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I thought that might be the case. Brent's the pro so he might come up with something.

It almost sounds to me that you need/want a two amp set up. Something with gobs of clean headroom, (Twin Reverb, JC120), and something low power enough to get power section distortion without knock aircraft out of the sky. You can then blend the signals to taste.

YMMV

That's a good point actually. I recorded those clips with the master very low. Due to the limitation of the recorder I couldn't open it up too much without getting distortions in the recording. It might be another story with the power section really cooking.

Just posted another clip with the master way up. Very AC/DC-ish.

I have the channel volumes rather low on that clip. I find the more you wind out the channel vols the more "fizzy" the amp gets. Personally, I don't consider that a bad thing...gives it a Mesa-ish character that I dig.

By doing that & using the OD to do the pre-amp gain work you get a warmer character to the OD with less "fizz". Sounds very much like a hot-rodded & tighter Plexi.

Still, it probably doesn't quite have the nastiness you're looking for - at least not with my setup. The Triwatt generally has a slickness to it regardless of how you set it up.

You might like it with the KT-66's a little better as they're supposed to be darker. I haven't tried them myself - just going by what the Trinity boys tell us.

Thanks again for doing those clips Emohawk. The last clips is more the direction I am looking for but still quite different. I think you may be right about the KT66s though.

Either way the amp sounds pretty good. I am very impressed and if I didn't have this tone in my head I might consider building one very soon.

pmonne- I think you may be right. I have done a setup like that years ago with a mesa DC series amp and a clean preamp through a tube poweramp. It was pretty cool. I've grown tired of Mesas as of late though.

I generally will stick to a classic Marshall-ish sort of sound- but I think it can get too grainy at times, and generally not as "powerful" as I'd like. Not in volume but in rattle your bones-ness.

As of now- I am considering building a modified Soldano Hot Rod (ref. @ Sloclone forums)- voicing it a bit more like a Marshall, and then ripping out the "low" channel and replacing it with a very clean fenderish sort of sounding channel and linking the two internally with separate "Pre" volumes for more headroom than in the orig. model. This will be very clean since the power section is so clean. Probably character-less on its own- but when combined could be cool?!?

I'm not set on it though. But from what I've heard/tried/read the Hot Rod seems like a good fit, and with a little added clean power in the low range... could be just the ticket. Either way whatever gets built is going to be tweaked- but the less soldering and more rocking- the better.

Thanks guys.

I hear you man. We all have tones in our heads. Mine seems to change regularly, but I still have a desire to own something Boogie-ish.

I think I get where you're coming from. Sounds like you want a hot-rodded plexi-ish overdrive with more clean "thump" to it, but without the Marshall "fizz" factor. I heard a Rivera that kind of sounded like that once - like a hot plexi with more balls. Can't remember which model it was. Wasn't the Knucklehead...Hmmm...

I understand where you're coming from with the "mushy" comment regarding old Marshalls when you really push them. My 2204 does that in fact, but I did design some plexi in there, and even used Heyboer's clones of the old Drakes used in plexis.

Yeah you nailed it.

Like I said- it's for a killer rhythm tone- lead tones sound cool/smooth a lot of times when the tubes become really distorted and give nice compression when maxed out... but I want a rhythm tone that will tear through buildings- even if the gain is set low.

I don't know. I have been searching for it for a long time. I did the boogie thing, had a Rivera (K55), a Marshall vintage modern, and a metal-panel 1959SLP... they were great for a while, but until I find it... I feel like my clean tone/lead tone is less important. Sadly.

Maybe I should work on my lead playing. The Trainwreck I have is great for it... I'm just not quite great enough to make it really sing like it was meant to.