Super Reverb mods

Completed amps from Fender, Orange, Hiwatt, Vox, etc.

Moderator: VelvetGeorge

bluefuzzguitar
Senior Member
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:15 pm
Location: Nijmegen, Holland (Europe)
Contact:

Super Reverb mods

Post by bluefuzzguitar » Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:02 pm

I was wondering if there are more people who have done the same mods that I had done to my two B/F Super Reverbs.

I own a '64 and a '66 B/F SR. The first thing I changed was the speakers. I don't like alnicos because I run the amps on 6 and pick hard and they can't take a lot of abuse, lack midrange, and break up too early. Both Supers are loaded w/ Celestion Vintage 10's, great ceramic speakers w/ tight low end, great midrange and just enough high end (they are no longer made, unfortunately).

Besides the alnicos another thing I didn't like about the Supers was their lack of headroom on bigger stages coupled w/ the amps running too hot as the gig progresses, resulting in a sag producing more distortion and less definition (a common complaint). I had read about some of the things Cesar Diaz did to SRV's Fender amps, which was replace the tube rectifier w/ a solid-state one and installing bigger transformers for more headroom. I decided that would be the cure for my problem as well so I had a SS rectifier put in and Twin-style power and output trannies wound. With the bigger trannies I now had a choice of switching to different, more powerful tubes as well. I chose to have one SR fitted w/ 6550's and the other w/ EL34's, effectively making them 70w Fender/Marshall hybrids. Ther's also a 5751 in the first gain (preamp) stage of the vibrato (bright) channel and the midpot has been changed to 25k, just like Marshalls have.
I have also pulled the tube for the normal channel as well as pulled the tube for the vibrato and disabled the vibrato channel giving the amp more 'beef'.

After the mods the amps sounded simply awesome w/ loads of power and headroom. The V10's, which like to be driven hard anyway, were pushed even more and the character of a SR still shone through but w/ added 'Brit flavor' as well! The amps sounded darker, which I felt was a good thing. The only thing was, the dark character seemed to take away a bit from the high end. The solution turned out to be replacing the ceramic tone stack caps w/ silver mica ones. It instantly brightened up the amp, restoring that B/F Fender bell-like top. Some of you may consider it sacrilege to do this to original B/F SR's but I now have two unique-sounding amps which just ooze power and tone and sound way better on their own and w/ pedals (particularly fuzz) than before. Maybe others have also tried experiments like this. Let's start a thread for all you SR modders to finally come out of the closet! We can take the flak from the Fender police if only we stand united...
There's no tone like your own

User avatar
Country Boy Shane
Senior Member
Posts: 1457
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2003 11:37 pm
Location: Troy, MI
Contact:

Post by Country Boy Shane » Tue Nov 11, 2003 8:45 pm

Fack the Fender Po-Po! They aren't producing top grade amps like they used to. I don't think anyone is. It's a shame you can't buy V10's anymore to stick in a SR amp. Fender has some dirty speakers alright. Sound a lot like the White Stripes sound at times but that is a totally different story.
Just Feel it MAN! -Shane Gorski "Country Boy Shane"

www.flickr.com/photos/shanegorski

sky_pup
New Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2003 9:46 am
Location: Birmingham, AL

RE: Super Reverb Mods

Post by sky_pup » Sat Nov 15, 2003 10:22 am

I'm pretty sure the SRV's amp tech put bigger trannies on the Vibroverbs which have this very undersized output trannie compared to the Super Reverb. I have a BF Pro-Rev which I put a 50w Bassman Head output on and it was instant SRV sound. I've never heard of him modding the Super Reverbs transformers.
As to modding '64 and '66 BF original amps... With the level of modding you've done to achieve your desired sound I'd recommend just obtaining reissue chassis, board, etc and putting your modded circuits in a homebrew. Then you could restore the originals parts back (which don't sound like you want anyway) and sell for big $$. I think once you switch out trannies and speakers you've basically got a different personality amp than what it started with.
The cool thing is that you have achieved the sound you are after which is what doing it yourself is all about.

User avatar
Country Boy Shane
Senior Member
Posts: 1457
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2003 11:37 pm
Location: Troy, MI
Contact:

Post by Country Boy Shane » Tue Nov 18, 2003 3:46 pm

Wow i've never heard of SRV modding amps... maybe his pickups but not amps. Hmmmm
Just Feel it MAN! -Shane Gorski "Country Boy Shane"

www.flickr.com/photos/shanegorski

bluefuzzguitar
Senior Member
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:15 pm
Location: Nijmegen, Holland (Europe)
Contact:

Cesar Diaz

Post by bluefuzzguitar » Wed Nov 19, 2003 12:23 pm

Pup and Shane (and everybody else reading this),

Check out this interview with Cesar Diaz in which he lays out all the 'secrets' about what he did to SRV's amps: www.tonequest.com/ray.htm. Most likely the link will not work. Most forums seem to do this and I don't know what I'm doing wrong (besides, I'm not computer-savvy enough anyway). If it doesn't just copy and paste the URL in the subject line.

