Reverb Circuit on Wonderland/Fender 75 advice please

Overdrive Special, Steel String Singer, Dumbleland, Odyssey, Winterland, etc. -
Members Only

Moderators: pompeiisneaks, Colossal

Post Reply
B_Lowoff
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jun 13, 2024 12:48 pm

Reverb Circuit on Wonderland/Fender 75 advice please

Post by B_Lowoff »

Hi All

First post here - I am in awe of the knowledge and generosity here, and a little apprehensive to ask my questions as I am very much a newbie to the dark arts of amplifier building.

I have converted a Fender 75 amplifier to a circuit that closely follows the JM Wonderland amplifier. I have use as much of the original amp as possible, but used the typical TW/AN/Ceriatone layout. Everything worked out great so far, I'm just in the first trials with my test 12" cab. The original cab has a 15" speaker, which I will put the chassis back into for final testing.

My question is about the reverb circuit in this. I can see it mostly follows the AB763 scheme with some smaller values for the cathode bypass caps. The Fender 75, although not great in several aspects, did have fantastic reverb - on 10 it was cavernous!. The new circuit needs both the send and return pots on 10 to get anything like an average depth.

I am going back through the build, testing every component again to ensure there are no wrong values, but if that proves fruitless, I'm wondering what would be good places to start adjusting the circuit for a deeper effect. Is it the mixing resistors?

My working schematic is included below. Many thanks in advance.

Image

Image
dbharris
Posts: 483
Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 4:55 am
Location: Orlando, FL

Re: Reverb Circuit on Wonderland/Fender 75 advice please

Post by dbharris »

What model reverb tank are you using?

-Dan
pdf64
Posts: 2817
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2011 9:23 pm
Location: Staffordshire, UK

Re: Reverb Circuit on Wonderland/Fender 75 advice please

Post by pdf64 »

On the face of things, the NFB on V4b will be hamstringing its gain. I suggest to try breaking the anode to grid feedback and reassess.
User avatar
Guy77
Posts: 961
Joined: Sat May 31, 2014 2:46 am
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Reverb Circuit on Wonderland/Fender 75 advice please

Post by Guy77 »

B_Lowoff wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2024 2:05 am Hi All

First post here - I am in awe of the knowledge and generosity here, and a little apprehensive to ask my questions as I am very much a newbie to the dark arts of amplifier building.

I have converted a Fender 75 amplifier to a circuit that closely follows the JM Wonderland amplifier. I have use as much of the original amp as possible, but used the typical TW/AN/Ceriatone layout. Everything worked out great so far, I'm just in the first trials with my test 12" cab. The original cab has a 15" speaker, which I will put the chassis back into for final testing.

My question is about the reverb circuit in this. I can see it mostly follows the AB763 scheme with some smaller values for the cathode bypass caps. The Fender 75, although not great in several aspects, did have fantastic reverb - on 10 it was cavernous!. The new circuit needs both the send and return pots on 10 to get anything like an average depth.

I am going back through the build, testing every component again to ensure there are no wrong values, but if that proves fruitless, I'm wondering what would be good places to start adjusting the circuit for a deeper effect. Is it the mixing resistors?

My working schematic is included below. Many thanks in advance.

Image

Image

Hi, change your reverb send pot to 1MA and place a .002uf cap across your 100K reverb return pot and see if you like that amount of intensity.

Cheers
G
B_Lowoff
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jun 13, 2024 12:48 pm

Re: Reverb Circuit on Wonderland/Fender 75 advice please

Post by B_Lowoff »

[/quote]


Hi, change your reverb send pot to 1MA and place a .002uf cap across your 100K reverb return pot and see if you like that amount of intensity.

Cheers
G
[/quote]

Thanks Guy - this did the trick. I haven't felt the need to lift the local feedback yet, Pete. I did try parallelling a 200r resistor with the input grid resistor on V4 as well, but it increased noise. I think with the change to the 1M pot, it's good.

It's a fantastic sounding amp - I'm very pleased with it.
Last edited by B_Lowoff on Sat Sep 28, 2024 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Guy77
Posts: 961
Joined: Sat May 31, 2014 2:46 am
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Reverb Circuit on Wonderland/Fender 75 advice please

Post by Guy77 »

B_Lowoff wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2024 10:16 am

Hi, change your reverb send pot to 1MA and place a .002uf cap across your 100K reverb return pot and see if you like that amount of intensity.

Cheers
G
[/quote]

Thanks Guy - this did the trick. I haven't felt the need to lift the local feedback yet, Paul. I did try parallelling a 200r resistor with the input grid resistor on V4 as well, but it increased noise. I think with the change to the 1M pot, it's good.

It's a fantastic sounding amp - I'm very pleased with it.
[/quote]

Glad it worked out for you. I do this conversion often and they always like it .

Cheers
Guy
Post Reply