer might contribute, but I also guess I was lucky with the tank in that amp. I should try it on the 005 for sure, but haven't done that yet.

Guy, your filter section is different from 005 (assuming the Steel String Sultans are on point in that respect). Yours is more like 002, but with more gradual steps. Tone stack different too, as is the PI, cathode bypass caps (no 680n on v1b). I guess you made the Guy Special SSS! Which I do say without a hint of sarcasm. I like it you made your own flavour of SSS.

[rootz]

BTW I'd love to hear some sound samples of your amp Guy. Do you have any?

[Guy77]

BTW I'd love to hear some sound samples of your amp Guy. Do you have any?

Hi Bas, yes I changed some things after first building it. I always loved the deep and smooth sound of the "Classic" tone stack. I made the adjustments for the particular customer too. The customer is always right lol. The picture I attached earlier of my finished preamp board, was the final version that was used in the video below. This is running 2 x 6L6 tubes.
We ran a Shure 57 mic right up against the speaker grill and we ran that into a Sony A7 camera.

My demo guy Dave had the reverb turned down for this particular recording. He runs through different pickup positions at the start. This was a 1x15 combo and I added an Eminence Legend 1518.
I love the smooth sound of this 15 in speaker!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOTIGrGMnP8

Cheers
Guy

[beasleybodyshop]

Finally getting back around to this. I went back through my notes and audited my current build against my schematic up to this point to figure out what i need to finish up.

The one sticking point i have at this point is PI resistor values - I don't see ANYWHERE in my notes about a marshall/tweed style 470r (500R)/10K tail values. My notes and pics DO show a 24K/820R value.

So digging through old posts on this thread, seems like the ones who have built this amp went ahead with marshall PI values. I was wondering if this was an assumption or was this some bit of information that was known from previous clones?

I still have a ways to go before i can get to initial fire up but just curious how those that built this amp reached that conclusion.

[ViperDoc]

Looks like 820R/18K tail on the SSS rev 7 schematic in the files section. The #124 is 820R/24K by comparison.

[Guy77]

I am a sucker for sweet and lush cleans so I went with 820R 22K and never looked back!

Cheers
G

[rootz]

Finally getting back around to this. I went back through my notes and audited my current build against my schematic up to this point to figure out what i need to finish up.

The one sticking point i have at this point is PI resistor values - I don't see ANYWHERE in my notes about a marshall/tweed style 470r (500R)/10K tail values. My notes and pics DO show a 24K/820R value.

So digging through old posts on this thread, seems like the ones who have built this amp went ahead with marshall PI values. I was wondering if this was an assumption or was this some bit of information that was known from previous clones?

I still have a ways to go before i can get to initial fire up but just curious how those that built this amp reached that conclusion.

No assumption! More an educated guess. AN cloned a Bludo HPD and had dozens of pictures online with guts. ALL of them had Marshall PI values AFAIK.

But I'm open for suggestions: what pics do you have that show more regular ODS/SSS PI values? I don't doubt that those will sound good also.

[beasleybodyshop]

Digging through old notes and conversations:

"#005 was voiced from a metal panel marshall"

That was an excerpt from a conversation I had with someone who knew the amp. I'm inclined to believe the marshall PI values are correct due to 100K NFB resistor, marshall presence circuit, etc. There is that 1K/.68uF cap in the preamp too. I know, it's more dumble than marshall but I feel more confident the marshall PI values are likely correct.

Have to order some 9v relays and a few odds and ends this weekend, then I can get back to finishing it up!

[rootz]

The voice of the 005's I did was rather aggressive, especially when I pushed the preamp. Totally clean they are rather scooped sounding, with an abundance of bass frequencies. The main contribution here? 220k feedback resistor. At least that is what can be seen in all AN 005 derivatives. I tried multiple tone stack configs, but ended with a250k, b100k, a250k TMB and a very gradual high filter with low values ranging from 0 to 390 pF. One of those amps is now on stage with Nalle Colt and is undoubtedly one of the best clean amps I ever heard. Takes pedals really well, not overly bright even through an Alnico Blue in a pine Lazy J cab. I think I used a 100k feedback resistor in his amp. And it has 4x6V6 in the power amp, Bassman transformers. Works very well with hum buckers too. An amp you won't regret building!

[beasleybodyshop]

Yes I think that marshall esque power section with the post PI driver is the magic here. Ordered some 9v relays today. Stoked to get around to finishing this!