Phaez gives away EL84 design

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Flame away

At the risk of you giving EL84s a bad name, they don't have to sound any thinner than EL34s. Both have extremely similar grid current characteristics. The 'traditional' thinness is mainly due to OT choice; EL34s typically use lower primary impedance.

Well, here I mostly agree. A classic AC15 or AC30 comes to mind.
The trend with most new El84 amps (yes of course there are great sounding ones too)... is that thin, leaning into shrill, over driven sound... but I think how they are overdriven is 90% too much preamp gain with bass cut so the PA is not flubbed out.
I don't know about the OT zed being the culprit though.
Most of the push pull EL84 amps I see are using 7500-8500 ohm OTs with their speaker loads. The best sounding EL34 amps seem to be around 3200-3400 ohms.
Regardless, that is the juvenile sound I am referring to and I can't name one single PP EL34 amp that sounds like a 3-18 watt El84 amp buzz bomb.

The buzzy, bumble bee in a paper bag tone taste of many younger players are the reason for this god awful tone, not the tubes.
Probably it's just a generational thing and nobody has to man up and agree with me.
Pour on more clipped preamp gain or add a stomp box.
I don't think many of those players even need a tube amp to be honest.
It's all pimple faced geek 90cc chain saw tone at that point.

I think my main point was that the hard core, low-mid wattage, over driven EL84s, gain monster amp crowd are not really using these things playing out live much.... unless they are allowed to krang or solo non stop through every song and have the tone set to icepick treble shrill levels, they'll get handed their shorts in a stage setting... otherwise it will be fuzz mud.

I host an open night at a very popular club here in Denver, two to three times a month and I get to hear a lot of players and a lot of amps... some even custom made.
90% of the players using the 12-18 watt OD 84 amps are amateurs or relatively new builders or players at best. (I don't really care for the way the Fender EL84 amps sound either... like a Blues Jr... another semi beginner guitar players amp)
What's funny is that some players bring in these toy amps and 5 device pedal board too... their tone is utter crap by that time.
It has been my experience that even the loudest 12-18w OD EL84 bedroom amps don't really cut it once they are brought up to stage volume.
But if a player is a bedroom warrior... more power to them, at least they are playing, probably having a lot of fun and exercising their hobby.

[Gaz]

I just played a show last night where two younger guitar players were both playing Tiny Terrors through typical Marshall 4x12s. They could not keep up with the drummer at all, and had to turn all the way up. It was everything Bruce was describing tonally and more (or less). One guy told me he was going to get another 2x12 to make it louder...I didn't even know how to respond! He said a guy at the store was explaining to him how '15 watts is loud enough'. Its not for a rock band unless your drummer hits like a toddler, and it was evident last night. When we played with our 100 watt 2203s, I think they could tell the difference. People who don't play live a lot in all different sorts of venues don't realize how crucial it is to have headroom on tap. I love AX84, but I need power!

[Chuck H]

Bruce & Gaz

+1 on the need for watts on stage (though I would dare to say that Bruce has himself in a corner on that point with his specialty ).

On my 'pair of EL84's' amp there isn't much preamp clipping and The Vp is about 355. This gets them just loud enough without losing their character entirely. I also chose very efficient speakers for these amps. Of course the highish Vp and efficient speaker are there to give the amp some balls on stage. Even so, stage volume clean tone?.. Forget it. The best you can hope for is clean-ish. But the OD is good for stage and isn't thin/buzzy at all. These amps are designed for tone shaping with the guitars volume knob. So the manual directs players to the speaker driven line out. Plug the line out into an A/B box and then into one of the PA mixer channels. TA DAAAA, volume boost for when you turn your guitar down. Yes it's a bit of a PITA but when I designed this amp 2xEL84's were "it". And FWIW the last one I built was a custom 4XEL84 job, so it seems the trend is losing in favor more useful wattages.

None of this is to say that I'm not a cheesey string wanker (I did come up playing in the 80's, it was unavoidable). But that's not all I am

Chuck

[Wombaticus]

Sounds like a moderate dose of reverb and digital delay mixed in there too.
Ho hum... just what we need, another wanky, over driven El84 amp... but I guess that's what the AX84 site is all about anyhow, so... have fun children.

Wow, how incredibly patronizing and dismissive. There's plenty of substantive discussion there about amp circuits of all sorts, not just the subset of AX84 projects that happen to use EL84s. Why, there's not infrequently even discussion of a certain famous early Fender circuit that, despite its cult following, is so poorly designed that it looks like it was slapped together by a troop of drunken monkeys....

