The Jimmy Page Maddison Square Garden tone was my very earliest of influences for guitar tone...and one that has eluded me! I happened to see a gut shot of a Royal Amps Marshall MSG and it inspired me to try to make a 50W version from an amp that I built previously and have used to try out different ideas. The amp in question is was essentially a lead amp with new production Brimar KT88s. I spent literally an hour to make some changes to the amp and the results were really pleasing. It very much has the character of the MSG tone. It feels lovely to play and is particularly touch sensitive. The sound of the pick is fab. Great fun to play! You will see that the circuit is really a hybrid bass circuit with superbass "ish" filtering. The changes I made were....remove volume bright cap (this is really important), 22n + 22n preamp couplers, retained 0.68/2k7 lead channel, lead tone stack, removed 0.68 bypass cap on cathode follower, 100n output couplers, 47K/8ohm tap NFB, 2K2 screens, 50uf (only) mains filter, 16uf screens then 32uf, 32uf and 32uf filtering. The KT88s were biased at 19W max dissipation. (edit) The 220K bias range resistor was reduced to 150K to get the correct bias range. Try 180K as well. The PT is a 90s 1202 - 324 converted to a laydown and gives a B+ of 450V. The OT is just a Dagnall made Modulus 50W EL34 style. I set the amp with the presence on 6, bass nearly off, mids on 4, treble on 6 and bright channel volume on 5. I like to push the front end a little with a Chase Tone Secret Preamp set on 3. Add a little bit of slap back and the sound is there! Try it and see!
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