Jimi Hendrix!

Nothing against Redwirez, but FYI for anyone who cares, CabIR also has an MR-PIN68_G12M20, '65 Marshall 1960A 4x12 w 1968 Celestion G12M20 pre-rola Greenbacks.
 
I hang out on an amp builders forum called ampgarage.com. This is the web site that deciphered the mystery around the Trainwreck and Dumble circuits. You can search for some good discussions on Hendrix amps and tone. A lot of it is speculation, but there seems to be a persistent rumor from various sources that his amp techs changed the tone stack resistor from 56k to 33k. A change Marshall later incorporated.

Hendrix fx order was wah into fuzz face, germanium in the early days, and probably silicon on Band of Gypsies, and into the univibe when it became available. Roger Mayer claims Jimi used his Axis Fuzz on Axis Bold as Love, but I have some credibility issues with Roger Mayer over the Tycobrahe Octavia. I also seem to think the actual circuit changed over time. The octave effect on Axis has a volume swell on several songs not found in other recordings. It's on my list of to-dos to try multiple diodes in series. But this is just speculation.

Lastly, we had a guy wanting to capture the tone of Hendrix at Monterey. Jimi was using his JTM45/100 with KT66 tubes and two borrowed Fender Showmans. I'm pretty sure their was some cone ripping during that show that you can hear in Wild Thing. But one of the most important factors at Monterey is the venue acoustics. There is significant (and very pleasing) pre-day before the reverb. I should measure it some time, but my guess might put it as high as 300 ms.

But to put it all in perspective, I was a huge devotee of Hendrix when I was young and learned a lot of his stuff, but didn't try to copy his sound. I played a gig once using a Big Muff into a EHX Clone Theory into an EHX Deluxe Memory Man into an Ampeg VT22 (with one original speaker and one EVM12L replacing one I had blown) and a guy (who was a pretty good musician) came up after the gig and said "You sound just like Robin Trower."
 
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LeftyStrat said:
But to put it all in perspective, I was a huge devotee of Hendrix when I was young and learned a lot of his stuff, but didn't try to copy his sound. I played a gig once using a Big Muff into a EHX Clone Theory into an EHX Deluxe Memory Man into an Ampeg VT22 (with one original speaker and one EVM12L replacing one I had blown) and a guy (who was a pretty good musician) came up after the gig and said "You sound just like Robin Trower."
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I had a Ampeg V4 (head version of VT22) w/2x12 EVM12L in a Bassman cab...It was magic! Unfortunately, both were stolen from me in the mid 70s'. Would love to have a model of this!
 
favance said:
I had a Ampeg V4 (head version of VT22) w/2x12 EVM12L in a Bassman cab...It was magic! Unfortunately, both were stolen from me in the mid 70s'. Would love to have a model of this!
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I've been wanting to look at schematics for the V4/VT22 tone stack vs the SVT tone stack. Did Ampeg modify it down by an octave? It's basically the James/Baxandall tone stack (yes I realize that the Baxandall has negative feedback around it), with a novel tapped inductor for the middle control.

Mate it with any quad 6L6 power amp would get close, it was Ampeg's Twin Reverb clone after all. But the reverb circuit is very different from Fenders. I've serviced V4/VT22/VT40 amps and they all have the same tone stack and reverb circuit with a 6CG7EH for the reverb driver, and some of the guys at Amp Garage have built outboard reverb units based in the Ampeg circuit and feel it sounds better than the Fender outboard reverb circuit.The VT40 is a favorite of the shoe gazer crowd. The reverb is so three dimensional compared to Fender reverbs. It's close to plate reverbs.

But you're right, the Ampeg preamp into with a 4x6l6 or 2x6l6 with that reverb circuit and EVM12L speakers is something every guitarist should experience once in their life time. It's hifi EOB without fizz.

I think it has to do with what I call "the bump." An amp with no negative feedback has a more linear path into distortion. The Ampeg's negative feedback combined with 6L6's has this sort of logarithmic area where soft is really clean and hard is really dirty but there is all this subtle in between areas. It's like it has a magnified EOB area.

But that reverb...
 
I have a '66 Gemini I that needs to be gone through. The "printed circuit" tone control cap/resistor thingie on each channel has some issues and needs to be replaced. Likely by now it needs to be recapped. Sounded great last time I plugged into it and leaned something against the control panel in the correct manner to get the tone controls to work....
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
I have a '66 Gemini I that needs to be gone through. The "printed circuit" tone control cap/resistor thingie on each channel has some issues and needs to be replaced. Likely by now it needs to be recapped. Sounded great last time I plugged into it and leaned something against the control panel in the correct manner to get the tone controls to work....
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That sounds like a loose solder connection.
 
LeftyStrat said:
That sounds like a loose solder connection.
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Yes, it does, but I looked at it many years ago, and it is one of the leads coming from the RC "printed circuit', which looks like a giant dipped ceramic capacitor with 7 or 8 leads coming out of it. Replacements are made of unobtanium, so I parked it for a bit, then my bench got packed up for the move in 2009 and has not got unpacked and set back up yet after two more subsequent moves. :/
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
Yes, it does, but I looked at it many years ago, and it is one of the leads coming from the RC "printed circuit', which looks like a giant dipped ceramic capacitor with 7 or 8 leads coming out of it. Replacements are made of unobtanium, so I parked it for a bit, then my bench got packed up for the move in 2009 and has not got unpacked and set back up yet after two more subsequent moves. :/
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Maybe get me a picture or two and I'll see if I can help you out. My used Gemini was my first tube amp and I loved it until the other guitarist in my high school band got a Fender Bandmaster and suddenly it wasn't loud enough to keep up. So in retaliation I bought the VT-22. I worked a lot of hours after school to be able to purchase it. And then it was too loud to play on the EOB. But there was a trick where you solder a pot to a 1/4 inch jack and use it in the fx receive as a pre-pi master volume. That worked until I got a Tom Scholz Power-Soak.
 
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