Not Totally Satisfied With MY DRRI

[yardbird mac]

Here we go again... chasing tone. I have a DRRI that I bought a year ago and I'm not thoroughly in love with it, but I don't hate it either. For me, it lacks something... sounds kind of cold and sterile, even after running a 10 band EQ in front of it and swapping out the JENSEN C12K for a WEBER 12F150. Actually, it sounds great clean (and pushed really hard at 5 - 6 + volume, but the neighbors don't share my joy of practicing at that volume). My distortion pedals consist of a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive and an MXR Distortion III. It's with the distortion that I'm frustrated. I can't dial out that solid state "something" that goes with dirt pedals

I'm spoiled by my FENDER Pro Tube Pro Reverb, After fighting it for years, I'm getting the tones I've sought, after installing a full set of JJ tubes and replacing the JENSEN C12N with a WEBER 12F150. The WEBER was a huge improvement over the C12N. Both of my Les Pauls (Standard & R9) and my MIM Strat sound fantastic through this amp, but it's heavy (almost 80 pounds and I'm in my early 60s). I also have the PTPR biased at the lower limits of "HOT".

The DRRI seems to work well with my Strat., but not with either of my LPs. Don't shoot me, but I'm thinking about getting a MESA/Boogie Express 5:25 (12) or 5:50 (1-12), and I don't want to be stuck with using the Strat exclusively!

[Miles]

I eyeballed a DRRI when I was in the market for a 1x12 combo. Ended up with the 5:50 1x12. Here's why:

Better MIA build quality
2 channels - no dirt boxes
better reverb - IMO
better speaker - I'm a big fan of the C90 UK made in the Mesas
Cooler looking - subjective
The Contour feature - if you get this amp, you'll hear why it's a major perk.
Variable wattage
Ability to add ext. cabs easily if needed.

Most of all, the SOUND:

The clean sound alone makes the DRRI's clean sound like a ukulele in comparison. The Express 5:50's clean is just enormous sounding to my ears.

I play loud rock - a DRRI with a heavier sounding dirt box sounds tiny compared to the 5:50s on-board tones. Sans pedals! I can get a HUGE dirt tone from "crunch" mode on CH1 that sounds like a Big Muff had viable offspring with a dimed Marshall JTM - at manageable volumes to boot!

The 5:50 alone can get an insane breakup tone on it's variable modes and then some. It made my pedal collection moot and covers all the ground I need. It's also sturdier, doesn't need to be rebiased, and I can drop to very low wattage if needed (5w) to get real tube breakup for recording or gigs where we really have to watch our stage volume - yes, 5W can still get it done. :omg

5:50 = My favorite amp in the world. Such a killer and huge sounding tool in a well built and very easy to lug package. It also loves strats and teles.

...And the fact that these two amps even "compete" within the same price range is just insane. The 5:50 is definitely the superior choice. Even the 5:25 1x12 would devour the DRRI, in my opinion. Mesa knocked it out of the park when they created these.

[RJLII]

I used one for 10 years. All it took was a decent set of power tubes (Tungsten-Sol reissues) and a proper bias. Cold and sterile immediately became warm and creamy. The C12K sounded great once it was broken in a bit. All that said, it was still a DRRI with limited volume and headroom. They get a little farty in the bottom when pushed with humbuckers at high volume. They're not rock amps, but for blues, jazz, roots, etc. they're a pretty good rig for not much coin.

[Tone_Terrific]

My distortion pedals consist of a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive and an MXR Distortion III. It's with the distortion that I'm frustrated. I can't dial out that solid state "something" that goes with dirt pedals


I bet the Sparkle Drive is worse than the MXR, right?
Try different pedals.
A Bad Monkey is a good starting point.

[doublee]

A DR or DRRI isnt going to sound like it should unless you can turn it up, I dont think pedals would help much if you are confined to low volume in your circumstance...

[yardbird mac]

I'm aware that this thing "fattens up" with an increase in volume. Would a good attenuator be an option? Attenuator suggestions?

[SteveO]

A Tube Screamer-type pedal takes mine right to where I want it. Gain set low, volume up a bit.

[yardbird mac]

I bet the Sparkle Drive is worse than the MXR, right?
Try different pedals.
A Bad Monkey is a good starting point.

Well... the Sparkle drive is good for tunes that don't require solos with a lot of gain, or rhythm with some crunch. I use the MXR for solos that require smooth sustain and a lot more distortion.

Part of it might be my mood or my ears today. I have days that this setup has a high satisfaction quotient. On other days... meh, not so much. Today was definitely one of those... " meh, not so much" days.

