Ceriatone King Kong Owners?

[FourT6and2]

Good platform for modifications. In stock form it's ok. With a few tweaks it can be a real monster.

What tweaks do you recommend for the Yeti, and what do they do?

Check out the tech forum. Lots of suggestions there. I posted a schematic of a good Jose mod. Easy to incorporate any of those tweaks into the Yeti. But if it were me I would raise the NFB resistor a bit, lower the depth cap a bit, add a dropping resistor between PI and CF B+ nodes, lower the slope resistor to stock Marshall value, and swap out the diodes with something more to my taste, which would be 18v zeners on one side and MPSA06 on the other. Oh and I'd swap the mid-boost cap on Gain 2 out for a 4700pF version.

How do these mods change/improve the tone?

The amp will go from a somewhat lifeless, dark/smooth Jose mod knock-off to an angry, tight, musical hot-rod Marshall with some bark and grind.

Each tweak has a specific effect. Raising or lower the slope resistor has a specific effect. Raising or lower the depth cap has a specific effect. Lots of info out there about this stuff. Once you learn what each part of a circuit does, you can quite literally voice any amp to your exact taste. It will end your amp-search. Because you'll buy an amp... any amp... and instead of playing it for a bit and getting tired of it and then selling it and start all over again with a new amp, you will go, "Oh, I like this amp but it has too much X/Y/Z. So I'll just change out this resistor and boom... now it's the amp of my dreams."

 

[Zado]

Damn you killed my amp in a sec

 

[ClintN667]

Good platform for modifications. In stock form it's ok. With a few tweaks it can be a real monster.

What tweaks do you recommend for the Yeti, and what do they do?

Check out the tech forum. Lots of suggestions there. I posted a schematic of a good Jose mod. Easy to incorporate any of those tweaks into the Yeti. But if it were me I would raise the NFB resistor a bit, lower the depth cap a bit, add a dropping resistor between PI and CF B+ nodes, lower the slope resistor to stock Marshall value, and swap out the diodes with something more to my taste, which would be 18v zeners on one side and MPSA06 on the other. Oh and I'd swap the mid-boost cap on Gain 2 out for a 4700pF version.

How hard is it to make these mods? I've read elsewhere that they are pretty easy to work on but I'm a complete noob when it comes to this.

These mods are all quite simple and easy to do if you know how to solder properly and understand a few Amp 101 basics, which is sounds like you'd need to read up on. I could do all of this in about an hour. It takes all of 5 minutes to swap out a resistor or capacitor on a turret board.

Yeah I definitely am going to need to read up. I bought two books last week one being the Guitar Amp Handbook and the other Design and Construction of Tube Amps. I just started reading the Guitar Amp Handbook yesterday during some down time at work but after looking at the other book I'm definitely going to ave to finish Handbook first. I've been thinking about getting a kit for awhile or just buying something to mod to get my feet wet but I'm not in any hurry. I'm loving my KSR Orthos to where I'm not G.A.S'n for another amp at the moment but I would like to work on one just to say I've done it and to have the knowledge.

 

[Beyond Black]

Good platform for modifications. In stock form it's ok. With a few tweaks it can be a real monster.

What tweaks do you recommend for the Yeti, and what do they do?

Check out the tech forum. Lots of suggestions there. I posted a schematic of a good Jose mod. Easy to incorporate any of those tweaks into the Yeti. But if it were me I would raise the NFB resistor a bit, lower the depth cap a bit, add a dropping resistor between PI and CF B+ nodes, lower the slope resistor to stock Marshall value, and swap out the diodes with something more to my taste, which would be 18v zeners on one side and MPSA06 on the other. Oh and I'd swap the mid-boost cap on Gain 2 out for a 4700pF version.

How do these mods change/improve the tone?

The amp will go from a somewhat lifeless, dark/smooth Jose mod knock-off to an angry, tight, musical hot-rod Marshall with some bark and grind.

Each tweak has a specific effect. Raising or lower the slope resistor has a specific effect. Raising or lower the depth cap has a specific effect. Lots of info out there about this stuff. Once you learn what each part of a circuit does, you can quite literally voice any amp to your exact taste. It will end your amp-search. Because you'll buy an amp... any amp... and instead of playing it for a bit and getting tired of it and then selling it and start all over again with a new amp, you will go, "Oh, I like this amp but it has too much X/Y/Z. So I'll just change out this resistor and boom... now it's the amp of my dreams."

Cool man, thanks for the info.

 

[PAULYC2]

marked for later

 

[MetalHeadMike]

Good platform for modifications. In stock form it's ok. With a few tweaks it can be a real monster.

What tweaks do you recommend for the Yeti, and what do they do?

Check out the tech forum. Lots of suggestions there. I posted a schematic of a good Jose mod. Easy to incorporate any of those tweaks into the Yeti. But if it were me I would raise the NFB resistor a bit, lower the depth cap a bit, add a dropping resistor between PI and CF B+ nodes, lower the slope resistor to stock Marshall value, and swap out the diodes with something more to my taste, which would be 18v zeners on one side and MPSA06 on the other. Oh and I'd swap the mid-boost cap on Gain 2 out for a 4700pF version.

How do these mods change/improve the tone?

The amp will go from a somewhat lifeless, dark/smooth Jose mod knock-off to an angry, tight, musical hot-rod Marshall with some bark and grind.

Each tweak has a specific effect. Raising or lower the slope resistor has a specific effect. Raising or lower the depth cap has a specific effect. Lots of info out there about this stuff. Once you learn what each part of a circuit does, you can quite literally voice any amp to your exact taste. It will end your amp-search. Because you'll buy an amp... any amp... and instead of playing it for a bit and getting tired of it and then selling it and start all over again with a new amp, you will go, "Oh, I like this amp but it has too much X/Y/Z. So I'll just change out this resistor and boom... now it's the amp of my dreams."

This really struck a chord with me. I need to learn more about the effects of things like resistors, caps, etc. I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron, so the work would be simple for me, but I'd have to push myself to learn about the components in relation to their effect. Like you stated, it's usually just a simple characteristic about a particular amp that I get tired of...too strident in the highs, lows not hard/direct enough..yada...yada.