Ceriatone Yeti, Chupacabra, or Gargoyle?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Soundstorm
  • Start date Start date
napalmdeath said:
Don't think he can. That's what's kept me from getting another Yeti. But, maybe he's figured out a workaround. Their standard effects loop is awful.
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I'll see if he can do an internal trimpot instead
 
Ok he said he'll do a hardwired buffered loop set for unity gain for me. Nice!
 
Soundstorm said:
Since I haven’t played any of these amps, I can only tell you what I’ve read and watched on demos. From Nik (owner of Ceriatone)- the Gargoyle is the most modern but has less gain than the other two and is the tightest. The Yeti is tighter than the Chupacabra and more classic modded Marshall voiced, but can get into modern metal territory if set up that way. The Chupacabra has slightly more gain and snarl, with a slightly looser low end. The Yeti seems like it can do thrash and death metal tones without the need for a boost.

I’ve seen videos of all three amps sounding killer for metal so it’s really just a matter of preference. Since I use a baritone I’m always looking for a tighter low end, but also love the more classic voicing of the modded Marshall camp so I went with the Yeti.
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All three amps are the same, just with small value changes to various resitors/caps. If you buy one and wish you had one of the others, all it takes is a bit of time with a soldering iron to make the changes. Remember... these amps are DIY KITS first and foremost and the layouts are available on Ceriatone's website. So you can just pull them up and compare them to see the differences. If I had to pick one to buy to be the most versatile in case you want to make changes/mods, I'd get the one with the highest voltage PT. It's easier to reduce voltages rather than raise them. The Chupacabra's PT is lower in voltage for more of that "brown sound". And the Yeti has more holes in the chassis/faceplate so that's probably the one I'd get if I knew I wanted to play around with mods.

If you have no intention of experimenting with the circuit, I suppose I'd get the Gargoyle if I wanted a tighter, more aggressive sound. The Yeti is smoother/darker. The Chupa is brighter, looser, more hair on the gain.

The Chupa's gain stages are biased the hottest with 820R/.68uF in each stage and a 475K V1a plate load. That gives it more "gain" but the tone/feel is looser and more fizzy. The typical hot-rod values of 2k7/.68uF in the Molecular and Gargoyle give you more punch and a tighter response. There's still plenty of gain and the hey... that's the point of Jose mods with clipping diodes. You really don't need more "gain" from cranking up the bias when you have diode clipping.

You can also get much better results by playing with NFB compared to just throwing a high value plate resistor on V1.

In terms of actual gain, though, these amps don't have much more gain than a stock JCM800. What you're hearing is clipping caused by the diodes (which is the point). And you can alter the "distortion" character by changing the diodes/transistors. Pretty easy mod. Takes about 15 minutes.
 
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