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.
James,
This comment is not related to the Fender re-issue, but I couldn’t find a better way to correspond with you directly on your site.
I’ve noticiced that you’ve worked with Michael Kelly hybrids and I like to pick your brain on the wiring. I have a basket case that I’d like to restore. But i don’t want to intrude on your space, but would be appreciative of any input that you could provide.
It seems like we have some mutual interests. I’m a retired EE/hacker with guitar/gear/tech tendencies.
Thanks,
bob