Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 23 2014, 07:34 PM

I'm having my "Holy Grail" preamp built from scratch!!! I've been drooling over the legendary

Posted by: Mith Oct 24 2014, 03:01 AM

Mind if I ask how much this is setting you back? Always had a thing for custom kind of stuff

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 24 2014, 09:02 PM

Got new mockup pic today!! I asked for some special mods as well!!! most important of which

*PRE-GAIN 120hz HIGH PASS FILTER SWITCH
-This is gonna RAWK. This one thing will make it sounds monstrous IMHO. With so many high gain preamps, the abundance of bass just makes it boomy. Folks typically use a TUBE SCREAMER which actually restricts the amount of bass hitting the gain stage. SO they are already doing this type of thing but with a pedal. The little switch will do it in the preamp

*CLEAN BOOST SWITCH
-Going to request a clean boost switch as well After the high pass. Again folks use a tube screamer, but I want to be able to get killer tone in one rack unit. I plan on using it in the fx loop of my ELEVEN RACK






I have no idea!! Thats the tricky part. He's never built one and we are still working out the specs so he's not sure either at this point. So far, it's a "ONE OFF" build just for me. But if it turns out well, he says he might make more and sell them! Direct from MOTHER RUSSIA! So the shipping will probably be CRAZY PRICEY.

AMT is another Russian company that makes clones of heads and stuffs them in to solid state pedals. God bless those ruskies!!!

Posted by: Mertay Oct 24 2014, 11:46 PM

hehe yeah they are very talented most have budget problems I guess for marketing but whatever demo I listened from a Russian tech (usually studio rack stuff) they sounded pretty good. I'm also curious to hear how it will turn out

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 25 2014, 02:17 AM

You and me both!!! I've been impressed with his previous work from youtube vids and not that may folks I've found are doing x88r clones or if they are they don't seem to come as close as I'd like. From what I've heard so far, his clones sound really spiff so I"m stoked

Of course there was no high pass filter or clean boost switch on the 88r, but that's what custom rigs are for

Posted by: Jouve Oct 25 2014, 07:49 AM

Congratulations.
Myasnikov preamps, that's very nice stuf. I had a "shred machine", it's so damn metal. In Penza they build very nice amps.

Posted by: Mertay Oct 28 2014, 03:48 PM

Today I connected the fx send of the amp directly to the soundcard.

Will make a topic later about it but for now I'll say though I didn't like the dist. much (old, not so expensive Peavey) the response of the guitar even on clean channel was amazing (compared to only using soundcard) with the plugins, touch sensitivity increased very noticeably and shredding was a dream

Reminded me of this topic and would like to ask, since the amp is huge and I'll have to deal with cables would love to get that feel from a pedal unit. Can and what sort of pedal do that?

My chain itb is very simple; an overdrive (bright-ish setuped but not very distorted, mostly for boosting the gain) a boss metalzone emulation (cranked) and cab. ir.

I was thinking about buying a digitech grunge but the store at that time didn't have one (has massive gain and dist. plus cab. emulated output available as I saw on youtube) but now thinking maybe I should get something preamp like as what I'm doing with the overdrive plug-n? Tech 21 stuff maybe?

Posted by: klasaine Oct 28 2014, 04:06 PM

You're playing through the pre-amp of a guitar amplifier. It's made/optimized specifically to handle the input impedance/voltage of guitar pickups. That's why it feels good and is 'responsive'.

A decent stand alone (mic) pre or channel strip (or even a nice DI) will get you that feel. Use a separate guitar dist pedal or software/plugin for the overdrive.

Posted by: Mertay Oct 28 2014, 04:14 PM

But I use hi-z input soundcard? (TC electronic konnect 8)

...ahhhh but I connected the fx out to hi-z input (instead of using only guitar), did something probably wrong but felt so good

Posted by: klasaine Oct 28 2014, 04:30 PM

Then I would try maybe one of the 'amp character' pedals by Tech 21 ...
http://www.tech21nyc.com/products/sansamp/characterseries.html
Or a pre-amp guitar pedal ...
http://www.customtonesinc.com/EthosPreamp.html

*Cosmin uses some preamp that sounds great! Don't remember the brand.

