Archive for the “Stulce” Category

Anybody want to buy it? =)

It’s a fantastic little amp, but it just doesn’t have enough clean headroom. It has an amazing overdrive sound, and it has a really tweakable tone stack, but it just doesn’t really meet my needs right now.

You’ve listened to all my clips and you know you want this amp. They run $1000 shipped right now, but I’m thinking something more like $750 shipped for this one. If you have an old Bassman, maybe we could work out a trade + cash situation. Let me know in the comments if you’re interested and I’ll get in touch with you.

I recorded a new demo of the Stulce with the new 12AT7 tube in V1. I did this recording with my tele straight into the amp, SM57 in front of the greenback speaker through a PreSonus Bluetube preamp into a PreSonus Firebox interface into my MacBook.

Lots of noodling and I talk you through the different gain settings, so feel free to wade through it or not.

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My new JJ/Tesla 12AT7 tube from Tubedepot came in today (really fast shipping FTW) and I installed it in my amp a little while ago. The Stulce cabinet is kind of a pain to open up, but I got it done. I replaced the Sovtek 12AX7 in V1 and left the JJ 12AU7 in V2. The amp uses a single EL84 power tube and I think there’s an Electro Harmonix in there right now.

Anyway, I only had time to make sure that it worked, but I can tell you that it has made a world of difference in the amount of headroom that this amp has on tap. With my strat, I was able to turn both gains up to around noon and only get some very slight breakup. Of course, it’ll be a lot different with humbuckers, but it’s a pretty sizable gain in clean tone. Beyond that, the amp sounds much more sparkly and crisp. I need to give it a thorough workout will all of my guitars, but I think that I’m going to stick with this preamp configuration for a while. I’ll probably try some different power tubes, since EHX tubes are supposedly pretty gainy, but I’m pretty set as far as tube types.

I did a quick and dirty demo of my Rangemaster clone. I basically maxed out the gains on my Stulce, put the mic in front and hit record in Garageband. I play a few basic classic rock riffs/licks – first bypassed, then with the boost. You can tell that the Rangemaster is pretty noisy/hissy, but I think that it may be due to the DC power supply. These things are really supposed to use batteries, but I didn’t have any on hand.

Anyway, let me know what you think…

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I got the PCB for my treble booster in the mail over the weekend, and I finished putting it together yesterday. I have no idea if the transistor is biased properly, but I just wanted to fire it up and see how it sounds. I have only played with it for about 10 minutes, but here are my thoughts – It doesn’t sound good into a clean amp, but it’s awesome into a cranked amp.

I maxed out the gains on my Stulce, which gives my a very nice distorted sound, if a *little* unfocused. When I turned on the treble booster, it just transformed the sound. I was getting this really raw, crunchy tone (I’ll try to do some clips soon). I need to spend more time with it, and I’m going to add a switch to the pedal to allow me to swap input caps for some different tones. I’m not sure how useful it’s going to be since I rarely play into a cranked amp, but we’ll just have to see.

…

To go along with my new etched PURE boost, Maury fixed up an etched io for me. In case you don’t know, the io is kind of a Marshall-in-a-box pedal. It’s not a one trick pony, though. The tone control is very responsive, and you can dial it in to get crunchy rhythm tones, or roll it back to get creamy, saturated Santana-like lead tones. This pedal, along with the Timmy, cover all of my dirt on my pedalboard.

These pics are not of my pedal, but they’re close enough.

and the inside:

As you can see, the wiring is pretty much immaculate. I haven’t had a chance to play through it yet, but it sure looks nice, eh?

Here are a few clips of the new cab. I miked up both speakers and panned them slightly. The blue dog is on the left and the greenback is on the right. These recordings were done on my Les Paul, primarily on the neck pickup. I rolled the highs up more than I usually would to play up the sparkly chime of this amp.

