Peavey Windsor Studio TEST with external EQ for improve tone and Stratocaster with CS54

[whawahwah]

Awesome tone! I'm getting an EQ!



[rafport]

@whawahwah sure, it will be useful

[guitarrax]

hi, nice demo. these peavey hat a clean sound? really clean? thanks. greets

[GeekG]

after trying dozens of preamp tubes i finally found a great match. a 5751 philips in v1. if you want to drive it via a (treble)booster this is the only type of tube that works without squashing the signal. great.only disadantage is slightly more hiss, but i accept that gladly. it goes from real clean to full roar just by guitar volume now and great tone in each. low gain input works better also in this application.

[zerosoma33]

Great demo...one of the better demos of any type of gear on here. Very good demonstation, thank you!

[rafport]

@zerosoma33 very kind, thank you for words and visit my video!

[GeekG]

great can you give us the setings you ued on the eq??

sounds better than most marshalls in the clean/crunch mix area.. hendrix monterey sound. pickups are great i guess. i don' like my area 58 pickup compared to your neck pickup sound.. are there noiesell custom shop pickups available??

[rafport]

@GeekG eq can be very useful when like this amp the equalizator knobs are not effective, or some important problem with missing or exagerate frequencies, but it really depends. area 58 are great pickup, maybe best noiseless vintage single coil on market (sure far better than fender samarium cobalt noiseless), so if you need hum canceling you should mantain this pickups. cs54 is a great set, but is a real single with bad and pro. you get a very good pickups now so i'm not sure to suggest a change

[GeekG]

@rafport i tried an eq(muliteffect pedal) in the loop but it did not do much for the better. i think maybe the BBE sonic maximizer would be awesome for this amp. but i got rid of the fizzy high end (when boosted) by installig a mullard 12au7 (or 12at7??) in the v2 position. i ordered ALOT of power tubes.. will do a demo in a few days with all of them.

[rafport]

@GeekG if the multieffect is digital, it can be a problem if it miss an high end a/d converter, the benefit to have an eq can be less than the damage to the signal; either a cheap eq like this one in the video can do better. changing kind of pre tubes can do a lot of difference in headroom, you should try some solution and especially you should find which tube drive what so you can choose for reduce unwanted behavior. for power tubes, it really depends on your taste and on your speaker. i read

[rafport]

@GeekG somewhere about a guy who unsoldered the l-pad and improve a lot his tone, and is a realistic perspective as i've experience with other power reducer and maybe even when all turned on (100% volume no attenuation) there is a tone loss. l-pad is anyway useful for home playing. let me know :)

[GeekG]

@rafport i have enough base now... there is a sweetspot on the preamp volume.. i learned this from some jtm45-review.. i palm mute the low e and turn the preamp volume until it gets thick but not muddy.. it is around 7-8 for me. 9 is muddy. below 6 there is no bass at all. then i run a hawk (treble) booster in front of the amp and the tone is amazing. still the jj el34 power tube. will do a video.

[Whyrendog]

Sounds really good, sometimes I wonder if some of the big boys just put an EQ in the head somewhere.

[rafport]

@Whyrendog many pros use eq in various step on the chain, can be a trick in several situation. anyway there are really problems on this amp with frequencies response, it never should be necessary an external eq just to hear is the amp can manage a bit of bass. and before go around saying "bedroom player" people should check at least their profile

[Whyrendog]

@Whyrendog I was talking big boys=expensive amps, you are clearly a big boy hehe.

[ollyworld]

yeah,an eq in the seriell fx-loop is a damn secret weapon to finetune an amp to your needs..

I do that all the time for example boosting the higher mids to give the amp a little more punch and breath ...

good review,buddy

[rafport]

@ollyworld thank you very much, i agree with you

[alper2702]

very nice video! it's true that the more you push the master volume you get a more useful tone and you start to notice the bass frequencies...but it still lacks something...i'm already using a EQ in the fx loop and always crank the master:)...with 6l6 in the power...i got a lovely sounding amp....

cheers!;)

[beau5375]

That's the first time I saw one of these Windsors not sound like a can of mad bees. Tasty chops, there, mon frere.