[Webfoot]

It took me awhile to get my DRRI/C12K to where I want it. A tele with BKP flat 50 in the bridge, Big T in the neck, bright cap clipped, but normally plugged into the normal channel (no verb) and Honeybeest for dirt. I can do Gary Moore, ZZ Top, Jeff Beck and just about anything classic to hard rock with those three items. What surprised me is I lined up a bunch of amps and the DRRI/tele/honeybeest recorded the best. Of course you can add more pedals, swap speakers etc. Of course there are other amps that can take you in other directions much better, but this combo is very workable where I look forward to playing it. BTW... its my filler amp until I find out what I really want. Have dropped in a V30 at times.

[forum_crawler]

Comparing it to a 5:50 is unfair, the Mesa is in a different universe...

The fender is very bad about making every distortion pedal sound like something on top of the fender sound. It is the same reason I can't stand watching PGS demo videos anymore.

[Gear-Junkie]

Not Totally Satisfied With MY DRRI

Dont worry. From what I've seen here at TGP nobody is really satisfied with a stock DRRI. Most guys will make a few hundred dollars worth of changes to get the amp where they want it...

[jijoe]

I'll chime in a point about biasing. Cold bias seems to make my amp very cold and sterile. I just cannot get into it at all. Bring the bias point into range and slightly warm makes a huge difference. I'm sure you've got the bias set up - but if not it's worth making sure.

[silver surfer]

Breaking in the new speaker can also make a difference. I went through some speaker changes for my BFDR years ago including the Weber you mentioned and kept trading because they all seemed to be too sterile. Later learned about speaker break in, and only recently came to fully appreciate it. I finally hung on to one speaker and would say it took about 6 months to see an improvement (playing loud about an hour a day), but actually two years to really break in (and now sounds awesome). Reverend Alltone speaker by the way.

[ljholland]

I have a real '65 blackface. It always seemed too clean with the original speaker....then I tried a weber 12F150 which was better....but finally settled on a Vintage 30. It seems better match to the amp to my ears. It's got more bottom and attitude while retaining the highs.

[Tuberattler]

Ok here ya go. Under the chassis by the power tranny towards the front of the amp there is a bias adjust pot with just a screwdriver slot exposed.

Fender ships these amps so cold that normally you can't get the tubes biased too hot with out changing a resisitor inside the amp... so for your purposes you can adjust that bias and make it colder and warmer just keep your eye on the tubes to make sure.

Warm the bias up and the amp with stop sounding sterile...

Get yer flash lite and look.

[gldtp99]

A guy brought a DRRI over a while ago with inop Trem (it was the pedal)--- but while we were messing around with it, i biased the output tubes up to a reasonable level----- put an RCA 12ax7a in V2 and a Blackburn Mullard ecc81 in the PI----- he was all smiles while he was leaving----i thought the amp sounded very good....................gldtp99

[nite-spot]

Not Totally Satisfied With MY DRRI

Dont worry. From what I've seen here at TGP nobody is really satisfied with a stock DRRI. Most guys will make a few hundred dollars worth of changes to get the amp where they want it...

Si!

1.) I changed the tubes (GE 6v6, div. ecc83)

2.) I changed the speaker (Naylor 50 w spec. design !!!)

3.) Completely new handwired with TAD parts.

4.) Speaker cable perhaps should be changed

5.) In summery great sounding clean/slightly crunch amp for many different styles (probably no metall).

[Jon Silberman]

A guy I jam with has one. Wonderful sounding amp. Classic Fender. Perhaps it's simply not the right amp for you.

[huutevar]

I have heard other people get great tones out of these, but the DRRI I had even after a rebias and tube swap still sounded brittle and ice-picky. I bought a 5:50 and have been extremely pleased with it. No modifications are necessary and it covers any sound I could want.

[atson67]

My DRRI sounded decent stock w/ C12K.
Changing the speaker (Private Jack) and cutting the bright cap on the brilliant channel made it more usable with OD pedals. I even put a set of 6L6 in; they give a bit more bass response and headroom. YMMV.

[kwaping]

On top of all those other great suggestions, try running a Barber Launch Pad into both channels. It made a very noticeable improvement for me.

[BlackStrat_Fan]

A Tube Screamer-type pedal takes mine right to where I want it. Gain set low, volume up a bit.

This^^. Stock, these amps are biased a little cold. A good TS type pedal at low to med OD works like a champ. Mines fairly new, so I'm getting to know it. This is what I have found so far.

Sounds like you want it to be a Messa though, and it's not going to be that.

