Bright cap clip...Wow what a difference

[Jodyzuza]

Went ahead and clipped the bright cap on my '70 superlead...what a difference!
Some observations:

1) the gain is reduced BIGTIME -to get the same gain I used to get on 2, I need to turn it to about 5-6 now...not bad, but the gain has changed, less sustain at the same gain it seems. The gain / distortion became less dimensional in a way...not sure how I feel about that at this point. Something is lost...
2) tone is thicker, not my ideal tone necessarily as it's a little TOO thick
3) whereas I had both the treble and presence control to 0 in the past, and be still too bright, now I can turn both to 10 and it just about right
4) there was a HUGE volume drop, wasn't expecting that...

I'm going to leave it clipped for a while to see if I get used to it, it changed the gain structure, tone, and volume considerably...

Two thing I do want to try:

1) try different values to see what I like best
2) and possibly have a switch installed that I can switch the existing cap on and off...has anyone done this?

 

[Joshabr1]

100pf I'm telling ya u will like it. And yes you can put in a switch. But I bet with a 100pf in there u wil hear what u wanting.

 

[Jodyzuza]

100pf I'm telling ya u will like it. And yes you can put in a switch. But I bet with a 100pf in there u wil hear what u wanting.

Yup gonna order one from mojotone along with some other stuff, sounds like a good compromise! The cap clip was almost "too" radical of a change...

 

[Joshabr1]

U will like it. It's right in between

 

[allwheelz]

Thought about clipping mine for a while now, and like you I keep my treble around 0 or 1. Great description on the effect from the clip and i'm really looking forward to the outcome with the 100pf. And after seeing some of Joshabr1's collection of jmps I would have to say he knows what goodies work. I can't wait to get the balls/knowledge to try some different things with mine. Good luck on the tone quest and I hope it works out!

 

[Joshabr1]

Remember that without the bright cap you have to crank the amp to get it to sing. At least 8 or so. With a 5k bright cap it will sing on 2. With a 100pf in between but u still have to crank it up. That's very vague but u get the point.

 

[Joshabr1]

The amp shouldn't be quiter. The big bright cap is why ur vol knob acts like an on off switch. The same amp without the bright cap on 10 and with it on 4 or so will be about the same volume.

 

[dreyn77]

the bright cap is all about volume. the sound of the amp at different volume levels.
so it tries to keep the amp nice and bright for you at all volume levels.
it's just like the cap on the satriani guitar on the volume dial.
when you turn that guitar's volume down the sound stays bright as if it's still set to max volume. there's no tone change to the duller fuzzier sound that normally would happen without the cap.

So now you're amp isn't letting voltage past the volume pot and onto the speakers.

your problem is in perceiveing volume at large scales.
the amp is way more useable with the cap attached.
that bright sound is the sound of the treble pickup. gibson prints it on the switch surround even.

you want some more body to the sound you need to add some middle or neck pickup or fuzz the sound on the tone pot in the guitar.

You're now realiseing why guys like the pro's sometimes didn't want the standard sound so they started to make custom sound by changeing parts.
the normal sound is bright and you must keep changing the guitars dials to have the sounds you like.

IF you try the small combo version of the BIG JMP amp, and you use your settings on that combo amp, you'll quickly realise you haven't been perceiving the marshall sound in the 100 watt scale from the actual perseptive.

in actual reality (we know this from your settings) YOU DON'T ACTUALLY WANT THE 100WATT AMP SOUND.
You actually want and need the lower wattage amps sound but YOU DON'T know it yet.

You've missed guitar control adjusting class 101 for the last few decades and now you're struggling to hear the FULL 100watts sound.

 

[dreyn77]

the cab is setting ALL of the tone in the sound.

the amp is just making the level of the pressure waves. (how hard the sound is forced out of the cab (which makes the tone of the sound))

the cab and speakers are the only item which makes TONE. (You NEED to be told/ reminded about this point OVER AND OVER, again and again. cause you missed that class way back when )

set the presence,bass mids, trebles to MAX.
that sound IS the 100watt version of the marshall sound.
that's full brightness and max power of the speaker's TONE.

volume can and is suppose to be set where you like.
same with gain dial on master amps.

if you reduce those dial setting then NOW you have a FUZZ tone of some sort. UNLESS you have a bright cap attached to the volume pot. THEN you still have the max bright tone at the lower settings. sure it gets very thin at real low volume settings cause that small voltage is missing the pot entirely.

If your presence dial is at ZERO you have MAXIMUM fuzz tone. that tone is SO fuzzed and dull it's almost unable to be heard.
but you can cause it's a powerful amp and those -95% tone settings are still at REAL LOUD levels.
DO that/your TRICK on the combo (which indicates the REAL SOUND you're actually making) and YOU and WE can't possibly hear any reasonable sound from the speakers.

SO we MUST conclude YOUR sound tone is at the MAXIMUM setting of +0.1%. then your guitar's tone adjustment range is only adjusting between ZERO sound tone and 0.1% of the marshall sound.

set all amp EQ dials including presence to MAX, you'll have 100% marshall and celestion tone for the 100watt amp setup. then the guitar can control the FULL sound of the amp right from the guitar's dials. they now can adjust from ZERO to 100%.

if you have that pres dial at ZERO, you almost have ZERO tone, ZERO brightness, ZERO marshall sound. but it's comming to you at 100 watts of powerful force.

can you see why they invent a 1 watt amp?? the customer thinks they need a 100 watter but then they set the dials to only use 1 watts.
SO marshall caters for this customer. more sales for them!

 

[sct13]

All true, BUT!

