Hey Erik,
Do you have any tips to smooth out the raw, abrasive growl of the Cobra?
Bias it, use a pickup with a low-mid rather than high-mid emphasis (WP, HD, etc), preferably speakers that aren't too brittle or buzzy like V30s tend to be.
Gday Vic,
Thanks for all your advice so far, I appreciate it! Ive ordered some Miracle Mans to put in my 7 string Mahogany Hellraiser, do you think that would be a good combo with the cobra? I was under the impression that the miracle mans were more high mid than low mid prominant and therefore would match better with the low mid of the Cobra?
the raw tight nature of the cobra is something really difficult to tame
mine is now modded for a british crunchy midrange and a more dense tone with smoother highs and it's still tight as hell, even with the power amp section modded to smooth things a bit
what Vic said about the speakers is very important
I didn't like it with the vintage 30 neither the century vintage, cause they make it sound even more dry
this amp definitely works better with greenbacks, cause they compress the mids a bit and make the highs smoother, speaclly because they match the amp wattage
mine is running two power tubes only at 50w (cause it has 5 years power tubes, so a pair started to redplate)
in 50w, I run only half of the cab (2 x greenbacks), cause it sounds way better matching the power rating of the amp with the power handling of the speakers
when I run only 50w through the whole 100 watts cab, the mids don't sound as alive and it sounds thinner too
about the pickups,. I think that's relative
th Holy Diver is smoother, but I had the Miracle Man and Cold Sweat in the same guitar and played a 7 string with a Painkiller through it and they all worked better, except for cleans
the Miracle man can get a bit spikey on the highs, and doesn't sound as good without a boost (cause boosts usually emphasize the midrange)
the painkiller worked awesome even without a boost, causde it's already really mid heavy
but my favorite is definitely the cold sweat, since it has the qualities of both miracle man and painkiller, but a warmer overall tone and a hair less output
the miracle man has a ton of low end punch, a very unique snarl in the low mids and a lot of cutting treble, but it lacks a bit of center and high mids
you can have your amp modded to smooth some specific points in the power amp (grid resistors to the phase inverter and power tubes, fizzy cap linking the PI outputs, FRED rectification diodes and a higher negative feedback resistor), and they will make a noticeable difference, but won't turn it into a Bogner or something that smooth, unless you go extreme (and that would kill part of the aggressive nature of the amp)
for bedroom playing, the great secret is to plug a "bleedin' cable" into the return (coming from nowhere) and use the FX mix knob as a volume cut
I set the distorted channels volumes at 9-10, master at 3-4 and then the FX mix around 8 will give you a nice tone at bedroom volume
