Has anybody had any luck with "Torres mods?"

[guitarcapo]

I have two Fender Concert II amps. I decided I might try to make one more hi gain by ordering up a Torres mod kit. Anyway after a lot of soldering and tweaking, the amp sounds terrible and I'm returning it to stock. Testing it against an un-modded original was pretty dramatic. The mods made the amp sputter and sound like crap. I went over everything exactly as the instructions said and checked every solder joint. I'm thinking there's a mis-print somewhere.

 

 

A long time ago I ordered a kit to add a bias control to a tweed Fender Blues Deluxe. It worked but had such a narrow "sweep" that it was pretty much useless for adjusting anything much.

 

Anyway I'm just wondering how anyone else has done modding an amp to Torres instructions.

[Kap'n]

Sounds like crap? Then you completed your Torres mod successfully.

 

No seriously, his stuff is {censored}.

[Hulston Prickle]

My only experience dates from the late 90's when I emailed him asking him a question. He was a dick and made fun of my amp.

 

So, no thanks.

[syscrusher]

I don't know if it's the amp, the torres mod or a combination of both. Those amps are notorious for oscillation because of the crap layout. You really need to use shielded RG-174u cable on the grids because of that. I own the same amp too and it is pretty high gain, maybe not recto gain though. Changing out that 3meg reverse audio gain pot for a normal wired 250k audio gain pot with a treble pass makes it sound better to my ears. Redoing the bright switch on the clean channel for a normal fender bright switch really improves the cleans. The lead channel is somewhat like a train wreck express. My reverb switch is used for the mid boost feature instead. The reverb can cleaned up by changing the reverb driver to black face specs. Removing that .0022 cap to ground on the reverb return jack and changing the reverb level pot to a audio one really makes the reverb awesome.

 

I couldn't remove the caps from plate to cathode on the lead channel. It would oscillate when I did that but they also smooth out the gain and keeps the bee's away.

 

The amp is just a rats nest which makes it hard to mod but it's a nice sleeper amp to mod.

[guitarcapo]

Yea Torres had a mod for the bright switch. I tried it and the volume went from nothing to deafening between 2 and 4 on the knob. The bright switch actually ceased to function after that.

 

I'm pretty happy with the one I left stock so I'm just returning it to that.

One of them has a really nice MM transformer so I'm thinking of trying KT66 tubes in it.

[Pepi]

Never heard any good about that company. I would stay away.

[syscrusher]

Yea Torres had a mod for the bright switch. I tried it and the volume went from nothing to deafening between 2 and 4 on the knob. The bright switch actually ceased to function after that. I'm pretty happy with the one I left stock so I'm just returning it to that. One of them has a really nice MM transformer so I'm thinking of trying KT66 tubes in it.

 

The torres bright switch is just the normal bright switch on all fenders. I'm not sure what cap value he uses for it. Normally it's just a 120pf which is what I used. I like that sparkle.

 

Just keep an eye on the heater voltage with KT66's, that's almost 1 amp more. Probably be fine but I never done it before. I've heard of people rebiasing for EL-34's. You could mod the reverb mixer to the blackface values, but it makes it deafening loud just on 2.

 

The send level for the effects loop is always in circuit, so if the knob is set on zero, it kind of thins out the tone a bit. Always turn that to 10 and the tone will stay thicker. I moved my effects send level to the output so that I could adjust the send level better for effects pedals. Thickens up the tone and sounds better. You'll have to change the .47 on the jack to a 1uf to keep the tone from thinning out for pedals.

 

I've been through this amp so much it's ridiculous. I guess I tried to polish a turd but it's fun amp to play. It'll get some nice heavy rock tones and fat leads once you mod the WTF was Rivera thinking out of it. He must of went through a learning and experiencing phase with those amps.

[tlbonehead]

I've talked to him a couple times in the past. I have a Champ 12 with his mods and it made all the difference in the world. Also bought his kit for one of my old Carvin X-heads and it definitely improved it. He sure gets a lot of slagging in these forums but I've never had any issues with him.

[JBTubehead]

Back in '95 I wanted a modded firebreather. I believed all the hype and sent Torres one of my two '68 Bassmans for his "Dual Marshall" mod. That thing came back sounding like complete dog{censored}. He was a total dick on the phone when I told him that I just could not find a decent tone anywhere in the amp. He told me it was 100% my fault. I sold it to some kid 3 days later and got all my money back because the hype was still a lot stronger than the reality back then. I took my other '68 Bassman to Mike Soldano who actually charged less for mod work than Torres did at the time. That amp came back from Mike sounding like God clearing the back of his throat. Fookin amazing. I still have that Bassman to this day.

 

My first-hand advice on Torres...stay away.