Mike
There's no tone like your own

Guest

Post by Guest » Wed Nov 19, 2003 1:24 pm

The link doesn't work when you click on it, but works when you type it in as an address. How freaky!

User avatar
Country Boy Shane
Senior Member
Posts: 1457
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2003 11:37 pm
Location: Troy, MI
Contact:

Post by Country Boy Shane » Wed Nov 19, 2003 1:24 pm

and all be dang!! Computer didn't sign me in!
Just Feel it MAN! -Shane Gorski "Country Boy Shane"

www.flickr.com/photos/shanegorski

User avatar
VelvetGeorge
Site Owner
Posts: 7233
Joined: Tue Oct 14, 2003 5:12 pm
Just the numbers in order: 13492
Location: The Murder Mitten
Contact:

Post by VelvetGeorge » Wed Nov 19, 2003 2:03 pm

Great interview. Is it just me or did Cezar take credit for everything SRV ever did?

Good read, none the less.

George
Check out Plexi Replicas for my personal amp builds...
Image

User avatar
Country Boy Shane
Senior Member
Posts: 1457
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2003 11:37 pm
Location: Troy, MI
Contact:

Post by Country Boy Shane » Wed Nov 19, 2003 7:44 pm

It's a good site, but somehow i haven't found any more good articles. I'd subscribe if i wasn't a cheapass towards magazines
Just Feel it MAN! -Shane Gorski "Country Boy Shane"

www.flickr.com/photos/shanegorski

bluefuzzguitar
Senior Member
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:15 pm
Location: Nijmegen, Holland (Europe)
Contact:

Post by bluefuzzguitar » Sun Nov 23, 2003 9:25 am

[quote="VelvetGeorge"]Great interview. Is it just me or did Cezar take credit for everything SRV ever did?

Good read, none the less.

George[/quote]

George,

Excellent point. Although an informative interview Cesar does pass off as a tough guy. SRV may not have had the technical know-how but without his ears and tonal suggestions Cesar would not have been able to make the amps and FX sound the way they did.

Mike
There's no tone like your own

bluefuzzguitar
Senior Member
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:15 pm
Location: Nijmegen, Holland (Europe)
Contact:

KT66's

Post by bluefuzzguitar » Thu Jan 08, 2004 4:14 pm

This is an update on my original post which started this thread. My SR with 6550's I'm still very satisfied with but I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with my SR fitted with EL34's. Those of you who have read my thread on my purple RI plexi know that I have in recent months replaced the Svetlana EL34s that were in my Marshall with Sovtek KT66's which has yielded excellent results. I didn't like the early breakup EL34's gave me but I did like that British EL34 crunch. The KT66 is a great tube which gives you that British crunch as well but with more clean headroom (it is also capable of giving you an American 'glassy' clean sound). I figured, if it works in a Marshall it's got to work in a beefed-up Super as well, right? Well, me and my amp doc did have some work biasing the Fender up right (the KT66's are at 35 mA in the Fender and 40 mA in the Marshall).

Earlier this week I tried out the Fender at 35 mA for the first time and A/B-ed it with the Marshall. THIS IS IT FOR ME! I'm a BIG BIG fan of the KT66! I wish I'd discovered this tube years earlier. For a guy like me who goes for a hybrid British/American sound this is the ideal tube as it is in itself a British version of the American 6L6 and therefore a natural hybrid. It sounds big with lots of tight bass (though not as tight as the 6550, that's where the 6550 really shines), a broad midrange with just enough emphasis on the upper mids to give you that agressive crunch while still retaining warmth (this is where EL34's tend to sound too brittle IMO) and beautiful sparkling highs. What's more, the KT66's are VERY tolerant of pedals! They even like my 80's Fox/Crest blue RI fuzz face! Before that pedal only sounded good thru a Marshall so it's really exceptional that it's not sounding dull thru a Fender. The KT66's also like my Everman Fuzz Drive Deluxe and Menatone Red Snapper better than ever. WOW! I can't wait to gig this amp and I'm never going back to EL34's again. Man, I'm excited!

