Schizoid Havoc V0.7 - integrating the personalities

[VacuumVoodoo]

I've been testing this headroom control extensively during the past few days. I'm more and more reinforced in my old principle that one should not fool around with headroom midway in the signal path. Max headroom all the way is what plays best. Lowering the headroom in the middle of signal path, especially when you play somewhere between crunch and higher gain settings causes nasty clipping on pick transients, sort of like a sluggish hard limiter. This results in smearing of pick attack and loss of string definition, sounds all constricted for lack of a better word.
Keeping high headroom all the way allows for diming all gain/drive controls for massive metal distortion with retained string separation. I always want to hear the strings, to me it's what identifies the sound as coming from a guitar. So headroom adjustment is scrapped. Max Headroom rules

I'll record some high gain / metal clips asap. All the clips so far never had amps gain & drive controls higher than around 2 o'clock.

In the meantime, the last of clips recorded 2 weeks ago in Poland:
SRV Strat, with some bite

Download: http://www.anacon-tech.com/downloads/schihav/V07/SRV%20Strat_shuffle_05.mp3

[BJF]

Hi,

I did play this at the Stockholm Guitar&Drum Show just before closing hours.......

Oh yes I heard through the day many variants of sound dialed out of this

It has extensive Eq possibilites that Aleksander described as wings of a seagull.....

It was late and closing time.....can we have distortion?

Yes we can!

A sound could set such that would hum just slightly, resting as strings were dampered lightyly with the palm of the right hand but that would go into beautiful harmonic feedback when right hand was lifted and a note fretted.

Great fun to play such a sound and that was not with gain on max- but does not have to be.......

It's a fun amp- it has two bass controls

Have fun
BJ

[Donner]

Hmmm what are the two bass controls and how do they interact ??

[VacuumVoodoo]

These are two different controls, one is a steep active high pass filter that I call "Bottom: Tight<--->Loose". The other is part of Bass/Treble EQ in James configuration (often erroneously called "passive Baxandall") with its control ranges adjusted to better rhyme with guitar than its original hi-fi application.
You have perhaps noticed that a standard Bass control on TMB stack is not very efficient for taming a speaker cab with boomy/muddy/flubby low end response. Turn down the Bass and what you get is a thin sound with still boomy bass. That 's because the lowest frequencies in the signal that interact with loudspeakers properties below its resonance frequency are not removed but just a bit attenuated. At the same time conventional TMB Bass control attenuates the Low Mid range which is what thins out the sound.
The Bottom: Tight<--->Loose filter affects only the very low frequency range but doesn't attenuate Low Mid. You get tight and rich low end and can play loud without worrying about your speakers booming and farting out.

In short you use "Bottom" bass control to tune out low frequency resonances in the amp-speaker ensemble and the Bass control to adjust the low end in your tone.
When playing with gain & drive on high settings "Bottom" control can be used to remove more of the deep low end so you don't get these non-musical intermodulations in distortion and voila you have your "chain saw through the spine" sound with just the guitar into the amp.

BTW a couple metal players found this amp to have too much gain for their liking. Tin foil sissies....

PLEASE NOTE: The sound clips are not accessible at the moment. My web hosting provider has been under a massive DDOS attack and got their network compromised. They're working hard to get everything back on line but it will still take a few days. Good thing is they're updating all their customers daily by email on the status. I'm not worried.

[Bobby D]

this is a very cool sounding project!!!!

[DocRock]

My interest continues!!!

[VacuumVoodoo]

Good news: got a request/order for a 30W 112 combo based om this amp. The tricky part will be to build it in a 2U 19" rack width and leave 1U space for external delay/reverb/echo gizmo. Top panel or front panel? Don't know yet.

Thinking removable speaker baffle allowing a choice of 210 or 112 configuration could be an interesting feature.
Toroids for both Output and Power transformers. Power tubes will be 2x7591S
I'm forecasting completion of this to mid February.

[Donner]

mmmm I would like to hear it about mid friday ; ]

[BJF]

Hi,

I have a dream of of saffron icecream in february and listening to this with and without baffle.

Have fun
BJ

[DocRock]

Hi,

I haven't been on here it a very long time, but wanted to let anyone concerned know that I am still alive, well, and playing my guitar.

Also wondering if Alex could chime in with an update on this project?

I hope all is well with everyone.

Doc