new high gainer build *CLIP ADDED*

[studiodunn]

Completed amp in my test head shell. Aparently an iphone 12 inches away from the amp doesn't produce pro quality clips, but it matches the playing



I finally had a chance to start building one of the boards I had gotten from burger and thought I would share the progress.

I had the chassis(s) waterjett'd from .125" 5052 aluminum and let me just say - they were all I would ever want to bend by hand. I have access to a really nice sheet metal shop with old heavy duty equipment and thank god I wasn't doing this on my harbor freight POS.
So chassis bent, face plates cut this last week I finally got around to starting. I'm just waiting on a few odds and ins that I forgot to order, but all in all the layout is working as planned. I have packed the amp into a 17" chassis, so I'm taking my time to lay everything out several times before committing to permanence.
Everything is pretty straight forward but the switching(for me)as I am going to try and make all the front panel switching foot switchable. I have a 5 pin jack on the back and luckily an unused relay on the board....se expect questions.

*This thread needs PICS*

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[burger]

Nice work brother! Exciting to see my PCB in action!

Keep the updates coming.

[Colossal]

Very, very nice!

[beasleybodyshop]

This build looks excellent! What circuit is this?

Kudos to the PCB designer. Very clean look!

[studiodunn]

This build looks excellent! What circuit is this?

Kudos to the PCB designer. Very clean look!

thanks...this is based on a wizard MCII

[studiodunn]

Progress - leads, loop and OT stuff

*pics fixed*

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[burger]

This build looks excellent! What circuit is this?

Kudos to the PCB designer. Very clean look!

PCB is mine mate. Check out,

http://headfirstamplification.com

[Guy77]

Hi studiodunn great looking build! Regarding the pots on the back of the amp are any of them level controls for the fx board?


Great boards burger!
Cheers

[M Fowler]

Great looking boards and builds my friends.

Dave (colossal) I see two more face plates/back plates with Fx Loop for you to design for me buddy.
Not sure the chassis size needed for each build but I suspect 20" for MCII and 24" for MTL

Sent message to Burger on their website for PCB order

Mark

[studiodunn]

Hi studiodunn great looking build! Regarding the pots on the back of the amp are any of them level controls for the fx board?


Great boards burger!
Cheers

Thanks! Not loop related, but I am planning on squeezing a return/MV pot in there. The loop has input level on board and i may move that to a pot on the next go as well. The pots on the back are channel brightness(s) and presence.

In hind sight a 17"x 2.25" chassis was a little tight. Next attempt I will go to 3" depth so I can stack the V/G pots on each channel.

[M Fowler]

Going to be a really nice amp when your done, with a lot of features, have fun building.

Mark

[burger]

Hi studiodunn great looking build! Regarding the pots on the back of the amp are any of them level controls for the fx board?


Great boards burger!
Cheers

Thanks! Not loop related, but I am planning on squeezing a return/MV pot in there. The loop has input level on board and i may move that to a pot on the next go as well. The pots on the back are channel brightness(s) and presence.

The MCII circuit is setup with the individual channel master pots sitting before the fx loop, so they effectively act like send level controls. This is why having a global master post fx loop is a good idea.

The trimpot on the loop is designed to be adjusted to give you unity gain when switching the loop in/out of the circuit. It should be set and forget.

Cheers
Jason

[Guy77]

Thanks Studiodunn and Jason! That sounds like a great setup. I need to find time to build one of these one day and order some boards.

Guy

[studiodunn]

The amp is a monster and most definitely reminds me of the Modern Classics I've had. Very articulate, aggressive and uncompressed sounding for having so much gain.
I got it to rehearsal tonight and was really pleased with how easily good tones came out. It is very transparent though. Anyone who has ever played a Silver Jubilee or Wizard knows that these are not forgiving amps and will expose sloppiness.
I was very exposed Tight as can be though and this amp will stop on a dime. The cleans are big and fat, but can be used as a crunch channel if the gain is cranked. There is plenty of headroom for most situations IMO.
A very low noise floor as well and not a hint of squeal even with everything engaged. I played it tonight with a tele and it was amazing how quiet it was sitting idle with the volume up.

The amp is a little bass heavy and needs more brightness on the clean channel to my ear, but that could have had allot to do with the cab(ported 1x12 v30) and the room we were in. Even then, I had the treble and rhythm brightness wide open and still needed a little more chime and will try to get a little more treble out of the clean channel tomorrow. By comparison the lead channel brightness was only at 3.
The only real addition I did was to put the diodes on a switch which I think is a really useful mod. With them out the amp is much more vintage marshal sounding to me.

I only had 4 conductor cable on hand, so the FS only engages channels and boosts 1&2. I ordered 5 conductor so I could also get the V3 bypass(boost 3 on the foot switch as well.

Kudos to Jason for a great board and being very helpful in this build. If anyone was curious about a wizard, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this board. Video to come.

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[burger]

Congrats man!!

Awesome to see and hear how your build turned out with my PCB. Nice custom addition putting the clipping diodes on a switch, that's killer!