Waylanderau
May 19th, 2011, 04:28 AM
Hey all :) It's been a while since I've posted so by way of apology I thought I'd share some amp pr0n.
Firstly I should say that this purchase marks me finally giving in to peer pressure. After many years of being a diehard solid state devotee (An attitude I inherited from my Dad, an old school radio and TV tech who vividly remembers the days when everything ran on valves and what a monumental pain in the arse they were.) I finally caved and went out and bought myself a valve amp.
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/Crate%20Blue%20Voodoo/BV4.png
Scored for A$600 off ebay, it's a mid-90s Crate Blue Voodoo 120.
Pretty basic setup: Channel 1 is clean with Volume, Low, Mid and High controls. Channel 2 covers the mid to high gain spectrum, with most of the emphasis on the high gain side. Controls are Volume, Low, Mid, High and Gain. In addition each channel has an independant reverb control and there is a master Presence control for tweaking the overall brightness. There's also a footswitchable FX loop with a -12dB pad if you need it.
Unfortunately, as the seller was quite a ways away I didn't have the chance to try it before buying and when I got it home I discovered the overdrive channel wasn't working properly, almost no volume and not nearly as much gain as it should have. It wasn't a complete surprise, in the ad he mentioned that the distortion channel was a bit weak, which sounded odd for one of the Blue Voodoo heads. Anyways, long story short I tracked down a tech and he figured out that one of the valve sockets had actually broken away from the circuit board. A couple of hours work with a soldering iron and all was back in place. Finally got around to pick it up a week or so ago and the improvement was unbelieveable. One step closer to having my rig complete, all I need now is a bigger cab so my gear OCD isn't aggravated by my head hanging over the sides of my cab
I've had the chance to use it for both a full band rehersal and a gig at this stage and I'm very impressed so far. Here's a brief breakdown of the two channels:
Clean: Overall very good, super loud and punchy and the very responsive eq controls allow you to go from fendery jingle jangle to a fatter, more marshally type of clean sound. The built in reverb is decent, nothing spectacular but certainly useable and adds a pleasing lushness to your sound. Personally I think the addition of a gain control for this channel would have been nice and would allow you to get a wider variety of sounds from it, but you can still have access to a suprisingly board palette of tones and textures by working with your guitar's volume and tone knobs.
Overdrive: Here's where the action happens, bwahahaha :beavisnbutthead:
The first thing you notice about Channel 2 is that it's bright. Very bright. Particularly on the lower end of the volume control there's a lot of top end sizzle that some people are just not going to like (although I find it quite appealing) however once you get the volume up past the 9-10 o'clock mark things smooth out quite a bit and with careful tweaking of the presence control you can have access to some warmer tones. Personally I aim for quite a bright sound with a lot of highs and mids and this amp delivers fantasticly, it has a very raw, aggressive type of tone that seems to combine a Marshallesque, midrange snarl with the low end thump you'd generally associate with more modern types of high gain amps (5150/6505, Mesa etc.) After using it at jam/gig volumes I've discovered that the volume control on this channel is a little different to most amps I've used. The volume seems to stay comparitively low for the first half of the control, i.e. if you set the clean and the overdrive volumes at the same level anywhere under the 12:00 mark the clean channel will be much louder. HOWEVER, past the half way point on the overdrive channel there is suddenly a huge jump in volume, which can catch you out if you're making adjustments mid-set as I discovered last friday night :mybad
Anyways, to finish off here's some better pics of the beast. If anyone's got any queries about it post them here or PM me and I'll get back to you ASAP :)
Here's one of the front panel
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV12.png
Some internals
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV6.png
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV7.png
And finally... THE PORTAL TO HELL ITSELF!
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV2.png
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV1.png
Firstly I should say that this purchase marks me finally giving in to peer pressure. After many years of being a diehard solid state devotee (An attitude I inherited from my Dad, an old school radio and TV tech who vividly remembers the days when everything ran on valves and what a monumental pain in the arse they were.) I finally caved and went out and bought myself a valve amp.
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/Crate%20Blue%20Voodoo/BV4.png
Scored for A$600 off ebay, it's a mid-90s Crate Blue Voodoo 120.
Pretty basic setup: Channel 1 is clean with Volume, Low, Mid and High controls. Channel 2 covers the mid to high gain spectrum, with most of the emphasis on the high gain side. Controls are Volume, Low, Mid, High and Gain. In addition each channel has an independant reverb control and there is a master Presence control for tweaking the overall brightness. There's also a footswitchable FX loop with a -12dB pad if you need it.
Unfortunately, as the seller was quite a ways away I didn't have the chance to try it before buying and when I got it home I discovered the overdrive channel wasn't working properly, almost no volume and not nearly as much gain as it should have. It wasn't a complete surprise, in the ad he mentioned that the distortion channel was a bit weak, which sounded odd for one of the Blue Voodoo heads. Anyways, long story short I tracked down a tech and he figured out that one of the valve sockets had actually broken away from the circuit board. A couple of hours work with a soldering iron and all was back in place. Finally got around to pick it up a week or so ago and the improvement was unbelieveable. One step closer to having my rig complete, all I need now is a bigger cab so my gear OCD isn't aggravated by my head hanging over the sides of my cab
I've had the chance to use it for both a full band rehersal and a gig at this stage and I'm very impressed so far. Here's a brief breakdown of the two channels:
Clean: Overall very good, super loud and punchy and the very responsive eq controls allow you to go from fendery jingle jangle to a fatter, more marshally type of clean sound. The built in reverb is decent, nothing spectacular but certainly useable and adds a pleasing lushness to your sound. Personally I think the addition of a gain control for this channel would have been nice and would allow you to get a wider variety of sounds from it, but you can still have access to a suprisingly board palette of tones and textures by working with your guitar's volume and tone knobs.
Overdrive: Here's where the action happens, bwahahaha :beavisnbutthead:
The first thing you notice about Channel 2 is that it's bright. Very bright. Particularly on the lower end of the volume control there's a lot of top end sizzle that some people are just not going to like (although I find it quite appealing) however once you get the volume up past the 9-10 o'clock mark things smooth out quite a bit and with careful tweaking of the presence control you can have access to some warmer tones. Personally I aim for quite a bright sound with a lot of highs and mids and this amp delivers fantasticly, it has a very raw, aggressive type of tone that seems to combine a Marshallesque, midrange snarl with the low end thump you'd generally associate with more modern types of high gain amps (5150/6505, Mesa etc.) After using it at jam/gig volumes I've discovered that the volume control on this channel is a little different to most amps I've used. The volume seems to stay comparitively low for the first half of the control, i.e. if you set the clean and the overdrive volumes at the same level anywhere under the 12:00 mark the clean channel will be much louder. HOWEVER, past the half way point on the overdrive channel there is suddenly a huge jump in volume, which can catch you out if you're making adjustments mid-set as I discovered last friday night :mybad
Anyways, to finish off here's some better pics of the beast. If anyone's got any queries about it post them here or PM me and I'll get back to you ASAP :)
Here's one of the front panel
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV12.png
Some internals
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV6.png
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV7.png
And finally... THE PORTAL TO HELL ITSELF!
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV2.png
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww119/Waylanderau/BV1.png