Ampeg VH - 140 C in a pedal ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter griff10672
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Beyond Black said:
And thereā€™s no fix or replacement parts for those, huh?
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Nope... Then again the last time I looked into it was when mine died in 2004 ish, which is a real bummer. I've been keeping my eye on the SNK stuff for awhile, was hoping someone would make a vid comparison of the actual amp vs their amp.
 
All these preamp pedals and amps just don't have the same punch that they seemed to get from the old MOSFET systems like what they used in the original Randall RG100ES's and early 80's Marshall S/S amps that had mosfets.

I am assuming the preamp stages were FET's of some kind in the old Randalls and the power amp stages were the MOSFETS in place of power amp tubes, is this correct?

Do they not make mosfets like the old ones anymore? Because I've heard many say that is why it's difficult to repair the old Randalls or HH V800's if the mosfets fail cause they either don't make them or make them like the old ones.....
 
I have the plx spiritus, and also a tagboard clone I made a few years back, pretty fun preamp for old school death metal. I like my tagboard clone a bit more since I added some extra controls, a ā€˜tightā€™ knob after the first stage (basically the same as how Amptweaker and friedman do the ā€˜tightā€™ knobs on their pedals), and also there is a very aggressive low pass just before the eq and I made that adjustable. Changing the low pass filter can open up the top end a lot but it also gets very un-vh140-like quick.

One I havenā€™t seen anyone make a clone of is the gx130c, which appears quite similar but eq looks different from what I remember.

Then thereā€™s the earlier SS140 which is quite different circuit-wise. But those ones donā€™t have the cult following so I donā€™t know how many people would care.

Aion make a Vh140c pcb and their build docs have a much easier to read schematic than the factory schematic. Though the big electrolytics on the clipping stages are backwards. The factory Schem shows + to ground, and their patent for that clipping circuit also shows + to ground. Dunno if it matters, I tried it both ways on my clone but I donā€™t recall if I heard a difference (was a couple years ago)
 
mnemonic said:
I have the plx spiritus, and also a tagboard clone I made a few years back, pretty fun preamp for old school death metal. I like my tagboard clone a bit more since I added some extra controls, a ā€˜tightā€™ knob after the first stage (basically the same as how Amptweaker and friedman do the ā€˜tightā€™ knobs on their pedals), and also there is a very aggressive low pass just before the eq and I made that adjustable. Changing the low pass filter can open up the top end a lot but it also gets very un-vh140-like quick.

One I havenā€™t seen anyone make a clone of is the gx130c, which appears quite similar but eq looks different from what I remember.

Then thereā€™s the earlier SS140 which is quite different circuit-wise. But those ones donā€™t have the cult following so I donā€™t know how many people would care.

Aion make a Vh140c pcb and their build docs have a much easier to read schematic than the factory schematic. Though the big electrolytics on the clipping stages are backwards. The factory Schem shows + to ground, and their patent for that clipping circuit also shows + to ground. Dunno if it matters, I tried it both ways on my clone but I donā€™t recall if I heard a difference (was a couple years ago)
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The Aion is the version I built. It works well. It uses a special power converter part with some inductors which gives it the special voltages it needs. It has a very thick, almost fuzzy, type sound.
 
VH140C
Hardcore STL
IMG_2565.jpeg
 
Shask said:
The Aion is the version I built. It works well. It uses a special power converter part with some inductors which gives it the special voltages it needs. It has a very thick, almost fuzzy, type sound.
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Interesting way he derived the correct voltages with that one, every other clone seems to just use a charge pump.
 
RaceU4her said:
i dont hear any of the pedals sounding anything like this


https://app.box.com/embed/s/mztkw5iqcsdzlkhunnub3bi7ziguonxq
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Me neither.
Your clip and the one that the OP posted of the actual amp sound way more brutal AND tighter at the same time than the pedals.
The sound kinda reminds me of a blend of an Engl Powerball and scooped 5150 OG...
Massive gain, brutal, gnarly, but still tight AF.
Even with my Engl Savage 60, I would need to boost it badly AND run an EQ in the loop to get to this level of brutal death metal tones.

Having built drive pedals myself, there's a quick danger in over-gaining it with stages, where the cascading just turns into mush and fuzz.
I've once built an Ibanez SM-9 Super Metal clone on vero-board and tried to crank more gain out of it....nuh-uh. Mush.
Pre-gain filtering to keep things tight, ideally an active 3 or 4 band EQ after the gain stages to boost the heavy bass again. stuff like that would be needed, I think.

That being said, a fun pedal I used in the day, that could get insanely brutal, was the Zoom Driver 5000. I forgot which of the 6 modes you had to use (I think it was Combo112 or one of the two Stack modes), but there was one, that did this massive, gut-punching metal tone.

1707135008327.png
 
I like Aion Effects breakdown and set up for this ...... I think I might build and tweak a few ....

I've never used a DC converter in a pedal before .....
 
mnemonic said:
Interesting way he derived the correct voltages with that one, every other clone seems to just use a charge pump.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it looks like he likes that method because he has copied it to several other preamp boards he has available. When I ordered that part I ordered 2-3 of them just case I build more of his preamp designs in the future.
 
Shask said:
Yeah, it looks like he likes that method because he has copied it to several other preamp boards he has available. When I ordered that part I ordered 2-3 of them just case I build more of his preamp designs in the future.
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16 bucks just for one .......... that's big money in pedal parts .... lol
 
Speeddemon said:
Me neither.
Your clip and the one that the OP posted of the actual amp sound way more brutal AND tighter at the same time than the pedals.
The sound kinda reminds me of a blend of an Engl Powerball and scooped 5150 OG...
Massive gain, brutal, gnarly, but still tight AF.
Even with my Engl Savage 60, I would need to boost it badly AND run an EQ in the loop to get to this level of brutal death metal tones.

Having built drive pedals myself, there's a quick danger in over-gaining it with stages, where the cascading just turns into mush and fuzz.
I've once built an Ibanez SM-9 Super Metal clone on vero-board and tried to crank more gain out of it....nuh-uh. Mush.
Pre-gain filtering to keep things tight, ideally an active 3 or 4 band EQ after the gain stages to boost the heavy bass again. stuff like that would be needed, I think.

That being said, a fun pedal I used in the day, that could get insanely brutal, was the Zoom Driver 5000. I forgot which of the 6 modes you had to use (I think it was Combo112 or one of the two Stack modes), but there was one, that did this massive, gut-punching metal tone.

View attachment 285623
Click to expand...


i love old oddball pedals like that thing, maybe ill snag that up. i always like this thing for the brutal thing

iu
 
RaceU4her said:
i love old oddball pedals like that thing, maybe ill snag that up. i always like this thing for the brutal thing

iu
Click to expand...
Had that one too for a while. It sits more in the Metal Zone camp. Sold it at a loss eventually. It was built well though and I enjoyed its delay brother, the Echo Park for many years, because of the great ducking+analog or tape combination setting.

Another one (you may already know) is the MXR Fullbore Metal...also in this insane gain camp.

Here's a fun video of that Zoom Driver 5000... the guy is playing with a Strat...

starts at 0m56s.


And with the 'Zoom Box' setting, you can cop a decent Brian May tone even... :p
 
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