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Just wondered if any of you have ever done any mods on an Ashdown Peacemaker 20. It is just a little too "brittle" in the tone department for my taste. Even with the treble all the way down, it still has a very bright tone. I haven't had it apart yet, but someone told me they use an unusual pre amp circuit. I contacted Ashdown for a schemtic, but they haven't responded with one yet. I got this amp on a trade with a bunch of other stuff and thought it might be a nice project.
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One of my buddies has a Peacemaker40. They're basically the same amp, but the 40 has two more output tubes.
I've seen the schematic for the amp and, yes, it is unusual. The clean channel, for example, has more gain stages than normally seen. It has three stages before the tone stack and none of them are cathod-followers. Why so many stages? It was surprising. Fender only uses one stage before the tone stack and one after.
As for the post-tone-stack circuit, the peacemake introduces a bunch of op-amps for servicing the reverb and effects loop (the signal, though, always passes through these elements even if you don't use the reverb or the loop) and then the signal, I believe, passes through a transistor for the master volume control prior to hitting the phase inverter. That was unexected, too. I was sorta expecting an all-tube path.
Anyways, it doesn't matter what's IN the amp, I guess. It should only matter what comes OUT of the amp.
Which channel is too brittle sounding...clean or overdrive or both? What kind of guitar are you using?
Chip -
Thanks for the reply Chip. In answer to your question, the clean (or sorta-clean) channel is the brittle sounding channel. I never use the OD channels because they are just too muddy for me, too much like a fuzz box. I'm using Les Pauls with humbuckers. I'm afraid my Strat thru the amp would start taking out mirrors and windows, not to mention the glassware. I've tried different tubes to see if I could tame it down, but that was futile. The other thing is the way the tone stack affects the sound. the treble affects the middle, the middle affects the bass, they all seem to affect each other to some degree. Funny you mentioned the loop. I found that if you run a short cable between the in and out on the loop, and crank the loop volume all the way up, you get a big volume boost out of the amp.Comment
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Hmm...as I've said, I played the Peacemaker40 and I never found it's clean channel to be too brittle...especially with humbuckers. When I played my LP through it, I found that I didn't have a ton of headroom, but brittle isn't really how I'd describe that. And, for the OD channel, it can indeed be quite dark, but I usually have a good time when playing it. I'm sorry that your experience is so different.
What other amps have you owned/played? Have any been tube amps? What clean and OD sounds do you like?
And, as for the tone controls, the peacemaker tone control looks like a traditional Fender/Marshall tone stack. There is definately some interdependence between the tone controls. But, if they're operating correctly they should still be usuable to you. Have you played through a traditional (i.e. tube) fender or marshall and explored their tone controls? The Peacemaker's should feel similar...especially on the clean channel. Does yours feel similar?
Very curious...
ChipComment
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Hey Chip, I've got lots of tube stuff, from a 1958 Gibson Les Paul amp, a '60's Gibson Skylark, a few Champs up to a Marshall Super lead 100 circa 1973 and a Mesa Lonestar with a bunch of midsized things in between. I also have two solid state amps, one an old Gibson and the other a Marshall tube state. And the Peacemaker sounds an awful lot like the solid state stuff. That real bright sterile upper range. And you're right abou the headroom on the peacemaker. Anything past 12 o'clock on the gain on channel one is very loose and forget the overdrive channel. Ok for metal, but I'm too old for that. The tone controls seem too interdependant from what I hear. I mean, they are useable, but just too interactive for what I'm used to.
I guess I'm just hearing those transistors and op amps a little more than I'd like too. I guess I'll just have to pull it apart and see if I can circumvent them. ThanksComment
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