Ceriatone Yeti.....Holy S$%#!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bad.Seed
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Bad.Seed

Bad.Seed

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I've been a chupacabra owner for about 2 years now.

There were days that I loved the amp, and days where it just doesn't sit right with me. I play with a boost most of the time, and the amp doesn't always seem to like having the input pushed. It tends to bring out some thin/stringy qualities, especially depending on the guitar. I spoke to Nick, and he gave me the recommendation that pretty much cured my issues with the amp, of having the gain pots higher on front, as they take the bright caps out of the signal the more you turn it up.

ANYWAYS, A yeti came up for $1,000 locally. It looks clean, but still more than I was willing to pay. It sat for a couple weeks, I inquired about a possible lower price, and the guy said he wasn't willing to budge. I was browsing craigslist last Friday, and I notice he had the add up for $1000 still, but had added a vintage Marshall cab with 55 HZ "Greenbacks" to the deal...now I'm interested. When talking about the amp and cab, he mentioned he also had a clean Gibson SG Standard for Sale, so I said make me a package deal for the 3....

We agreed on $1600 for the Amp, cab and guitar. I picked up all 3 items, the amp and guitar are very clean, so my plan is to sell the guitar for roughly $850 and be into the amp and cab for $750. Can't complain about that deal.

As far as the amp goes, it sounds VERY similar to the Chupacabra. The main difference I'm noticing is the low end, and how it reacts. The cupacabra has this overwhelming low end that I wouldn't necessarily call lose, it just has a huge swell or bloom to it that can be tricky to dial out. The yeti on the otherhand, is very tight, immediate, and crunchy, which I really enjoy. I actually clicked the boost off and dialed the gain and mids up a tad on the amp and I was playing Reign in Blood rythms with no issues staying tight and still getting some great saturation without it being muddy.

I'm a pretty one dimensional player, and I have no qualms in admitting that. But this amp just begs to have all sorts of stuff thrown at it. I rolled the volume back on my LP with a Duncan JB in the bridge and I was right there in 70's classic rock territory. AC/DC, Uncle Teddy, Alice Cooper. The amp just sounded right for it, and this is on the 80's setting.

After that, jumped back into 80's/90's thrash. Played a few Megadeth jams and it felt right. Scooped the mids out a bit and played a couple Master of puppets riffs. It's not a Mark II but can get close to those sounds.

Rolled my volume back up and started chipping away at 90's pop punk and punk stuff. It nailed the Dookie tone for Green Day, came pretty close to the tones on Dude Ranch by Blink 182, and sounded damn good for some older Alkaline Trio stuff as well.

What I really love is the touch sensitivity. When playing the Green Day songs it's very apparent. Playing Basket Case, there is definitely some dynamic changes in the picking/strumming throughout the song. Picking a little lighter on the opening palm mute section and then hammering the bridge/verse on the open strings really hits the front of the amp and saturates it, and make it a ton of fun to play.

Anyways, I'll shut up now. Here's the only picture I took of it:
 

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That’s a nice deal. Those vintage cabs are hard to find these days without speaker issues. I’m not the biggest Ceriatone fan(PT went out on the only one I’ve bought) but you dig it so that’s all that matters.
 
Racerxrated":3abqyu8m said:
That’s a nice deal. Those vintage cabs are hard to find these days without speaker issues. I’m not the biggest Ceriatone fan(PT went out on the only one I’ve bought) but you dig it so that’s all that matters.

I've heard this is a somewhat common ocurrance on the Ceriatone stuff, and their stock PT's aren't the best out there.

I picked up both amps for what I'd consider a steal, so if I have to swap out a transformer on either amp down the line, I could live with it.

Did you not jive tonally, or was it just the PT issue that pushed you away from them?
 
congrats. I almost pulled the trigger on a Yeti about 2 months ago. Something snafu'd my plans. I see that he has a Butterslax inspired amp coming out shortly. The Butterslax is my bucket list amp but I dont think I would ever be able to grab one. I will be interested how this model turns out.
 
Bad.Seed":klu9doza said:
Racerxrated":klu9doza said:
That’s a nice deal. Those vintage cabs are hard to find these days without speaker issues. I’m not the biggest Ceriatone fan(PT went out on the only one I’ve bought) but you dig it so that’s all that matters.

I've heard this is a somewhat common ocurrance on the Ceriatone stuff, and their stock PT's aren't the best out there.

I picked up both amps for what I'd consider a steal, so if I have to swap out a transformer on either amp down the line, I could live with it.

Did you not jive tonally, or was it just the PT issue that pushed you away from them?
So, it's not a fair comparison because mine was modded by Fortin, a Cali mod. It sounded pretty killer to me, albeit a bit noisy. Gigged once with it....the next day I fired it up and it blew a fuse. Tried different tubes, etc and it was the PT. Put a classictone in and it sounded even better! But I was spooked by the possibility of another issue so I moved it on.
Later I ended up trying 2 other Ceriatones, a Jube and AFD models at a music go round and both had this weird high end "smear" or something, hard to explain but it was annoying to my ears. Sounded like a decent modded Marshall tone but I couldn't dial out that high end thing. They are really good values, and maybe some different circuit parts would get rid of that high end. The Fortin Cali Ceriatone didn't have that high end smear.
 
I thought about getting Gower to mod a Ceriatone for his Kali mod. He seemed up for it as long as it was a built in house a Ceriatone so he didnt have to deal with someone else's soldering skills. I've heard their transformers have improved in recent years?
 
ClintN667":297k16w8 said:
I thought about getting Gower to mod a Ceriatone for his Kali mod. He seemed up for it as long as it was a built in house a Ceriatone so he didnt have to deal with someone else's soldering skills. I've heard their transformers have improved in recent years?
I don't know, you can order them w/o transformers so that's the route I would go. A classictone pair won't set you back too much, and to me they are pretty close to having those Marshall mids. By comparison, MM transformers in a Marshall build don't really bring those same mids/feel/something, nothing against MM but they are their own thing. I've had a few modded Marshalls come through here with MM transformers and they were just too different to me to want to go that route. That Fortin Cali Ceriatone, once I changed out to Classictone it really improved the tone, and it was good before.
 
that sounds like a good idea. You would probably save the cost for the iron on shipping.
 
I have a chupacabra that I bought from Nik without the transformers. I installed some MM off the shelf Marshall iron that Mark Cameron recommend to me which runs around 550v on the plates. It is one of the best sounding amps in my collection right now for the tone I’m going for. Yeti is absolutely killer as well!
 
jasonP":4f39en4v said:
I have a chupacabra that I bought from Nik without the transformers. I installed some MM off the shelf Marshall iron that Mark Cameron recommend to me which runs around 550v on the plates. It is one of the best sounding amps in my collection right now for the tone I’m going for. Yeti is absolutely killer as well!
Nice! I'm a fan of big output transformers; something about monster power sections that take an amp over the top for me. I grabbed an 82 2204 for that reason; from mid 82-mid 83 Marshall put some beefy transformers in the 2204s..many over 500v on the plates. Reminds me of a D60 or Wizard 50w..they feel like 100w.
 
I've tried these amps with a bunch of common transformers out there, including the stock Ceriatone iron. They all work and sound good. Classic Tone, Mercury, Marstran, Merren, Heyboer, Prometheus (stock iron), etc. Whatever. At the end of the day, I look at secondary voltage output and how the leads connect. I like solder tags instead of hard-wired leads. So that helps narrow it down a bit. And then for voltage, I want the B+ to be between 470-485v.

Other than that... guys... a PT is just a bunch of iron plates wrapped with copper wire. Don't overthink it.
 
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