Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

[Chickenwings]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

nah he sent me the fender board back as well. His stuff is more nicely made than the original.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

Heheh, if I'd had Cam's entire amp, i.e. the cabinet with the chasis and speakers, it's entirely possible he might have got it back with the 'Fender' logo replaced by the Guyatone one from my amp.

All the good parts were in my Guyatone anyway. In fact, when i ordered the parts for the Twin, i forgot to get the Orange Drop caps for his normal channel tone controls, so i took the new ones that had only recently been installed into the Guyatone and put them in his amp. Fortunately i'd ordered a few more Mallory's caps than needed, so the Guyatone got a couple of those to replace the ODs. So even his normal channel tone caps did a little time in the Guyatone first.

 

[Little Jay]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

As a Twin Reverb fan and Guyatone fan and owner (have 2 of them) I loved reading this thread! I've seen Guyatones getting Fenderized, but up to now I never saw a Fender getting Guyatoned ;-) Awesome work by the way.

I once A/B-ed my Guyatone Twin (actually called Reverb Custom GA-1100D) with a 1972 Twin Reverb with Oxfords and played through eachother's speakers they absolutely sounded and reacted almost identical! So Guyatone sure did good copy and their PCB with the big oversized copper traces is actually an improvement over the eyelet board imho.

 

[Little Jay]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

As a Twin Reverb fan and Guyatone fan and owner (have 2 of them) I loved reading this thread! I've seen Guyatones getting Fenderized, but up to now I never saw a Fender getting Guyatoned ;-) Awesome work by the way.

I once A/B-ed my Guyatone Twin (actually called Reverb Custom GA-1100D) with a 1972 Twin Reverb with Oxfords and played through eachother's speakers they absolutely sounded and reacted almost identical! So Guyatone sure did good copy and their PCB with the big oversized copper traces is actually an improvement over the eyelet board imho.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

Hey crusty, i used the twin at its first gig since the rebuild last night. No bass player. Huge sound...even the sound guy liked it!

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

Hey crusty, i used the twin at its first gig since the rebuild last night. No bass player. Huge sound...even the sound guy liked it!

That's great ! I'd like to hear more about that ... what guitar(s), pedals, styles etc.

Good to know the sound guy had some taste, hehe.

 

[Little Jay]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

Did you change the .022uf coupling cap of the normal channel to .047uf?
And the 0.047uf bass cap of the vibrato channel to .022uf a la the Super Reverb?

 

[Jocelyn]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

Very nice work.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

Did you change the .022uf coupling cap of the normal channel to .047uf?
And the 0.047uf bass cap of the vibrato channel to .022uf a la the Super Reverb?

I swapped the coupling caps of the second stage of each channel, and they each feed a 220K mixing resistor that sums the two channels at that point. From there, the summed signal path goes to the reverb and the 3M3 // 10pF leading to the reverb recovery stage ... a more complex way to get reverb on both channels. The reason the second coupling cap in each stage were swapped with one another was because Cam wanted the 'normal' channel to be more bright and sparkly and the old 'reverb' channel to be darker.

The tonestack for the normal channel is stock, the reverb channel had the 0.047 cap changed to 0.022 at Cam's request.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

Did you change the .022uf coupling cap of the normal channel to .047uf?
And the 0.047uf bass cap of the vibrato channel to .022uf a la the Super Reverb?

The normal channel had stock configuration with sprague caps and the reverb channel got the super reverb treatment and uses mallory caps.
Next step might be to add a sag resistor in the power stage to get more of a super reverb feel. Ill do a few more gigs and see how it goes.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

Another good way i discovered to get some sag is to have one too many drinks when playing .....

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

That's great ! I'd like to hear more about that ... what guitar(s), pedals, styles etc.

Good to know the sound guy had some taste, hehe.

i just used my homemade pedals....the overdrive with leds and extra bass, and a russian muff clone with a few tweaks for the sound i like best. Clean came from the twin, an bit of grit from my pedal, fuzz from the muff and epic crunch sound was the two pedals stacked.
Big Blind Ray Harpmonster http://bigblindray.com/
came to the gig and he said it sounded fat as hell...cos his vision is not so good he didn't realize there was no bassist initially. He knows my rig pretty well cos i used to play guitar for him. This is a recording we did last year before the old amp had the crusty treatment: http://www.triplejunearthed.com.au/BigBlindRayTrio The amp was good enough for a 3 piece band with no bass, but its much fatter now by a mile.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

What guitar ??

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Restoring/Modifying Gibson175's Beloved Twin Reverb (lotsa pics)

335 with pearlies thru a silicon fuzzface on the blind ray recording. That axe is much fatter now too with the whole lotta humbucker set. Im going into the studio next month for a whole bunch of guitar tracking for Ava Torch so you'll hear the results by november.
Here is another track with the old version of the twin (also using a fuzzface) http://avatorch.com.au/newest-track/ so youll get an idea of how it has improved when you hear the new tracks.