[alivegy]

Which input do you use? The reverb input has a bright cap and in my experience does not like distortion pedals. Most speakers designed to work with fender amps also have more high frequency emphasis than their British counterparts which can exaggerate the issue.

[Guitar Dave T]

As has been mentioned, clip the bright cap, bias the amp or have it biased properly, and you're probably 60% there. Replace the Weber speaker with an Emi C.Rex and you'll be 75% there (have tried damn near every speaker out there with both DRRI's and my own '74 DR, and granted, it's a matter of taste, but I REALLY like this speaker).

Two roadblocks, though:

1. To get a good overdrive, even with pedals, you might need to turn the amp up past the "neighbor friendly" volume, depending on how near your neighbors are. I can make it work at a low enough volume for sleeping family in a modest ranch-burger house by using the second input with the correct pedal, but just barely. I actually get a better sleeping-child-low-volume-with-pedals tone with a Blues Jr and C.Rex speaker than with the DR.

2. Ultimately, the iron in your DRRI is probably the weakest point, and this might not be worth the cost of upgrading. Even with all the excellent suggestions made here so far, the amp will never get you beyond that 75% mark compared with older DR's with decent transformers. You should compare the cost of purchasing an early silverface (still available at reasonable cost) with the cost of better iron for your DRRI. Whatever the cost of that silverface, BTW, add a couple hundred dollars to have a tech go through and check out, including replacing filter caps, etc.

In the meantime, the Sparkledrive is a great Tubescreamer type pedal. It has true bypass, the correct op amp chip, a decent amount of boost compared with the original 808's, plus you can mix some clean in. Unfortunately, Tubescreamer type pedals really need to be used with amps that are cranked almost to the point of breakup to get them to really smoke. For light gain crunch at low amp volumes they're great, but for single-note overdrive, you might want to look at a Xotic AC Booster - it gets a little more gain without being fizzy, and works incredibly well at super-low volumes.

[jijoe]

What a great post Guitar Dave - it's got everything - even the next door neighbours and kids.

[Waxhead]

Here we go again... chasing tone. I have a DRRI that I bought a year ago and I'm not thoroughly in love with it, but I don't hate it either. For me, it lacks something... sounds kind of cold and sterile, even after running a 10 band EQ in front of it and swapping out the JENSEN C12K for a WEBER 12F150. Actually, it sounds great clean (and pushed really hard at 5 - 6 + volume, but the neighbors don't share my joy of practicing at that volume). My distortion pedals consist of a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive and an MXR Distortion III. It's with the distortion that I'm frustrated. I can't dial out that solid state "something" that goes with dirt pedals

I'm spoiled by my FENDER Pro Tube Pro Reverb, After fighting it for years, I'm getting the tones I've sought, after installing a full set of JJ tubes and replacing the JENSEN C12N with a WEBER 12F150. The WEBER was a huge improvement over the C12N. Both of my Les Pauls (Standard & R9) and my MIM Strat sound fantastic through this amp, but it's heavy (almost 80 pounds and I'm in my early 60s). I also have the PTPR biased at the lower limits of "HOT".

The DRRI seems to work well with my Strat., but not with either of my LPs. Don't shoot me, but I'm thinking about getting a MESA/Boogie Express 5:25 (12) or 5:50 (1-12), and I don't want to be stuck with using the Strat exclusively!

hehe the other guitarists in my band has a DDRI.
I've played, gigged and tweaked it a lot cause he's not good with gear.
I've changed the tubes for him also.
Good clean amp, volume dial is way too touchy, picky with pedals, very basic workhorse.
If you never expect anything more you won't be disappointed.

Do anything you like to mod a DRRI but it'll never be in the class of any Mesa and certainly nowhere near a 5:50, or a 5:25 as Miles explains.
It's immediately noticeable by all as soon as we start playing.
My other guitarists spends a lot of time trying to talk me into swapping amps.
I give him a few sets with my 5:50 here & there to keep him happy ;)

[D. Robinson]

I've read all of these posts but haven't seen this mentioned: maybe change the OT or PT?

[RickV]

I picked up a clean used drri in '99, but after playing it for a while, felt it was brittle. I did the rebias, tube swaps, several speakers, but always felt it was lacking. Just couldn't get it to warm up. Ended up dumping it. Fast forward 11 years later and I come across a super clean, totally stock '79 sfdr. This amp needed nothing! One of the warmest, smoothest amps I ever played through. It was what I always wanted the drri to sound like, but couldn't get it even close to the sweet tones to the late sfdr.

My advice... Dump the reissue and find a late model sfdr.