[tedmich]

Bruce, Buzzbombs of all types and wattages are undoubtedly popular, witness the PV 5150, Carvin V3 (El34s too) etc.

More watts push more air and thus have greater bass potential but el84s can give round sweet tones. Some guy on Youtube ran his PV Bravo (~410v B+) through a Mesa Thiele and it sounds great; the speaker was holding it back.

Granted if you move to a concert setting you may need to "amp up" and discover the origins of the term "heavy metal" but a good bedroom amp + decent PA can minimize the "drummer dwarfed guitarist" affect.

El84s can sound very different in different amps. The old Stromberg ASR333/ASR433s are revered for their bass response, of all things.
http://www.audiophool.cjb.net/Schem_A/Strom_ASR-333.gif
Check Stuart Yaniger's RLD design with its funny LED bias:
SYclotron Audio The Red Light District

Blame the preamp for the buzz!

Merlin, are you suggesting lower OT impedance would help the El84 amp designs? I though that would push the output tubes harder and EL84s already work very hard... I am confused.

[Steve Conner]

Oh come on, Bruce is a grizzled old bluesman. Let him have his daily grumble. That's what the blues is about: a man, a woman, a broken home, and a tweed Fender that sounds like it's broken.

Wombaticus, are you an AX84 member who joined to defend AX84 here?

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Oh come on, Bruce is a grizzled old bluesman. Let him have his daily grumble. That's what the blues is about: a man, a woman, a broken home, and a tweed Fender that sounds like it's broken.

Wombaticus, are you an AX84 member who joined to defend AX84 here?

Ha ha ha ... Steve always knows me... I've been wondering how long that would take.

[Wombaticus]

Oh come on, Bruce is a grizzled old bluesman. Let him have his daily grumble. That's what the blues is about: a man, a woman, a broken home, and a tweed Fender that sounds like it's broken.

Wombaticus, are you an AX84 member who joined to defend AX84 here?

I've been lurking here for quite awhile, and as it happens, I signed up for these forums about 9 days before Bruce's comment. So no, I didn't sign up for the express purpose of defending AX84. But -- if anyone cares -- I do post there frequently there under my real name, Paul Fawcett.

Grumpy old bluesman notwithstanding, it's a bit of a bummer finding out that the kind folks that taught me literally everything I know about designing and building amps are being spoken of dismissively by one of the legends of the business.

For what it's worth, my current project is a side-by-side build of a straight 5E3 and my own "tweed inspired" design.

[Chuck H]

Bruce has never been a fan of "monkey tone". And he's never kept it a secret either. Some of the banter here is guys who already know each other (for many years in some cases) just spouting off like they're sitting down to a beer. You should lurk longer and get a feel for the community you walked into before passing judgment on one of it's own. Right or wrong.

That said... Welcome to the forum. Remember your a pup here and treat the old timers (some of them older than others... like Bruce) the same way you would treat your parents friends. In other words, don't question them on etiquette and don't be disrespectful if you choose to disagree. That is, until you've been here long enough and are regarded for contributing information as a poster. Then we're all fair game. Some of us have been with the forum well over a decade (you can't go by the "join date", most of us have had to re-join a couple of times due to format changes) we behave however we want as if we own the place. We don't, but we like to pretend that we do. And nothing a noob with three posts has to say is going to stop us It's just "good ol' boy" comradery. You don't just walk up to a table of guys playing pool at the bar and spout off with "Hey, you guy's swear too much and second hand smoke kills." Well, not if you want to play pool anyway.

Just giving you heat. Grow a good thick skin bro. Dealing with us is worth it. I think you'll find in time that there is more good info and more experienced assistance to be had here than any other forum of it's type. Case in point, most of us here still think of AX84 as "that new forum"... He he. Ampage is the oldest and best forum of it's kind. But as such there are dark things that lurk in the corners

Chuck

[Steve Conner]

Well, it's a matter of taste really. Bruce just doesn't like the new hard rock and metal tones, and that's fair enough. AX84 are maybe a younger community who like a bit of shredding.

I was a teenager in the 90s, and I loved 90s metal, which in hindsight was something of an all-time low in guitar tone. But as I got older, I started to appreciate the more classic tones. Clapton on the Beano album, and the other day I was listening to Humble Pie Rockin' The Fillmore, which I'd have hated 15 years ago.

My tastes also changed as a result of playing in bands. Less gain, more midrange, seems to get the job done better. I think even the shred guys probably don't use as much gain as you'd think when they play live.

