New here, obligatory Tokai pics

[ez]

Hi All,

I'm a bedroom bluesrock player from South Africa. About a year ago I got my first real Les Paul, a 2009(2010 maybe?) LS92 Goldtop. Really awesome guitar. I replaced the pickups with a Bareknuckle Mule and Black Dog and was rather surprised by the small difference they made. The stock Tokai pups are really good, afterall

I also rewired it to 50s style wiring as I 'change channels' on my amp using the volume knob and don't want the treble to get rolled off when I roll the volume down.

Here's a pic or two:
The day I got it.

My rig. The amplifier is an 18 watt Marshall that I built shortly after I got the Tokai. They have ruined basically every other rig I get to play. My full rig is these two and 2 cables and a tuner :wink:

Now I just need a flametop...

 

[jonah65]

welcome ez, great setup, what speakers are in the cab? 8)

 

[ez]

Thanks. The cab is a Marshall 2061cx, there's two G12H30s in there. A bit heavy but I'll live with that

 

[jonah65]

no effects pedals at all? can you crank the amp up in your bedroom?
great looking /92 by the way, the mark 2 pickups sound good in my /80 so i have'nt got round to trying any others.

 

[ez]

No pedals. I had the foresight to install a power scaler (VVR) into the amp, so yes, I can crank that amp basically whenever I want to. I can dial it to about 0.5 watt and all the way to 18. Its only been on 18 watt at gigs twice. Usually we play it at about 10 watt at gigs and at home I have it on about 2-4 I would guess. Every amp should have power scaling. Removes the need for those pesky pedals

 

[jonah65]

where did you get the vvr from, or did you build it yourself? where abouts on the amp did you fit it, sounds just what i need.
i,m using a gt10 at the moment, killer sounds, even through headphones.

 

[ez]

I built it as part of the amp. Its a mosfet, pot and some resistors. you can buy vvr kits from hall or londonpower. mine only scales the power tbes and phase inverter. works a charm.

 

[jonah65]

ez, have you got a schematic, is it the same as an attenuator, power soak?
sounds interesting.

 

[ez]

I certainly do

Here's an 18 Watt Lite IIb schematic:

http://rh-tech.org/public/18-Watt/18_Watt_LiteIIb_VVR_PA_PI_141.gif

My amp is like this but have the Superlite and Lite IIB channels. The inset shows the VVR and the main schematic shows where that VVR goes in the power supply. It basically controls the voltages on lines A,B and C which provides the plate voltages to the power tubes and the phase inverter. So the tubes don't make the signal as big as they would have and you end with less volume.

An attenuator sits between the output transformer and the speaker, basically eating up excess power to make the volume less. So this is different and, some would argue, an improvement.

If you have a cathode biased amp, like mine, installing a basic VVR which scales the entire amp is pretty simple. You can buy a pre-made VVR board from Hall or London Power. You can also do the same if your amp is fixed biased but the installation is more difficult. Also, scaling the entire amp has a negative effect on the tone (browns out and fizzes) when you turn the VVR very low, this effect is smaller if you just scale the power section, but then you must compensate for the lower voltages in the power section by turning the volume down on the amp, as it will drive earlier at lower voltages (which is what we want!). I can see few drawbacks to VVR, if any.

Another member of this forum, singemonkey, can attest to the practicality of the VVR. This amp is MUCH MUCH too loud to crank at home at full power through my 2x12 (100dB speakers), and may be OK without VVR with a single greenback or other ~96dB speaker at gigs, not at home and certainly not at night. So for me there was little choice, luckily I have a friend who built one of these before and he warned me of the volume.

What amp do you use? This system is of little use if you want to use a clean amp with effects. This is only really useful if you want to get your overdrive from the power tubes. Some people don't like that sound (or maybe they're just not used to it).

 

[ez]

BTW, here's what the amp sounds with the VVR at about 30%, used my LS92 before I replaced the stock pickups.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMB1dwtRtmM

 

[jonah65]

beautiful tone ez, i have a laney gh50l, which is only usable at vol 1 in the bedroom, hence the effects pedals.
recently i've been playing through the gt10 into a pair of fender champion 30's. the volume control on the boss allows you to bring it down really low, but keeps as much distortion, sustain as you want.
excellent for covering up all my mistakes :lol: .

 

[singemonkey]

Took yer time sport.

 

[Anonymous]

This amp sounds fantastic and more important it's possible to use the distortion at room level ! Awesome.So you simply ordered the parts and after putting all together it sounded like this or was it necessary to work and tune a little til you got it there ?

 

[ez]

This amp sounds fantastic and more important it's possible to use the distortion at room level ! Awesome.So you simply ordered the parts and after putting all together it sounded like this or was it necessary to work and tune a little til you got it there ?

Yeah, it sounded like this from the start, worked the first time I switched it on (beginner's luck). I added a Zobel filter to the output to take care of some blocking distortion that is common in these amps (but shouldn't be there). Room level, yep.

I ordered the parts from www.valvepower.co.uk. He (Steve) supplies pre-packaged kits for the Lite IIB variant, like the schematic above, but because I wanted something different I sent him a list of parts and he provided everything. He doesn't include instructions but every last other bit (incl valves, head cab, or combo cab if you wish) is included. He'll do custom orders too. Great guy.

There's some great demos on youtube of 18 watts. Look for the guy called 'skaboosh', also the Marshall 1974x (which this is a clone of), Retroking 18 and Reinhardt 18. They all have the same circuit as this.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot ! I will check this over the weekend.Really a nice amp.