[rafport]

Thank you. I sold the amp some time ago, and player who bought (i sold with this eq) is very satisfied with for hard rock tones, he use with el34 but tried different preamp tubes. with this little add become a versatile amp

[brownpants69]

I agree- Turn that mother licker up!! You dont get "tone" (whatever that means!!) from a quiet power amp or un-pushed speaker.

[NicholasGreen91]

I'm with you. People are forgetting bass players' jobs are to match the guitar (in most casses).

Heavy bass in guitars is what makes speaker cones distort permanently or otherwise, break entirely.

This EQ pedal sounds very quiet, and otherwise .. doing its job well (in what ranges your mic+video+youtube even picked up).

[ruffles272]

first of all, this isn't a marshall clone, the power tubes are interchangeable. And this is slightly dirty tone, hes not going for power amp distortion. Plus, hes playing in his bedroom. He doesn't need to compete in the mix.

[rafport]

thank you for share your opinion with us, i really appreciate any suggestion even if i don't agree with you, and i don't consider myself a "bedroom solo player" :) Any opinion in music is sacred, so i respect yours (and i expect you'll do the same for me). I'm here to share and to learn with other guitar players. A very good way to do a contruibution is to post a video reply with your Windsor, so users can have different source for their info on this amp.

[keforfender]

EQ700 , 12ATY in first preamp ,6L7 in power, loads of headroom + still able to get distrotion when required.

Thanks fo Ur EQ700 info works great..

[rafport]

happy to be useful :)

[keforfender]

Should Read 6L6 for power tube.

[katanaxi]

i got the EQ, and it's great. thanks a bunch for sharing :D

[rafport]

happy to be useful :) post some videos if you can

[sixintune]

I have a windsor studio and I had the same problem. Adding the ext eq is a great idea. It's a simple but effective solution. After viewing your video I added a BOSS GE7 to the effects loop just as you demonstrated. Thanks for sharing !

[rafport]

yes, all windsor studio has this problem... but soultion is rather easy. i hope you are now satisfied with this amp, it is a good amp, i really don't understand why it miss so many bass and highs in the preamp stage and peavey wont correct. thank you for visit my video :)

[eelabob]

no offence was intended

[eelabob]

The cheap pedal won't have True Bypass when switched off and will be detremental to the amp tone . Try again but remove the pedal from loop and adjust for different volume levels . don't think the difference will be so clear cut

[rafport]

true bypass just affect tone when off, and this amp without is almost unusable. all the send-return loop in amp are yet bufferized, so you will have a tone degratation even when in true bypass when you use it, and this amp has the footswitch to jump the send return circuit so true bypass will be unuseful... and most of all, is quite unkind post a comment like you use cheap components, change it, do what i say and retry, think about it :)

anyway thanks for visit my video

Raf

[BenCurrington]

Do you use two 12au7s or one? If one, which tube do you change?

[rafport]

in this video i used stock tube, so 12ax7 both. for a better clean and headroom i put 12au7 in tube preamp 1 (the one behind power tube, next to gain knob) and a 6l6 in power amp. i guess 2 12au7 will decrease too much signal, but better has a cleaner gain as this amp lack clean tones but has plenty of distortion :)

[BenCurrington]

Thanks for this! I think I'm going to give it a try. I've been attempting to get a better tone out of this amp for ages... mine's got a Celestion G12 in it and still seems lacking somehow. I can't believe I didn't think of using an EQ pedal myself ;)

[rafport]

the problem on this amp is the preamp, it suck all damned low and high tone :) i'm not a lover of V shape equalisation (usually use my amps with all to midnight, i love mids in amp) but on this one is quite too much middy. give a try with an eq and let me know :)

[BenCurrington]

I will... when I get paid! Do you think something like a matchless hotbox (I'm thinking of building one) would spruce things up? I've heard it's basically the same as an AC-30 pre... which is obviously quite revered :D

[rafport]

In my opinion Ben, it is better to get a good tone from our equipement at a reasonable price. The Hotbox it is too expensive and to good for a Windsor (it costs more than the whole amp and speaker!), better buy a second amp than spend a lot on this. You can do some very interesting experiment with tube change, but after the EQ, without the external EQ this amp sounds bad in any solution. For example i find excellent cleans with 12AU7+6L6

[BenCurrington]

Yes, you have a point, although I'd like to build the hotbox for the sake of building the hotbox primarily so it wouldn't really matter which amp I was running it through.

