... I have to turn the treble way down and the bass up otherwise it sounds very thin and tinny. ...
Is the Bass control drawn in the correct place? A typical spot would be across that 0.01µF cap, with the Bass pot wired as a rheostat in series with the 330pF cap. The 0.01µF cap then sets the maximum bass available, and as the pot resistance is dialed down the 330pF cap is placed in parallel giving a total capacitance smaller than the 330pF cap. That means minimum bass is determined by the total value of the coupling cap in parallel with the Bass pot cap.
As drawn, it does something similar but also makes the apparent value of the Treble pot 270pF cap smaller, which will make turning up the treble very harsh.
Do you see the Bridged-T filter in this amp, between the Volume pot wiper and the grid of V1B? Try bypassing that (unhooking it and/or a wire straight from wiper to grid).
The T-filter has "mismatched" caps. The 470pF position is considered "0.5C" while the 3.3nF position is considered "2C" so the former is sized for C=1nF while the latter is sized for C=1.5nF. Overall, this probably just broadens the notch (which is perhaps not a bad thing). 1nF against 250kΩ implies a notch at ~636Hz, while 1.5nF against 250kΩ implies a notch at ~424Hz.
You could add R between the 3.3nF and ground to reduce the amount of midrange notch (strengthen mids a bit). Or you could keep the caps as they are and adjust the resistors to sweep the notch up & down (bigger R will move the notch frequency lower, and smaller R higher). I did both to the T-filter of my 25L15-type amp, and the moving notch frequency can change the apparent character of the amp a LOT.
The Treble and Bass controls are somewhat akin to the control in a Tweed Deluxe where midrange is left alone and simple high/low-pass filters control the response. The bridged-T is likely added to get a midrange notch would would have been typical for many 60's amps. You could remove the bridged-T for more of a 50's sound, or tinker the caps to tune the notch for a more 60's sound.
I've used 1nF in place of the 470pF, and 5nF in place of the 3.3nF with 250kΩ resistors to form a T-filter with good results. Again, varying the R's will sweep the midrange frequency higher or lower even though the caps are kept constant.
Hi guys, I have two amps of similar design, one takes pedals (boss blues driver and DD1) well and the other not so good.
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I know the circuits aren't exactly the same but I not cluie enough to know why some amps take pedals well and some don't. 
I don't know exactly why either. I do notice for your amp which doesn't play well, there is a lot of crap between the first grid and ground, no matter which input is used. For example, as drawn everything on the Bass input (except the 82kΩ) is in parallel with the 47kΩ resistor drawn at the Lead input. There's a lot of odd tone-shaping right at the input which may not be needed (classic amps which seem to "take pedals well" often have noting but a resistor or two here).
I was never much of a pedal user, though I'm starting to amass some now. I suspect this "takes pedals well" thing is overhyped or is too broadly applied. At a minimum, it tells you nothing about what's going on, and so also no way to fix it.
You may have seen "That Pedal Show" on YouTube (if not, stop NOW and go watch some!!). They did a series of 3 videos on "Ultimate Overdrives" which is fabulous, and also highlights that whether a given pedal gets a pleasing sound can be heavily dependent on the particular guitar (and pickup) and amps used. Similar results are demonstrated in a lot of their other videos, where a pedal sounds great or lousy depending on whether the amp receiving the pedal output is running very clean, already distorted, or then amp/speakers have a particular overall sound of their own.
It has also been instructive (and amusing!) to me that many pedals the show's hosts love get amazing distortion sounds, but often only when set in the relatively clean part of their range. Examples include the Klon (often set with the gain near off), King of Tone (they rarely mention it, but internal dip switches are set for Clean rather than OD or Distortion, so the pedal is used in the lower/lowest ranges of distortion available), any Klon-style pedals, and many of the other OD/distortion pedals.
Topic: COMPARING CIRCUITS (Read 2716 times)