Just Joined The Tube Club - Traynor YCV20WR

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soundchaser59

Reluctant Commander
GREAT NEWS!

This little Traynor YCV20WR is spittin out the most kick butt guitar sound I've ever had in my life. This is the sound I've been looking for all those years that I was dinkin around with solid state.

Now I feel like I truly have recovered from solid state! This is awesome! WOW!

I started out with a bit of annoying hum. But I got rid of probably 90% of the hum by getting new cords and getting some "ferrite chokes" from Radio Shack and putting them on the amp power cord, and the guitar cord, and any cord that is attached to a pedal.

The ferrite chokes completely removed all hum from the Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive. The amp has a tiny bit of hum in it if I open all the knobs up and all the guitar knobs full bore, but it is not even half what it was before I got chokes and new cords. If I open up the Sparkle Drive and the amp together, it seems too loud, I fear for the well being of the Greenback speaker if I do that! WOW! And it takes a good bit of SPL to make me say it's too loud!

But MYYYYYY GAAAAWD this thing just sounds awesome! I swear this is the exact same sound I used to hear on all those vinyl records, the sounds that made me want to play guitar in the first place 30 years ago! And I have quickly figured out I can get the sounds I want both from the amp alone and from the Sparkle Drive, in fact the Sparkle will add a few things in that the amp alone wont do!

This is absolutely unequivocally by far the best thing that has happened to my music since multi track recording and the DX7 hit my basement 20 years ago!! And I have a new AT3032 mic to try on the thing now!

Thanks tons to everyone who gave help and tips for finding the right gear for this sound! I love it! - SC
 
That is so right on. Isn't it far out that guitars and amps are just as much fun today as the were 30 years ago????

Whose wife is still that much fun after 30 years??? :(
 
You have been playing 30 years? Then you might really appreciate a good wah pedal when that amp is on the verge of break up or already breaking up really good. :D
 
nice!! i just got a Traynor YCV80 not too long ago and i'm still absolutely blown away by it. awesome sounding amp, i wanna get the extension cab for mine, i heard it sounds even better with it.

yours comes with the Vintage 30's right? the wine red looks awesome too. nice amp! :D :D
 
I like-a da Traynor! I've been nothing but happy with mine. Their customer support is awesome as well.

They always respond to email questions very quickly and politely. I just dropped $300 on a hot plate and they reminded me that pulling the outer 2 power tubes would drop the power to 40 watts without damaging the amp. So now I've got a dilemma on my hands. I'll see how it sounds with 2 power tubes and compare it to the hot plate sound. I could think of a few other uses for $300 if they're about the same!

But what other tube amp has that kind of tone for the price? Of course their prices are going up up up as of late. But they're still the best value in an all-tube combo as far as I'm concerned.

But just wait till those stock Sovtek tubes wear out and you retube it with something known for sound quality instead of durability...wow! Like buttah. :D

Yeah that wine red Tolex does look pretty damn good. Very classy and vintage appeal.
 
Outlaws: Yeah, picked up guitar for the first time in 1973. My Dad came home from work and surprised the whole family by showing up with a Supro guitar and a Fender Champ, and asked me if I'd like to try a guitar. You are correct Sir, at this point my old DOD wah wah is the weakest link in my rig. I should get a better one, especially since a good wah can make a B3 sing as well as make a guitar sing!

Zed: The amp actually has a G12M Greenback in it. Sensitivity at 98! It is easily the most awesome speaker I've ever had in any of my amps! It even blows away that Weber Silver Bell I put in my Vox.

Tadpui: You handing out recommends on replacing the tubes? I'll play the stock "durability" tubes for a while, but I will want to get a "set" later to customize the sound a bit more.

Thanks for the cheers, people! I wanna do some test clips to compare all the amps we own between me and my brother (we still have that original Champ, had it for 33 years now! It has new tubes and an Eminence Legend 875 in it now!) and hopefully I'll have that homade 2x10 cab working before Monday!
 
so what exactly does the ferrite choke do? What's in it? They don't have those at the canadian equivalent to radio shack (now it's the source).

I owned a Traynor 1969 Bass amp for 15 years - that company has been around for awhile making good equipment.
 
Hey soundchaser59, congrats on the new amp dude! I guess you'll have to change your username now, huh? :D

How do you like that Sparkle Drive?

