Dr Tony Balls wrote: Tue Nov 11, 2025 11:22 am

Frankie99 wrote: Tue Nov 11, 2025 10:15 am What a cool mod.

It's should be noted that it comes out sounding like what's going to the speaker of the amp, so running it through another preamp is gonna add some gain and sound different. Running it into a clean solid state amp will be more true to form though.

Assuming something like the Garnet Herzog out? Dummy load off the speaker, disconnected when cable not in

TylerDeadPine wrote: Wed Nov 19, 2025 1:55 am

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Tue Nov 11, 2025 11:22 am

Frankie99 wrote: Tue Nov 11, 2025 10:15 am What a cool mod.

It's should be noted that it comes out sounding like what's going to the speaker of the amp, so running it through another preamp is gonna add some gain and sound different. Running it into a clean solid state amp will be more true to form though.

Assuming something like the Garnet Herzog out? Dummy load off the speaker, disconnected when cable not in

Kinda but no dummy load, the internal speaker should be always connected or replaced with a dummy load. It's like this on the Matchless Spitfire:

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Wed Nov 19, 2025 8:43 am

TylerDeadPine wrote: Wed Nov 19, 2025 1:55 am

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Tue Nov 11, 2025 11:22 am

It's should be noted that it comes out sounding like what's going to the speaker of the amp, so running it through another preamp is gonna add some gain and sound different. Running it into a clean solid state amp will be more true to form though.

Assuming something like the Garnet Herzog out? Dummy load off the speaker, disconnected when cable not in

Kinda but no dummy load, the internal speaker should be always connected or replaced with a dummy load. It's like this on the Matchless Spitfire:

Oh right didn't consider it wasn't muting the 'first' amp

Not physical gear, but I came across a post about this plugin called Silencer by Black Salt Audio. I've been having trouble gating some bleed in a couple of drum mics on a mix. I can get a lot out except for these pings on the ride that are coming in hot from the toms. The kit sounds a little funny because of the way the gate is opening and closing. I got it as smooth as I could get without all the bleed coming in, but it just sucks and the kick drum is kinda dog shit with it. Long story short, I looked into the Silencer and saw a video of a trusted youtube engineer walking through it, and it blew his mind. He was solving the exact issue with a ride ping and it absolutely just disappeared without fiddling much. So, I downloaded a trial and instantly, the mic bleeds were completely tamed and the kit bus was sounding fucking tits. The drum bus is way more punchy without that little bit of bleed coming through, too. Black Friday 60% off sale, best $40 I've ever spent on a plugin.

The Silencer is built specifically for kick, snare and toms. I tried the Sonnox Oxford Gate, which appeared to be a good choice for this issue, but it's got too many options and too hard to get the right feel. The Silencer just works, with three knobs.

Every time I go into my work office*, which is about 2-3 times a month, I grab an amp to take home and try out. This time it is a Bogner "Duende" two 6V6 1x12 combo.

This is an interesting amp. It has two channels; clean to mild crunch, and mild crunch to serious distortion. The clean channel has bass and treble controls. The distortion channel has no tone controls. My guess is that Bogner did this to get more saturation with out the signal loss of a passive tone control network. The amp makes up for this by having both presence and resonance controls (labeled "Air" and "Body"), which are global since they work on the power amp. This means that tone setting becomes and interesting affair. First, I set the gain and tone of the distortion channel. Then, I set the sound for the clean channel, having to use the EQ to compensate for where the global Air and Body may have already taken the clean channel.

The amp also has a less than impressive reverb for both channels, and a tremolo that I've never heard because I've not plugged in a switch.

Now, I've never formally met Mr. Bogner, but I've been near him a number of times. There are things about him that just rub me the wrong way, but I won't discuss those. He can definitely tweak an amp into a very good place, especially for heavy rock music. It turns out that I really like this amp. However, since the guy bothers me, it also kind of makes me feel gross to play and appreciate the gear.

So, the next step will be to pop it open and trace it out. I have a pretty good idea of what is happening, but I'll check anyway. There are a few things I found in a Bogner "Shiva" that I applied to my modded Traynor. Please don't tell anyone.

* For those who don't know, I do amp and effect modeling for Line 6. I've been there for almost 15 years and am lucky enough to kind-of be able to do anything I want. We have a large "library" of amps for R&D. It's pretty fantastic.

I am 40 years old and basically wasted a school night on UAD plugs.

Fairchild
Pultec
Manley massive passive
Ua 176/175b
Capitol reverb
Motown reverb

The Pultec was fun because I was scrolling around acoustic presets for the MEQ and it was exactly what I had a my Audioscape box set to +/- a db or two. It was even patched in on the nylon string track.

