How do you set the Brite switch on your Express

[Robbie]

I was wondering how folks set the Brite switch on their Express? I'm very curious on what you when using single coil vs humbuckers. Glenn seems to get a really cool, almost single coil sound when he sets up his Express with his Les Paul, but I'm wondering if this would be too Brite with single coils.

[Cliff Schecht]

I play a stock 52 Tele RI with the Express and leave the bright switch on the 500pF setting at all times. The sound is just too muddy otherwise. You have to compensate for this in the tonestack but my settings here tend to be conservative.

[passfan]

I also use the tele set at 500pf. For my p90 V I use the center position. My tonestack is set so all I have to do is flip the switch to change between them. This makes the V a little bright sometimes but I just control that using the tone nob. All my guitars are custom wired using heavy shielding , and bumble bees and black beauties so my tone controls are very effective and not muddy.

[Big Jim]

It depends on the tone I'm going for. I am kind of a Humbucker guy, my main axe being a PRS Mccarty. I usually have the switch in the 100 position. I will say this, I use all three positions because it's the perfect way to compensate for speaker cab and guitar differences. As far as tone settings, I pretty much like 'em all straight up.
Jim

[bigbeck]

I removed the bright caps and use the switch as a "fat switch". When using my Tele, I switch a .01uf cap in parallel with the .002 coupling cap. It gives the Tele some Balls. When using my SG, I switch the .01uf cap out.

My amp is at its best with Humbuckers,though. I just modded the bright switch so it doesn't sound like an industrial glass cutter with the Tele.

As with any build, you need to tweak it to sound the way YOU want it. If all I played was Humbuckers, I would have left the bright switch in there.

Forgot to mention that my speakers are a little on the bright side.

[M Fowler]

I removed the brite switch as well changed over to the 5K2 primary lots more bass and will be adding a LarMar MV and cut control.

This is a Ceriatone built by Nik not my two other Express amps.

[rawnster]

Mine is set on the 100pf cap. Way too bright with the 500pf. I'm currently playing a tele. Also, the presence is off, mid around 9:00 and treble about the same. Very bright amp for sure.

[bigbeck]

I removed the brite switch as well changed over to the 5K2 primary lots more bass and will be adding a LarMar MV and cut control.

This is a Ceriatone built by Nik not my two other Express amps.

Funny you mentioned a 5K2 OT. I'm using an Edcor 30 watt 5K OT in my Express.

[M Fowler]

The Ceriatone comes with dual primary 5k2/6K6 and my amp was always too freaking brite with a sterile undertone.

So after changing about everything I could think of I decided to put the tone board back to stock values and change out the primary wires thinking I was going to switch to 6k6 for darker tone. (That was my thinking anyway!)

I emailed Nik and he said no I changed it to 5k2 based on the wire colors so I measured the resistance to ct and sure enough I was now usng 5K2 and the amp sings, nice bass response and has wonderful sustain I never heard before from this amp.

Not as good as my own Express mine you, but good.

[Dave_5150]

Mines also a Ceriatone built by Nik and I have to use the 5k2 setting too.

I always use the amp in the brightest position but set the eq up with my Strat with the presence just lower than straight up, and treble well down (just above a quarter) and I find that when I then switch to my Les Paul everything works just fine with no further adjustments.

As the original question was about Strats I have also found that rewiring the middle pickup tone to control the bridge pickup instead has made the amp a lot more usable with the strat.

[azatplayer]

I used all russian paper caps and styro for all the mica spots. Setup the brite switch as per colossals schemo for a three way, 150pf, 220pf and 470pf.
i use my tele primarily and really like the 150pf spot. I think the paper and styro caps have added transparency and the muddiness spoken of, that my mates express also has at the 100pf setting, is not there at all. His with the PVC caps.
I have tho pulled the presence circuit and added a cut control and a larmar.
Those two things altered the amps character for sure. For me its for the better, maybe not for others.
Using the liverpool on mine, 5.2k, sounds real meaty.

[Cliff Schecht]

I used all russian paper caps and styro for all the mica spots. Setup the brite switch as per colossals schemo for a three way, 150pf, 220pf and 470pf.
i use my tele primarily and really like the 150pf spot. I think the paper and styro caps have added transparency and the muddiness spoken of, that my mates express also has at the 100pf setting, is not there at all. His with the PVC caps.
I have tho pulled the presence circuit and added a cut control and a larmar.
Those two things altered the amps character for sure. For me its for the better, maybe not for others.
Using the liverpool on mine, 5.2k, sounds real meaty.

I'm a big fan of PIO caps and polystyrene caps, they're about as transparent as you can get. I don't understand why people want a passive capacitor to add color to their amplifiers, I like to do my "additive synthesis" with the active devices I paid a bunch for (the tubes) and use the passive components to remove the unwanted signal components (some mix of RCL tonestacks).

I'm excited to build a Rocket using the A3800 I found (5k, 80mA, 30W). A few others around here I think have built Rocket's with the "wrong" OT primary impedance (5.2k vs 4.3k IIRC) and quite liked the sound produced. I wonder if anyone has played around with tweaking the biasing to adjust for the different OT impedance..

wave-shaping

[PlinytheWelder]

PIO's, Polystyrenes, LarMar and 100pF on the bright cap... Oh yeah, my bright caps are polypropylene...

[azatplayer]

Yep i got a .01 k40y-9 and a 180pf styro in my Hamer artist, in fact those russian pio's are in most of my guitars.

[PlinytheWelder]

Yep i got a .01 k40y-9 and a 180pf styro in my Hamer artist, in fact those russian pio's are in most of my guitars.

Yeah, me too. Great sounding caps!