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It's been a half year later and my Boost & Overdrive Effects are as follows:
Damage Control Liquid Blues - For Compression & Clean Boost
Colorsound Overdriver Clone - Gain @ 3 o'clock (It is starting to get a little fuzzy - Big Muff Sustain with better articulation)
Catlinbread Dirty Little Secret - Great for the more Marshally Hiwatt Sound (Fripp, Barre & Lifeson Hiwatt Tones)

All these unit stack very well, but also sound great by themselves.

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ROB

Hey Rob, which Overdriver clone are you using? I've got a VintageFX Colordrive I really like for the exact same reason. I think it does a better Pink Floyd Time solo than a Fuzz Face. In fact I've begun to question whether Gilmour recorded the solo for Time for DSOTM with a Fuzz Face since he was also using the Colordriver at the time (no pun intended).

Overdriver Clone: There is a guy "stephen6760" on Ebay that build them and sell them there. I bought it for $45 US. If I didn't see that I think that I would have ended up with the VintageFX Colordrive. I really like the one with the switchable volumes & gains.

Yes, the Colorsound's Fuzz Sound is so smooth, you would think Gilmour would have used it over a Fuzz Face, in a few instances.

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ROB

Cool - thanks for that info on the clone; I'll look that up. Interestingly, I found an article from a site in Italy (had to translate using google) that discussed the alleged FF tone from Time. According to this article, Gilmour had two FFs, each with different output capacitance: .1uF and .01uF. The claim is he used one for the smoother Time solo, and the other for "fuzzier" things like Echoes. I'm tempted to mod my FF clone with a switch and caps to play around with that idea.

I'm guessing, based on your post below that one, that it was a typo. You must've meant HM-2 Heavy Metal instead of HM-3 Hyper Metal. The HM-3 replaced the HM-2 in the Boss lineup, but that didn't happen until 1993. The controls are basically the same. I've always wondered if those were the same pedal, but with a slighty decorative facelift, or if they were the same pedal.

FWIW, I have an old HM-3 at home. Sometimes I love it, but other times it doesn't seem to bond with the guitar and amp. I wonder if the same would be true for the Gilmour-approved HM-2.

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Go Buckeyes!

Very nice!

What order do you put those three on your board? I would guess the DC Liquid Blues would be first if you used it as a compressor, but I would guess last since it's also a clean boost. Very curious.

The other two pedals are intriguing as well. I'm never certain how to stack up any board that has more than one dirt/boost type pedal. Fuzz--> Dist-->OD or OD-->Dist-->Fuzz, etc...

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Go Buckeyes!

I had the HM-2, it was a little over the top. It was traded in a deal to get another Strat.


Liquid Blues -(Tuner - Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe) Colorsound Overdriver Clone - Dirty Little Secret (BYOC Digital Delay, old style & modify for longer delay times.)

There is a vintage MXR Noise Gate Line Driver coming soon, mostly so the P90 Pickup noise in my LP Special doesn't drive me nuts



I didn't see the sight about the modified Fuzz Face, but changing the Input Cap does a lot to smooth out a fuzz or boost pedal. The Duncan Tweak Fuzz does that with the tweak rotary switch. Also, as for Fuzz Faces in general, I have been told, by a Fuzz Face Expert, that the original prototype Fuzz Face in the 1960s, was a lot smoother than the production units, but that might be more due to the biasing of the transistor in the test unit, versus production.

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ROB

Curiously, it was the output cap, not the input cap referenced in the Italian article. The info came from the guitarist for the Italian PF tribute band "Pinkover", I believe. If I find the link, I'll post.

Sorry for the topic detour; now returning everyone to their regularly scheduled Triwatt Tips and Tricks program...

I did add one more gain effect to the chain, the Maxon Distortion & Sustainer. It's sort of a more refined, versatile Big Muff. It uses transistors, and not op-amps. With the gain set low (9 o'clock) it works well with the Catalinbread DLS, & with the gain at 2 o'clock, works well alone with a cleanly set Triwatt.

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ROB

I'm actually getting a very "Voxy" sound out of my Triwatt. Set the channel volumes down quite a bit, set the OD at 10 or 11 and the master all of the way up. Add a little more bright than normal and wham - it's like an AC30s worst nightmare. All of the chime with none of the mush. I'm just totally in love with this amp. I can't imagine when I get better speakers for it - right now it's pumping through reissue Greenbacks. Lusting over a 2x12 with a Fane and a BBQ right now. I'm absolutely loving KT-66s in this amps. The bottom end is so wicked that I can use it as a bass amp with my Ibanez SGR and it sounds unbelievable even at decent volumesnn

The only problem is that I can't play it in the house at night when the kids are asleep. Even turned all of the way down it projects so well that the kids can hear it. It's a beast.