The fairchild and ua 176 sounds pretty useful, but I even like the stock reaper thing. This one stereo fairchild preset on a drum buss gave me PTSD - I see how popular that thing is now. Capital reverb sounded good on a vocal I already had slap on. I am not a rock a billy guy at all, but when Alan Vega, Mark E Smith and John Fogerty do that stuff its my favorite thing in the world, so I am not ashamed. I had to dial the reverb mix down uncomfortably close to zero, but when it worked it worked.

Speaking of presets, Jaquire King is my new best friend apparently because his was one of the few that didn’t make me want to kill myself.

For 5 minutes every plug-in sounded like the best thing in the world, then it would sound better when I turned it all off. There was this one high hat setting I am going to steal though. One day I’ll compare them but dialing that stuff on the computer is such a night and day difference to patching the eqps in I’m not in a hurry.

At least now I don’t have to waste a box on tiny cuts… I liked being able to put imitations of $5,000 boxes to use with barely there high pass filters on everything .

It was fun but I think I would have been better off drawing subtle automation moves on the project I’m working on, but at least I got it out of my system.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Mon Dec 01, 2025 11:45 pm I am 40 years old and basically wasted a school night on UAD plugs.

Fairchild
Pultec
Manley massive passive
Ua 176/175b
Capitol reverb
Motown reverb

All of those are nice plugins, they sound good and are fun to use. I like a plugin that can get me to where I'm going quickly, bonus points if it's fun to use, which just adds to the inspiration part of being creative for me. I find the JS version of the Fairchild confusing. The unit itself is confusing, because the speed programming is not obvious, you have to read the manual to understand it, and use your ears to determine what is best. But at least the UAD Fairchild has a manual! But once I figured it out, it's amazing. I love it on vocals. I want to use the 670 on a drum bus, but I've got a different compressor I like for that and am comfortable with.

I use the UAD Pultec as a mix bus EQ and just mix into it every time. I like the UAD version, too. I have tried different ones. Its not that it sounds "better", its just does what it does and doesn't need to be over complicated. I got it in a bundle with the 1176 and LA2A. The JS versions of these are also fine.

benadrian wrote: Wed Nov 26, 2025 1:57 pm Now, I've never formally met Mr. Bogner, but I've been near him a number of times. There are things about him that just rub me the wrong way, but I won't discuss those. He can definitely tweak an amp into a very good place, especially for heavy rock music. It turns out that I really like this amp. However, since the guy bothers me, it also kind of makes me feel gross to play and appreciate the gear.

So, the next step will be to pop it open and trace it out. I have a pretty good idea of what is happening, but I'll check anyway. There are a few things I found in a Bogner "Shiva" that I applied to my modded Traynor. Please don't tell anyone.

* For those who don't know, I do amp and effect modeling for Line 6. I've been there for almost 15 years and am lucky enough to kind-of be able to do anything I want. We have a large "library" of amps for R&D. It's pretty fantastic.

I have a Soldano in my office that I think I feel weird about liking as much as I do, and I hope Mike Soldano is a cool dude because I think he did some smart things with his amps

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Mon Dec 01, 2025 11:45 pm I am 40 years old and basically wasted a school night on UAD plugs.

Fairchild
Pultec
Manley massive passive
Ua 176/175b
Capitol reverb
Motown reverb

The Pultec was fun ....

...For 5 minutes every plug-in sounded like the best thing in the world, then it would sound better when I turned it all off. ....

....It was fun but I think I would have been better off drawing subtle automation moves on the project I’m working on, but at least I got it out of my system.

I ended up getting the Fairchild, pultec, analog devices and B3 waterfall organ plugins. I had pretty much the exact same night you did hahaha, except I left the pultec on the bass track because it sounded good enough that I didn't want to patch in the Warm EQP I have (bought for live synth???).

The B3 was probably the most fun and worthwhile thing for me, sounds great

TylerDeadPine wrote: Tue Dec 02, 2025 11:45 am

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Mon Dec 01, 2025 11:45 pm The Pultec was fun ....

...I left the pultec on the bass track because it sounded good enough that I didn't want to patch in the Warm EQP I have (bought for live synth???).

I was watching a video with Marc Daniel Nelson and he was discussing his Pultecs (two for stereo). He basically installed them and just left a setting that he liked and never touched them again. They just sit on his mix bus and he just mixes into them. So, I found a setting that I like and I just saved it as a preset and add it to my mix bus and mix into it. I love how simple this is, and gets me quickly to a good, familiar spot.

I have used the Pultec kick trick with it, it's super nice. (Though, I use the Kirchhoff to tweak to fit now).