NPRD!!!

New practice rig day

I've had the peavey vyper for about 6 years for bedroom playing/practicing. When I first got it, I'd intended to grab a footswitch to make it usable. When I found out the pedals were as much as the amplifier, I decided it wasn't worth it.

Well fast forward and I was finally able to put together a new bedroom practice rig!!

I found a mini Zakk Wylde stack at a local mom and pop shop and was able to convince them to sell one of the 16-ohm cabinets with a broken jack. I then grabbed a new 6505MH

One of the things I always hated about the vyper was the built-in noise gate that you couldn't turn off, so when you rolled your guitar volume down, it would cut the signal completely



I also recorded a quick video to show what I've been able to dial in so far for late night jamming. The light behind it was just so the camera could focus and the video wasn't pitch black.



There are a ton of mistakes and I was super tired, but it's a ton of fun to play and is a welcomed investment

sounds good to me

Nice little rig you got yourself there man! Could you tell us a little bit more about your Cherry Bomb?

sounds good!

Thanks dudes! With a footswitchable delay in the loop I could totally take this mini-rig to a gig and do the whole show mic'd through the PA. It definitely slays

Steve and I were talking one night and I wanted to make some modifications to squeeze some more gain out of the rod channel to push it over the top and make it less chokingly tight. I knew what I wanted to do to it to get there but needed Steve to point me in the right direction for the locations on the boards since no schematics of the HCB are available. He was super helpful and later on decided all HCB's from the current serial number on would get those same modifications to both channels.

Damn, that sounds really nice! You're right, could totally use that for a whole show. Great practice rig, great backup rig, sounds better than a lot of main rigs!

Keep an eye out on your 6505mh,I had 2 of them and both the bias drift was terrible and the front panel would get so hot damn near melt skin,I even sent 1 of them back to Peavey for their .50 cent part they said was the problem and was shipping the new ones out with the heating problem fixed..I did like the amp though,so hopefully they fixed the newer latest ones up. Take the front panel off and let some of the heat escape,and please check the power tubes out,if they are the stock ones both of mine the tubes were so far apart on mAmps when biasing,a new matched pair with a good bias helped tremendously...not trying to rag on your amp there..I liked your sound clip.

This one was at a Mom and pop shop so it will apparently have the heating problem. Is there an official service recall announcement or something?

So just an update, I called peavey about this bias runaway thing mentioned above and it only happened for amplifiers built possibly within the first 6 months of production - possibly the 1st year. This means it happened 3 years ago from today, meaning all amplifiers manufactured 2 years prior to this date guaranteed do not have bias runaway problems.

I did take the front panel off to help with cooling and also to match the bigger brother

Congrats! That looks killer with the ZW mini cab. Head and cab setups always look much cooler than combos anyway, haha.

How do you like the 1 and 5 W modes on the 6505MH?

Rex Rocker":o1t5ndlj said:

Congrats! That looks killer with the ZW mini cab. Head and cab setups always look much cooler than combos anyway, haha.

How do you like the 1 and 5 W modes on the 6505MH?

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It’s technically a legit half stack, just mini

To be honest I’ve not used them yet. I just keep it on 20W mode. The reduced wattage modes just dump the extra energy into a bank of ceramic resistors within the amplifier like mesas always have. Nothing special going on there. I like the low end of 20W mode personally and haven’t felt the need to switch

It’s a great practice rig. Shows the same imperfections in my playing a real amp would. Definitely a worthwhile investment.