Framus Cobra Question

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SonicPulverizer

SonicPulverizer

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I just played a used Cobra at a local store. Someone had replaced all the volumes including the 2 masters with chicken knobs (green and purple). I used a seafoam green prs starla and ran it through the cheap peavey cab it happened to be sitting on. What the hell? I know this amp is supposed to be all about the high gain but jesus christ the clean tone made my badcat sound almost inferior-- AND the crunch tones on channel 2 sounded every bit as good as the bogner twin jet. My least favorite part of the whole amp was channel 3. While I can see the practicality in changing the volume controls out to find them in a hurry, i can't tell if that was all that was done to it. Is this just typical framus mojo or do you guys think it was a modded amp?
 
Sounds like a stock one. The one I had was just like what you described.
Those amps are extremely bad ass. :yes: The Clean is amazing as well.
Crunch? eh....I played mostly the lead channel with the gain down for rock stuff.
If I ever come across another for a great deal I will snag it. :rock:
 
Sounds normal. The trick with the Cobra is to dime the ch volume on ch 2 and 3. This kills the fizz. The second is run a clean boost, which turns the cobra into one of the heaviest sounding amps ever created by mankind. :yes:
 
Cleans for me were awesome, crunch good for metal and lead too compressed and not clear. But man, the cleans are outrageous!
 
I had one... and also Dragon

Hated it... hated it hated it hated it

+ horrible build quality
 
What RJF said...boost, boost, BOOST! I was a bigger fan of the crunch channel over the lead. My experience was that it is picky with cabs.
 
Good to hear guys, I havent posted in a while but as always the rigtalk crew is quick with the scoop.

I found the best tones while i was going through it by running master 1 all the way open and balancing the channel against master 2. I couldnt believe how versatile channel 1 was, that by itself could be an amp I'd buy and not play anything else. I find with a lot of channel switchers i always have to have the bright on or eq it pretty dramatically to get a good sparkle, the cobra was completely musical with or without the bright switch engaged.

I don't know if this particular amp was off or not (it had obviously been toured with), but channel 3 was very... "fuzzy"? Like noticeably, grossly buzzsaw like. I could get it to sound more useable with the gain almost all the way off but then it just sounded like a less refined version of what i got out of channel 2. The notch switch just made it grosser?
 
SonicPulverizer":1akg41dm said:
6string40, what cabs worked best/worst?
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To answer your first question, again... to kill that fuzz you run the ch volume all the way open, dimed, not 9, 10. Then adjust volume with master only.

THe cobra head really likes the cobra cab. Can't have one without the other, IMHO.
 
I'd like to check one out, never have.

Unearth recorded with them back in the day and their tone was pretty awesome.
 
RJF, I balanced the channel volume against the master like you're saying. I tried a few different combinations with and without master 2. Even full open, it was terribly fizzy as you call it. So I'm guessing that's not the normal character of the amp.
 
SonicPulverizer":1ke1z01n said:
RJF, I balanced the channel volume against the master like you're saying. I tried a few different combinations with and without master 2. Even full open, it was terribly fizzy as you call it. So I'm guessing that's not the normal character of the amp.
Click to expand...

Channel volumes need to be near 3 o'clock or more in order for these channels to sound decent, that's the "secret"
 
SonicPulverizer":13clpimu said:
RJF, I balanced the channel volume against the master like you're saying. I tried a few different combinations with and without master 2. Even full open, it was terribly fizzy as you call it. So I'm guessing that's not the normal character of the amp.
Click to expand...
Again, what do you mean by "balanced ch vol against master?"

You take the ch volume knob, you turn it to the right until it stops. Then, you adjust master vol for actual volume like normal.
 
SonicPulverizer":3hv23czg said:
6string40, what cabs worked best/worst?
Click to expand...

As many have said, Cobra cabinet works best. Mesa cab with V30s wasn't bad.
 
I owned 3 cobras and loved the tone.
Couple things i did hate was the build quality, the notch switch which sounded horrible, and the cheap tolex and shitty handle. I thought the cleans was excellent and ch2 was my favorite channel.
They usually come biased cold and it sounded better once the bias was raised, it was at is best with the ch vol at 2:00 or above. Certain cabs sounded shitty but the cobra cab with greenbacks and certain v30 cabs worked good. I also tried it with a marshall cab loaded with 75s and it was horrible imo.

Ruby el34bstr sounded great and some C9 in the pre.
It was a tight pissed off sounding amp that was great for metal. you dont see them very often anymore, derekb sold a bunch of them but thats a long time ago, dana b goods used to be the distributor for a while.
 
I run JJ KT77's and a Doug's Tubes tone kit preamp set in mine. I like the 77's better than 34's, less fizz.
 
Sounds stock, my Cobra is exactly like that. The third channel is very finicky, and sounds best with the gain run as low as possible, but for one reason or another it doesn't have the balls that ch. 2 has. Ch 2 is silly good, and the clean channel is right where it needs to be for a heavy amp, super clean and punchy.

What the other posters are saying about the volume is true, the first thing I noticed was that the effects loop run at 100% mix sounded much better, I didn't run anything in the loop as a result, but only used the amp for recording. What I did to balance the channels was start with ch. 3 at 10, then work backwards to match the other channels. This isn't a problem since there's a lead boost, and leads is the best thing on ch. 3, it really sings but it's not good for palm muted or heavy rhythm stuff, that's where ch. 2 rocks. I didn't have tone issues with the other channels not being dimed on mine. I tried a boost and found I didn't need it once I got it dialed in. Just about any amp sounds juicy with a clean boost, I'm surprised they aren't just built into heads at this point. That'd be great if Framus made a rack preamp!
 
What I mean is I ran the master all the way open, and used only the channel volume and vice versa, ran the channel volume wide open and used only the master, i also tried a few combinations with master 2 on and off as well. It was just always buzzy and noisy, sounded basically like channel 2 with a bunch of white noise added in unless i took the gain to 9 o' clock or below, where it sounded like a turned down channel 2.
 
Thanks for all the good info, I think I'm going to start using this on the road soon, keep the badcat at home.
 
What you pick it up for?

Havent seen any for sale in a while.
Few years back I gave $1200 for mine. One of the amps I wish I kept. :aww:

Cant keep em all. :lol: :LOL:
 
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