New Aldrich+ Mod

glpg80

glpg80

Well-known member
I’ve owned and played my Aldrich now for a few years and the amps awesome. However, there’s a squish in the notes that I can’t stand - even present during pinch harmonics. I believe I’ve outlined the problem and I’ve come up with a potential circuit solution, breadboarded it, and it should add more thump and just general badassness.

I plan to start adding it to the chassis soon. I had to de-goop my amp first. I’ll post before and after clips here. Stay tuned.
 
Here’s a before video recorded by Psychodave


In this you can hear there’s some squish in the amp and it sounds a bit anemic. I created a new circuit to fix that without adding anymore tubes. I fought some instability issues since it’s so damn high gain but here’s the final result. I still need to rip it all out and make it permanent but the designing is done.

 
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RedPlated said:
Nothing better than having an amp that needs tweaked and being able to do it yourself. Good job man.
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Thanks dude! You’ve done it yourself quite a few times as well so it’s nice when they actually turn out great.

The Nick/Cameron Aldrich gets a lot of recognition as is but this takes it up a notch. Crazy thing is that it still cleans up great.
 
Pass it to me and nobody gets hurt!

Came out great! Also some serious cooking with those chops 🤘🏻

Check your dm too, I dropped you one.
 
Also this is straight in. No boosts, no noise gates, no buffers, no diode clipping. All analog. Just a lexicon in the passive effects loop. Yes it’s possible to get aggressive high gain sounds out of amps and it not be a Mesa mark series.
 
glpg80 said:
Here’s a before video recorded by Psychodave


In this you can hear there’s some squish in the amp and it sounds a bit anemic. I created a new circuit to fix that without adding anymore tubes. I fought some instability issues since it’s so damn high gain but here’s the final result. I still need to rip it all out and make it permanent but the designing is done.

Click to expand...

The tone of your amp/ lexicon unit and the room make this clip sound like the intro of Jack Butler’s crossroads.
 
alund said:
The tone of your amp/ lexicon unit and the room make this clip sound like the intro of Jack Butler’s crossroads.
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I definitely hear it now that you said it. Ironically I’ve always admired that tone Vai had in the movie and thought to myself damn that high gain tone sounds great. It really does sound similar.

Vai has a super modded Marshall from Jose that also blew my mind in one of Friedman’s videos.
 
glpg80 said:
I definitely hear it now that you said it. Ironically I’ve always admired that tone Vai had in the movie and thought to myself damn that high gain tone sounds great. It really does sound similar.

Vai has a super modded Marshall from Jose that also blew my mind in one of Friedman’s videos.
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They talk about Vai’s sound in a video somewhere…. And how he got it. I’m not sure I would move your stack into a smaller room BUT would be interesting to see if it changed anything on the overall sound.. ie is it the lexicon giving that effect or the room. Turn the Lex off and see. Just thinking what gives that sound. Nice
 
That sounds great! It would be interesting and to see what you had to do to change the circuit, not to copy it or anything just to see how you went about getting what you wanted out of the amp.
 
Doing it right with the two side by side 4x12's! Sounds killer. Also sounds like it would be fun to play if that makes any sense?
 
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