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Fired up this morning and noticed this popping sound every 10 seconds or so - seems to be getting more pronounced the longer I leave it on. Sounds like maybe the reverb tube? I've actually never replaced any tubes in any of my tube amps so far, but I figure this amp may do well to have a fresh set.



edit: actually looks like it might be the FX loop - I disconnected the pedals I had in there and it went away. FX loop tube perhaps?

edit #2: it might have been my El Cap in looper mode :ROFLMAO:
 
Hope it was just the looper!
It was! I had it on full repeats, so even though the looper was off and on a pretty clean tape setting after a while it built up enough noise to start getting louder and louder. :ROFLMAO: All good now!

Hooked up the HX Stomp with GEQ...

Star Trek Tuxedo GIF by Paramount+
 
@dbagchee don’t sleep on R2 either if you’re even slightly interested in light breakup tones that play great with dirt pedals. It gets dogged on a lot on the III especially (and the IV as well) but truthfully I find it a pleasant usable tone on both the III and IV and I even run channel 2 on my V in edge mode as a somewhat similar sound lol

Oh my III it’s just slightly hairier than R1 which is nice imo
 
Man, now I’m extra excited to get my III dropped back tomorrow after all this talk :LOL: Homie that borrowed it didn’t end up using it at his show, turned out his noise issues were solely tied to the POS donner power supply he was using lol
 
@dbagchee don’t sleep on R2 either if you’re even slightly interested in light breakup tones that play great with dirt pedals. It gets dogged on a lot on the III especially (and the IV as well) but truthfully I find it a pleasant usable tone on both the III and IV and I even run channel 2 on my V in edge mode as a somewhat similar sound lol
I will for sure - this single channel 3 mode concept is super interesting. It was cool hearing Randall talking about the development of the circuits too. Something about all the modes being tied together and stacking on each other that ties all the sounds together. You can just hear how it will cut through a band live mix and sound full. Pretty cool blend of old school and modern multichannels where each channel is basically a different amp.
 
Got my Mark III back last night. Homies settings were truly cursed, he clearly didn’t catch my tips on dialing it in, no wonder he didn’t use it at the gig :rofl

Having a blast… surprisingly spent the last hour or so just on the clean channel with my stomp under foot dire wolf. Shit is sounding incredible. At first I was just blatantly copping Jerry shit with the dire wolf and micro tron IV. Then shit started developing into a potential new song

Which is a good sign, typically an unintended litmus test for a new guitar is if it inspires some new material within a couple months. The semi hollow special is giving up the goods tonight. What started as fucking around has developed into three sections that I’m vibing with. Jerry influenced but also potential for some doomy vibes with the band and “Jawa-fied” in later movements

Posting on a smoke break rn but need to get back in there before I lose my momentum. My writing style is “move fast and break things” and the longer I take the less likely a song is going to materialize lol

IMG_4532.jpeg
 
Got my Mark III back last night. Homies settings were truly cursed, he clearly didn’t catch my tips on dialing it in, no wonder he didn’t use it at the gig :rofl

Having a blast… surprisingly spent the last hour or so just on the clean channel with my stomp under foot dire wolf. Shit is sounding incredible. At first I was just blatantly copping Jerry shit with the dire wolf and micro tron IV. Then shit started developing into a potential new song

Which is a good sign, typically an unintended litmus test for a new guitar is if it inspires some new material within a couple months. The semi hollow special is giving up the goods tonight. What started as fucking around has developed into three sections that I’m vibing with. Jerry influenced but also potential for some doomy vibes with the band and “Jawa-fied” in later movements

Posting on a smoke break rn but need to get back in there before I lose my momentum. My writing style is “move fast and break things” and the longer I take the less likely a song is going to materialize lol

View attachment 51097
Move fast and break things is how I roll like with everything lol, even in my job 😂 I can tell when I’m on a roll with something and I just force myself to ride that mf roller coaster
 
Move fast and break things is how I roll like with everything lol, even in my job 😂 I can tell when I’m on a roll with something and I just force myself to ride that mf roller coaster

I tend to agree work wise but I’m also an R&D chemist and often I have limited source material to experiment with so I have to regulate urges sometimes and weigh risks of failure :rofl
 
I tend to agree work wise but I’m also an R&D chemist and often I have limited source material to experiment with so I have to regulate urges sometimes and weigh risks of failure :rofl
I’m in IT, my partner is like 60 and he’s like 😳 when I start making changes lmao - I’m like “fuck it full send let’s do this” and he’s like “let’s take 3 months to research this and have 15 working meetings to discuss the implications”
 
I’m in IT, my partner is like 60 and he’s like 😳 when I start making changes lmao - I’m like “fuck it full send let’s do this” and he’s like “let’s take 3 months to research this and have 15 working meetings to discuss the implications”
IT too and all I do is have meetings about meetings but bored IT admins are scary. I either keep them so busy they can't break anything or make sure they have an amazing lab to play in.
 
I was finally confident enough that my Fryette PS-100 works perfectly normal. It previously had major noise issues that somehow got solved when I disconnected the front panel PCB from the front panel, looked at it, didn't see anything wrong and reassembled the thing.

Anyway, I thought I'd take the time to test a few things, running into my Bluetone 4x10 w/ 10" Greenbacks:

Mark V 90 and the "fx loop / output / solo" hard bypass switch.

