Vibro Champ XD

[guitfiddle]

Re: Vibro Champ XD

When I said I've boosted the crap out of my SCXD at full volume, I mean that I turned channel 1 of my SCXD up to 10 plenty of times and all I've ever heard was speaker breakup, nice dynamics, and sustain, but (without boosting) never any breakup except a very very light buzz/fizz if I really hit the strings, and (with boosting) some pretty nasty, rough buzzing. I also tested that by then adding my weber attenuator to it and bringing the volume back to under the speaker's threshold, and a lot of all of that went away.


Also posted by BillM in the TDPRI
"The first half of the 12AX7 amplifies from line level to the level needed by the phase inverter. The concertina PI in the SCXD, like the Princeton Reverb, has no gain, so the voltage sufficient to drive the output tubes comes from the previous stage."

At least in the SCXD, The concertina PI scheme isn't meant to break up, and it does a little, eventually, but not particularly musically.

Channel one is the clean, so it won't break up. It's designed to emulate a Twin, and they didn't give much breakup at all until it was making ears bleed. The second channel goes through the tube and does indeed clip. It isn't the same as full tube signal path, but it's there. The second channel is just a different beast than the clean side.

When you boost an all tube path with no master volume, you get power tube OD at the same time as the preamp starts to really overload, so they work together for the total OD. These don't do that, but the power amp does distort. It sounds different because the preamp adds no more OD than you have dialed in.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: Vibro Champ XD

But my point in respectfully arguing with you is not to say the amp can provide a ton of good sounds... 'cause it does. I had fun when I had one.

But I do have to argue the point that there is no "all-tube" channel on this one and many could agree that my findings are consistent with Channel 1 NOT being all-tube.

A twin rever breakups up within it's normal volume range. On full volume, that thing has some nice, light, but fully perceptible crunch. It's not meant to but it does. I've never played one that way but there's youtube clips and all that for ya.

Channel 1 doesn't do that and cant, by itself. It's DSP.

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: Vibro Champ XD

But my point in respectfully arguing with you is not to say the amp can provide a ton of good sounds... 'cause it does. I had fun when I had one.

But I do have to argue the point that there is no "all-tube" channel on this one and many could agree that my findings are consistent with Channel 1 NOT being all-tube.

A twin rever breakups up within it's normal volume range. On full volume, that thing has some nice, light, but fully perceptible crunch. It's not meant to but it does. I've never played one that way but there's youtube clips and all that for ya.

Channel 1 doesn't do that and cant, by itself. It's DSP.

I agree with you, bro. I never said there was an all tube channel, because they're both models. My only point is that the power amps on these two will distort, but it's not what you'd expect to hear when you run a strong boost on the front end of an all tube path, which causes the preamp tubes to clip.

This demonstrates the real difference between the two overdrives, to me. Preamp tube overdrive mixed with power amp overdrive is what you get from a boosted all tube path that most amps have. The SC and VC only give you power tube overdrive, in addition to the model which is fed through one side of a 12AX7 that will saturate as the volume goes up, but which won't respond to a boost because it's after the DSP stages.

They only get thicker, and the tactile feel and dynamic control go way up. The sustain gets longer, and the compression kicks in to make things sound a bit smoother. There's none of the boosted-preamp tube od that you'd normally get to feed into a power amp, so the tone is different.

The only way to get more preamp style gain, is to turn up the gain control of the model.

 

[kjrocks]

Re: Vibro Champ XD

I agree with you, bro. I never said there was an all tube channel, because they're both models. My only point is that the power amps on these two will distort, but it's not what you'd expect to hear when you run a strong boost on the front end of an all tube path, which causes the preamp tubes to clip.

This demonstrates the real difference between the two overdrives, to me. Preamp tube overdrive mixed with power amp overdrive is what you get from a boosted all tube path that most amps have. The SC and VC only give you power tube overdrive, in addition to the model which is fed through one side of a 12AX7 that will saturate as the volume goes up, but which won't respond to a boost because it's after the DSP stages.

They only get thicker, and the tactile feel and dynamic control go way up. The sustain gets longer, and the compression kicks in to make things sound a bit smoother. There's none of the boosted-preamp tube od that you'd normally get to feed into a power amp, so the tone is different.

The only way to get more preamp style gain, is to turn up the gain control of the model.

Exactly,both channels are dsp preamps but they both run through the tube power amp and you do get breakup on the clean channel although I dont care for it much myself. It starts with the volume on around 6-7 on mine.
I still think its a great little amp and now that a new friend is jamming with us the SCXD is in the jam room. A Vibro Champ may a good idea for practice now

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: Vibro Champ XD

Exactly,both channels are dsp preamps but they both run through the tube power amp and you do get breakup on the clean channel although I dont care for it much myself. It starts with the volume on around 6-7 on mine.
I still think its a great little amp and now that a new friend is jamming with us the SCXD is in the jam room. A Vibro Champ may a good idea for practice now

The little Vibro Champ is killer for practices in a tiny room. Must be mic'd for anything bigger, but the tone and feel are there.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: Vibro Champ XD

I really considered getting another SCXD, or a VCXD, when looking for something quiter to switch my DSL out for. That blackface impression is really cool. A strat with vintage-output single coils into voice 4 or voice 5 really was a lot of fun.

But then I found I could get 90% of that from the tweaker.

I wonder what the VCXD sound like with an alnico speaker. Weber Sig 8, anybody?

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: Vibro Champ XD

I wonder what the VCXD sound like with an alnico speaker. Weber Sig 8, anybody?

Bet it'd sound good. Webers get used in these as replacements pretty often, it seems.

The SCXD gets the Emi Ragin Cajun probably 75% of the time, reading the reviews.

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: Vibro Champ XD

Bump for video of the VCXD at a gig.

I'm posting these here, because a zillion times more people will see them, than in the Tips and clips room.

I'm in orange...the amp was on the hot tweed voice (3), volume ten, gain six.






The name of the group comes from the drummer, who's nick name has been squid since he was 8 or 9. The drummer in the second video is a kid I've known since he was 5, and we got him up for a blues jam...the words were just some random crap. The harmonica player in the first and third one is Dave Emmitt, who's brother Drew is in Leftover Salmon. Sumbich can blow some harp.