[yardbird mac]

After reading all of this my question is: hypothetically, after throwing a bunch of $$$ at this amp trying different tubes, purchasing biasing tools, buying/trying different speakers etc. at what point does the law of diminishing returns take over? -Just asking:huh.

[mcneilp]

I picked up a clean used drri in '99, but after playing it for a while, felt it was brittle. I did the rebias, tube swaps, several speakers, but always felt it was lacking. Just couldn't get it to warm up. Ended up dumping it. Fast forward 11 years later and I come across a super clean, totally stock '79 sfdr. This amp needed nothing! One of the warmest, smoothest amps I ever played through. It was what I always wanted the drri to sound like, but couldn't get it even close to the sweet tones to the late sfdr.

My advice... Dump the reissue and find a late model sfdr.

I did the same but with a not all original '77. I think the cab is a replacement, the pull-boost was turned into a mid-boost, it has a 12F150 25 watt speaker (wish it was the 50 watt) and a replacement foot-switch.

It is a great amp. I don't despise the reissues, but my 77' has the rich cleans and nice break up I was looking for. I am not 100% sure if I love the mid-boost yet but is handy, but similar to the volume boost I can just not pull it. The non-original cab is actually a plus for me because it is plywood with a plywood baffle. I think the cabs of the era were supposed to be mdf with a set mdf baffle.

Personally, I don't feel you can go wrong with either but for well less than the reissue you can easily pick up a Silverface. I like the servicability, value, resale, quality of parts, etc., etc.

[sanrico]

Wow, I had a stock DRRI, pushed with a Barber Direct Drive and ALWAYS got compliments on my tone. Strangers from the audience would come up to me to ask what I was playing through.

I guess I'm just a kick ass guitarist. ;)

[jcs]

I say this not because i sell tubes occasionally from my horde (which i do) but every amp owner needs a few different 12ax7 tubes to experiment with not to mention 12at7 for Fender amps.

You can always use the tubes in another amp.

As for a bunch of circuit and tranny upgrades i would stop right there unless you can do your own labor as you probably won't recoup the upgrades otherwise if you don't like them.

Speakers do need to be broken in fairly well before they smooth out the most, thats why i usually buy used speakers, you usually can't fairly judge a brand new speaker imo.

Finally the bias needs to be correct as mentioned and an upgrade to the very best 6V6 isn't that expensive especially if you find very strong tested pulls....thats the beauty with 6V6 amps there are still many excellent old production for not much more than Chinese or Russian....they made gobs of excellent 6V6GT in the 40's-50's-60's and most are very durable.

[kwaping]

I did the same but with a not all original '77. I think the cab is a replacement, the pull-boost was turned into a mid-boost, it has a 12F150 25 watt speaker (wish it was the 50 watt) and a replacement foot-switch.

Off-topic: I looked at buying that same amp! :) I decided to cheap out and get a DRRI that was listed within 30 minutes of that one. The mods made me nervous. It did sound glorious, though!

[Guitar Dave T]

I've read all of these posts but haven't seen this mentioned: maybe change the OT or PT?

Uh, I mentioned it 2 posts and 5 1/2 hours prior to yours.

[yardbird mac]

Well... I may have won half the battle. I replaced the WEBER 12F150 with the original JENSEN C12K. It made a significant improvement to the overall sound. I agree that the C12K might be better suited for this amp. The WEBER was a little too bright for the DRRI.

I also removed the MXR 10 band EQ and the MXR Super Comp from the pedalboard. I think with biasing this thing a little hotter, I'll be good to go!

[ronin4hire]

I have a C rex in mine and have the bright cap cut. The clean sound is awesome and I like it with TS for a bit of grit.
However, it never sounded good with higher gain dirt boxes- and I've tried about a dozen. Fuzz is only thing that sounds good on it.
Might just have to get a Marshall for rock stuff.

[theforerunner]

I don't understand all this stuff. I bought a brand new straight out of the box DRRI about 4 or 5 years ago and with no mods or anything the amp sounds great. I only have a Boss BD2 and a Maxon SD9 ( as far as drive pedals) but it sounds great with both of them with any of my guitars. It's not the only amp I have and it's not my most used but whenever everybody is out of the house and I get a chance to crank it, it brings a smile to my face, everytime!!

[mcneilp]

Off-topic: I looked at buying that same amp! :) I decided to cheap out and get a DRRI that was listed within 30 minutes of that one. The mods made me nervous. It did sound glorious, though!

Thanks for leaving it for me! I love that amp, he did drop the price a hair due to the mods.