Tubes part 5: "and I would do anything for tone..."

For those of you still wondering.. here are the (long and) gritty details of my quest for tone.

The Pro will be sold. Did I already say that? Anyway...

I recently found a really good deal on the AC30CC, and so I started hitting the research hard.

What I keep seeing is that, while it does dish out great tone, everyone in the whole world agrees that it made like crap. It *will* fall apart, break down, and generally make a nuisance of itself. While it's up and running, it will sound awesome--but it's kind of like a Jaguar automobile..1 week on the road, 3 months in the shop. :
So I am really going to try and make the Delta into a little bit more of the type of beast I'm after. I'm fairly confident it can be done. Or at least done to my uncultured level of satisfaction.I'm going to swap out the tubes, and then replace the speakers with a mismatched set of Weber alnicos. I talked to a couple people about the tubes/speakers and spent some time on the peavey forum website. The speakers are 8ohm guys, wired series. So I'm going to replace with 8ohm, series. I've also been told I can do 16ohm parallel.. but that means I would have to re-wire them, and I've yet to hear a compelling reason for that. All I know is that Ted Weber told me, "Some people like to wire them series for a more textured tone at high volumes." ?? I have no idea what that means. Please feel free to clue me in.

I have two wattage options for these speakers.. 20 & 30w. Again, Mr. Weber recommended the lower wattage, as well as some other guy I talked to about it online. This pretty much comes down to where you want things to start breaking up. And if you're trying to construct a faux Vox, everybody says go lower. Earlier breakup and more compression. Go higher if you're wanting things to stay cleaner.

I'm very hopefull that the tubes & speakers will make a serious
difference. I've not read otherwise anywhere yet, but you know how that goes.

IN ADDITION to re-tubing and re-speakering.. I am seriously
considering picking up a Vox stompbox. Big Ben Overdrive.. Over-the-Top Boost.. Treble Booster... But I don't know which direction to go. I've seen some really good reviews of the BB Overdrive, but the Top Boost one is too new, so no one's talking yet. Seems to me that if you can use the TB to overdrive the amp (as it claims), then the BB is suddenly pointless. But that's just a guess.



I'm going to see if I can glean any more knowledge from the forums. I went to Vox's site and listened to their sample sounds for the OD and Treble Booster pedals (OTTB not yet available). I was really surprised by the Treble Booster.. I didn't think that would be something that I liked, but I think I liked it more than the OD tones that they had recorded. It really spread the frequencies out, and *sounded* like a Vox. The OD didn't so much sound like a Vox as it did just.. well.. *overdrive*.. on whatever amp they were playing.

It's likely that I'll just order two or three from musiciansfriend.com and then keep whatever actually works.

But the stomp box thing is all secondary. Or third-dary. Tubes and speakers first, then I'll cross that other bridge. (also, I'm planning on taking the "blue marvel" speakers that are in there and building a little cabinet for them, so that if I want, I can run them as an extension, and have a nice 4x10 setup)

Fourth-dary... with the amount of cash that I should have available from things that I can sell, I *think* this will also allow me to begin the search for a reasonably-priced AES1500b, as well.

Almost all of the above is taken directly from emails between myself and Bill, so if it doesn't seem to read well, that's why. But I was NOT going to rewrite it all just to meet your high standards. Get over yourselves. ; ]

And THEN... Bill goes and drops this on me...
It's a Crate (that's right. crate.) "Vintage 30". Go to HC and check the reviews if you don't believe your eyes. They are supposed to be brilliant. And you can buy a new one for about $500 less than a Vox.

But don't worry. I'm still planning on doing all I said above. Then, if it doesn't work out, I'll to a re-scramble and maybe come home with a Crate.

I will be deeply, deeply ashamed.. but I would do anything for tone... I would do anything for tone... I would do anything for tone...

Possibly even that.