Only getting clean tone with Champ

Re: Only getting clean tone with Champ

glad you made peace with the amp for the cool little thing it is
 
Re: Only getting clean tone with Champ

Zaxxon said:
Rereading this thread, I'm appreciating all of the information about Champs and mods for them. Thanks to all who posted.

Bill, I hear you about the danger. I stayed away from messing around in the amp.

I know this thread is a bit old but I thought I'd update it, with my little story in chronological order.

I ended up taking the amp to a tech not long after my last post. I can't find the receipt at the moment but he replaced a thing or two that were old, possibly caps? He replaced all the tubes, fixed the light, and did what he called a blackface mod, I don't remember exactly what that entailed. No more buzzing, the amp sounded great, but, still super clean.

I did get a tubescreamer, which I've used here and there, but to my taste, is a bit more on the "smooth" side than I want.

I loved the cabinet idea Funkfingers suggested, and since I have the original cabinet for the amp, I thought I'd get ahold of an original speaker to see if the speaker made a difference. I got an old Oxford 8ev that needed the voice coil fixed. The funny thing that happened during all of this is that I came to like the Champ so much that I stopped caring about the dirty tone, and the speaker's been sitting on a desk since then and still hasn't been sent out.

I eventually also got a Blackstar HT-1 for traveling, and I can get lots of bluesy or rock tones with it, so that took the need to change the Champ away even more. And the Champ, to me, just sounds stellar, it does what it does, beautifully.

Then a couple of months ago, I realized that I CAN get some crunch from the Champ! Dimed, hitting chords, it has a nice classic rock sound. Not that aggressive, but there. It impressed upon me how, especially if one is inexperienced, it can take living with an instrument or piece of equipment for a while, to get to know it.

The amp still is extremely clean sounding for the most part, and won't give any blues breakup for lead, but it doesn't matter to me now and I wouldn't change anything about the amp. I also ended up getting a H&K Bluesmaster a couple weeks ago, and with that plugged in to it as a preamp, gets the tone out of the Champ that I was looking for.

I still have lots of plans for making cabinets for these amps, etc.. I'm still curious to see if the Champ driving the original speaker breaks up early. But, especially having alternatives that give me dirtier tones, I'm now glad the amp is the way it is.
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You amp sounds like it is working as designed. I started with a Champ, Deluxe and then moved on to a Quad. The only Silverfaces I have been able to get to really good breakup up with were those with master volumes. Even then it is a very slight breakup. A stomp is your only option to get a discernible breakup or a gritty blues tone. Sounds like you got the right pedal for the amp you might even want to play around with a boost pedal they really make a Silverface sing.
 
Re: Only getting clean tone with Champ

Securb said:
You amp sounds like it is working as designed. I started with a Champ, Deluxe and then moved on to a Quad. The only Silverfaces I have been able to get to really good breakup up with were those with master volumes. Even then it is a very slight breakup. A stomp is your only option to get a discernible breakup or a gritty blues tone. Sounds like you got the right pedal for the amp you might even want to play around with a boost pedal they really make a Silverface sing.
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Thanks for the insight on your experience. And I'll keep an eye out for a boost pedal, I have been curious about those.
 
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