Trem-O-Nator Poll and projects

[sluckey]

Hey guys, there seems to be more interest in the Trem-O-Nator than I ever thought there would be. I'd like to know what amp(s) you have installed this mod. Please share your opinions and comments (good and bad). Show us your schematic too. And if you have a sound clip demo please post the file or a link.

Please, no derailers. THX... Steve

Here's a link to the basic circuit...

     http://sluckeyamps.com/trem/trem.htm

[sluckey]

I've only installed the TON in my '67 Bandmaster. This amp became my test bed as the circuit evolved. I'm very pleased with the sound and especially the no hassle operation. Here's a link to my Bandmaster schematic and layout...

     http://sluckeyamps.com/misc/bandmaster.pdf

[yorgle]

I’ve installed it on three SE builds- all 5 watts or less- and absolutely love love it.    It does tend to kill volume a bit, but I’m ok with that as these are all living room amps anyway. 

[tony321owen]

I put it in a Bandmaster reverb. Im big into tremolo and have never been a huge fan of the fender ab763 roach trem, so when I saw Sluckey's design I bought the parts and did the modification.

 At first It didn't work but after trouble-shooting with help from Sluckey and some other nice folks on here we determined that I had a bad Xvive led optocoupler unit. I put a new one in and it has worked flawlessly ever since. Much smoother wave form than the fender roach.

The intensity is just a little less than my ideal(im a sucker for bias-vary designs) but more than enough for most reasonable situations. Im someone who likes tremolo that will make you sea sick lol.

Putting this in every blackface/silverface style fender circuit is a no brainer to me. Obviously improved design. The only reason I wouldn't put it in a fender would be if I had a showroom condition blackface fender that I wanted to keep stock for collector reasons.

[Ed_Chambley]

2 amps I use sometimes.  A 73 Super Reverb and a 75 Fender Twin.  Easy and I did not have to fiddle with the circuit or do anything special.


My Twin's voltage has been lowered and runs in class A using 4, cathode biased JJ6v6S and puts out about 32 clean watts.  This amp actually responded the best, but it could just be me.  My mind says more output tubes in Push Pull produce a thicker tone.


If I didn't have 2 amps to build I might attempt to make a pedal form.

[66Strat]

You need another polling option, "Those that plan on trying". I'm a sucker for tremolo. I actually prefer tremolo to Reverb. I will try this out. Thanks for sharing your circuit.

[punkykatt]

First one was on my home brew mongrel of a 6G16 preamp with a cathode bias 7591A PA.  Worked very well with the stock circuit 250kl intensity pot.  Second was on a customers  1965 Deluxe Reverb RI that I converted to the Hoffman AB763 hand wired circuit 15 years ago. He had brought it in for service and to have a couple of other mods done. He said he didnt care for the PA bias trem that much because it needed a cool bias to be strong so i did the TON mod too. The 250kl intensity pot  in that circuit produced a much weaker trem than my home brew. I put in a 50kRA pot and the trem was much stronger.

[purpletele]

I installed the TON upgrade on one of my AB763 amps and it works very well.

I am just finishing up the mod on my Princeton Reverb.

I'll tackle my other AB763 soon.

[tubenit]

I successfully installed one on my (now renamed) Carolina Special - RT. 

The thread is here:  http://el34world.com/Forum/index.php?topic=25766.0

With respect, Tubenit

[yorgle]

Somewhere between sleep and wakefulness this morning I envisioned sticking the wobble-wire, i.e., variable ground, to the ground side of the tone cap on my G20 build and see what kind of effect (if any) that creates- a "tone-o-lo" perhaps?

[finkaudio]

Hi,

today I had the time to install the Trem-O-Nator in my Guyatone GA-1050 amp (Twin type, but with two 6L6 only). Done in less than one hour and no problem whatsoever. Works absolutely wonderful, very powerful intensity and good speed range. No noise, no ticking, nothing! This a great mod!


But now I don't know what to do with the leftover half tube    Any ideas?


Thanks Sluckey for sharing !


Best regards

KH

[Toxophilite]

I have it in my vibrolux reverb build and it's great. Much appreciated and thanks!
I like that fact that it's not so finicky as a bias vary and the tremelo doesn't distort in the unpleasant bias vary way when used at higher volumes.


Has there been an iteration developed for smaller powered amps?


I have a stereo deluxe reverb using 7189s I'd like to try it in as well as my princeton powered deluxe reverb which has noise problems with the tremelo circuit.

[sluckey]

Has there been an iteration developed for smaller powered amps?

This is a preamp mod. Power amp is not a factor.

[Toxophilite]

Duuh! of course. Silly question. Maybe I'll go find some more vactrols!

[dwinstonwood]

sluckey, I see this uses one half of a 12AX7. If one was to build a 5E3 with only one pair of inputs, using only half of the 12AY7, would your circuit work correctly using that other half of the 12AY7? Or, does it need the gain of a 12AX7?

Thanks,
David

[sluckey]

The oscillator needs a strong high gain tube. A 12AY7 only has a gain of 40, much too low.

[dwinstonwood]

Got it. Thanks!

[ac427v]

Finally done with my TON Plexi Vibroverb. It took some experimenting to make it work well in an amp without the natural insertion point of the blackface roach trem. I found great results using the intensity pot as a variable resistor to control the amount of signal grounding the photocell provides. Previous efforts using a variety of pot values wired as a pot were not intense enough to suit me. Great circuit!edited to correct schematic

[tubenit]

Hey THANKS for sharing the schematic!   Looks like a great amp!

With respect, Tubenit

[DummyLoad]

Finally done with my TON Plexi Vibroverb. It took some experimenting to make it work well in an amp without the natural insertion point of the blackface roach trem. I found great results using the intensity pot as a variable resistor to control the amount of signal grounding the photocell provides. Previous efforts using a variety of pot values wired as a pot were not intense enough to suit me. Great circuit!

question about connection marked in attachment.

--pete

[DummyLoad]

happy with this effects unit as shown in the attached schema. done with breadboard experiments & planning layout for build.

--pete

[ac427v]

My drawing mistake. Thanks Pete for a good catch!
Corrected some more.

[DummyLoad]

My drawing mistake. Thanks Pete for a good catch!

resistor between power supply rail nodes E and D: is it really a 4.7Ω  or do you mean 4.7KΩ? assuming 4.7KΩ


--pete

[bmccowan]

I just completed replacing the stock trem circuit in a previously trashed AB763 Concert with the trem-o-nator circuit. Love it - nice and smooth. I did some other circuit changes to this amp and have some questions, so will start another thread.

[thetragichero]

installed in my oft-modded pawnshop excelsior (which, "like grandpa's ax" doesn't particularly resemble the excelsior at this point) and it's not working, although it is quite likely that's due to my error. just haven't had the desire to open 'er up again to figure out what's going on, but someday
choose it because it's way simpler to layout on tagboard than the mosfet-based trem that was in there. I'm hopeful to get it sorted whenever i get the itch to bust back in there

[Backwoods Joe]

used the first schematic on a Martin 112T clone. Works great!

[Greenwichpaul]

The oscillator needs a strong high gain tube. A 12AY7 only has a gain of 40, much too low.

I guess a 5751, gain 70 wouldn't be enough? Wondering if I could make that idea (single input 5E3) work with two of those.

If I simply added another 12AX7 to a 5E3 build for the trem would I need another node on the power supply chain or would I simply power from the B+3 preamp node?

(and yes, parts stocked up, just sweating the details).

[sluckey]

Fender usually just used the screen node to supply the tremolo oscillator.

[Greenwichpaul]

...and is the 5751 a no go for the oscillator?

[sluckey]

yes