Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Twinfan on February 11, 2007, 01:01:36 PM
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I ordered a BitMo Spanky kit for my Epiphone Valve Junior - wow, what a difference! Anyone with an EVJ combo or head needs to get one of these kits. It removes the mud and fartiness of the original amp and clears up the tone a treat!
Bargain for about £16 quid delivered from the US. The installatin manual even gives handy hints/tips as to what the mod does and how you can change things if you're not quite satisfied.
Totally recommended!
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far as I hear, changing the OT makes the biggest difference. the one in the VJ has the wrong impedance, it's aimed at a 6v6 instead.
the 18 watt thread is amazing, and it has links to the s2 amps mods (which lists all the components and tells you what they do). EDIT: the bitmo dude posted there a couple of times too.
:drink:
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18 watt thread? :S
the VJ with mods looks to be the perfect amp for me...
is there a big difference between the Spanky and Trio mods? in the demo on the ebay page, they use a Spanky moded VJ for the clean and a Trio for the lead...
http://demos.dovetailsystems.com/bruce/Bruce%20Hutcheon%20-%20Night%20of%20the%20Dogmen%2006.mp3
spot on!
God i need one of these... and hey, i can actually afford it! :)
Did you mod the combo? i'm thinking of modding the combo with the spanky, and getting a head for the trio. Perfect for my jamming sessions...
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Yep, I've got a combo. Unlike Ratrod here on the forum, I've fitted all four capacitors as supplied in the kit. It's so much clearer than standard, which is mushy and a bit farty. I got round this by using an EQ pedal up front, but with the mods it doesn't need it now.
Sounds great with pedals up front too - I've been using an Ibanez RG with a Marshall DriveMaster and got a reasonable EVH tone for practising out of it.
I also used my Epi Casino straight into it and got a nice bluesy/jazzy tone.
The most impact £16 has ever made to a guitar tone!
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Oh! origional drivemaster? i spotted one for £60 the other week, but i figured it'd be better to get an origional guvnor
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Yeah, I'm after one of them at the moment - hopefully collecting it next weekend.
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18 watt thread? :S
http://www.18watt.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=9053#140530 (you might have to register to read it, but it's worth it)
http://forums.birdsandmoons.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32385
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The BitMo mod is highly recommended, indeed.
Now I'm looking out for the matching cab.
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I installed the BitMo Tri Mod on my EVJ combo & have been really impressed with the results.
The 2 stage gain switch it adds (as well as a very useful tone knob) means I don't have to put an overdrive pedal in front of it to get a real rock crunch. I'd never soldered before doing this so am very surprised it works. Drilling the amp was a bit hairy though!
But it is still damn loud. There's a UK based guy on EBay that's selling a pentiode/triode switch to get the amp down to 2 watts. He also sells a standby switch, HT fuse & line out mod. I'll probably get that next.
BM
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What valves are you guys using? Yesterday I tried a few different ECC83s:
Electro-Harmonix
Marshall
Mesa
JJ
The Mesa/Marshall tubes sounded very similar, probably the same tubes. Quite thick and bassy.
The E-H had the highest gain and lots of bass/treble but sounded a bit harsh in my EVJ combo.
The JJ had the best balance and is the one that's stayed in.
I'm using a Mesa EL84 which is much clearer than the cheapo Sovtek that was in it originally.
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I installed the BitMo Tri Mod on my EVJ combo & have been really impressed with the results.
The 2 stage gain switch it adds (as well as a very useful tone knob) means I don't have to put an overdrive pedal in front of it to get a real rock crunch. I'd never soldered before doing this so am very surprised it works. Drilling the amp was a bit hairy though!
But it is still damn loud. There's a UK based guy on EBay that's selling a pentiode/triode switch to get the amp down to 2 watts. He also sells a standby switch, HT fuse & line out mod. I'll probably get that next.
BM
a lot of these mods you can basically get for free from that 18 watt thread- obviously you have to buy the parts. But I suspect it's cheaper to buy the parts.
also, what the 18 watt thread gives you is a discussion on the relative merits of various part swaps, how to voice your amp to what you want, etc.
I'm not trying to complain about these kits or anything, but a lot of these mods seem to be pretty simple, i think the parts for the "gold" mods are something like $10 (excluding the upgraded OT, which these kits don't include anyway). EDIT: and according to that thread (and I believe them, it makes sense) the OT is the one best component swap you can do.
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I agree, the parts themselves are low cost but it's sometimes nice to have a bit of direction first as a "starter for ten". That's what the kits give. Wading through 200+ pages of the 18watt thread was not my idea of a simple start to amp modding.
The BitMo Spanky manual explains what each of the 4 capacitors is doing and how you can tweak their values to get different results if you so desire.
£6 worth of parts and £10 for the guy's time in developing the kit is a fair deal to me.
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^ true.
(though you don't have to wade through the entire thread, there's a semi-index now)
:drink:
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I agree, the parts themselves are low cost but it's sometimes nice to have a bit of direction first as a "starter for ten"
I'm totally in agreement with you there!
I'm a complete novice when it comes to electronics. I looked at a few VJ mod sites and was totally confused.
The most important part of the BitMo kit was the instructions. Using those it was basically like assembling a model from an Airfix kit & then sticking it in the amp.
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...sheesh, sometimes I think you guys are waayy ahead of me...good stuff!
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I've had people asking me what caps the kit contained and how to install them.
I politely told them to "buy the friggin' kit, you cheap barsteward!"
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Ha ha - well said! They guy did the research and put the effort in. He deserves a few bucks :)