Since there is no mid control I would take out one of the inputs and add a 25KL pot instead of the 6.8K resistor(You can even use a 50KL) and change the input resistor to 33K. That gives you more control over the tone stack. Next is the treble bleed cap if I am calling it right which is a 250pf, you can change that to up to 500pf, use a silver mica. A lot of people decrease the 100K resistor on the tone stack, I have tried increasing it and that is a way to get more gain it's lowered in the cathode follower stack for a reason, try a 120k(I learned about that when this great sounding bandmaster I had had a 130K value because it had drifted that much). Also the plate resistor can be changed to anything up to 220K. Coupling cap anywhere from the stock .1 or .047 to .022. I would decouple the second cathodes from the other channel, use anything from 820 ohms to 2.7K and .68 to 25 mfd and even decouple the filtering. You would be surprised at the difference when you decouple the preamp stages, changes the sound of the amp. Use another 8-22mfd filter cap and either add another low value resistor or make a voltage divider for each stage, it depends on what voltages you want on each stage in your 12AX7, you can have one side low and one side high depending on how much drive you want and from were. The higher MFD cap on your B+ means tighter lows, a 10mfd cap might give a livelier sound more open like they talk about different PAF humbuckers, different cap values sometimes will do that. You can use the bright switch to change the values on your cathode cap and resistor on both stages if you use a dpdt. Use with different values for different guitars, it does change the gain structure a lot.
Also if you do not have those beautiful blue blobs of goodness try replacing the caps. If they are brown or dark blue I would replace them with either Jupiter or the SOZO blues which sound really nice. I A/Bd them with a bunch of different caps and they do make a difference for the better over orange drops and Mallory's which sounded better then many others that I tried including expensive PIO and audiophile ones.
Fender did everything cheap so when he could save money I guess he did so a little mod here or there is cool with most models. If you have some models that sound like dogs it's because they are or something is wrong. If you have a bad sounding BFSR then there is something wrong because I never heard a bad one unless it was broken some way..LOL.
And don't forget what Big Daddy always says....it don't mean anything what you do if your speakers suck.
AND...........
If you need a master volume that means you need a smaller amp....IMO.
Topic: Favorite mods to the Fender Normal channel??? (Read 27020 times)