Its electronics is heritated from the TS9, but is not keeping exclusively centered on midrange :
The [S]cream can give the compressed sound of the 70s, but also evoke the nervous grain of a Black Face, or produce an overdrive that is breathes widely in your ears
The (S)cream
Cool blues playing : Reconsider
Guild Archtop, mixed pickups.
SweetGerm on Jazzy preset.
Body @11:00, to get bottom without orvedrive. Présence @10:00 for clear harmonics.
Rythm guitar with lows and treble : Soft latin overdrive
Guild Archtop, neck pickup.
SweetGerm on Jazzy preset.
Body @12:00, to get textured lowrange. Présence @11h, to get treble above.
Approximate and filthy picking : Dirty country
Guild Archtop, bridge pickup.
SweetGerm on Mighty preset.
Body @12:00 to put dirt. Présence @9:00 to avoid a scratchy sound and get warmth…
2xEL84 amp from1967, fixed by me. Clean canal, Baxandall in virtually flat position.
Celestion 12″ Seventy-80 speaker, bass reflex boxed.
Recorded with a 565 Shure placed close to the spaker between dome and suspension.
A bit of reverb.
Archtop Guild F160 guitar from 1989. Original pickups.
Geamp1W, 1W on 4 ohm. All germanium power amp.
Effects of the tone control : 4 settings to play a white soul riff.
Weber 10-inch speaker, bass reflex boxed.
Level is set near crunch level…
Archtop guitar, neck pick up, almost full volume.
Tone @ 09:00 (vintage) ; Tone @ 12:00 (flat) ; Tone @ 13:00 ; Tone @ 15:00 (Fenderish).
Effects of the tone control : an old picking style tune. (3 samples)
Weber 8-inch speaker, semi-open cabinet.
Level is set just just under crunch level, unless heavy played notes…
Strato-like guitar, center + bridge pick-ups.
Tone @ 09:00 (vintage) ; Tone @ 13:00 (slight bright) ; Tone @ 14:00 (classic bright).
Overdrive by power chords : a boogie woogie in the style of the 40s
Weber 8-inch speaker, semi-open cabinet.
Level is set to get a generous and meaty saturation. Tone @ 12:00 (flat).
Archtop guitar, neck pickup. Downed treble and full volume.
(In case of low output level guitars, you’ll get an analog drive using the “brown”preset ) …
Little bluesy improvisation
Weber 8-inch speaker, semi-open cabinet.
Level is set near crunch level… Tone @ 14:00 (classic bright)
Archtop guitar, neck and bridge pickups together, withheld and contrasted playing.
Picking country blues guitar
Weber 8-inch speaker, semi-open cabinet.
Level is set just under crunch level, unless heavy played notes. Tone @ 13:00 (slight bright)
Archtop guitar, neck and bridge pickups together.
An heavy stuff in B
Weber 10-inch speaker, bass reflex boxed.
Level set to get crunch without jamming the sound. Tone @ 12:00 (flat).
Archtop guitar, neck pickup, almost full volume.
GeAmp1W , creamy option, 9V powered, 0,8W RMS output power.
Would overdrive easier with 7,5V, would have more headroom with 12V.
Speakers :
Weber CVC8, 8″. Boxed in a small semi-open cabinet (from an old Danelectro®).
Weber F10-150T, 10″. Bass reflex boxed (the cabinet I use when playing in clubs).
SM58 Shure mike, closely placed and almost towards the center.
A bit or more of Holly Grail® reverb, just for pleasure.
Strato-like guitar, cheap model, but re-equipped with texan Rio Grande® pickups.
Archtop Guild F160. Original pickups.
You & Me is an active A-B Box that can switch two sources of different levels to a single output :
— An instrument or a harp microphone at guitar level.
— Another source at low level, requiring preamplification.
You&Me, basic version – graphic study…
LikeYourFace is a classic 2 germanium transistors fuzzbox.
Even more musical… Wider and progressive fuzz control .
And more reliable than the antique models !
A “boutique” stompbox at a reasonable price !
LikeYourFace, *** version.
Preamp-overdrive with NOS* germanium transistors.
Made to give voice to guitars, electric or acoustic bass.
2 knobs set simultaneously tone and drive.