One must learn as he goes...and Volume at 100 watts is, at least sustained, is impracticable for most people. And that bright cap can be very annoying.

Yes absolutely learn to use the volume knobs on the guitar, its the breath of music to vary the volume and therefore the feel of the passages.

Case in point; I built a 100 watt 1959 circuit in April of 2013, and it has been my test bed of all sorts of mods, I made it a superbass, I put in a PPIMV, tube rolling, NFB resistor changes, different caps for this this and that....

I just finished putting all back to original specs today, and left the bright cap for dead last.

I settled on 100k just because of the where abouts of the volume knob "most of the time"

So all this stuff has to learned by doing, and really digging in into what does what.

 

[Jodyzuza]

All true, BUT!

One must learn as he goes...and Volume at 100 watts is, at least sustained, is impracticable for most people. And that bright cap can be very annoying.

Yes absolutely learn to use the volume knobs on the guitar, its the breath of music to vary the volume and therefore the feel of the passages.

Case in point; I built a 100 watt 1959 circuit in April of 2013, and it has been my test bed of all sorts of mods, I made it a superbass, I put in a PPIMV, tube rolling, NFB resistor changes, different caps for this this and that....

I just finished putting all back to original specs today, and left the bright cap for dead last.


I settled on 100k just because of the where abouts of the volume knob "most of the time"

So all this stuff has to learned by doing, and really digging in into what does what.

Yup totally agree...that's one thing I love about the superlead that my silver jubilee suffers with...the ability to control your tone and overall gain and FEEL from the guitar. I used to have an old silver face bassman head that was like that also.

I see so many younger players insisting on multiple channels on their amps, it's all well and good but to have a single channel amp and master the control of it is wonderful. I've been playing for over 36 yrs and all I had for amps at first were single channel. You learn how to use the volume and tone controls on your guitar, that's for sure! The way the bright cap was interacting with the amp, it would never clean up from the guitar as it was all out distortion from the get go...with the cap clipped I can manipulate the tone a lot more from the guitar now...and go from pretty clean (with a little hair on it) to all out classic marshall krrrang just by using the volume knob.

I'm hoping this amp will be a test bed for some more mods, or actually un-modding some of it to my liking. I'm actually GLAD that it's not mint, so I can tweak it without messing up or otherwise altering a pure, original vintage amp...I'm gonna make it my own

 

[Jodyzuza]

100pf I'm telling ya u will like it. And yes you can put in a switch. But I bet with a 100pf in there u wil hear what u wanting.

Did it about an hour ago...what a difference!! I couldn't help cranking the volume 1 (bright channel) to 10 and just wail away (with a hotplate of course!). Sounds great with an mxr 10 band Eq with the mids pushed just a little

Thanks for the advice, Josh!!

 

[mickeydg5]

Fender liked it too.

 

[sct13]

Ok so I have been thinking about this and need to "SEE" it....er hear it...The JTM45 is a bit muddier than I like on Channel II, so on Sunday if the Honey do list is completed....I will give this a whirl....report to follow...

 

[dreyn77]

You do realise it's all guitar sound.

the amp is just giving you access to different ranges of sound.

you want a unique sound plug in the 68 fender strat.
I bet then you'd need to change the internals of your amp.

plug in the Les Paul custom, and I bet you'd need to change the internals of your amp.

plug in the DIME guitar and I bet you'd need to change the internals of your amp.


YOU see a pattern happening here?



We can see from the components you're changeing is the fact that YOU DON'T actually want 100 watts.
cause you don't understand it's just the same product as all the other models.

What you're doing is similar to taking a thumbnail pic off the net and enlarging the image to poster size and then looking at the image and saying, "Wow look at all those dots! If i just make those dots spread out then this will be a really great image I like looking at".

You're making microscopic sound changes to a giant level sound making device.
You can't possibly be playing at Madison Square Garden each week.
Therefore you wouldn't need to microscopicly mod the superlead amp.

If you guys are doing this to the SUPER SIZE amp (you've seen the movie supersize me?) THEN, you've totally mastered the smaller amps and have now reached the mountain size amp and are perfecting the mistakes of a 50year old amp company but their 30+ year old amp design.

You should get some sort of Community Award for perfection of historical products.

kinda like making the 100 year old wooden water wheel from the old mill house perfectly round.

We DON'T need to WORK ON single channel amps cause even back then, guys paid the company to work it all out for them. that's what spending money is all about. SOMEBODY else spends all their time, gladly to make the product and make it work. They've sorted out all the sounds and made the amp have the best sound.

all we need to do today is buy the latest amp. that's it. move on!
this really seems like an armish way of looking at the world....

 

[sct13]

Well no real argument there, your right of course. However another way to look at this, is wanting to learn how they work....To me there was magic in there...(the old Marshalls) and I was a kid that had a insatiable need to rip stuff apart just to see how it worked.

But my father (who is a good guy) was practical and the type to take everything to the repair guy "If it aint broke don't fix it". "Some one figured that out long ago and your way behind the curve" he would say crap like that to me...Don't get me wrong is is/was a handy guy and took me once to test tubes for the TV....he fixed it....Super dad!!!

But in his world, he grew up dirt poor, anything that was of value was coveted. Therefore a kid with a screwdriver and ambition was a dangerous entity. Especially electric stuff or clocks....

Didn't stop me, hey dad, screwdriver or a hammer? OK son here is your screwdriver....

The point is these old amp designs are sort of like letter blocks for a preschooler. and building them up and knocking them down is how one learns to find the magic.

Anyway Mod on....