We've talked about different 12AX7s in the Triwatt's preamp. However, there's some room for experimentation with the 12AT7 in the phase inverter position as well. The following 12AT7 A/B/C test was recently posted in a thread about a Hiwatt DC40 on vintageamps.com:

Trinity Amps' default for the PI is the JAN Philips 12AT7, and this post shows the benefit of those tubes in a Hiwatt style amp. And there's plenty to experiment. Also, if you want more Hiwatt crunch out of the amp, you can also put in a 12AX7, like in Pete Townshend or David Gilmour's amps.


It seems people are getting all kinds of tones from their Triwatts, from Fender to Marshall to Mesa, and now even Vox.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

I actually went back to using the 12AT7 last week. I am getting enough "Crunch" using my Catalinbread DLS with the Triwatt, so I would rather have a the amp as clean as possible with the DLS switched off. I still have to try the KT66 Tubes, but volume wise the 6V6s seem to be cutting it.

Also, besides Strat Single Coils, P90s sound great with the Triwatt. Townshend had something there, but I still like humbuckers thru my 20 Watt Laney Lionheart Head a touch better.

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ROB

I finally started playing something other than Floyd tunes through my TRIWATT, and I can say with complete confidence that an SG Classic with P90's straight into a stock TRIWATT (12AT7 PI) with both pre-amp channels max'd and the master at noon gets a VERY convincing Townshend live tone....I'm pretty sure my neighbours are convinced too

EQ settings are heavier on the mids and treble, and slightly rolled off on the bass, presence at noon, and you're there.

The P90's clean up astonishingly well, so you don't need to touch the amp. Just tweak volume and tone on the guitar.

If you feel like you're missing something, never underestimate how much of the Who's "guitar" tone came from Entwhistle's bass....

Sell the Catalinbread. The Triwatt has all the crunch you could ever want and then some, when you use the Overdrive.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Zaphod wrote

I am actually now using the Catalinbread WIIO RAH. It actually sounds almost the same as the Triwatts OD, but the RAH is before my delay, which I prefer.

I traded the Catalinbread DLS to a friend for a Fulltone OCD, which works great with my Carr Hammerhead.

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ROB

I don't know if anyone has tried a RAT in front - and I'm a few weeks away, as I just ordered my kit today - but I can say if you want a VERY VERY rock n roll sound, it sounded the best of anything I tried thru my Hiwatt Custom 50. Bright channel, pre noonish for a bit of breakup, MV to taste. Just screamed.

Also - something to try maybe? On my old Hiwatt (1981 it was, last year Hylight), the Presence knob, the last 5% going towards max added *a lot* of crunch. It was a bright tone, no doubt (which I favour) but KERRRRANNGGGGGGG ! in spades.

That's weird! 2 gigs ago I used my Rat2 live for the first time in a stripped down pedal board.That's exactly what I thought- Kerrang!!!!

that's exciting I've got a keeley modded Rat I'm going to put through it for leads (or eventually build the footswitch circuit). I'm using WGS vetern 30 and reaper 50 and so far with every amp I've tried those two speakers in a 1/4" baffled 2/12 birch cabinet sounds insaaane, I don't expect the triwatt to be much different

Love my triwatt. It's a very unique amp that can really covers a lot of ground. It's smooth but still has all that hiwatt punch. It's great clean, but will grind out with as much saturation as you can handle. I've tried a bunch of different tubes and love how it sounds with an old pair of 6v6's. plenty of clean headroom and a little tighter on the bottom than with kt66's.

The amp has soooo much low end, and such a hifi top end. I've tried a pile of speakers, and generally I prefer low wattage alnico's, but not in this amp. This amp has more frequency content and wants a speaker that can reproduce it. I found that a fane and a cannabis Rex eminence mis-match up real nicely.

My triwatt has also seen a fair amount of work as a bass amp and absolutely rocks! I wouldn't hesitate to gig with it as a bass head, and would choose it over my Eden nemesis every time.

It's been a couple of years.....Might be time to put a tc15 together?

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dig it

Really nice to see a long term follow up to an amp. Thats great to hear. By now you've really figured it all out ..

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Stephen
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