Very elementary question/Sovtek etc.

[KDL]

Hi there. I own a cheap Epiphone Galaxie 10 watt tube amp that came with stock Sovtek tubes -- 12AX7WA and 6L6WGC, I believe. On someone's advice (and before I had tried the amp with the stock tubes) I replaced them with "Ruby Tubes." I have found that I cannot get the amp to break up or distort no matter what I do with the gain, and I wonder if this has anything to do with the tubes. ( I have of course lost the original tubes.) I'd love to be able to get a bit of fat creamy/dirty break-up by manipulating my volume and gain controls (without having to max out the volume) and would be grateful for any advice, including as to whether switching the tubes would help (and if so, for what). Many thanks.

[Gibsonman63]

Different tube brands of the same type will make some difference, but won't radically change the charactor of the amp. Since you already have the clean, I would just stick a pedal in front of it and drive it that way. You can get a little more drive with a power tube that breaks up earlier, but just changing tubes will probably not give you creamy saturated tone.

[KDL]

Thanks. The thing that puzzles me is my inability to get the amp to distort at moderate volumes by turning up the gain. Having read a fair amount of feedback on this amp, I haven't seen this issue noted, which was why I wondered if my switching out the original tubes might have been the answer. Is there a power tube you'd suggest that could help? Thanks again.

Different tube brands of the same type will make some difference, but won't radically change the charactor of the amp. Since you already have the clean, I would just stick a pedal in front of it and drive it that way. You can get a little more drive with a power tube that breaks up earlier, but just changing tubes will probably not give you creamy saturated tone.

[Steve Conner]

You don't know what the amp sounded like with its original tubes. It might have been like that. (Amp Modding 101: learn how the thing behaves stock before you start to mod it)

Most of these little amps need to be cranked up to distort the power tube. If you have a guitar with high-output pickups, they can distort the preamp tube, but not by a great amount. One 12AX7 doesn't have enough gain to overdrive itself grossly. And what distortion you do get doesn't sound quite as good as driving the crap out of the power stage.

Might be worth trying a Chinese 12AX7 as they supposedly have lots of gain. And maybe swapping the power tube out for a 6V6?