Clip 1: both gains at 9:00

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Clip 2: gain 1 at 12:00, gain 2 at 9:00

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Clip 3: gain 1 at 9:00, gain 2 at 12:00

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Clip 4: both gains at 12:00

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The Weber Blue Dog hasn’t come in yet, so I still have the G12H30s in the cab. I decided to do a quick recording so that I’ll have something to reference to the new speakers. I don’t have a mic stand at the house, so I just hung an SM58 in front of one of the speakers. I’m sure that the positioning is terrible. I have the amp set pretty clean – both of the gains are around 9:00 and the master is up around 1:00. I kick on the boost (set pretty low) at about 1:05. I used my Les Paul and my DD-20.

Let me know what you think.

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My cab came in today, and it’s really big. I mean – I knew the dimensions, but I never really thought about how those numbers would translate in terms of sheer size. I took some pictures of my amp/cab, as well as my current pedalboard setup.

I haven’t had a chance to try the new cab yet, but I should get a chance to give it a little workout this weekend.

The board is pretty basic, but it handles pretty much everything that I need. I had another overdrive and a tremolo on there for a while, but they didn’t really fit with what I do. So the chain is wah/tuner/distortion/boost/delay. Nothing exciting, but it sounds pretty good to me.

I recorded some more clips of the Stulce, this time with my strat. I played with the lower gain settings more this time so that you can see that this amp is not a one trick pony. On these clips, I’m using my ’94 American Standard Strat. I’m sticking with positions 5 and 4 (neck and neck/middle) throughout.

Setting 1: gains at 9:00
This is a very clean tone, even when you hit the strings really hard. The tone is really full and lively. At the :44 mark I step on my Tube Screamer clone (currently using mosfets, germanium and 1N4148 diodes for clipping) so that you can hear how the amp takes pedals. I have the pedal set with the gain at 9:00, the level at 3:00, and the tone is neutral.

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Setting 2: Gain 1 at 11:00, Gain 2 at 9:00
Raising the level of the first gain stage gives us a little more breakup, but it’s still pretty clean.

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Here’s the same amp setting with the TS (same settings as last time).

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Setting 3: Gain 1 at 9:00, Gain 2 at 11:00
This time, I reversed the gain settings from clip 2. This setting sounds a little cleaner than clip 2 to my ears.

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Setting 4: Both Gains at 12:00
It’s starting to get pretty crunchy with this setting, but it’s still very touch-sensitive and cleans up well.

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Setting 5: Gain 1 at 12:00, Gain 2 at 2:00
Crunchier still. It cleans up a little, but not quite as much (listen to the arpeggios at 1:30). I really like this setting on this guitar. The Hendrix-style double stops at :55 sound really cool on this clip, IMO.

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Setting 6: Both Gains at 2:00
This setting is getting to be a little too saturated for my tastes – at least with this guitar and these pickups. This guitar just can’t really handle very much gain without getting pretty muddy.

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I recorded some clips of the Stulce today. All of these clips were recorded with my Les Paul. The EQ controls on the Stulce are right at noon, so there’s a lot of adjustment that could be made if one were so inclined. I used a Shure SM57 slightly off-axis.

Clip 1: Clean
I cranked the volume control and raised the gains just enough to get a nice clean tone. The first part is totally dry, and then I start messing with some delay settings on the DD-20.

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Clip 2: Light OD
I lowered the volume control and raised the gains a little for some warm overdrive. I start out dry, then add my RHFX Pure clean boost to push the preamp tubes a bit. On the noodly bits I go back and forth between clean and boosted signals.

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Clip 3: Crunch
This is probably my favorite setting. With the gains around 1:30 and the volume at around 10:00 you get this fantastic natural crunchy overdrive at a fairly manageable volume. Same thing as the last clip – I start out clean, then hit the boost.

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Clip 4: Crunch #2
The monster shows himself when you raise the gains to around 3:00. Once again, I go back and forth between clean and boost. This setting sounds really good with the boost in front.

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Clip 5: Wide Open Gain
This clip has the gains maxed out. The boost effect isn’t quite as obvious at this setting, but you can still hear it. I didn’t record as much rhythm playing on this setting for some reason, but it sounds awesome for hard rock type stuff.

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That’s it for now, but I’ll probably do more of this kind of thing from time to time. Let me know what you think.