Metropoulos Forum

had a guy back east contact me to help him dial in his rig. He says he has one last amp in his life and wants the best. love working with guys like this that just get the fact that its not simply - go out and buy an ash body guitar, EVH pup, and a plexi and wha la. He sent me the guitar he wants to couple with the amp to get WACF tone. EVH Art Series B&W Franky. Basswood, maple, floyd, ? pup.
Amp parts are on order (thanks again Valvestorm!) and C.M. PT.

I received his axe last night and plugged into my rig to see if it was in the ballpark. a short review:

guitar looks decent actually. certainly not accurate but it has the vibe and for under a grand, it actually plays killer!

tone - it has the general mid and high voicing but is similar to a Pod trying to be a Plexi. bottom end was slack, muted, no articulation, and had no balls. I was worried that the basswood was contributing and it was a lost cause. I tore into the electronics. couple odd notable finding: crappy 250k pot, not EVH pots. pup wasnt F spaced which is weird since its not slanted. it was mounted to the body so thats cool. surprised that if Ed had any input on this, why he'd drop a 250k pot in there and not put a trem spaced pup if its not slanted.
I swapped the pot for a hotter 500k pot (actual 550k) and an SH-11 custom custom i had lying around.





plugged back in and holy $hit - night and day difference. the guitar has all the goods and will certainly couple well with the amp he'll get. he already has a slave rig, 2 cabs, RV7, Neunaber Wet, and the goods up front. He'll add a #1 EP pre and hopefully wet his pants when he plugs in...

Build details to follow.

Just what The Basement needs too !

Well done. Just goes to show that one needs to pay attention to the details.

This is going to be interesting

I'm excited for this guy, he's going to need a 24-pack of golden diapers just for the first week alone! Is the client leaning towards NOS or a mix or all modern. Lets hear Eric take it around the block a couple times when it's done.

gimme summa' dat

Four in a row...

Strat78 wrote:I'm excited for this guy, he's going to need a 24-pack of golden diapers just for the first week alone! Is the client leaning towards NOS or a mix or all modern. Lets hear Eric take it around the block a couple times when it's done.

It's gonna be a mix. Old tone caps and preamp tubes. Rest will be newer stuff. Choice trannies and EH fat bottles. First care package from robert arrived yesterday. Second in route. Will start as soon as the PT arrives from Chris.

Just in time for Halloween.....Thrilla...

ok so here we go. power section is complete. here's a few sequential images, along with one immediately after the Giants won...didnt share that one with the owner. He's from Missouri...

funny how we're never satisfied. opted to try 2 5k6s on pin 5. oh, and i added Larry ground lugs after tranny installs so they had to be removed. drill those holes first.










gifs upload

YMI5150? wrote:ok so here we go. power section is complete. here's a few sequential images, along with one immediately after the Giants won...didnt share that one with the owner. He's from Missouri...

funny how we're never satisfied. opted to try 2 5k6s on pin 5. oh, and i added Larry ground lugs after tranny installs so they had to be removed. drill those holes first.










gifs upload

You drill bigger holes for the 100uf pi cap?

No, Jer, just a bigger retaining ring.

3.5 hours last night got the wiring finished. I'd say this was around 15 hour build. I'm a strain relief, 1 amp fuse, and 1 preamp tube away from noise.

we may have an epic Summit this weekend with 4 plexis to compare. Fingers crossed on this build being wrapped up in time.

the huge pot on v1b is temporary. i want to dial it in with his guitar and get his gain structure where he wants it, along with the adjustable NFB, he'll be pretty happy.

i dropped the upper bright channel input resistor down from 68k and when paralleled up with the other drops impedance from 34ish to 22ish. i do this on all my builds to hit the first valve harder. he wants WACF tone so i'm scrambling for as much gain as i can get.

BTW, the pink cc resistors are a new company (will edit when i find the name). supposed to have the tone and stability. hoping I've found a new solution to the old Iskras and Pihers.

also curious if theres a big difference between the 5.6k swamp and 1.5k. i have some huge 2w ccs but threw some 5.6ks on another build and it was killer. will likely leave this build as-is and put 1.5k Iskras on mine when they arrive.

Tubes will be a 50s Ratheon long black plate in v1 for gain, old gray plates in v2 and v3 for compression, and EH fat bottles in the power section.

Stay tuned for clips

Fantastic build kevin! I cant wait to hear it.

alright. what an epic day! holy shit...

to set the stage, the fam departed for a few days so the rooms got rearranged a bit. tables came in to hold 4 plexis, a power amp, variacs, attenuators, recording, gear, and....beer...., one cabinet in the closet, the other in the tile bathroom with the '57 in the shower behind angled glass doors. Page would be proud.

the objective of this build was to get an EVH Art Series Franky close to WACF and Fair Warning tone. i think we're there. No post production. Just panning and leveling the mics.

The amp settled in nicely. had to mess with resistors to get the bias within range. the amp's biased hot at 50aA@90vac. the recording is at 80vac and attenuated 4 dB.



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