Today I plugged in my Timmy and Strymon Flint straight to the input and got some weird hissy noise I'd never heard before. Lessee here, the input volume and pre-amp MV are set pretty high; why not use the FX loop like I've done before? So I did that instead, and suddenly the pedals were glorious -- no extra noise. What a great amp. Huge thanks yet again to @robrob and his wonderful Bassman Micro page.
It suddenly struck me how many features I've occasionally seen left out of builds of this amp, so I just thought I'd write a note to future builders suggesting they leave them in. The FX loop is one example; I liked it the first time I used it but today made me more aware how vital it can be on a higher-gain amp like this.
Even bigger deal: The *two* MVs. These get downplayed some in various descriptions, but I find they're key to getting the full variety of tones out of my amp. And IME they're both vital -- especially the Pre-PI MV. To be fair, the Post-PI MV wasn't super-amazing with the original Type III. A switch to the Lar-Mar Type II Post-PI MV made a ton of difference. (Rob's added this to the plans.) For me, at least in my EF80 version, the Lar-Mar is far more effective and sounds better. (If you already did the Type III and like it, don't feel bad keeping it -- this advice is aimed at future builders.)
A final but less obvious big deal is the Mids/Raw pot. Simple but really awesome. Rob describes it nicely: "An excellent alternative to the Raw Switch is just using a 100KA pot for the Mid tone control instead of the standard 25KL pot. The 100KA (yes, audio taper) pot will allow you to gradually roll on more preamp gain and mid freqs instead of having the all or nothing of a raw switch." This is just a wonderful 'turn here for tone and volume' knob, user-friendly, easy, and effective. (FWIW I used an extra-low 4.7K shunt resistor to give even a bit more mids cut at minimum, a cool idea Rob suggested in a thread somewhere.)
Several other features are less critical, not crippling if left out, but nice to have. Bright switch? Easy, useful, why not? I find both my bright (250pF cap) and normal channels useful for getting different sounds. NFB? Sure, I usually leave it on (mine's 15K). But an NFB switch is nice, too; the no-NFB option is the least critical in my use, but I still like it. And that brings us to Presence. If you were totally out of panel space, I admit you could leave off this control -- long before I'd omit an MV. But it's really cool to be able to shape the character of the NFB tone; not massive, but audible, useful, elegant, a nice thing to have.
As always, YMMV. More details of my build are in threads here, here, and here.
It suddenly struck me how many features I've occasionally seen left out of builds of this amp, so I just thought I'd write a note to future builders suggesting they leave them in. The FX loop is one example; I liked it the first time I used it but today made me more aware how vital it can be on a higher-gain amp like this.
Even bigger deal: The *two* MVs. These get downplayed some in various descriptions, but I find they're key to getting the full variety of tones out of my amp. And IME they're both vital -- especially the Pre-PI MV. To be fair, the Post-PI MV wasn't super-amazing with the original Type III. A switch to the Lar-Mar Type II Post-PI MV made a ton of difference. (Rob's added this to the plans.) For me, at least in my EF80 version, the Lar-Mar is far more effective and sounds better. (If you already did the Type III and like it, don't feel bad keeping it -- this advice is aimed at future builders.)
A final but less obvious big deal is the Mids/Raw pot. Simple but really awesome. Rob describes it nicely: "An excellent alternative to the Raw Switch is just using a 100KA pot for the Mid tone control instead of the standard 25KL pot. The 100KA (yes, audio taper) pot will allow you to gradually roll on more preamp gain and mid freqs instead of having the all or nothing of a raw switch." This is just a wonderful 'turn here for tone and volume' knob, user-friendly, easy, and effective. (FWIW I used an extra-low 4.7K shunt resistor to give even a bit more mids cut at minimum, a cool idea Rob suggested in a thread somewhere.)
Several other features are less critical, not crippling if left out, but nice to have. Bright switch? Easy, useful, why not? I find both my bright (250pF cap) and normal channels useful for getting different sounds. NFB? Sure, I usually leave it on (mine's 15K). But an NFB switch is nice, too; the no-NFB option is the least critical in my use, but I still like it. And that brings us to Presence. If you were totally out of panel space, I admit you could leave off this control -- long before I'd omit an MV. But it's really cool to be able to shape the character of the NFB tone; not massive, but audible, useful, elegant, a nice thing to have.
As always, YMMV. More details of my build are in threads here, here, and here.
