General Guitar Gadgets MGV vs. Original Marshall™ Guv'nor™

To my subscribers: I have started a new channel on YouTube named StompTone. I will continue to leave this channel up for reference though. This vid is the last one I recorded on my old camera. All that will follow will be done on my new Zoom Q3 to provide a better sound representation of the pedals.

A customer of mine in Georgia ordered an MGV because he wanted to retire his old Guv'nor™. When he got to comparing the two he found the MGV a bit of a disappointment as compared to the original. He was having trouble with the DC jack on his Guvnor™ so he sent it to me to fix and sent along the MGV to see what I could do to make it sound better.

To my surprise and delight, he owned an original first-line Guvnor™ made in England and I quickly noticed there was a major difference in output, tone, and sustain with the Guvnor™ winning on all counts. Though the circuit of the Guvnor™ has remained the same over the years, there have been many incarnations of the pedal. There are also countless schematics out there of the circuit as traced from various incarnations but I found none that exacted the components in this Guvnor™. After deciphering values (the original Guvnors™ used axial caps that look exactly like resistors with color bands and I needed to find a reliable source for decoding them) I made the changes to the MGV and all was right with the world. I also made changes taper in all but one pot though the values remained the same. Made a huge difference.

It's a bit obvious the pedals don't sound exactly the same in the demo but I want everyone to know that with a few tweaks here and there it is tremendously difficult or impossible to tell the difference when the MGV is clipping with the red LEDs. I didn't take a ton of time for the vid to try and place Bass, Mid, and Treble to exacting specifications (this is actually harder than one might think [i.e. 12 0-clock isn't exactly 12 o-clock on each pot]) but I was able to toy around with both a/b-ing for an extended period of time and found them to be practically identical in tone and output.

Frank, in Georgia, is tickled to death and even happier with his MGV because he has the secondary clipping option which he swears sounds better than his original. He can now consign his Guvnor™ to the collectors case and enjoy the sweet tones he loves in a smaller yet sturdier package.

I used my Les Paul™ Deluxe through George Ls™ into a Carvin™ Vintage 50™ out of a Carvin™ 4x10 cabinet.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Marshall™ Guvnor™
• General Guitar Gadgets MGV
• Carvin™
• Les Paul™ Deluxe.

[GurrenTailNinja23]

is it natural to get a hum when gain is turned up?....

[jwyatt4]

@GurrenTailNinja23: Yes. It's a natural bi-product of gain. Though some pedals are noisier than others, it's difficult to built a quiet gain circuit. By their nature, they create some hiss or buzz. But sometimes it has to do with grounding/electrical issues, too, which will increase noise. Some clubs I play are notorious for noisy electrical, others are quiet.

[Torrello13]

Had the opportunity to buy a first run guvnor years ago and didn't (stupid) when the govnor 2 came out i thought i had redeemed myself. Not really, not even close. Then I saw the GGG kits and thought about building one for myself but was scared off by the soldering and the fact that I'm out of practice with that. This vid has inspired me to get the kit, start practicing a few joints and get ready to relive what sounded like the next best thing to a marshall stack to my ears. Thanks

[jwyatt4]

@Torrello13: Great to hear! Let us know how it goes. Be patient, there are a lot of knobs to wire, etc., in this one. Just take your time checking your work all the way.

[guitarkitbuilder]

Nice video. We've featured it in Guitar Kit Builder online magazine. Please let us know if you have any objections.

[jwyatt4]

@guitarkitbuilder I have no objections...thanks.

[jwyatt4]

@BlueBarrier782 Thanks!

[BlueBarrier782]

Wow excellent job, it sounds very close.

[jwyatt4]

@K1RKYD True. In this case they are both the same. Thanks for the props.