Solid state amp performance modulation

[Alexander Velten]

Hey dudes(and or dudets) alex here, Im relatively new to this site and would like to extend WARM and FRIENDLY greeting to the community here!

Im attempting to mod my raven rg 100h head to give it a chunkier sound with more "bite" and presence and maybe somehow...someway....NOISEGATE.Raven's preset distorted tone if completely lacking and its clean isnt much differant.If any of you have ever played through crappy tone, Im sure you can understand how discouraging it is.I wouldnt begin to know how to do such a thing as perform any kind of surgery on my amp and I'll probably end up shocking myself to death.

This cant be unachievable right?

Any tips would be of great help.

[Enzo]

Well, hi. The one single thing you can do to any amp that will have the most effect on its sound is change the speakers. You can connect different speakers and cabs to this amp to see what you might like.

Beyond that, we pretty much are going to want to look at a schematic. As far as I know, this is a house brand of Guitar Center and their subsidiaries. Don't know if they will make such information available.

[Alexander Velten]

Thanks for replying, I tried looking for the schemaric but didnt have much luck aside from a pdf document of the instruction manuel.Id take it to a professional but I dont want to spend any money, if I had any id buy an axe fx like everyone else with a few thousand dollars to blow.Id imagine these things are all built similary.

[Enzo]

yes, the small solid state amps are all built similarly. But American Midwestern cities are all built similarly, but knowing that doesn't tell you where my house is in this one. I might want to adjust component values in some circuit, but I need to know WHERE in your amp that circuit might be.

[J M Fahey]

I'm not so sure you even *have* a problem.
The sevenstring guys who aren't exactly easy to please liked it a lot , "for what it is", of course.
Such as:

Raven RG100H - Holy crap
So I was doing a runthrough of the local guitarcenter in Brea and I'd always see these Raven combos, and I'd never really take the time to sit down and give them a shot, for reasons I don't even know. Well today, I ran over there and noticed guitarcenter got in a Raven RG100H, and since I was looking for a new guitar head, I thought "why not".. Plugged it in, tried it out, and my god. The thing blew me away, I could get just about every tone I could want out of the thing, and the clean channel was very clean, and very loud. Even better, it's only like 300 dollars. Does anyone personally own one of these? Because I'm afraid, that at that price, there's a reason they're soo cheap. Be it bad construction or short lifetime.. Or maybe it's just a steal?

I don't know but its tone blew away my previous choices, a B52 and a line 6 spider head.. For half the price. But maybe it's just my own ears? it doesn't have that harshness most solidstate amps have, it seems. Not only that but the thing is loud as hell.

and

I tried one out a couple weeks back and they didn't sound half bad. Sure, its not a tube amp, but for a good sounding solid state at that price its not a bad deal.

and so on.

I mean, if it were *broken* it might be *repairable*, but personal taste problems are impossible to solve.
Doubly so by remote control.

[Alexander Velten]

Hello JM, thx for the reply.

Ive actually read that post on sevenstring.com a few times before hahaha.I think the reason the pricetag is so low is the tone quality, or lack thereof.Its not the worst tone ive ever heard but It could use improvement(ialso, its definately not cheaply built).I dont really have a problem necessarily, i agree that if it were broken I would though.There has to be something I can do to make this thing sound better...

[km6xz]

There is a common request to make an amp sound fatter, or crunchier, ballsy, and any of dozens of subjective terms. What do these traits sound like and how does the amp "create" it? Amazing things can be done as long as there is a complete understanding of exactly someone is talking about in engineering terms or in performance measured parameters but it is REALLY hard to equate subjective qualitative terms with engineering terms. i get requests for those mods all the time and I suggest they get an external processor or stomp box unless they can accurately describe the sound characteristics in technical terms.
So much of what is attributed to tubes, or solid state as broad classes, or individual tubes or transistor types but the only sure thing is attributing a sound to the unique combination of player's playing characteristics, room acoustics, settings on the amp, guitar and pickup and even how much coffee the player and listener has had. They all combine to make a sound character that might never be reproduced by another combination surrounding the same amp.
The very best way of getting the tone you like is using the combination of the system you first heard that tone. "I want that sound of a 1959 Marshall head on such and such an album" implicitly means "I want that sound of the player, playing xxx guitar, with xxx strings, in xxx studio, mic'd by xxx mode mic mounted in xxxx position, feeding an xxxx console with xxxx, xxxx, xxxx and xxxx outboard gear, produced by xxxx producer, and xxxx engineer, recorded to xxxx media at xxxx level, etc etc.....and played back on xxxx with xxxx speakers, mounted xxxx from the wall in an acoustic space of xxx characteristics while I play it at xxxx level and I had xxxx sleep and drank xxxx liters of xxxx " Each of those elements is argued over in the related forums about their "sound" yet the sound is only created by the unique combinations of all those and many more things working together. Add to the complexity by allowing for each person listening is going to have a different impression of that sound.
If you could identify a technical trait to the subjective goal, it can be done. But that is where the rub is. It is easy for a competent tech to comply if you requested a 3db boost at 4khz or something specific and reproducible but those terms of subjective traits don't cooperate by translating to specific technical characteristics.
I would wager that it would take less time and effort to get an extra job to save to buy the gear that sounds good to you than to chase the phantom of forcing an amp or system to sound in the way you want.

