Help Me Tame A 100Watt Monster!

[downer01]

I just got a Rivera Knucklehead 100R today in the mail as part of a trade. Its a badass amp and definitely worth keeping around, but I'm having a few issues with it.

Its a little on the Bright/Crispy side. The cleans are the best cleans I've ever heard from any amp and I love them, but the gain channels on it are a little too brightly voiced for my tastes.

I'm going to start doing some experimenting with different tubes to see if I can warm it up a bit. I would also like it to have a tad more gain.

What types/brands of tubes would you guys suggest?

At the moment I'm thinking of going with some JJ's

KT77's in the power section and a mixture of gold plated and high gain AX7's in the preamp.

 

Thanks-

[mhr74]

I had jj e34l's in it for a long time. Tasty and mellower til they got toasty. Now i have ruby bstr el34s. They're pretty balls out.

[downer01]

I had jj e34l's in it for a long time. Tasty and mellower til they got toasty. Now i have ruby bstr el34s. They're pretty balls out.

 

I'm pretty sure these are the stock el34's the amp came with. Ever tried any KT77's in it?

[mhr74]

Nope. Tried dickin around with the presence and focus knobs much?

[mhr74]

http://www.rivera.com/manuals_html/k-manual.html

 

here's the manual while I'm at it. try some presets?

[eudaimonia02912]

Disclaimer: I have not played that amp.

 

Advice, despite disclaimer: To warm up a bright amp and tame the high end, try putting an NOS RFT in V1, and try SED =C= EL34s. The RFT is a rich, high-gain, and harmonically complex, but it has a smooth top end and dark sound. The SEDs also have a smooth top end, and a firmer, stronger bottom end than you normally get from EL34s.

[downer01]

Nope. Tried dickin around with the presence and focus knobs much?

 

Yeah, I'm still fiddling around with the knobs. I'm definitely liking the Focus control though

[downer01]

Disclaimer: I have not played that amp. Advice, despite disclaimer: To warm up a bright amp and tame the high end, try putting an NOS RFT in V1, and try SED =C= EL34s. The RFT is a rich, high-gain, and harmonically complex, but it has a smooth top end and dark sound. The SEDs also have a smooth top end, and a firmer, stronger bottom end than you normally get from EL34s.

 

Thanks man! Where can I buy an RFT?

[mhr74]

Yeah, I'm still fiddling around with the knobs. I'm definitely liking the Focus control though

jack up the focus and scoop it. like that grunge rhythm preset (how dated, lol) then add presence to taste.

[eudaimonia02912]

Thanks man! Where can I buy an RFT?

 

 

I get mine here: http://www.kcanostubes.com/

 

You can pay an up-charge of $8 for higher than average gain.

[downer01]

I get mine here: http://www.kcanostubes.com/ You can pay an up-charge of $8 for higher than average gain.

 

 

Thanks for the info man. I was recommended SED's in the poweramp and RFT's in V1 and V2. I think ill give that combination a try and see what it does

[boogieplaya]

jj pre amp tubes will darken an overly bright amp. They also tend to be pretty rugged/long lasting tubes.

Not my personal favorite, but they will definately darken it.

[charveldan]

Didn't you know it was brite when you bought it?

[Mr Roboto]

as part of a trade.

 

[charveldan]

READ

Bought, trade, whatever?:bor:

TRADE IT FOR A POD.

[almightycrunch]

I had the same amp at one point. I totally agree, the best cleans I have had, but very bright and sooooo incredibly loud. I was a gain head when I had mine, and I was always wishing for more gain and saturation from it. There were some knuckles that had factory high gain mods already, I dont think mine was one of those.

[downer01]

Didn't you know it was brite when you bought it?

No

[LordOVchaoS]

Avoid JJ KT77's like the plague. I have personally had 8 of them go bad on me in the span of a year and a half...

Get some Ruby or SED EL34's and pop em in there.

JJ preamp tubes are fine and will darken the amp up a bit.

Avoid spending money on teh NOS RFT. Pure corksnifferey gheysecks.

Put a Jan Philips 5751 in there for less than half the price. It lowers input gain and is VERY harmonically rich. Gives your gain knob much more usable range.

Also, play with the master volume... The character of the amp changes with every notch you turn that bitch up. High master settings will also help you achieve good tones at lower volumes.

[charveldan]

No

What kinda speakers are you using? +1000000000 on the SED EL-34's.

[Unclemeat]

I had the 55 watt model for a while. I also found it real bright. I used to run the bass on the high side and cut back on the treble and mids. All the rivera stuff seems to have a weird mid frequency that I don't care for and I tend to dial the mids down. That helped a lot with the sort of grainy brightness that I was experiencing.

[downer01]

What kinda speakers are you using? +1000000000 on the SED EL-34's.

 

 

G12 T75's

[eudaimonia02912]

Avoid spending money on teh NOS RFT. Pure corksnifferey gheysecks. Put a Jan Philips 5751 in there for less than half the price. It lowers input gain and is VERY harmonically rich. Gives your gain knob much more usable range. .

 

 

I've done rather extensive comparisons between using JJ, RFT, and Jan Phillips 5751s in my amp, and the RFT wins by serious margin. It's dark like the JJ, but rich rather than dull. And I don't claim to hear differences among every tube I try.

[downer01]

Luckily I had a buddy that let me borrow a matched quad of SED Winged C 34's. I put them in with rather high hopes and expectations but unfortunately it was still on the "Crispy" side of the tone spectrum.
I fiddled around with every knob on the amp and still had no luck, the absolute loudest I was able to crank the master was 3-3.5 before {censored} started rattling and shaking in my house.

I have tung-sol 12AX7's in the preamp. I was going to take the Mesa AX7's out of my Stiletto and try em in the Knucklehead but I got pretty discouraged after the power tube let down. Guess I just have to keep experimenting with power and preamp tubes until I hopefully find something I like.

I hate to get rid of an amp because of a little thing like my tone

Btw, I've been using a marshall cab with G12T75's and humbucker equipped guitars (both active and passive)

[eudaimonia02912]

Do you have a different cab you can try? Speaker and cab choices affect the tone more than tubes.