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Hey guys. Has anyone tweaked the overdrive circuit at all? I was thinking that I would like more drive at a lower volume setting. I would like a bit more clean to dirty change ala a 2 channel amp . The sound is fantastic but way too loud when the overdrive is engaged. Does that make sense? I tried lower gain tubes in v2 but it didn't seem to help. Any ideas?

You could add a pot in front of the overdrive triode and keep the existing overdrive control. The existing control would act as a volume and the other pot would act as a drive control. Just wire it like a standard variable voltage divider (volume pot).

If you did this though. You would have to alter the switching of the overdrive. You would need to use all the lugs on your DPDT push pull pot to fully bypass the triode. If you kept the switching stock your drive control would limit the clean channel and steal gain from it. Anyways that's what I would try.

I think there's sometimes a misunderstanding about what the Hiwatt Overdrive control does. It actually adjusts the level of the overdriven signal coming *out* of the OL stage (as Hiwatt call it). The Normal and Bright volume controls actually control how dirty the OL stage gets by setting the signal level going into the OL triode.

So you just set your distortion level on those two and then adjust the Overdrive control to set the volume level you want when the boost is engaged. This is all pure Hiwatt, as we've stuck closely to the Hiwatt Lead amp design. After that there's still the MV to set the amp's overall volume level, both with and without the Overdrive engaged.

HTH

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Thanks for the reponses guys. I think I will leave well enough alone for now!

So just remember to turn the Overdrive control knob down to the volume level you want when the OL stage is engaged. Then use the Normal and Bright volume controls to set the stage's distortion level. With a little experimentation you should be able to find settings which work for both clean and boosted modes.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!