Fender Twin Tweed High Power as a clean pedal platform

[MrClark6]

New to the forums here and looking for the wisdom of the ages.

I've been diving into the DIY world for a couple years now and have a hankering to build something with a lot of clean headroom and a dirt simple circuit. My plan is to use at as an all around rock amp. Nice cleans for spacey alternative quasi-Gilmourish stuff, takes a muff well for raw garage riffage, and if I should decide to put a modern, high gain OD/distortion pedal up front, can pull off some heavy "modern" rock. Thinking Alice in Chains, "open" sounding, fire-breathing Marshall tone that can handle palm muting without farting out.

Is this an impossible task? I think the HP Tweed Twin could work with all that wattage, but if anyone has any sage advice I'll gladly take it into consideration.

I'm planning to just get a small parts kit from Mojotone and source my large parts elsewhere, probably Hammond xformers, and build my own chassis and head shell. Not going to be a combo, just a home-built head to plunk on top of my home-built WGS loaded oversized 212. I'm focused on the Tweed circuit for 3 reasons
1) it's simple
2) it's cheaper
3) it's what Marshall's were born from

I'm already working on a little Vibrolux that I haven't finished yet, but hey who only does one project at a time, right?.... I'll probly finish up the li'l guy before I get into this giant, just trying to plot out my needs and find any of the parts I can on sale.

[Securb]

Re: Fender Twin Tweed High Power as a clean pedal platform

The Twin is a great pedal platform and a bit of a chameleon. It is very easy to "Marshall-up" a Twin with a stomp especially if the stomp is of the Marshall in a box variety. My favorite for this task is the Chandler Tube Driver which is long discontinued. There are so many flavors of MIAB pedals now it is incredible. There are JTM45, Plexi and 800 types of stomps out there. You should check out the Wampler Pinnacle or even the Seymour Duncan Dirty Deed to drive the Twin into Marshall territory.

[jeremy]

Re: Fender Twin Tweed High Power as a clean pedal platform

it is a loud amp with much bigger mid range than a bf amp. it can sound great clean and sounds great cranked up but by the time you get the amp to overdrive its gonna be really loud unless you have really inefficient speakers. what wgs are in you 2x12? i dont know if it would be first choice as a clean amp but i dont see any reason why it wouldnt work just fine

[MrClark6]

Re: Fender Twin Tweed High Power as a clean pedal platform

Jeremy, I'm using a Retro 30 and an ET65.

[Mincer]

Re: Fender Twin Tweed High Power as a clean pedal platform

This sounds like a great project. Make sure to post in-process pics- I'd love to see this developing.

[MrClark6]

Re: Fender Twin Tweed High Power as a clean pedal platform

I guess to sate some I could post my progress pics of the Vibrolux I'm working on for now. Also I have a lot of pics to upload to my profile of all the stuff I've done over the years.

Maybe I'll do that when I have a moment this weekend.

[Mincer]

Re: Fender Twin Tweed High Power as a clean pedal platform

Yeah! Love to see it!

[Chickenwings]

Re: Fender Twin Tweed High Power as a clean pedal platform

I reckon a tweed bassman in the same 2x12 format would be more than enough grunt for what you are after. Those things are still loud enough to stomp all over the drummer. It will he a lot easier to fine tune its response via tube rolling or speaker swapping etc.

[MrClark6]

Re: Fender Twin Tweed High Power as a clean pedal platform

Chickenwings, would that be due to a simpler circuit than the Twin? The tube rolling that is.