Hello, I just came back from my weekly surf rehearsal and feel disappointed with the sound of my Supersonic 22. When I play it alone, it sounds great but as soon as I play it with other musicians I feel like all bass and middle are gone. I just hear a crapy gring gring sound full of trebles. I have changed the speaker for a Canabis rex. Do you think it is due to a lake of power and the amp is not able to generate enough bass ? or what could it be ? Thanks a lot !!

Last edited: Nov 26, 2017 17:47:10

Thanks a lot for your answer Jake! tubes are new, I will try what you have mentionned.

Make me think of thé trouble i have with m'y drri
Dépend how loud your drummer play
Thé drri was not enought powerfull (it was in thé zone where it beguin to crunch ,sound beguin to bé thin ând too much trebly ,with work of ton of amp it doesn t improve very much ) ,with m'y supersonic 60 ,the trouble is gone

Last edited: Nov 15, 2017 00:56:41

What Guitar are you using?

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Yvoo wrote:

It’s a 1962 jaguar.

Single coil guitars can get lost in the mix, depending upon what other instruments are in the band. That Supersonic has a .047 cap in the tone stack at C6. This shunts a lot of midrange to ground and gives The amp its classic Fender blackface sound, which accentuates the highs and lows but doesn’t have a lot of midrange. Replacing C6 with a .022 cap would boost midrange noticeably and give you a better chance of cutting through the mix. The same would hold true for a DRRI, too.

The “Custom” channel of the ‘68 Custom Deluxe Reverb has this mod to the tone circuit and it makes a significant difference. It’s also a great Surf amp. I have both a DRRI and a ‘68 CDR. The DRRI gets the classic blackface sound, but it’s not nearly as strong in the midrange as the ‘68 CDR. Guess which is used more often.

You could work from the other end, so to speak, and use stronger pickups in your Jag. More powerful pickups tend to favor lower frequencies, but you might lose some of the highs of the Jaguar. Frankly, I’d swap the cap, or pay a known good tech to do it for you.

A few years ago, a friend bought a Strat and used it at our next gig. About four songs in, he became angry with me for cutting him out of the mix, but that was nothing I was doing. He had not been accustomed to the thin sound of single coils and was getting lost in the mix. Some knob twiddling and he found a more suitable sound, but it took a while.

As Jake pointed out, you can back the tone knob down and change the sound there, too. On my old Jaguar, that was a necessity. Jags have a 1 megohm tone pot, IIRC, so rolling it back a ways only puts you on par with a Strat or Tele. Jaguars are great guitars, but they do require a bit more forethought than the average Strat or Tele.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Last edited: Nov 26, 2017 20:31:32

It’s probably as close as I’ll ever get to a Brownface.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Badger wrote:

I agree with synchro, looking at the SS22 schematic there's much to like in terms of potential & it's at the tone stack. Swapping out that cap at C6, with a 15K resistor already tied off the bass pot, would probably do wonders. Then you can likely get into territory where you're turning the bass below mid-point & the treble up. (Remembering we typically also hear the harmonic not just the fundamental, so turning up the bass knob chasing bass & midrange often just muddies things up.)

JakeDobner wrote:

The '68s are so good...

+2 Still thorougly enjoying my CDR.

That’s exactly what o do with mine. I set the bass at 4, treble at 6 and let fly. I recently put a very balanced set of JJs in it and biased it slightly hot (443v, 20ma) and it really sings.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Yvoo wrote:

Thx for the answers and sharing your experience. Very interesting the strat episode.

It's happened to many a Strat player. That isn't to say that there's anything wrong with a Strat, or a Jaguar, but both of those instruments require care when carving out a sonic space in a band.

I'm generally a clean player 100% of the time, but when I played a Jaguar I used just a breath of overdrive and it worked beautifully. The other guitarist in that band played a three pickup Tele and he could bury me if I didn't thicken the sound slightly. Then, one fine day, I played a chicken-pickin' Country solo on that Jag that sounded like a Telecaster on steroids. The Tele player was astounded.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Does the 68 custom deluxe reverb keep up well with s drummer? He’s not too gentle. I like the idea of the amp but worry about getting stuck in ‘rock’ mode if the amp has to be dimed to keep up

I guess you don’t know till you try it at a gig. Thanks for the advice about the cap. I play amps around 20-35w these days, it’s always a gamble about headroom and breakup. Twins? Boat anchor for me, glad a I dumped mine