Posted by: Mertay Oct 28 2014, 04:36 PM

Awesome I'll make another topic soon all about this and what I've been doing for the past 3 days

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 29 2014, 02:57 AM

The tech 21 californian pedal sounds a lot like a mesa so it's a good choice and has cab emulation and it's small and easy to carry. You could always get an original tech21 pedal used which are pretty cheap and sound spiff

Today I got the price! $500 and that's with a $150 discount. For a single channel preamp. It's hand built from Russia With Love

Posted by: Mertay Oct 29 2014, 01:30 PM

The guitar tech. I go to regularly bought a fly rig recently, I spent some time with it and its really cool but tone is a bit too "marshall" for my taste (though eq's on it can make it sound very flat), I might convince him to bring some tech 21 stuff as he can sell them later (its a small but nice store)

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 30 2014, 06:15 AM

IT's really a Low to Mid gain device. If you are looking for something current with more ooomph, the CALIFORNIA pedal or the rack mount preamp are the way to go

Got some more pix of the Soldano X88r clone in progress!

Posted by: Mertay Oct 30 2014, 11:49 AM

Cool! as far as I know those boards are made 3rd party so the tech probably waited for them to arrive, now he'll combine the parts to it so I'm guessing process will speed up from now on

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 31 2014, 07:16 AM

Thanks for the tip! Really looking forward to trying this out

Posted by: PosterBoy Oct 31 2014, 07:29 AM

http://vimeo.com/47353628

Sounds like they get it to sound very accurate

Posted by: Mertay Oct 31 2014, 11:53 AM

Nice comparison, to my ears the engineer nailed the distortion and the only differences are slight freq. changes. An average eq after the amp (maybe even an eq pedal, from behringer to mesa ) should solve that easily (analog eq's in general are a bit tighter than software).

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 31 2014, 10:45 PM

I listened to the comparison on my studio monitors with the subwoofer on and there is a BIG difference in the LOW/LOW MID. The Soldano unit is much LOW MID focused which is the traditional guitar range. For extended range guitars, this can be a problem. The clone is actually focused much lower in the LOW frequency area. It was actually this vid that made me want a clone from him Should sound killer on 7 and 8 string.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jan 6 2015, 11:54 PM

Just got an update from my builder!! Preview of the faceplate

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jan 11 2015, 08:15 PM

Update! Coming along nicely

Posted by: PosterBoy Jan 13 2015, 10:57 AM

Next comes the bit I like it's how they choose to route the wiring, I love seeing really tidy wiring, which would surprise you if you looked at the pc I built or the cables thrown around it!

Posted by: Chris S. Jan 14 2015, 05:10 PM

If for whatever reason you happen to not like it - I'll gladly take it off your hands

Glad to see it's coming along nicely, can't wait for some sound clips!

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jan 15 2015, 12:37 AM

You can have him build you one He's taking orders. He hadn't made this version of it before my request so it's a new piece for him. He had been making the 3 channel version of the original rack mount unit. But all I wanted was the Lead Channel!

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jan 23 2015, 01:24 AM

Some more pics of my build as well as some 3 CHANNEL X88 clones.

Posted by: HiimAlex Jan 23 2015, 09:11 AM

Looks awesome Todd

When do you expecting to receive your Super Lead clone?
Looking forward to hear you demo it

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jan 24 2015, 07:30 AM

Hopefully soon! Looking forward to it myself IT's got to travel from Russia and they are being tested as we speak from what I understand.

He takes every unit to the studio for a full play/recording test before shipping out. Very reasonable prices as well considering it's a real, TUBE preamp, built by hand. Each one is a "one off" so to speak, built to spec for each given player. The top unit single channel is being built just for me by request but other folks are now ordering them as well

The "super lead" tone from soldano is just killer and usually costs a few thousand dollars to get.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 9 2015, 11:49 PM

TONE TEST!!! In Russia The preamp is being built in RUSSIA so that's where it's first being tested. The gain is on about 4. He is going to be building several of these and is currently taking orders. I'm slated to get number 001.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 10 2015, 08:16 PM

Some quick sound tests from the vendor. Can't wait to get this thing! It's the "hot" channel from the legendary x88r stuffed in to one rack space I'm all for emulators but I still get wound up for real gear!

