traynor ygm 3 tone stack and reverb mods

[cchord59]

I just picked up a 72 ygm3 ( 3 input), with an open back. It's in pretty good shape. I opened it up and removed the presence cap and bright cap, as it was too bright for my taste.

It's sounding much better now, even with the stock speaker, but I find the bass gets overbearing past 3 or 4. It looks like the tone stack on this amp is soldered right to the pots.

Can anyone tell me what I can to do tweak the bass control on this amp?

Also for some reason, the reverb is not very loud. When the previous owner bought it, the reverb wasn't working, so he got it repaired. so I'm wondering if the guy who repaired it, changed it from stock. As I remember, these amps had a tonne of reverb.

So I'd like to get it into a bit more fender territory with the verb if possible

 

[blueworm]

Mine is similar ('72 w/ 3 inputs, tonestack on the pots). Bass can be overbooming IMO on these amps, but you don't have to crank it up. Changing the first coupling cap (C1) can help. I changed mine to 0.022uf (stock is 0.1uf). You can tweak the tonestack bass cap (C6) and slope resistor R10 too.

But first and foremost try it open back if you did not before - and with another speaker if you can

Reverb is different than a Fender. It is "narrower" and has a quicker and kind of brighter decay. I like it but IMO won't sound very Fenderish without drastic mod. Changing the reverb pot value helps. I changed mine to 1Meg audio.

Hope it helps.

 

[cchord59]

Thanks Blueworm,

I've changed C1 to .01. I tried some other values up to .047, but went with .01. The bass control does sound good, when it's kept low.

I bought it as an open back, and I think I like that better. My last ygm 3 was closed back.

You're right, the reverb is narrower, and I think I like that about it, becase it tends to be heard more without taking up too much space. The reverb it fine on it now, but I find I have to have the reverb up to 7 or 8 to get a decent surf sound. And by then, I start loosing tone in the dry signal. Is it normal to have the tone thin out a lot when the reverb is set really hi?

 

[cchord59]

I recorded the amp today, and it sounded pretty great! I has a different midrange that most of my other amps, and low end it actually a lot better with new JJ tubes. I think the original Phillips were toast.

I'm starting to get some 60 cl hum, so I imagine I need to change the filter caps.

I'd still like to get some more reverb out of it.

 

[blueworm]

Did you start to have 60 hum after you swap the tubes ?

Other than that if you decide to change the filter caps yourself be aware that removing the old Mallory can caps is a PIA in those amps. Also it might be a better solution to get individual caps (rather than can caps) and put them on a suitable place of the amp. I did the mistake to get 2 x JJs can caps before I realize that there were larger than the old Mallory Finally I managed to have the new caps in the chassis but now it's rather cluttered under that hood.

Hope someone else will chime in on that. I do think that reverb in general makes the tone somewhat thinner (whatever amp) but now it doesn't have to be very thin either. I'd say maybe it's the decay which is a tad too bright when diming the reverb on the guitar mate - and there might be a culprit cap for that.

 

[cchord59]

Yeah, It did start giving me 60 cl hum after I swapped the power tubes. The original set worked for about a day, and the one of the el 84s started arcing inside, and then the amp started blowing fuses. But I didn't notice the 60 cl hum until the new JJs.

I had the chassis out of the cab, with the reverb send/ret disconnected. It was then I really noticed it. I had the reverb level up, and the amp was soo thin.

 

[mark norwine]

is it 60Hz or 120Hz?

That will tell you what / where the hum is coming from...

 

[cchord59]

There is a little hum at 60, nothing at 120, and a bunch at 180 Hz. Maybe it's not the caps.