Good PAF tone

[RedHouse]

So, ok here's another Marshall question. What is the minimum amount of money I could spend and get a vintage Marshall tone with the lowest power and least amount of money? Anything over 40 watts in bluestown Portland is overkill so its likely if I got something like this it'd never leave home and would probably be a prime wife-annoyer :-)

+1 on building your own!, kit or from scratch, it's definately the best band for the buck.

If you are uncomfortable with high voltage wiring, get a friend to help, you can serious hurt (if you are not carefull) with a 450v supply.

Where's bluestown Portand? East or West coast?

I'd recommend a 6V6 powered circuit, these sound much the same in a Marshall style circuit as an EL34 but are like less than 1/2 the power output, they break up nicely at the right places. I built a nice >20w Marshall type amp for a guy that used the 6V6's and he loves it, can get it cranked up a bit more than a full 100w Marshall and can use a single or dual 12" cab so it's easy on his bad back humping it around.

IMHO, the Valve Art KT66's are the best sounding tubes to use in a Plexi-style amp build that you want to be sounding like vintage Page/Clapton/ Koss/Allman etc.

[greenfingers]

Here is a link if you want to know more about the "Bluesbreaker" combo, then it's up to you wich one you think Clapton used? http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazin...Revisited.aspx

[dai h.]

LOL, someone here "corrected" me on this in another thread a while back, so I guess a picture is in order.

Here is a gut-shot of an original bluesbreaker in very excellent condition, one can clearly see the EL84's, they are the two long tubes in the center of the chassis just to the right of the can capacitor, these are not KT66's, 5881', 6L6's, or any Octal tube, these are 9-pin EL84's and the amp put's out roughly 18w.



Dai, I think you might be thinking of the original JTM45 circuit (which was as you said a copy of Fender's 5F6 Bassman circuit) perhaps mixing it up with the Bluesbreaker combo amp, they were not the same amps. The JTM45 (JTM50 and JTM100) did use KT66's early on (Clapton had those in Cream) and they went to EL34's later on.

uhhh, aren't those 18-watters? There is a whole chapter on it in Doyle's History of Marshall book and according to him the Bassman one is the Bluesbreakers amp (named after the John Mayall album) not the 18-watter. You have me very confused, lol...

[Berman]

Hi
Back to topic:
I found a page with Soundexamples of different PAF's
Important: get the .wav files to hear the differences in sound.

http://www1.gitarrebass.de/magazine/0502/paf.htm

Have fun

Hermann

[RedHouse]

Ok whatever, the pic is of an original, I don't know about the Doyle book.

[Possum]

...

I found some examples of Bluesbreaker amps on YouTube, the only one that sounded any good to me was an original one, the reissues don't sound very good to me. YouTube is a good place to listen. On the other hand I found a couple examples of my Marshal Studio 15 and was rather shocked at how good they can sound on video. Damn, guess I won't be selling mine anytime soon, he he. I think I read it has individually biasable power tubes but never opened her up, not sure what tubes it even has, might be worth putting some good stuff in there.

the problem with kit building is I have no time and the other problem is you don't know what the thing is going to sound like when you're done, could spend hundreds of hours for something that sucks.

One of the best sound clips I heard on YouTube was one of the Park amplifiers Marshall built using an attenuator, damn nice tone...

[Possum]

.....

Say, how about some sound clips of that old Bluesbreaker , would love to hear what a real one sounds like :-) I got $500 right here right now if you wanna sell it :-)

[Possum]

.....

Portland, OREGON. Fantastic music town, killer jazz and blues everywhere. We inherited alot of musicians from New Orleans after Katrina too, alot of them never went back...

[David Schwab]

uhhh, aren't those 18-watters? There is a whole chapter on it in Doyle's History of Marshall book and according to him the Bassman one is the Bluesbreakers amp (named after the John Mayall album) not the 18-watter. You have me very confused, lol...

Wikipedia says:

Jim Marshall first went into business in the early 1960s with a small shop in Hanwell, London, selling drums, cymbals and drum-related accessories; Marshall himself also gave drum lessons. According to Jim, Ritchie Blackmore, Pete Townshend and other guitarists frequently would come into the shop and ask why Marshall was not selling or producing guitar equipment. Marshall Ltd. later expanded and started selling guitars and amplifiers, the most notable of which at the time were the Fender amplifiers imported from America. These were very popular with guitarists and bass players, but also very expensive, and Jim Marshall thought he could produce an equivalent product for less money. He enlisted the help of his shop repairman Ken Bran and an unknown EMI technician named Dudley Craven and between them they decided they most liked the sound of the 4x10" Fender Bassman. They made several copies similar to, but at the same time a bit different than the Fender. The sixth prototype was in Jim's words, the "Marshall Sound." The first few production units were almost exactly the same as the Bassman circuit, with US-origin transformers and military surplus 5881 power valves. The first difference was the cabinet used, as Marshall decided to build separate amplifiers and speaker cabinets, and as they were originally intended as bass amplifiers, Marshall chose to use four 12 inch Celestion speakers in a closed back cabinet, instead of the Bassman's four 10 inch Jensen speakers in an open back cabinet. This new amplifier, tentatively called the "Mark II", was eventually named the "JTM45" after Jim and his son Terry Marshall, and "45" as, in theory, it produced 45W of power.

