Traynor Bassmaster mods

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paulyc

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Anybody got any quick and dirty mods for a Traynor Bassmaster ? Looking for more gain, but not hard rock or metal territory, just a good dirty blues. Thanks in advance.
 
Can you link to a schematic of your amp?

That will make it much easier for use to give you options
 
Had one of these years ago... first thing you need to do is tighten bass response. I can't remember which one it was but there was a big ass mustard cap in preamp that I swapped for a .022 or .0022 and that "plexi-fied " it a bit more. I also installed a 3 prong power chord. That alone made it a really awesome amp. Different than a Fender or Marshall, bit big, raw, cutting. Wish I never sold it. It can be real spaghetti in some of those..

There are a few vids like this but this guy takes you through part of the circuit and the mods he has made:



Traynor's are ugly beasts but great amps. I did a quick search on the Internetz and found a heavily modded one with these specs listed by the person who did the mod. Who knows, they might be on this forum. Get your soldering iron out and get at it!

-LarMar PEC 250k PPIVMV

- Concentric preamp Volume pot 1M/1M (made room for master volume control on front)

- 500pf bright cap for Channel 1

- 390pf bright cap for Channel 2.

- 180k resistors summed to ground off of Volume pot for some bass cut.

- Split Cathode and preamp Cathode values switch

- Cascade/Cold Clipper switch

270k/470k mixer resistors with bright caps

- Selectable .68 Gain Boost off the now 50k push/pull midrange pot

-PI values Marshall flavor 1M/470ohm/1M with 8.2k Tail

- PI cap now .0015

- PI/Power Couplings now .068/.068

- Converted to adjustable bias 25kl pot

- Raised Screen Grids to 1k 5w

- Added Grid Stoppers 4.7k

- Dropping Resistors now 6.8k, 12k (2w)

- Preamp Filter 47uf
 
Kapo_Polenton said:
Had one of these years ago... first thing you need to do is tighten bass response. I can't remember which one it was but there was a big ass mustard cap in preamp that I swapped for a .022 or .0022 and that "plexi-fied " it a bit more. I also installed a 3 prong power chord. That alone made it a really awesome amp. Different than a Fender or Marshall, bit big, raw, cutting. Wish I never sold it. It can be real spaghetti in some of those..

There are a few vids like this but this guy takes you through part of the circuit and the mods he has made:



Traynor's are ugly beasts but great amps. I did a quick search on the Internetz and found a heavily modded one with these specs listed by the person who did the mod. Who knows, they might be on this forum. Get your soldering iron out and get at it!

-LarMar PEC 250k PPIVMV

- Concentric preamp Volume pot 1M/1M (made room for master volume control on front)

- 500pf bright cap for Channel 1

- 390pf bright cap for Channel 2.

- 180k resistors summed to ground off of Volume pot for some bass cut.

- Split Cathode and preamp Cathode values switch

- Cascade/Cold Clipper switch

270k/470k mixer resistors with bright caps

- Selectable .68 Gain Boost off the now 50k push/pull midrange pot

-PI values Marshall flavor 1M/470ohm/1M with 8.2k Tail

- PI cap now .0015

- PI/Power Couplings now .068/.068

- Converted to adjustable bias 25kl pot

- Raised Screen Grids to 1k 5w

- Added Grid Stoppers 4.7k

- Dropping Resistors now 6.8k, 12k (2w)

- Preamp Filter 47uf
Click to expand...

Thank you.
 
Looking at the schematic, the volume control is early compared to the tone stack, you can add a volume after the tone stack and a lar mar after the phase inverter. That would allow you to control the overall volume and how hard you are hitting the PI. I am doing this mod for my 18Watt Plexi.

You can also try changing the plate load on V1 to a 220k. Add a switch to put another 220k in parallel and you will have stock at ~110k.
 
Just want to add that for us in Canada, these are some of the only vintage amps that still have a great pricetag on the used market. The YBA-1 trends higher but you can get a lot of models that are a few parts shy of being plexified between 4-600$. The one thing I hate about them is the deep ass chassies. Wish they had used more conventional chassis but I guess it gives you tons of real estate to work with if you mod.
 
I had a Bogner modded Traynor that I think was a Bassmaster. Was converted to gain/master volume with some switches. So seems like it can be converted over to something like a 2204 and then further modded from there.
 
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