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Wally · July 30th, 2007, 06:39 PM

That 5F4 has a preamp much like the 5F6A Bassman from which the first Marshalls were cloned...yes, it has some gain. If I were you, I would try a
12AY7 in the V2 position. You could also try a 1500 ohm resistor in the first bypass to lower the gain a bit.
If that did not tame it enough, try a 12AT7 in the phase inverter (V3) position. I would also check the power tube bias. A GZ34 in the rectifier would increase voltages a bit and maybe 'de-brown' the sound??
The 5D4 does have the tone stack in bewteen the first two gain stages which would decrease gain quite a bit in the preamp. LIke the 5F6A, the 5F4 has the tone stack after the second gain stage, and therefore has some hotter preamp signal going on.
All that said, the question arises...what classic blues tone? Much great blues music has been made with hot tweed type preamps....Buddy Guy is a big 5F6A user. Clapton's 'bluesbreaker' was essentially a tweed BAssman. Clapton is using the lo-po '57 Tweed Twin these days.
If you are going for SRV/B.B.King/Robert CRay/....most of those tones lean toward BF Fender Reverb soncis. Tweeds...any tweed...don't do that.

July 30th, 2007, 06:39 PM	#2 (permalink)
Wally Friend of Leo's Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Lubbock, TX Posts: 4,027	That 5F4 has a preamp much like the 5F6A Bassman from which the first Marshalls were cloned...yes, it has some gain. If I were you, I would try a 12AY7 in the V2 position. You could also try a 1500 ohm resistor in the first bypass to lower the gain a bit. If that did not tame it enough, try a 12AT7 in the phase inverter (V3) position. I would also check the power tube bias. A GZ34 in the rectifier would increase voltages a bit and maybe 'de-brown' the sound?? The 5D4 does have the tone stack in bewteen the first two gain stages which would decrease gain quite a bit in the preamp. LIke the 5F6A, the 5F4 has the tone stack after the second gain stage, and therefore has some hotter preamp signal going on. All that said, the question arises...what classic blues tone? Much great blues music has been made with hot tweed type preamps....Buddy Guy is a big 5F6A user. Clapton's 'bluesbreaker' was essentially a tweed BAssman. Clapton is using the lo-po '57 Tweed Twin these days. If you are going for SRV/B.B.King/Robert CRay/....most of those tones lean toward BF Fender Reverb soncis. Tweeds...any tweed...don't do that.