It nourishes the tone of amps that sounds too flat, and facilitates your musical expression :
Good for jazz, blues and elegant rock…
* NOS: New Old Stock… New transistors from the sisties to eighties.
SweetGerm, basic version .
There is a “germanium sound”. It is especially suitable for guitar amplification, and can apply to harp and some keyboards. The sound of germanium has a warmth and a granulity as pleasant to the ear as the tube sound, without being the same : The sensation of warmth is about equivalent (for analog reasons, in particular the Miller effect that dynamically attenuates the high frequencies). The sonic grain of germanium is generally a bit rougher than the tube grain, and especially less flat and plain than silicon …
In all domains of audio, germanium transistors and their “good defects” are opposed to the cold pharmaceutical perfection of integrated circuits.
After years spent in tests and development, I feel able to specify some characteristic parameters… And happy to share this knowledge that I apply in the products shown on this site ; stuffs just to please the guitars.
The TO1 standard was the first all-metal case used for germanium transistors when the black glass models were abandoned around 1964. This concerns European series like ACs, industrial series ACYs, ASYs, ASZs, the british NKTs and the japanese 2SAs…
In the USA, there are larger JEDEC standard cases (TO5 box) or smaller (TO18 box) as the european TO1.
Transistors manufactured in Eastern Europe used an elongated version of the TO1 case : some ACs, SFTs manufactured under license, and the national productions in the East.
The TO1 dimensions were not strictly followed by all manufacturers, which can seem surprising nowadays. From another point of view, this can help identify the origin and sometimes the quality of the transistors. This article is here to share some pointers and background information.
They were thus nicknamed in allusion of their very particular black glass case. Glass technology had been selected because at that time plastics were still unable to ensure a perfect seal between case and terminals. They have been the first transistors widely available, and the aged electronic techs have fond memories of them. It must be said they are found in the earliest fuzz, the first solid state professional audio systems and computers.
This is an opportunity to discuss the properties of the main types and identify their ability to be used in circuits devolved to guitars .
NB: I will only talk about transistors that I actually had in hand.
Stompboxes power supply is both a trivial issue and a relevant subject. There are some basic points behind banality that can help make a good choice — and avoid troubles — when organizing a pedalboard. This overview on the current situation will bring some classic issues, such as polarity of old pedals, consumption orders of magnitude according to types of stompboxes. The big issue remains choosing between traditional transformer power supplies and switching power supplies, that nowadays begin to impose their technology, but are not always appropriate to analog circuits…
A second article will expose points on which ensure personal choices … A third will be devoted to the system that equips my Guitar Poppa pedals, in order to power them silently through any types of DC power supply respecting the negative to ground standard.
In a precedent post , I tried to spot different ways to power active circuits for guitars. The situation is not that simple and easy as one would like, but one can nevertheless get some sure benchmarks, usefull or problematics.
We also will have to remember that hum may sometimes not be caused by supply voltage, but by faulty connections …
In electronics, bias usually refers to a fixed DC voltage or current applied to a terminal of an electronic component such as a diode, transistor or vacuum tube in a circuit in which AC signals are also present, in order to establish proper operating conditions for the component.
This issue is evident in HiFi or PA equipment. It is the same in an Overdrive or a Fuzz : even if their output signal is saturated, it has a specific shape that must not be damaged.
This article aims to take stock, being precise both from a technical point of view and from a musical point of view… It is a bit long, but I think it is useful.
This article is devoted to one of the best known switching system : the True Bypass, which is generaly said to be the best, although it has some not so known limits … We shall see that the big question is that TrueBypass keeps a high impedance bypass routing, which makes this circuit not so efficient as usually said when many pedals are chained.
This introduces to a classical quarrel among guitarists : Pro and cons buffering…
Input buffering will be the subject of a second article.
Buffers are devices that are interposed between a signal source and the downstream circuit. The most common ones do not provide a voltage amplification but operate impedance matching. This prevents from signal losses of level and the bandwith.
They are technically very useful but little known, and sometimes badly regarded by vintage electronics purists under the pretext that historical circuits do not have any of them — and that Japanese equipment is stuffed with.
Guitar Poppa could not stay indifferent to this electronico-aesthetic quarrel…