Might try the tubes you've suggested there actually... I play Fenders most of the time and manage to get reasonable clean tones out of the stock tubes at low volumes, but it's not so good with humbuckers.

[rafport]

if you plan to build the hotbox, this is a good idea, you will use with any amp in future :) i just said that anyway the preamp stage is much less important than the power stage, so if you buy this just for the windsor this wont change his nature or his tone. i tried 6l6 and 5881 on the windsor, both sounds interesting and cleaner than stock el34. 12au7 will decrease dramatically gain, but you can reach a good clean tone, i love with strat and teles

[katanaxi]

i think a big part of the better tone might be the fact that you're now hitting the power amp with more signal, though. that's the section of this amp i really love. keep in mind that it's my only amplifier, and i have a les paul, so i guess ymmv.

[rafport]

12au7 is cleaner and soften, and in the v1 (the one in side, not the one near the speaker) change the first stage of pre who for my taste distort too much and miss headroom. with this become a sort of clean channel, who crunch when pushed (depending of pickup your les paul surely push more). 6l6 also changed a lot. is all a matter of taste. correct eq loss of frequencies with an external stomp, then you can try freely, a tube is not expensive so you can do experiment s :)

[katanaxi]

definitely will do. it's great to hear about the12au7 increasing headroom, that was something i've been needing, as i usually run the preamp anywhere from 3 to 4 1/2, sometimes up to six, but almost never higher. i was actually thinking of using a 12AT7, but clean until five or six sounds pretty good. definitely getting the eq in the effects loop first, though. especially after seeing this, hahaha.

[katanaxi]

i've got a windsor, too, and i was wondering why you didn't have the power amp turned up higher for this demo

i find that it's really dull and lacking in punch and vibrance when it's down under fourish... that might be a little low, actually.

i loved the demo, though, and i was debating between getting an mxr 10 band eq or a g12M as my first upgrade. The mxr runs about $120. After seeing this, i've reconsidered. Would you mind posting the settings the behringer is on? Thanks! :D

[rafport]

thank you. now i'm in bed (it is 4:30 am :D) so i cant check, but it's something like +15+15+10+5-0+4+8 on the 7 band eq starting from bass to highs. +15 decibel is A LOT for an eq, with any normal amp it is absolutely too much. i really suggest this component. as it is in the preamp stage, it is not needed a great and silenced eq (volume is quite high here) so you need just a normal eq and a decent stabilizer power supply. from time of video i've done another change for the windsor that,...

[rafport]

include the change of the first preamp tube with a 12au7 EH and the power tube with a 6L6GC. i've done modify in the past, but that absurd lack in bass and highs was impossible to beatm, and all sounded almost same (i've changed speaker too, and nothing or few changed... blue marvel isn't bad, now it sounds very good and full). now with eq every change in tubes is greatly noticeable, with this last change in tube it becomes at hyper clean amp :) ton of headroom, a lower volume and a much....

[rafport]

more definied range from bass to high frequencies. now it miss distortion (is clean with a strat until 5-6 of preamp in hi gain input!) and is exactly what i needed, as i love stomps and i dont need an amp that have an high preamp saturation stage. it sounds crunchy even at 10 in gain. is just a matter of tastes, but trust me the deep lack in frequencies cannot be beaten changing anything: you need to restore the ton of bass and highs was missing in pre stage, and you can put tube, speaker...

[rafport]

or guitar with most of bass or most of sparkle highs you wants, and doest it change just a bit. if some hardware mod are disposable i can consider to open amp, but i'm just satisfied like this. ask a friend for his eq for a couple of day and test, before buy :) after this you can change anything, and for sure you'll hear exactly, but the real problem isnt in wood-speaker-tubes-transformer­s. the power attenuator is very good (i've built one and use with other amps) but ...

[rafport]

this 16ohm l-pad suck a lot of highs. you can't ear exactly with standard tone, there are not much highs to cut :D but if you have a sparkle guitar as strat-teles and you eq for ear highs, you'll ear for sure. you need to try an ext eq in send return. i've builted in pas a back cover for transform in a quite closed back cab for improve bass... almost nothing change. the real deal is just this, in my opinion. let me know when you try ;) bye!