Mike
There's no tone like your own

User avatar
Country Boy Shane
Senior Member
Posts: 1457
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2003 11:37 pm
Location: Troy, MI
Contact:

Post by Country Boy Shane » Thu Jan 08, 2004 10:35 pm

You should change your name to Dr. Frankenstein with all your mods you are trying. The beast in your imaginatin is obviously coming alive. Watch out! :shock:
Just Feel it MAN! -Shane Gorski "Country Boy Shane"

www.flickr.com/photos/shanegorski

User avatar
jkmcgrath
Senior Member
Posts: 110
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2004 6:10 pm
Contact:

Post by jkmcgrath » Sun Feb 08, 2004 1:53 pm

The link works if you remove the period at the very end of it.
Johnny "FatBoy" McGrath

bluefuzzguitar
Senior Member
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:15 pm
Location: Nijmegen, Holland (Europe)
Contact:

Post by bluefuzzguitar » Tue Mar 09, 2004 6:11 am

Guys,

My quest for the ultimate hybrid American/British guitar tone is not at an end yet. I've decided to mod my '64 Super yet again. After gigging with the KT66-loaded Super I decided that, although the amp sounded great, it lacked the headroom it needed to compete with my other 6550-loaded Super. I'm a gigging musician and I use my Supers not as studio amps but as stage amps. With me playing the Super with KT66's I didn't stand a chance against my other guitarist blasting away thru my 6550 Super. When it comes to headroom 6550's eat KT66's for breakfast, it's as simple as that.

I do love the sound of the KT tube series, tho, and so I figured maybe KT88's would be a good solution as they will give me a similar sound to the KT66's but with added headroom. So me and my amp doc set out to work finding a sweet spot in biasing the amp with a matched set of JJ KT88's. We arrived at 40 mA. The KT88's do in fact sound similar to the KT66's (there's just a certain midrange crunch all KT's seem to have in common) but at the same time they have the punch and bottom of a 6550. A beautiful, beautiful sound.

The only problem is that I keep getting this compression coming from the amp regardless of what tubes are in there. In other words, the amp just sounds too damn dirty. Since the PT's and OT's in both amps as well as the p2p boards are similar me and my amp doc figure it's the type of wood used in the cabinet and baffle board. Rather than changing the wood, tho, we want to try a trick that Cesar Diaz mentions in the Tone Quest interview, which is to change the input resistor to a higher value to allow less signal to go into the tubes and change the values of the coupling caps as well. All of this is aimed at creating more clean headroom and making the amp sound 'friendlier'.

Last night me and my amp doc tried out a bunch of stuff. First we plugged the speaker wire of my KT88 Super into the 6550 Super. Our 'wood theory' tested true: this was exactly the tone I was looking for in my KT88 Super! Loads of clean headroom and tight bass. Apparently a different type of wood was used for the KT88 Super, which is a '64, than for the 6550 Super (a '66). The wood of the '64 Super makes for a spongier sound with more compression in the lower and upper mids whereas the wood of the '66 Super sounds warmer and tighter.

The first thing we changed was the .022 coupling cap in the preamp section to .047. This cap is in between the bass and mid tonestack. The result was friendlier mids and tighter low end. We knew we were on the right track! We took out the .047 cap and changed it to .1. Bingo! There was the tight low end I was looking for! We then proceeded to change the input resistor from 68k to 100k. This allows less signal to go into the tubes, thus creating a cleaner overall sound with more headroom. The result was yummie! I A/B'ed the KT88 SR with the 6550 SR and now the KT88 SR sounded better than the 6550 SR! KT88's sound more musical to my ears than 6550's, which tend to sound very sterile as opposed to the KT88's warm and crunchy mids. The added headroom created by the cap and resistor mods kept everything nice 'n tight.

We also fiddled around with the bias values of the KT88's. The KT88's were at 40 mA when we started which sounded great. We went down to 38 mA but the tubes started to sound thinner and fizzier. We upped the bias to 42 mA and the sound was getting too spongy yet again. We set the bias back to 40 mA and there was that lovely dark and tight character again. 40 mA really is a sweet spot for these tubes in this particular amp. Í'm very happy with the way this amp sounds now. Seems like amp #3 is finished and ready to start gigging!

Mike
There's no tone like your own

User avatar
Country Boy Shane
Senior Member
Posts: 1457
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2003 11:37 pm
Location: Troy, MI
Contact:

Post by Country Boy Shane » Wed Mar 10, 2004 9:50 pm

Now for the real question. How long did it take you to do all that? Sounds like a real quest you are having with your Super Reverbs!
Just Feel it MAN! -Shane Gorski "Country Boy Shane"

www.flickr.com/photos/shanegorski

Post Reply