A blog of my tube amp design and modification work. Primarily my own builds, but occasionally I feature work I've done on others' amps (with their permission.)

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Rocket in the pocket

So, I got the Rocket finished a while ago. I decided to add a Vox "normal channel" by using the spare gain stage through a gain pot into the other side of the phase inverter. It took a little tweaking, namely an additional grid leak, stopper, and coupling cap, but it's worth it.
Drive is reduced slightly on the TB channel, which is fine, and the single gain stage normal channel can drive the amp into overdrive just fine. The "cut" control still works for both channels, of course, since it's after the phase inverter.
I used the other side of the PI (the second triode's grid, which is usually grounded with a large cap) because the two channels are out of phase. I kept the two channels permanently bridged because I didn't feel like adding three input jacks and the ability to blend the two channels is great. You can dial in some mids to get a thicker sound than a typical Vox, or use either channel independently.
It's not a revolutionary idea, I mean, the AC30 uses the PI to mix the normal and overdrive channels with the reverb/trem signals on the second grid. Typically the normal and tb channels can't be bridged, so this is novel, at least, while bringing the pi closer to the original.
I'm tempted to add channel switching by using an on/off/on SPDT to shunt either grid to ground with a large cap. Heck, why not do it with a relay and footswitch? Ah, but how to power a relay?
Unfortunately, the rocket's going to be out of commission for a while due to a shorted output tube, but if anyone is looking for ideas about the Trainwreck "unused triode" I just have two words: normal channel.
Oh yeah, and here's a nasty gut shot as I still haven't drawn an updated schematic!
I also moved the hv fuse to the front panel because it just made way more sense there from a wiring perspective.

No comments:

Post a Comment