I just got a Voodoo Labs Super Fuzz yesterday. I *love* the distortion I get from my amp (Budda Superdrive 30W 2x12), but I wanted some different flavors of distortion. I played around with the Super Fuzz for about an hour last night. I really like it and will probably keep it, but I'm not sure it was what I had in mind. In fact, I got the Super Fuzz to sound very close to my amp's distortion which kind of defeats the purpose of why I bought the damn thing in the first place! Haha. But after playing around a little, I got some different sounds that I really like.

But I'm curious how "versatile" the Sparkle Drive is to your ears and how it compares to the power tube distortion you are getting from your new Traynor?

Is the Sparkle Drive a true overdrive pedal that just gives your tubes a boost or is it more like a distortion pedal that will go from a little breakup to full on metal distortion?

Cheers!
 
Scottgman said:
Is the Sparkle Drive a true overdrive pedal that just gives your tubes a boost or is it more like a distortion pedal that will go from a little breakup to full on metal distortion?

Cheers!
Click to expand...

The Fulltone FatBoost is about what you are looking for. I had one. It will go from clean boost to breakup. But that break up is needed to get the boost into the zone of tearing up your preamp tubes. Good pedal.
 
Hey Scottgman, have you played around with the Graphic Fuzz from Electro Harmonix? I was reading about them not too long ago and I think that they're in the same price range as that Voodoo Labs fuzz box, but they have a simple compressor and a 6-band EQ built in. Sounds like a pretty versatile little box, and there's just something that I like about EH.

Of course, in typical internet advice fashion, I have absolutely no practical experience with any EH product but they just...uh...look cool in the catalogs :D
 
Outlaws said:
The Fulltone FatBoost is about what you are looking for. I had one. It will go from clean boost to breakup. But that break up is needed to get the boost into the zone of tearing up your preamp tubes. Good pedal.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the Sparkle Drive is overdrive only, it stops short of giving good distortion. They have a seperate distortion pedal, but I dont know the name of it.

I actually have to really strain to tell the difference between the Sparkle leads and the cranked up tube amp leads. They sound really close to each other! I was surprised!
 
Sweet man, I got a Traynor too, they kick ass for clean to bluesy tones!
 
soundchaser59 said:
I actually have to really strain to tell the difference between the Sparkle leads and the cranked up tube amp leads. They sound really close to each other! I was surprised!
Click to expand...
Cool. That's kind of what I expected and why I bought the Fuzz box instead. I'm looking for a radical departure in sound from my amp's distortion... hehe. While I wouldn't call the Super Fuzz a "radical departure," I can dial in some tones that are quite a bit different from my amp's distortion and sound cool.

I guess now you understand why most guys with tube amps don't use distortion pedals-- power tube distortion is soooo sweet... haha!
 
Tadpui said:
Hey Scottgman, have you played around with the Graphic Fuzz from Electro Harmonix?
Click to expand...
Cool... I'll have to check those out because I think I just convinced myself that what I want is definitely a Fuzz pedal. Maybe I just haven't found the right one yet... :D. Oh the fun!!
 
canadianrocker said:
so what exactly does the ferrite choke do? What's in it? They don't have those at the canadian equivalent to radio shack (now it's the source
Click to expand...

I dont know exactly what it does, but it seems to behave like a iron core in a coil. The core creates an impedance in the conductor that resists hi freq common mode signals (like RF). The more times you wind the cable around the ferrite core, the more RF impedance you get. From what I read, it sounds like you can also get a ferrite rod and wrap larger stiffer cables around that several times and it will give the same result. But apparently it works moreon hi freqs, and does not effect frequencies that are musical..... something like that!
 
canadianrocker said:
so what exactly does the ferrite choke do? What's in it? They don't have those at the canadian equivalent to radio shack (now it's the source
Click to expand...

I dont know exactly what it does, but it seems to behave like a iron core in a coil. The core creates an impedance in the conductor that resists hi freq common mode signals (like RF). The more times you wind the cable around the ferrite core, the more RF impedance you get. From what I read, it sounds like you can also get a ferrite rod and wrap larger stiffer cables around that several times and it will give the same result. But apparently it works more on hi freqs, and does not effect frequencies that are musical..... something like that!

None of which explains why it would reduce that annoying 60hz hum.
 
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