[Alexander Velten]

Best reply yet!

If only I could describe the exact amount of bass , mids, gain and noise isolation I want in technical terms like hertz or decibels(Id go to audio engineering school but I want to be able to eat real food and not just ramen).I know "Ballsy","fat", "teeth" and "purr"are about as useful as as saying "I want geshmegle, why can't you just show me how to add more geshmegle?!?" but I really have no better manner of explaining this unfortunately.Ive considered saving but since I have no source of income and Id be old and grey by the time I raised that much money Im kind of short on options.

[km6xz]

If you have truly no source of income, you would be a rare person indeed. What we usually mean when we say we can't afford it, is because "it" is not the highest priority. Rearranging priorities can do wonders in getting what we really want but might mean a less comfortable life in other areas such as eating regular meals or bad expensive habits like smoking. If you are not depending on a particular sound for income, which could not be realized with any other sound, then it ought to be a high priority. I suspect it is more of a "wouldn't be cool to have xxxx sound", in which case setting more realistic goals and priorities might serve you better.

As with most preferences for tone characteristics, this one is learned, probably from an album's song you really liked. There is little intrinsic nature of a good sound versus as bad sound when describing the same notes but of different timbre if habituated to it or is experienced with an influencing performance or song. You might like a particular timbre because the first time you paid attention to it, was in the form of a song that meant something to you. You had no predisposition before that point to like it.
So, listen to more music and become enamoured of another tone or write something or play something you really like and learn to like what you have. Also, playing technique greatly impacts tone so to get better tone you like experiment with new styles or take lessons focusing on additional techniques.
This association concept is one reason very creative people in music are less concerned with tone from any one device than players who are essentially listeners to other player's creations, they know they control much of the tone preference by playing technique and by writing material that is liked. If you played any of the people with distinctive signal tone before they released songs that were well received, no one would be seeking that tone. Played in 1959, few people would have cared for such masters as Hendrix if he was playing material of the period. Tone preference is a learned characteristic.
If you were raised in an environment of a different scale and different preference of timbre such as the slendro scale of Indonesian gamelan music, you would have a very different expectation of the desired tone from your instruments.
The problem comes into play when people confuse preference with need. Many people start their posts with what tone they need or some feature they need when it is a moderate preference at the current time but surely not a need. Learning something new and all that changes in a moment.

[Steve Conner]

On a less philosophical note... Why don't you tell us about your favourite tone, what guitarist, what album, and what gear was used if you know. That might help figure out whether it is realistic to achieve it by modding a $300 solid-state amp.

The Raven amps seem to have an effects loop, so if you want a noise gate, you can just buy a Behringer Noise Reducer or similar cheap pedal, and patch it in.

Also do you have any experience working with electronics at all? Do you know how to solder, use a multimeter and read a schematic? (or more likely in this case, trace a schematic from the circuit board) If you don't, Stan is not kidding, it would really be quicker and easier to get a job in McDonalds and save for an AxeFX.

It can be a fun journey. I built my first tube amp because I wanted a Mesa Dual Rectifier but couldn't afford one. However, I had an unfair advantage, I was an EE student at the time.

[Mick Bailey]

A fair amount of my work is in analysing a guitarist's requirements and coming up with practical and achievable ideas to improve the sound or achieve a specific goal. This means listening and watching them play on their own, seeing them live and what their stage setup is, and looking at how their stage setup translates to a studio situation (and vice-versa). Modifying the equipment is most often not required. A good example (just three weeks ago) is a setup that sounded pretty lifeless - like the difference between MP3 and DAT. The setup was faultless - premium hand built US amp, top-class speaker and cab, absolute cream of FX, the best cables, hand-built US guitars. A money-no-object setup and a pro player. I put a lot of thought into that rig and the answer was in buffering the signals. You should hear the difference. No other work required.