In search of lower production costs, Marshall quickly started sourcing parts from the UK. This led to the use of Dagnall- and Drake-made transformers, and a switch to the Marconi-Osram Valve Company?s KT66 valve instead of the 6L6 tube commonly used in the United States. This gave Marshall amplifiers a more aggressive voice which quickly found favour with players, most notably a young Eric Clapton, who would sit in Jim's shop practising his playing. When Clapton was invited to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, he asked Jim Marshall to produce a combo amp with tremolo which would fit in the boot of his car, and the most famous Marshall amp was born, the so called "Bluesbreaker" amp. This is the amplifier that gave Clapton that famous tone on the Bluesbreaker's Beano album.

So the JTM45 is the Bassman amp, and the Bluesbreaker is something else entirely, as is the 18Watt amp.

[Possum]

bluesbreaker

guess my ears are working right, this article:
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazin...Revisited.aspx
says the reissues are way off base from what Clapton used, I don't like the reissue tones at all on YouTube. There is a real one there at Hollywood Music a guy demos and it sounds awesome, the reissues sound like boxes....

[dai h.]

Ok whatever, the pic is of an original, I don't know about the Doyle book.

I remember where I saw that before now. It's from the old Yahoo 18-watter site. There were maybe two? (IIRC) original 18-watters from which pictures were obtained, and that was one of them.

Wikipedia says:


So the JTM45 is the Bassman amp, and the Bluesbreaker is something else entirely, as is the 18Watt amp.

The Bluesbreaker is a Bassman circuit but just in a combo format. Head version = JTM45.

"...the electronic and cosmetic specifications [of the model 1961 and 1962 "Bluesbreaker" combos] were identical to the heads [JTM45s] of the period..."

from The "Bluesbreaker" Combos. The History of Marshall by Michael Doyle, p.23.

http://www.drtube.com/schematics/marshall/jtm45tr.gif

[dai h.]

guess my ears are working right, this article:
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazin...Revisited.aspx
says the reissues are way off base from what Clapton used, I don't like the reissue tones at all on YouTube. There is a real one there at Hollywood Music a guy demos and it sounds awesome, the reissues sound like boxes....

yes, although it's not like the reissues are necessarily reviled by everyone who uses them, in general they are considered inferior and there seemed to be many guys devolving the circuits (to better match the originals--things like changing filter cap values), changing transformers, putting in old stock tubes, etc.

reiss. schematic:

http://marstran.com/JTM45Reissue.gif


There's a WAV format clip of a JTM45 on this page:

http://www.vintageamps.com/plexiboar...ic.php?t=59485

(and also, a lot of guitarists seem to use the album--Bluesbreakers, Van Halen I, AYE, etc. as a basis for comparison--though there could be other elements in the recording chain such as preamps, compressors or whatever making that not completely valid.)

[greenfingers]

Say, how about some sound clips of that old Bluesbreaker , would love to hear what a real one sounds like :-) I got $500 right here right now if you wanna sell it :-)

Maybe someone out there will part exchange a bluesbreaker with a few sets of your pickups

I see you put down the same link i did to premier guitar, what do you think clapton used the 1961 or 1962?....... How did the hotter wind star pickup turn out,... any better?

[Possum]

....

Heck I don't know which amp he used, he also used a Dallas Rangemaster treble booster for more gain maybe, yet his tone is anything but trebly, explain that one. To be honest his tone on that album is not one of my favorite PAF tones, its a bit dark for me, Peter Green, Bloomfield and Allman had much better amp tones to me.

Yes I wound one to 8.6K with alnico 5 degaussed. Unfortunately my new roll of MWS 42 is somewhat over spec which is not good, not what I wanted to use. The pickup sounds great, pretty bright, brighter somewhat because of the fatter wire. I"m going to make a sound clip of it then swap out to alnico 2 to tone it down some. The increased power is actually kind of taking it away from Peter Green bridge tone, my lower wound one sounds closer, you don't hear it in the clips because I'm not playing PG licks, which I will do as I make these new clips with different magnets. The middle position BB King type tone is still very much there but because the pickup is pushing the amp (the Victoria) more its starts to get obliterated by distortion, if I turn the amp down that sweet tone is still there. Although I like this pickup I think I like the less hot one better. Interestingly the PAF at 7.7K has similar brightness and is probably alnico 5 as well, being a '63, my other one pretty sure is alnico 2. PIckup right now sounds very open. Stay tuned, am going to swap in alnico 2 or 3 today and try that.

[RedHouse]

Say, how about some sound clips of that old Bluesbreaker , would love to hear what a real one sounds like :-) I got $500 right here right now if you wanna sell it :-)

It's not mine, the owner has probably ordered a custom casket with room for it inside with him and his Axe.

Portland, OREGON. Fantastic music town, killer jazz and blues everywhere. We inherited alot of musicians from New Orleans after Katrina too, alot of them never went back...

Nice place, been there a few times over the years. Myself I'm up in Sammamish which is like 20min east of Seattle. If you decide to build, and have trouble, I can help you, albeit a bit distant. My bench is set up for amps and effects construction/repairs, my pickup winding is a terciary pursuit.

...To be honest his tone on that album is not one of my favorite PAF tones, its a bit dark for me, Peter Green, Bloomfield and Allman had much better amp tones to me...

Amen to that.