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 21 2015, 12:53 AM

It showed up from Mother Russia! Here is a teaser vid to give you a taste of how it's sounding.



And here are the guts with the three preamp tubes No digital, no MIDI, just pure tube tone.

Posted by: jstcrsn May 21 2015, 01:27 PM

Does sound like the song you played . can you expound on the price you paid

Posted by: klasaine May 21 2015, 02:43 PM

Sounds great, looks cool!

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 21 2015, 03:41 PM

The "artist pricing" is around $350 which is what I'm selling my prototype unit for so that I can fund my next acquisition The standard price is $500 for the Super Lead Unit.

For the two and three channel units, it's going to be a bit more. The review vid will be in three parts with the first part going up today.

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 21 2015, 08:14 PM

Here is my first VID with the SOLDANO SUPER LEAD clone that I had hand built all the way from MOTHER RUSSIA!! Starting with the gain low on 2 and working up. It uses 3 preamp tubes.

Posted by: Mertay May 22 2015, 10:05 PM

Well worth the wait, I didn't hear any unusable setting

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 23 2015, 05:06 AM

The best part is that it works in the FX LOOP of my 11 RACK!! I have never had any luck with gain based fx in a loop but somehow this actually works. It's great because now I can add it in to custom patches just like any of the preamps built in to the 11 and you can turn it on / off with a foot switch. It gives an amazing tube feel to the 11@

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 24 2015, 06:24 AM

Here is the MYASNKOV preamp in the FX LOOP of the 11 rack. I start with gain on 2 and then go to 4 and then to crazy. You can really see the range of the preamp. It's pretty darn spiff What do you think?




Here is the full "REVIEW" video where I talk about it and show you the guts of the amp

Posted by: Mertay May 24 2015, 07:58 PM

Awesome

The tone also feels that (though great on its own) it can accept eq or overdrive pedals nicely, like using powerchords with one and solos with another. Add the eq's flexibility on it you don't need much more to finish an entire album

Posted by: fkalich May 24 2015, 09:36 PM

Stolen merchandise is always cheaper.

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 24 2015, 11:21 PM

BINGO! The EQ section on this preamp can drastically change the tone. As does the gain knob. It's almost like have several preamps stuffed in one box. It cleans up well and then can go crazy on gain too. Also, it takes fx well and you can put a stomp box in front of it or do it in the fx loop like im doing here in the vid and it's just a click away

I actually had to pay for this one But at least it was a bit less than the real thing. Also, I didn't want the first two channels in the Soldano X88r so I had just the third channel built Handy!

Posted by: fkalich May 25 2015, 07:06 AM

I meant that the Soldano designs are certainly patented, i.e. intellectual property. But I can't talk on any high moral ground here, as I own two Bugera amplifiers. I am not sure how they get away with it, I guess it is just so hard to pursue any civil action against them that Peavey and the others figure it is not worth the trouble.

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 25 2015, 10:50 PM

If one wants to get picky, the KEMPER is then the biggest thief of all as it steals everyones tone perfectly This is just a hand built box built to sound somewhat like a soldano. It's not the same circuitry, just goes for a similar tone

Posted by: Mertay May 26 2015, 12:45 AM

I did some web digging before and after I bought an ibanez ts9, everybody agrees %90 of all overdrive pedals are tweaked versions of it. But the interesting thing is again ibanez offers a pedal called JD9, which is a ts9 with all the popular mod.s independent /company people have been doing

They also offer SD9m, which is a modified version of a Maxon pedal and for a long time Maxon built the TS9's for ibanez

These matters are complicated, for example you can't copy a toilet's design but you can design a templet of it...then you can sell the exact toilet design and no law is protecting the company who designed that toilet in the first place

Posted by: klasaine May 26 2015, 01:21 AM

When it comes right down to it, amps are either a (tweaked) Fender, a National (supro), a Marshall or a Vox *(the first Marshall was a copy of a 1959 Fender Bassman - as close as he could get with English parts).
All distortion pedals are some evolution of a Maestro FZ-1, Arbiter Fuzz Face, Dallas 'range master', TS-808, MXR Dist +, RAT or a DS-1.
Kinda like any car has 4 wheels, transmission, steering column and burns some type of fuel.

