Meatsmoke 300w project.

[M Fowler]

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I bought a Verellen Meatsmoke 300w bass amplifier. Comes June 9th, then I will try make schematic and layout. I made 14ga chassis x two, have all the transformers, boards for precision type power supply cap board, eyelet component board, Ampeg 6550 tube holders, and make my head cabs.

Going try find the best cab straps I can. You guys know of good leather handles?

I welcome all ideas and comments guys.

Colossal I need you buddy for schematic skills.

Mark

[TUBEDUDE]

The only ones I've seen for a.while are the ubiquitous faux leather vinyl ones with the cheap pot metal anchors.

[Colossal]

Colossal I need you buddy for schematic skills.

Mark

Send it over, Mark! We need to catch up...

[M Fowler]

Thanks Dave (colossal),

It will be a while for me to trace the circuit.
But we do need to catchup I agree.

Mark

[Bobwith2Bs]

Heads up that Ben Verellen is a super nice guy and may even just send you the schematic if you email him.

This is the email that i used to get in touch with him last: verellenamplifiers@live.com

I started tracing a Loucks that I had on the bench, and those things are put together tighter than a drum. Filter caps tacked in place and epoxied to the chassis, tagboard that was impossible to lift (from my efforts at least). I gave up halfway through the trace of the circuit and just emailed him. Got a response within a couple of days with a schematic.

I ended up narrowing it down to a parasitic oscillation in the output transformer. Since i am near the Seattle area my customer just took it down to Ben for warranty repair since he still supports his amps in that way.

Since he isn't making amps anymore he may just send you a schematic/layout for the Meatsmoke or may at least offer support if you run into any speed bumps with the trace.

[M Fowler]

Bob,

Thanks it's been a while since I emailed Ben. Last time was after his band played here and we talked about my 200w bass amp builds plus transformer used in his amps. I'll give it a try.

Mark

[M Fowler]

No response from Verellen so far.

Mark

[M Fowler]

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I need some PS cap boards like that.

Bent OT mounts from shipping.
Mark

[Bobwith2Bs]

Since you posted this I have told a buddy i could help build him a 300W amp so I will be following this thread very closely!

I did read up a bit more on the Meatsmoke circuit in the last few days and saw a lot of references claiming it is a "tweaked SVT preamp with a Mesa 400+ power amp" or something along those lines.

This really does look similar to the Verellen Loucks i opened up, but that one didn't have the dedicated Power PCB with what looks like a rectifier for the relay switching.

Does this one have the dedicated filament transformer?

Happy to help with a second opinion on anything i can through a screen!

[M Fowler]

Yes there is a dedicated filament transformer. That's why it is so heavy.

[bearcore]

Howdy, it’s my first post here. I’m finishing up a VST plugin based on the pedal version of the Meatsmoke preamp, so I’ve just about figured out that part of the circuit. I shot Ben an email a while back, but I never heard back either.

I’ve attached the block diagram and schematic I’m using along with my own edits based on several other sources of info. Credit to the guy who made the originals: https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?t=31547

Mark, could you confirm what the resistor values are on the clean side between the gain pot and V2B (R1 and R4)? 470K and 220K are pretty dark and quiet compared to what my alternate schematic says.

I’m pretty sure the bass and treble shift switches are based on the Mesa 400, which basically adds a cap to the tone stack for treble and adds a cap to the cathode bypass before the tone stack for bass. Can you tell what those values are in the amp?

My read is that the preamp is all AD200B and Mesa 400 with some Marshall on the dirty side, but maybe the power section is more SVT. In fact, I have a switch that swaps a bunch of part values to go between Meatsmoke and AD200B modes. If you end up tracing that power section, I'll try to model that, too.

-Taylor

[M Fowler]

Mark, could you confirm what the resistor values are on the clean side between the gain pot and V2B (R1 and R4)? 470K and 220K are pretty dark and quiet compared to what my alternate schematic says.


-Taylor

I will check and get back, Mark

[Dingletrut]

I might be a little bit late to the party, but I've got one of those in storage that is overdue for a service. When I get one of those round tuits I'll post here and we can compare notes

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