Month: May 2024

Fixing Noise on the ’68 Custom and ’65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

I’ve been long wishing the white noise floor was lower on my ’65 Deluxe Reverb reissue. I thought it was the carbon film resistors which tend to me higher noise that metal film, but after owning a DRRI for a long time, I have now discovered that it’s the PCB trace from the Vibrato channel volume pot wiper to the V2b pin 7:
– Cut the trace just below the bright cap in the volume pot
– Solder a shield cable from the volume pot wiper or bright cap socket to the resistor on V2b pin 7
– Solder the ground to one of the ground points on the PCB

Psionic Audio talks about how to do this in this video at 19:04, although he neglects to mention there is a resistor wired to V2b pin 7. He also says that the ’68 custom has other issues, and it does (the negative feedback and reverb on both channels) which add noise. But the negative feedback is primarily amplifying the same noise from the PCB traces as in the ’65. I know as I added a switch to my ’65 to have both negative feedback values, and the noise is louder on the ’68 setting, but is still a lot better now that I did this mod.

Two-Rock Copied My Deluxe Reverb!

Ok, not really, but I had already modified my Deluxe Reverb with:
– Be switchable high power fixed bias/low power cathode bias
– Reverb/Tremolo on both channels
– Bright cap removed
– Modified ’68 custom tone stack
– Modified negative feedback
– Post phase inverter master volume (although I didn’t like this on this amp and removed it)

And I was going to add:
– Add raw (tone stack bypass) with volume control
– Bias Tremolo (but only after converting to hand wired)

I was recently looking at what amps were on the market, and realised the Two-Rock Vintage Deluxe is essentially this amp:
– Low power mode is cathode bias
– Single channel with reverb/tremolo
– Bright cap switchable
– Mid control/Texture control
– Presence control
– Master Volume
– Tone stack bypass (with tone control)
– Bias Tremolo

One Pedal Company for Overdrives?

Was thinking about this recently, and while one of my favorite overdrives is the Wampler Euhporia, I think if I could only have pedals from one company for overdrives, it would be Lovepedal:

Eternity Drive
With more bass and more high end than a Tubescreamer, this is my other favorite drive. I’ve have been running one of these into a Wampler Euphoria in a DIY clone for over a decade!

Super Six Stevie Mod
The latest addition to my board, the Super Six has those cranked blackface tones in spades!

Purple Plexi
Another stable on my pedalboard, the Purple Plexi is a raw sounding Marshall in a box pedal.

5E3 Deluxe
Honky cranked tweed tones in this pedal. Very bright and lacking a tone control, but you can role down on your guitar if needed.

Zendrive
Perhaps the original “Dumble in a box” pedal, but perhaps has only been equalled by the Mad Professor Simble. Lovepedal took over the production of the Zendrive, so we’ll count it in this list.

Dover Drive
Another colaboration with Hermida audio, the Dover Drive is Eric Johnson in a box:

Fixing Unselectable Audio Device on Mac System Settings

My MacBook recently stopped me being able to select my monitor speakers as the output in the system settings. Everytime I clicked it, it would jump back to the built in speakers. I could select it as the output for alerts, and then came across this solution:

1) Go To /Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup.app

2) On the menu bar Window -> Show Audio Devices

3) Right click the desired audio device and click “Use This Device For Sound Output”

After I did this I could no longer select the the built in speakers as the output device. It would do the same thing as before, so I don’t know what is going on with OSX in this instance.