The claim is that turning that circuitry on makes the amp sound worse.

With the Mark V Output knob set to about halfway, toggling the hard bypass switch seems to have no effect on volume. Namely it's very, very loud without taking the volume out of the equation with the PS-100.

The tonal difference seems to be something in the higher frequencies. I found that just turning the Presence on each channel up a little bit with the Output enabled I'd get pretty close to the bypassed tone.

Poweramp distortion

On channel 3, pretty pointless. Sounds better without, or with very minimal amounts. Typical high preamp gain master volume amp behavior in my experience.

On channel 1 this can be cool. Think classic Fender Blackface overdrive.

On channel 2 Edge mode you get more Marshall style "sizzle" to the tone, but is not quite as tight. Running with poweramp drive, even the Edge mode now has plenty of gain on tap and I ended up turning it down to avoid it becoming muddy. Typical cranked master volume amp stuff.

Then I wanted to figure out how I could get close to that tone without driving the powertubes hard. Master back down to no poweramp drive levels, PS-100 to another channel for matched volume, then messing with Mark V ch2 preamp gain. I ended up adding my Strymon Riverside as a boost to this and got at least in the ballpark, perhaps even preferring the tone like this. Adding some treble from the Riverside helps for sure. Not the same thing, but equally good IMO!

I wouldn't bother with attenuators for the Mark V 90. I also wouldn't recommend it if your usecase is bedroom levels. It excels when it's a bit louder but I'm not talking about unreasonable volumes here, let's say around 90 dB @ 1m which is totally in the "comfortably loud to play in a house" territory.

Mark V power scaling

As owners know, the 45/90W modes are mostly a feel thing where the higher headroom 90W mode punches more and it's only a little bit louder than 45W. So just pick what you like for ch2 and ch3. I like ch2 at 45W diode rectifier and ch3 at 90W pentode mostly.

Finally I wanted to explore the ch1 Tweed mode more. There's a huge difference in the overall drive if using the 10W single-ended mode running with poweramp drive. This is pretty expected as 45 and 90W increasingly become higher headroom so the poweramp just doesn't drive as much even without changing the settings on the amp.

Ch1 Tweed at 10W even without poweramp drive is pretty great! I could easily use this as my lower grain crunch tone and it still goes to well over 100 dBA @ 1m volumes if you crank it.
 
I was finally confident enough that my Fryette PS-100 works perfectly normal. It previously had major noise issues that somehow got solved when I disconnected the front panel PCB from the front panel, looked at it, didn't see anything wrong and reassembled the thing.

Anyway, I thought I'd take the time to test a few things, running into my Bluetone 4x10 w/ 10" Greenbacks:

Mark V 90 and the "fx loop / output / solo" hard bypass switch.

The claim is that turning that circuitry on makes the amp sound worse.

With the Mark V Output knob set to about halfway, toggling the hard bypass switch seems to have no effect on volume. Namely it's very, very loud without taking the volume out of the equation with the PS-100.

The tonal difference seems to be something in the higher frequencies. I found that just turning the Presence on each channel up a little bit with the Output enabled I'd get pretty close to the bypassed tone.

Poweramp distortion

On channel 3, pretty pointless. Sounds better without, or with very minimal amounts. Typical high preamp gain master volume amp behavior in my experience.

On channel 1 this can be cool. Think classic Fender Blackface overdrive.

On channel 2 Edge mode you get more Marshall style "sizzle" to the tone, but is not quite as tight. Running with poweramp drive, even the Edge mode now has plenty of gain on tap and I ended up turning it down to avoid it becoming muddy. Typical cranked master volume amp stuff.

Then I wanted to figure out how I could get close to that tone without driving the powertubes hard. Master back down to no poweramp drive levels, PS-100 to another channel for matched volume, then messing with Mark V ch2 preamp gain. I ended up adding my Strymon Riverside as a boost to this and got at least in the ballpark, perhaps even preferring the tone like this. Adding some treble from the Riverside helps for sure. Not the same thing, but equally good IMO!

I wouldn't bother with attenuators for the Mark V 90. I also wouldn't recommend it if your usecase is bedroom levels. It excels when it's a bit louder but I'm not talking about unreasonable volumes here, let's say around 90 dB @ 1m which is totally in the "comfortably loud to play in a house" territory.

Mark V power scaling

As owners know, the 45/90W modes are mostly a feel thing where the higher headroom 90W mode punches more and it's only a little bit louder than 45W. So just pick what you like for ch2 and ch3. I like ch2 at 45W diode rectifier and ch3 at 90W pentode mostly.

Finally I wanted to explore the ch1 Tweed mode more. There's a huge difference in the overall drive if using the 10W single-ended mode running with poweramp drive. This is pretty expected as 45 and 90W increasingly become higher headroom so the poweramp just doesn't drive as much even without changing the settings on the amp.

Ch1 Tweed at 10W even without poweramp drive is pretty great! I could easily use this as my lower grain crunch tone and it still goes to well over 100 dBA @ 1m volumes if you crank it.
The variable power per channel is one of my fav features on the V for exactly the reason you point out here. Clean and EOB tones can sound really good with a little power amp grease. The high gain tones not so much. It’s incredible to have that flexibility.
 
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