surferjoemusic wrote:

So ALL OF YOU in this thread love Quilter amps I assume..., no?!?!?

Looking at one of your recent videos using the Quilter Tone Block I'm utterly impressed.

bjoish wrote:

Quilter seems interesting!
I wonder if I can find any shops here that have them...

http://www.jazzisten.dk/QUILTER looks to be the only European dealer at the moment.

The MOD pan came today from Antique Electronic Supply, and I demo'ed the Accutronics pan, which sounded good at first but after 'warming up' (???someone explain this) started fuzzing out again. I feared maybe the FET unit was doing something weird after IT warmed up... but switching out the old for the new pan, I entered pristine reverb nirvana, without a trace of fuzz, and it stayed clean at every setting. MOD pan a lot more gainy; with longer tails (I miss the Accutronics sound, actually)

So, problem solved and reverb up to snuff! I may try replacing the pan on the vintage Gibson SS Reverb III to see if its sonics are improved, now that I hear how much improved the effect is with a fresh pan. I recently spent more than $100 recapping the old thing; worth another $20 to try to tune it up further.
ludobag wrote:

how do you set up it ?
cause if with 5 5 5 or 6 6 6 you have fuzz it is probably the pan
even on my little vox who crunch very easy ,the reverb don't crunch at all

stratdancer ,it is not surf at all !

Squink Out!

Last edited: Sep 29, 2014 22:53:16

i have completely skip the bypass button cause the fet verb is in my sound
i don't want to know how it sound without
cause it is always engaged maybe if i want less reverb i will descrease the pot but it is a part of my sound (i play surf of course!!and even if i would like to play something else i let in the circuit)
if you want no effect when off on your sound you must wire it with a 3pdt like a pedal
true bypass approch it is not really hard to do, you need a swicth to make a switching betwenn the in and the out ,first position to fet reverb in ,the second the in to out directly by a wire ,with a 3 pdt you will have the switching of led too ,with dpdt no light

Last edited: Sep 30, 2014 11:39:34

sonni wrote:

tubeswell once proposed possible mods against the volume-drop of the fender reverb (the first one sounds easy, sort of a pot with a treble-bleed somewhere...)
do you think that could also work for the FET-reverb?

tubeswell wrote:

so if it's problematic to boost the wet signal at the
Reverb Recovery section, maybe it would be easy
possible to lower the dry signal a little?

One way of doing this in the 6G15 circuit would be a voltage divider between the bypass stage's output coupling cap and the mixing control. If you were seriously considering that, you should use a 500k-1M (audio taper) pot so you can experiment with the amount of dry signal reduction. You also may want to put a bright cap across the input-wiper lug of any such pot (if you did this) so you keep the highs when the pot is in 'cut' mode. It would be more of a PITA to implement because you need a space to mount the pot etc.

Another way would be to reconfigure the CF (bypass) stage to have a lower output. In the 6G15 circuit the CF stage is fixed bias, so if you decreased the cathode resistor (to say something like 56k - I wouldn't go any lower with a 12AX7 stage because it will run too hot otherwise), you would also want to change both of the (2M2) bias resistors, so that the grid was biased properly w.r.t. the cathode voltage. (Another way of dealing with the biasing would be to convert the CF stage to cathode-bias, by removing the both the 2M2 resistors and putting a 1k bias resistor between the cathode and the (new - lower value) cathode resistor, and putting in a 470k-1M grid load resistor from the grid to the junction of the new bias resistor and cathode resistor. This would make the biasing of the CF stage automatic, and you could experiment a bit more with cathode resistor values. But I would keep an eye on the h-k voltage and the tube current - to keep within 12AX7 'spec').

Maybe you should try a trimpot instead of the cathod/source resistor.
Then you can lower the dry signal to match the wet. But the next time you adjust Dwell/Mix/Tone you might also need to adjust the trimpot again...
Not so fun, I suppose.

Great insights, BJB!

BJB wrote:

The Fender mixer circuit is really quite primitive and terrible;
I don't believe a surf reverb unit can be built unless it has the same flaws as the original.

Those two statements alone should be pinned somewhere.
Classic Taoist poetry.

Perhaps the various digital pedals don't sound right because the designers know about the flaws and want to fix them, but the result gives too many highs (icepick reverb).

With my setup, everything maxed out on the Topanga sounds about as icepick-y as FRV-1 on 4-4-4, they tried to compensate it the other way; the infidels.
What they need are testers that actually play Surf music regularly and know more than Pipeline. Catalinbread's philosophy is to please and appeal to as many crowds as it can, while the Roland machines do with their own crazy special ways.
Though I don't believe somehow injecting the volume difference of the original circuit into an emulation would to any good to anybody... They don't follow it that closely anyway...

This is why the Surfy Bear reverb works so well; ...

It does! Big open sound, beautiful at whatever setting. I'm kinda getting with Ludobag on this, why turn it off indeed?

I also true-bypassed mine, just because. Clean and complete solution.
image

Last edited: Sep 30, 2014 19:12:43

bjoish wrote:

BTW, I have ordered the stickers. But the company I ordered from is very slow and asks a lot of questions. I wonder if this is the first time they print stickers

Oddly enough I watched the process of making stickers on youtube last week (I was bored) I thought it would be just a case of printing them out but it's actually quite a skilled process!

Great mod idea, Dread! I may give it a shot. Still in 'always-on' mode at this point...

DreadInBabylon wrote:

Great insights, BJB!

BJB wrote:

The Fender mixer circuit is really quite primitive and terrible;
I don't believe a surf reverb unit can be built unless it has the same flaws as the original.

Those two statements alone should be pinned somewhere.
Classic Taoist poetry.

Perhaps the various digital pedals don't sound right because the designers know about the flaws and want to fix them, but the result gives too many highs (icepick reverb).

With my setup, everything maxed out on the Topanga sounds about as icepick-y as FRV-1 on 4-4-4, they tried to compensate it the other way; the infidels.
What they need are testers that actually play Surf music regularly and know more than Pipeline. Catalinbread's philosophy is to please and appeal to as many crowds as it can, while the Roland machines do with their own crazy special ways.
Though I don't believe somehow injecting the volume difference of the original circuit into an emulation would to any good to anybody... They don't follow it that closely anyway...

This is why the Surfy Bear reverb works so well; ...

It does! Big open sound, beautiful at whatever setting. I'm kinda getting with Ludobag on this, why turn it off indeed?

I also true-bypassed mine, just because. Clean and complete solution.
image

Squink Out!

I love mine. Like someone said earlier, Bjourn deserves the nobel prize for creating authentic tank mojo for less than synthesized pedal cost.

The Kahuna Kings

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Kahuna-Kings/459752090818447

https://thekahunakings.bandcamp.com/releases

Last edited: Oct 03, 2014 21:26:05

The "You've Got Reverb" Tank

I'm thinking of building a Surfy Bear and putting it inside a freakin' plastic mailbox

The board should fit on the inside of the door and, being plastic, there should be no short-circuit problems. Easy enough to add a luggage-style handle. What really sells me on the idea is that the box is "US Postmaster General Approved".

Gotta loose that flag, tho.

Last edited: Oct 03, 2014 22:07:11

Hi Bjorn. I received your beautiful FET Reverb board yesterday thank you.

I am fitting it to a ready made chrome Mojo USA chassis and of course none of your pots & sockets fit because the holes are American standard (too big). It isn't a problem because I have most of the correct sized parts already.

But I notice you use RCA Sockets with insulated washers which my replacement part doesn't have. Question. Does it matter if the RCA Sockets are earthed to the chassis? Thanks.