An 18 watt amp would be pretty much inaudible over one drummer I had the misfortune to jam with. He could make my ears ring even if I wore earplugs.

But I know people make good use of the little 18 watt amps like the Fender Pro Jr. all the time. If it's not loud enough they just mic it.

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Ah come on you guys... you all know I'm just being irritating on purpose.

Most of you already know my opinion of that buzzy tone and most OD EL84 amps are the worse offenders of it. That's just he way it is.
However, I play regularly in a Chicago style blues band with a guitar player who uses and loves his Blues jr.
But I lovingly stick it to him all the time about his whinny El84 "blues amp"... and it's not even stock, nobody's amps are stock in any band I'm in. ... but its still an EL84 amp that is not a VOX...
And Steve.... ahem... I was a teenager in the late 60s
(ouch, you would bring that up) and grew up musically on the bluesy R&B streets of Detroit ... Motown.
Oh yeah.
I guess I'll get off my crazy horse for while now.

Oops...

And welcome Paul.... jump in and get to know a few of us so you can read between the lines and not feel insulted by our knuckleheaded banter.

[hasserl]

I play out in blues jams 3 x's a month, plus gigs with 2 different bands, 1 of them classic rock the other blues. I usually supply one of the amps for the backline at the jams, and I rotate thru different amps. Like Bruce I see all kinds of guys come thru with all sorts of pedal assemblies, they usually sound like crap, but occassionally you get someone that really knows how to use pedals correctly and they can sound really good. In any case, I've never had any problem cutting thru with a small 18 watt type amp. My Princeton Reverb, an Ampeg J20 (think brown Fender Deluxe), a Blues Jr, Deluxe Reverb, or a tweed Deluxe, etc. In fact I usually use some kind of attenuator to keep the volume down a little but let me get the Volume control up into the sweet spot (usually around 2:00). Playing any louder than that is uncomfortably loud for the audience and bar tenders are not appreciative of it. I don't know where you all play where you need more wattage, but it's not small bars and clubs. 2203's? Give me a break, not a chance. Maybe playing some heavy rock you need, or can get away with, more volume. Maybe playing outdoors you need some more, because your sound tends to get sucked away real fast. But in a bar or club that seats 150 to 200 people, playing blues especially, 18 watts is more than enough. If it aint, you're too loud. You may think you sound real bitchin, trust me, the folks out there watching don't think so.

As far as EL84 amps go, I don't know, I built this one a couple months ago, I don't think it sounds so bumble bees in a paper bag buzzy: YouTube - JTM 18.wmv It can get buzzy, but a tweed Fender can get muddy, that doesn't mean that's all it's capable of.

[d95err]

Playing any louder than that is uncomfortably loud for the audience and bar tenders are not appreciative of it. I don't know where you all play where you need more wattage, but it's not small bars and clubs. 2203's? Give me a break, not a chance. Maybe playing some heavy rock you need, or can get away with, more volume. Maybe playing outdoors you need some more, because your sound tends to get sucked away real fast. But in a bar or club that seats 150 to 200 people, playing blues especially, 18 watts is more than enough. If it aint, you're too loud.

+1

We had a discussion about volume on a Swedish musicians forum a while ago. Most people agreed that about 90% of the concerts they went to were too loud. No-one had ever been to a concert that was not loud enough.

Pretty much anytime a 10-20W amp is swamped by a bigger amp, it's because the band volume is way too loud.

OK, a part of the problem is that drummers tend to be Neanderthal style guys whose dynamic range only includes hard and harder...

[Loogie]

Keep it up Bruce. I love controversy, strife and offensive remarks. I would rather read an entertaining flame even though I might disagree than suffer that overly obeisant crap which I hate. At least in America we've become way too sensitive and our tolerance to anyone who doesn't walk the thin line is appallingly low. Personal insults aren't acceptable, but hating on fizzy amps should never be a problem.

I'm a trawler as well because technically I've got a pin-like head and there's nothing I can contribute -- at least for now. And I love just about any noise a guitar/amp combination can make. I'm an old fart too, but the best sound I've ever heard was two well-overdriven channels mixed out of phase. Turns everything upside-down. Wonderfully horrible.

[drewl]

"Get off my lawn"

Anyway, one of my 18w Marshall style builds has a footswitchable cascaded front end which provides a nice deep rich overdrive without the "buzzy beez"
It can be done with a little tweaking.

The rash of high gain 18watters is probably popular for high gain guys who are tired of getting yelled at to "turn it down" at bars and clubs.
I can gig with an 18w with the right cabinet, like a nice 4x12 and my drummer hits hard.