The last amp I modified was a Blackstar Club 40 combo. The mod? Take the back off the cab to make it open instead of enclosed. One highly satisfied customer.

Modifying the amp ought to be last on the list after you've run through everything else. I did another job where the guitar lead capacitance was so high it sounded like throwing a blanket over the amp. Similarly I took a look at a guitar where the pickups were screwed down so low into the body there was hardly any signal and it made the amp sound lifeless (the amp came to me for 'modding')

Out of interest, a customer had Jeff Beck come round to his music college for a master class. They'd hired in JB strat for him, but he used the house amp ("not the best"). He recorded Jeff playing 'Behind The Veil' through that amp. Now, if my crap amp sounded that good I'd be so smug I'd have to build a shed in my garden to keep all my excess smugness in.


EDIT; the track he recorded was 'Where were You'
http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/...c-college/8376

[Steve Conner]

Yes, I think this "systems" approach to tone is great. How much do you charge for the service out of interest?

I probably don't have the best guitar tone, but I realise Stan is right. When I play a gig in some fleapit pub, the punters are most likely not picking my tone apart, they just want to hear a catchy song with a beat they can dance to, or at least sway around and spill beer.

I actually like my pickups screwed down quite low, and a high capacitance guitar cable. My favourite one measures a whopping 750pF.

[Mick Bailey]

I charge the service based on what I think I can recover from follow-up work or endorsements, so it can sometimes be a loss-leader or break-even initially, with a longer-term payback. This means working with pro or semi-pro players and working out what the deal could mean, but I have to eat and pay bills so generally need to clear a few hundred from each job of this type.

[ReadyTeddy]

There is a common request to make an amp sound fatter, or crunchier, ballsy, and any of dozens of subjective terms. What do these traits sound like and how does the amp "create" it? Amazing things can be done as long as there is a complete understanding of exactly someone is talking about in engineering terms or in performance measured parameters but it is REALLY hard to equate subjective qualitative terms with engineering terms. i get requests for those mods all the time and I suggest they get an external processor or stomp box unless they can accurately describe the sound characteristics in technical terms.
So much of what is attributed to tubes, or solid state as broad classes, or individual tubes or transistor types but the only sure thing is attributing a sound to the unique combination of player's playing characteristics, room acoustics, settings on the amp, guitar and pickup and even how much coffee the player and listener has had. They all combine to make a sound character that might never be reproduced by another combination surrounding the same amp.
The very best way of getting the tone you like is using the combination of the system you first heard that tone. "I want that sound of a 1959 Marshall head on such and such an album" implicitly means "I want that sound of the player, playing xxx guitar, with xxx strings, in xxx studio, mic'd by xxx mode mic mounted in xxxx position, feeding an xxxx console with xxxx, xxxx, xxxx and xxxx outboard gear, produced by xxxx producer, and xxxx engineer, recorded to xxxx media at xxxx level, etc etc.....and played back on xxxx with xxxx speakers, mounted xxxx from the wall in an acoustic space of xxx characteristics while I play it at xxxx level and I had xxxx sleep and drank xxxx liters of xxxx " Each of those elements is argued over in the related forums about their "sound" yet the sound is only created by the unique combinations of all those and many more things working together. Add to the complexity by allowing for each person listening is going to have a different impression of that sound.
If you could identify a technical trait to the subjective goal, it can be done. But that is where the rub is. It is easy for a competent tech to comply if you requested a 3db boost at 4khz or something specific and reproducible but those terms of subjective traits don't cooperate by translating to specific technical characteristics.
I would wager that it would take less time and effort to get an extra job to save to buy the gear that sounds good to you than to chase the phantom of forcing an amp or system to sound in the way you want.

Indeed, the perception of sound, as studied in pschoacoustics, is incredibly subjective, and easily influenced by our expectations and many other variables. I had a friend that worked at Zildjian, and he once told me that if you are a famous enough drummer, you can be invited to the Zildjian factory to pick out your cymbals. Your host will bring out cymbal after cymbal of the model in which you're interested until you find just the right one. On occasion, when the drummer in question has sampled all examples of the particular model in question and still hasn't found anything, they'll start bringing out the same cymbals he has previously tried. Almost inevitably, the eureka moment will be had, and the drummer picks out that so elusive perfect cymbal from one he rejected just a few minutes ago

[Steve Conner]

Oh the humanity... It would be hilarious if people's livelihoods didn't depend on it.