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 27 2015, 06:46 AM

Well said All of our fav gear can be traced back to just a few peices that have been modded and remodded over time. Of course, folks try to patent what they can along the way, and send nasty letters from laywers from time to time to each other. But it's all derivative of what came before.

The legendary SLO 100 is actually directly ripped off from a MESA MKII. I mean physically ripped off. Mr. Soldano got some Mesa MK II's second hand and modified them. The first three SLO amps were based upon these amps. The second one built was sold to Howard Leese from the band Heart. Within six months, he had sold amps to Steve Lukather, Vivian Campbell, Aldo Nova, and Lou Reed. The rest is history

so if you like an amp. Buy one. Take it apart, learn a bit about amps and put it back together using bits you like to tweak it and bingo! Your an amp company

These days though, KEMPER is starting to seriously put a kink in things as folks are starting to mothball/store their prize amps after profling them. As a result, wads of very special tube amps are just sitting in storage somewhere instead of being played. The good news is, the tones will live on forever in the kemper amp exchange

Todd

Posted by: klasaine May 27 2015, 02:44 PM

Original Boogie by Randall Smith ...

Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana - the rest is history.

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 27 2015, 11:38 PM

Well said

FENDER >>(add some parts)>>>> BOOGIE >>>(remove some parts)>>> SOLDANO>>>>everything else.


I like how it still has the FENDER badge!!

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 28 2015, 08:49 AM

New bit of History I just found about the original SOLDANO X88r Preamp. It was designed by Soldano on input from 80's rack legend BOB BRADSHAW specifically for STEVE LUKATHER so that Steve could stop dragging three amps to each show. He wanted a nice clean fender, marshal for crunch, and soldano slo for lead. So Bradshaw asked Soldano to build a 3 channel tube preamp, which was very forward thinking at the time. This became the X88r of legend and allowed lukather to save thousands in freight costs shipping three amps around

Here is the blurb from GUITAR PLAYER.com

GP"Did he come out specifically to work with you?

BOB BRADSHAW:The story goes: I was working with Steve Lukather, who wanted a switcher for his multiple amp rig. We were using a Soldano amp for the main solo sound, a Marshall for crunch, and a Mesa/Boogie amp for clean. It was really expensive to ship multiple amps around, so I commissioned Mike Soldano to build the first 3-channel preamp.

I gave Mike one of my switcher chassis and said, “I want totally independent channels with bass, middle, treble, gain and master for each channel. I want the first channel to be voiced like a Fender Twin, I want a Marshall crunch channel, and I want your SLO-100 preamp stage for the solo sound. And, I want to be able to remote control it from my switching system.”

He built it and that became the Soldano X88R preamp. It opened up a big new business for Soldano, who was charging $1,800 a pop for this preamp. But even though it was my concept, he was selling them to me for $1,700! And, there were things about the Soldano I didn’t like. There weren’t many guitar-voiced power amps at that time, so you would be shoving this preamp into a flat-sounding, solid-state amp or a sterile-sounding tube amp. I had to use an extra EQ stage to give them more life.

Posted by: Mertay May 28 2015, 09:41 AM

I'd want that too

Fender type cleans can pulloff modern clean tones, marshall crunch is awesome for bluesy tones and still sounds nice when crancked with pedals for shred sound.

This is somewhat why I keep going back to ignite NRR-1 plug-in, can get that smoother crunch but clean channel eq can get almost bright like a Fender amp. Important thing is the crunch can handle lead dist. from pedal, not all amps or amp sim.s can do that (bass freq.s can get funny with most of them).

I'd love a lead channel too that can sound like your Soldano clone though maybe in time as budget is set for other things for now pedals are cool, I'm happy with the tone now but a lead channel from an amp sound much warmer in a mix and flexible in details.

Posted by: Todd Simpson May 31 2015, 03:16 AM

Your best bet, in terms of hardware (when budget permits) is probably the 3 channel myasnikov that is based on the 3 channel soldano. My rack unit is the third channel (lead channel) channel one is a clean fender sound, channel 2 is a crunchy marshall These go for a fraction of what the real ones cost. I think around $500 for the 3 channel. Which is the same thing it costs for my single channel. I just wanted a one rack space unit