A Wondrous Adventure: SLO Clone Build (Now with Clips)

  • Thread starter Thread starter FourT6and2
  • Start date Start date
Looks great. I would be down for a test play but I'm a bicyclist and from Rohnert Park to SF is quite a jaunt. :lol: :LOL:
 
FourT6and2":1131fec9 said:
fretout":1131fec9 said:
That looks phenominal man! Your build looks great, and super clean! I'd be nice to here some clips of it in action, and I may be speaking for myself, but I'd love to hear a shoot out between your build and a Soldano-built SLO. With my amps, there's quite a lot of opinions about the effect an FX Loop makes on the overall tone of an amp, or what brand of capacitors of the same value make on the overall sound. I think that would be really cool to hear, and to help educate other builds going forward!
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I don't have a real SLO. But I'd love to do an A/B if anybody in the Bay Area has one!

Caps do make a difference. I'm using Sprague 716p polypropylene caps. But the real SLO uses metallized polyester Vishay MKT368 (formally Phillips). They sound different. I should have used the Vishay. But I didn't know at the time I was sourcing parts. It's not so much the "brand" that mattes, but the material used in the cap. Polyester vs polypropylene. The MKTs supposedly sound meatier and have more of a mid-range emphasis. Whereas the Sprague "orange drops" are a bit more scooped sounding. More highs and lows, less mids. Oh well. I'll just have to build another one! :)

The loop in the SLO is a huge factor in the sound of the amp. There are a number of reasons: 1) The loop is BEFORE the tone stack. 2) Cathode Follower stages (including the loop). So you're having some tonal interactions going on with the loop's circuit. If I build another one, I'll add a loop bypass mod. Or maybe even build it without the loop.
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Peavey copied the loop more or less in the 5150, as well as much of the rest of the circuit. Peavey' gain is much higher due to an extra gain stage and some higher plate loads. The Dual Recto circuit also borrows very heavily from the SLO.
 
MississippiMetal":39830b3t said:
Looks great. I would be down for a test play but I'm a bicyclist and from Rohnert Park to SF is quite a jaunt. :lol: :LOL:
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Do you have a real SLO? If so, I might rent a car and come up to where you are.

Had a chance to test out the amp last night. I was very disappointed. Sounded... weak. And thin. And harsh. Very smooth. Lots of gain. But not pleasant.









































Then I realized I biased the amp to 39mV per side, rather than per tube. :D I should have doubled it since each bias test point is for two tubes. Rebiased the amp this morning. And swapped some of the preamp tubes.

V1: Tung- Sol Reissue
V2: Ei Yugo
V3: Ruby AC5
V4: JJ ECC83
V5: Ei Yugo

MUCH BETTER! Now with a proper bias this things sounds pretty damn awesome. :) Clips to come this weekend maybe.
 
very nice. Now I know why SLOs are so expensive. The price and concern over how they work at reasonable volume levels have so far kept me out of SLO land.
 
blackba":f2lccz8y said:
very nice. Now I know why SLOs are so expensive. The price and concern over how they work at reasonable volume levels have so far kept me out of SLO land.
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This morning I played at fairly low volumes. I'm in an apartment. And it was 9:30 am. So it wasn't loud. But it sounded good enough to get me salivating all day over the thought of getting home to play it again. :)
 
Let's play "Find the Clone." :D

slo_comparison_by_haftelm-d7svipb.jpg
 
looking forward to some clips/or a vid - fine work here man :thumbsup:
 
Hopefully I can make a vid this weekend. One of my roommates is taking the Bar Exam. So I'm trying not to make any noise.
 
Here are some clips. I'm still tweaking this thing here and there, trying to find the best combination of speakers and tubes. These clips aren't to showcase my playing, just the tone of the amp. Recorded with my laptop's webcam, so not the best quality obviously. But that's all I have.

Les Paul Silverburst with BKP Holy Divers
Bogner 4x12 with G12-65s

V1: Mullard of some type
V2: Tung-Sol Reissue
V3: JJ ECC83S
V4: JJ ECC83S
V5: Ei Yugo

CLEAN (Maybe too much reverb? And I literally just learned this song 2 minutes before recording this, so lots of mistakes):



OVERDRIVE:

 
I've got a SLO. The tone you're getting in the clip isn't too far off from the real deal. The main difference I can hear in this clip is the lack of sparkle and sizzle. The thing about a SLO's dirty channel is that it almost sounds like there's a clean tone mixed subtlety in. Never hear that in another high gain amp. Your amp sounds killer.
 
Mr. Willy":2p509rfd said:
I've got a SLO. The tone you're getting in the clip isn't too far off from the real deal. The main difference I can hear in this clip is the lack of sparkle and sizzle. The thing about a SLO's dirty channel is that it almost sounds like there's a clean tone mixed subtlety in. Never hear that in another high gain amp. Your amp sounds killer.
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You hear it in a CCV
 
Mr. Willy":bqwk3ntz said:
I've got a SLO. The tone you're getting in the clip isn't too far off from the real deal. The main difference I can hear in this clip is the lack of sparkle and sizzle. The thing about a SLO's dirty channel is that it almost sounds like there's a clean tone mixed subtlety in. Never hear that in another high gain amp. Your amp sounds killer.
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Yeah, that's pretty much how I've seen it described. That's probably because the Normal channel does indeed bleed into the Overdrive channel. That's part of the SLO circuit. And it does it with mine as well. The only difference is when I tracked that overdrive clip, I turned the gain on the clean channel off. So it wasn't bleeding over. I don't hear too much interaction. But it is there a little bit.

The Normal channel and Overdrive channel are out of phase.

Try this:

1. Both Gains and Volumes off.
2. Go to Overdrive channel.
3. Bring overdrive channel master volume up.
4. Hit a chord and bring up the Normal channel preamp gain with the crunch switch activated.

You'll hear the Normal channel come through the Overdrive channel clear as day.

Also maybe my EQ settings had something to do with it. I think they were around:

Preamp: 1:30
Bass: 9:30
Mid: Maxed out
Treble: 10:00
Volume: 8:45 - 9:00 or so (it's pretty freakin' loud by this point)
Presence: 1:45
Depth: 10:00

And the speakers are pretty dark and round sounding.
 
LP Freak":fhpoftbv said:
Mr. Willy":fhpoftbv said:
I've got a SLO. The tone you're getting in the clip isn't too far off from the real deal. The main difference I can hear in this clip is the lack of sparkle and sizzle. The thing about a SLO's dirty channel is that it almost sounds like there's a clean tone mixed subtlety in. Never hear that in another high gain amp. Your amp sounds killer.
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You hear it in a CCV
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I did remember hearing a little bit of that with the CCV I had. I bet the channels are bleeding a little bit in that amp too.

You could also do it with the Bad Cat Hot Cat. Channels are separate and wired in-phase. So with a Y cable you could plug into both and have 'em both on at the same time. Bring in the clean channel a little bit with the high-gain.

I wish I could A/B it with a real SLO. Nobody around here has one though.
 
Man that's awesome. Great work and pretty fast too man. Sounds great!
 
Mike!!!!

Just fucking great!!!!! I may take a bat across the head for this, but.....this is the first clip of an SLO that I actually like/love and to boot it is not a factory version. I bought the VH4 from you so if this ever hit's the block????? lemme know :thumbsup: !
 
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