A "Dimed" Switch

[Bill Durham]

Guys, my first post, its a great forum.

I have just built an AX84 October and love it. All the balls you would want at the 22 watt level. Basically, its a Marshall preamp with the single input feeding both sides of V1 all the time and a Fender Deluxe based power section with a pre PI master volume. My only complaint with the amp is that when I have the normal and brite channel volumes set for the solo tone I want, I can't get a clean sound with my Les Paul. The guitar volume will not go low enough to clean up the sound of the amp. So, I was thinking about this and came up with this possibility. What if I inserted a relay between the wiper of the volume control and the summing resistor and connected the normally closed contact to the wiper and the normally open contact to the top of the pot. When switched the signal feeding the summer would be in effect "dimed". I would do both volume controls on separate switches so I could taylor the tone for soloing from brite to normal. I would rather get boost like this than use a pedal, does anybody see an electronic problem with doing this?

thanks,
Bill Durham

[Mark Lavelle]

I don't see any inherent problem with the idea, but I'd want to see a schematic of your intentions before saying any more than that...

[Bill Durham]

Dimed switch

Mark

I don't have an easy way to post a schematic, but it would a pretty simple circuit using a dip reed relay. I would use a relay with an internal diode for clamping reverse emf pulses. It would be similar to the Weber channel switching boards but instead of one dpdt relay, it would have two spdt relays, a bridge rectifier and filter cap. The remote switches would be push on push off and provide the ground connection for the relays.

thanks for the reply

BD