[Harp-L] Victoria 45410-T: some tube etc. advice needed

["samblancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi V.P.,

 

I want to chime in with Gary B. here - I think he's absolutely right on
everything here.  But I wanted to add a couple of other points as well.  

 

First off, on the rectifier tube: A 5U4 or a 5R4 are great choices but I
want to suggest you at least try a 5Y3 as well.  This is what I use in my
Holland (another amp based on a Bassman) and it works great.  The 5Y3 adds a
great deal of sag; so much so that your notes will be almost enveloped in a
throaty tone.  The other thing you get from a rectifier this low in gain is
that when you do effects like kiss pops or when you sound a note just for an
instant, like when switching from draw to blow and back to draw the response
is very sharp and you pick up every little bit of tone but it plays out in
that sag envelope.  I know this sounds inexact but the 5Y3 just seems to
pick up the subtleties better and helps to produce a really fat sound.  

 

As for biasing your amp I wanted to point out that if you go lower in gain
on the rectifier, and all the above ones are lower in gain, then you
shouldn't have to re-bias the amp. But as far as biasing goes when you have
it done, bias it on the cool side and this will help with feedback as well.


 

One other suggestion is that if you're going to re-bias, then get the
Chinese Coke Bottle 6L6s.  Groove tube caries them and you can get them as a
matched pair at a 1-3 rating (this is Groove Tubes own rating system; the
low rated ones produce more break up.  These will give you more early
break-up than regular 6L6s.

 

Gary's suggestion on the Pre-amp tube line up (from your jack to the power
tubes: 12AT7, 12AU7, 12AY7 is exactly how I have mine set up.  It sounds
really thick and there's plenty of crunch.  I have to say though that there
are a lot of combos for preamp tubes that work well and it's a matter of
taste here.  Just leave the 12 AX7 out of the first two positions- they
cause way too much feed-back.  Putting a 12AX7 in your primary spot (the one
next to the power tubes) can work real nice -I did that for a while- but it
does really bump up the gain.  

 

I can't comment on the equalizing controls too much since my amp is a
different brand but *I* usually put the presence on mine all the way up and
I find that when I play low keyed harps like low F, low, E and G I usually
like to kick up the treble two notches as they cut better this way.  Also,
it you want to play Juke and sound like Little Walter (as much as you can
anyway) you need the treble to be up there.  

 

As for jumping channels, if Gary B. means tying the normal and bright
channels together with a short patch cord, that's how I have mine set up all
the time.  There's 8 different ways to do this as you'll see when you do it.
I patch Normal 1 to Bright 2 and plug in to Normal 2.  I honestly don't know
*how* the different combinations change the sound but I do know that when
you work with both channels you get a little bit more control.  If you plug
into Normal, that volume control will be more sensitive and the Bright can
then be use to add volume (and what ever "brightness" you get with this
channel) but in finer increments.  If you reverse the patching arrangement
it creates a slightly different sound when you bring up your volume
controls.  

 

Finally, I don't know if your Victoria has a reverb with it but if it
doesn't get a Digitech Digital Delay, rather than a reverb.  You'll actually
get a nicer reverb this way.  And here is the thing.  Rather than using a 9v
battery, go to Radio Shack, get a variable power adapter for the Delay and
set the power at 4.5v instead of 9v.  Use the Delay as a reverb by setting
the function knob on 4 and adjusting the other for a very slight delay,
almost none at all. Running the Delay Pedal at 4.5v will give you a quality
of crunch that I can't describe - you'll have to try it. 

 

One more thing here: the way you hold your mic effects how you will sound a
lot.  If you don't have a nice, tight cup with you hands around the mic you
will loose a lot of the bottom end - your bass- and it will sound thin and
airy no matter how you have the amp equalized.  

 

Hope this helps instead of just making it all sound like a lot of trouble.

 

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh