Dirty Shirley questions

stekks

stekks

New member
Hi, new to this forum here!

I have a Dirty Shirley for over a week now and I love the way it sounds and I have a few questions.

The way I use this amp is with no pedals and control the gain/volume with my guitar volume (for this project mainly an R9 and R7, but Strats too).
Before I used my vintage amps (Vox AC50 and Park JMP50) with an attenuator. Because I don't want to stress these old amps too much I bought the DS as it had a mastervolume.

The only issue I have is the Dirty Shirley becoming too dark when rolling down the volume on the guitar, a lot more than on my vintage amps. The lower the master volume and/or gain, the darker the tone gets when rolled down. I have may gain set between 5-7 and the master volume between 4-7.

This is a kind of deal-breaker for me and I wonder if somebody has a tip or if there is a fix/mod for this?

I'm going to try the amp with an attenuator (Alessandro Muzzle or Ultimate Attenuator) to get the master volume higher. And it defeats the purpose of buying this amp, so I don't have to use attenuators.

The guitars have 50s wiring and I dislike volume pot treble bleed mods. My speakers are 2 x Celestion Creambacks. My EQ is set: pres 2-4, bass 1-3, mid 7, treble 7, master 4-7, gain 4-7.

Please advise :)
 
IMHO ... has nothing to do with the amp. Every guitar through every amp (with more or less obvious effect) will sound like that without a treble bleed mod on the guitar volume pot.
 
iggs":11dywsd6 said:
IMHO ... has nothing to do with the amp. Every guitar through every amp (with more or less obvious effect) will sound like that without a treble bleed mod on the guitar volume pot.
Click to expand...

I think iggs is right. Especially since the Dirty Shirley is noted to clean up exceptionally well.

Not all guitar wiring schemes are the same. I have found this with some of my guitars as well and it's something I look for nowadays. My 2007 R8 Les Paul vs. my 2013 R8 are like night and day in this regard and it's definitely the wiring. I think Gibson changed the way they do it in 2010 or 2011. On the more recent ones, the clean up comes much quicker on the pot and cleans up much better. With my 2013 R8, I can run the Naked with the gain up high for lead, crunch around 8, and then varying degrees of grit and clean(ish) lower than that. Usually no lower than 5 on the Les Paul's volume knob.
 
My Les Pauls have the correct 50s wiring and pot values. I have a lot of experience with vintage british NMV amps and I can control them with my volume pot with just a touch high-end roll off, which is normal.

The DS darkens up significantly if the gain and/or master-volume is lower. The high input is better too.

I love the tone though and I hope I can make it work.

I've played with the presence, between 6-8 I find the lead tones (guitar vol on 10) too shrill, but I'll play with it for a compromise.

Tips from DS owners are welcome! Hopefully Dave chips in too :)
 
As a experiment undo the 50's wiring and wire it modern and see if that makes it better for you. This is the first time anyone has ever said anything about this. What are the pickups?
 
Scott Henderson uses a really short cable from his guitar to board to combat treble rolloff when using the volume control.
 
RACKSYSTEMS":3cxo47o4 said:
As a experiment undo the 50's wiring and wire it modern and see if that makes it better for you. This is the first time anyone has ever said anything about this. What are the pickups?
Click to expand...

Pickups of the R9 are the stock custombuckers, on the R7 PAF clones from OX4.

Maybe pre-amp tube swap?
 
Did a quick test with different pre-amp tubes, works a lot better! -wipes sweat off forehead-

I'll try a buffer too tonight at bandhrehearsal, see how the Klon works.
 
Ok, just the pre-amp tube swap did the trick! Had a great tone at rehearsal tonight and the amp reacted a lot more like my vintage amps.

:rock:
 
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