Newbie dreaming of a strange tube amp

[jon bondy]

I have played guitar for 55 years, and built my first [solid state] guitar amp when I was a teenager.  I am not a stranger to electronics or fabrication.

I have been living in the modeling world (Fractal Audio AX8, Mooer GE300, Headrush Core, Strymon Iridium), but heard a tube amp with stunning tone (Fyd), and am considering a tube amp.

What is stunning tone?  In my book, sustain, distortion, gain, but without fuzz, a liquid, pure tone.  It is easy to get fuzz tones.  Maybe a Santana sound?  Or David Gilmour.

I am used to modelers, where I can select from a variety of amps and/or amp setups with a foot switch.  So,  I want to head in this direction.  Not just a clean channel and a dirty channel, but 4 channels with different levels of dirt.

My thought was to find an amp with the sound I like, and then attempt to have four "presets", four different gain settings, which could be switched with a foot switch.  So, clean, crunchy, distorted, and insane.

I find tube amps to be too heavy, so I was also pondering using switching power supplies to eliminate the power transformer.

These ideas may be unappealing for the tube purist.  I get it.  But perhaps some of you more experienced folk will be able to comment, push me in the right direction, or explain why I am out of my mind.

Thanks!

Jon

[Esquirefreak]

It would end up being a very complicated build, let alone as a first tube amp build.

I suggest:

× Finding a decent second hand amp, like a Marshall DSL100 for all those sounds in one box. There are several other brands and models that do alot, but more features means more money. And if you still want to tinker with tube amps, there's always the option of modding existing amps. There are alot of known amps that are good modding platforms.

× Or you could use a modeler/preamp with a separate tube or SS poweramp for flexibility.

These are, of course, just my 2 cents.

/Max

[jon bondy]

Thanks, Max!

Oh, I forgot to say that I'm fine with a 5 watt amp.  I figure most of the sound is in the over-driven pre-amp (I know that opinions may vary).

The idea of a custom build appeals to my interest in lightness and compactness.  Modding a larger amp would probably be easier in some sense.

[Esquirefreak]

I think you might be underestimating the complexity of building an amp with all those features. Building an amp with low noise floor can be difficult. And with high gain comes higher noise floor, oscillation, and many potential problems. Add switching circuits and foot switching which can be hard to set up.

I'm not telling you not to do it or that it can't be done. It's just friendly advice. Read up on how to achieve the sounds you want, from a technical/amp building perspective.

/Max

[Dave]

Just my two cents. You are going to want to work on some tube amps and get familiar with how they operate and start to develop a sense for troubleshooting because... when you finally do build a super complex amp, the first time you turn it on, it won't work. Then when you start to troubleshoot, you won't even know where to start.

Nothing wrong with preamp distortion. It is not what a lot of people are looking for, but there's nothing wrong with it. What you are looking for, sounds to me to be something akin to a Peavey Rockmaster preamp. Pretty popular high-gain, three channel, tube preamp.

Dave

[jon bondy]

Wow!  The Peavey Rockmaster preamp is very close to what I was thinking about.  Thanks so much!