Testing victorious 24

Testing victorious 24

TAD 6L6WGC-STR (review)

Time to check some current production tubes for my Victorious 24,
After a few other brands tested, I realise this TAD 6L6WGC-STR, are pretty good soundwise.
The bass is spot on for this amp's tone knob, means I can bring it down without getting mushy or too bassy. The highs also had a nice sparkling clarity, and they create a nice round crunchy sound when pushed. The sound is dynamic, and has dimension. Other current production tubes I tried sounded a bit dead and dry woody, compared to this...
I biased it medium 60% plate dissipation (45 mAh at 350v) , and it gave me already a nice tone. Other tubes needed a bit more to be satisfactory for my taste.
So it allowed me to go down to my 5u4gb rectifier again, to give me some sag, without killing the clarity. Yes I guess this will be my "go to" Current production 6L6, for this amp.

Taylor gs mini rosewood testing (sorry about the "background noise")

After shooting out the Gs Mini vs. the 114e ... I realize that this mini has practically the same projection , and and sounds better to my ears regarding note separation and timbre ... Go figure... ! Do not even notice the lack of bass facing the 114 ... Connected with the pickup the 114 seemed more balanced tough ... but acoustically amplified think the mini sounds more interesting to my ears. when shopping around I noticed that the two rosewood mini's I tried, sounded different, obviously, I brought the one, that was a match to my taste, and had more bass and warmer tone.

Tung Sol 6v6 (current production) review

With NOS tubes becoming more scarce, and most supliers lacking reliability, decided to try some current production 6v6 power tubes. 

This ones where clearly a winner in the tone department.

Nice and chimey tone, with good note separation, solid bass, and the mids are warm with definition. When pushed the compression and crunch are musical and not mushy like other curtent production tubes. I feel they can stand up to some NOS tubes.

In terms of Tone control use in my victorious 14, I felt that I could go very low in the tone without going muddy, or high without being harsh... The range was better than any other tubes I tried.

Nice and chimey tone, with good note separation, solid bass, and the mids are warm with definition. When pushed the compression and crunch are musical and not mushy like other curtent production tubes. I feel they can stand up to some NOS tubes.

In terms of Tone control use in my victorious 14, I felt that I could go very low in the tone without going muddy, or high without being harsh... The range was better than any other tubes I tried.

Vermona VSR 3 - Vintage spring reverb (review)

Have been around a few simple solid state spring reverb units, to use with a guitar amp.
I found this one to be quite different, and more focused into doing the "reverb sound", than the "spring sound", if that makes sense. The price tag looks good, and the quality apears to be very good, and is made in Germany.
I have to say this is not a low-fi, or springy type, so you dont hear a lot of "boing" all the time.
It has been made to sound clean, and it does sound in some instances similar to longer plate sounds.
it has lots of flexibility, with the tone control alowing very deep cavernous sounds on the bassy side, or more of a mid range cuting splash on the other, but never being very brigh or obstrusive. So it sounds natural, but keeping the focus of the guitar, without mudying it up and keeping a good separation between the guitar sound and the reverb sound.
You also can take it to an extreme level, because the blend allows full wet to full dry. The warmth of the springs, lets you crank it up and it still sounds natural and musical, because it is REAL reverb happening... So it can get on the surfy side... or even for more ambient you can get pretty deep and dark with the tone turned into the bass side....
So if you are into a springgy sound, with lots of that distinctive boing this might not be for you, but if you are tired of digital emulations and want a very natural and studio quality reverb that is versatile and warm, you might want to check this one out.
Another great feature is input and output level control, allowing for very wet, or only wet without loosing punch, and the foot switchable effect bypass, keeps the dry signal at the same level when the effect is bypassed... even allowing some serious boost if used dry. It does not do the true bypass "thing", wich i find neglectable, I like the tone of the boost, and I like to boost my amps inputs quite a bit, but that is a more personal observation...

Reilander Pickups review

 I found out about Reilanders recently and have been upgrading all my guitars with his sets. I find the touch very reactive to picking technics without becoming harsh.
Tight punchy bottoms with warm mids and snappy top end bite, thats how I describe them. In some cases I replaced pickups that where twice the price of Reilanders. Its not a metal or modern high gain type of pickups, but instead great classic sounding classic tones for blues, folk, jazz or classic rock.
I found out all pickups sound great in the mix, never becomming muddy or harsh and have a very organic feel. My s-1 hss strat sounds great and natural now (Texas styles / rh-2 humbucker), and my Nashville custom tele has the best tele pickups I have experienced.

Xs "old-school" 300STER Box

Decided to make my "live" booster in a true point-to-point construction, and using only old-school components. Added a few improvements like diode clipping/clean boost switch, and a "feel" selector for tighter or looser touch. All build in a very small enclosure type.

Since I intend to leave it allways on, I used an on/cut/off/ toggle switch. The result is a very organic and amplike dirty boost, that works great with my Victorious 14.

Victorious 14 - Casual Blues (Live)

Casual Attraction Playing Casual Blues. Sound recorded Live at Casino Lx. For Guitar a Victorious 14 was used with an american strat with Reilander Texas Pickups, A Leonidas 300STER in front, and an EarthQuaker Devices dispatch master was used for slap-back.
For Keyboards, Alessio used a controler keyboard straight into a Victorious 14 (keyboard model)
More info at: http://leonidasamplification.blogspot.pt/ 
Also check:
http://casualattraction.blogspot.pt/
http://pedroleonidas.blogspot.pt/

Blue Strat Project

 I was in need of a maple neck strat with a more classic pickup configuration, so I decided to have some fun (and save some money)... and this strat plays great! quite addictive to play i must confess (my fingers are raw afther the test drive)

I decided to use copper foil for the shielding. used a pivot screw to link the bridge grounding and cavities.

I used Kulson vintage style tunners, and shapped a bone nut. string trees where added later as needed.
The neck need an adjustment for relief, so I gave it a slight turn before assembling and aligning.

The neck I used is a 50's style soft V shaped, with dual action rod adjust at heel. Afther a quick setup, left it rest for a few days, before readjusting the rod. Then readjusted the setup and left it resting for a week or two.

Started assembling the pickguard, also used some copper foil for shielding, a .047 paper oil cap for tone and a .001 bleeder, paralelled with a 220k resistor. 

 
Added someVintage style handwound pickups from Mike Reilander, with traditional stagger.

Finishing the pickguard wiring...  all with vintage cloth wire, both solid and stranded type (depending on the connection type, and flexibility needed.

Finishing the assembly and setup.

Fine tunning the pickup height, action and inotation.


Ready to rock!

Runing a vintage (two input) amp with modern effects

One of the things I like on a vintage-styled amp is the use of parallel inputs. In the case of the Victorious 14, I have been using a direct path from the guitar to the High input, and a split, buffered path, through delay and reverb. That way I can get a lot more punch from the amp, and also can use some of its crunch without messing up the effects too much. Also it is okay to use "mix-dry/wet" type of pedal without loosing the direct sound, and also avoiding DSP conversion that some digital units do. The result gives me a great direct dry tone mixed with good warmer and balanced effects tone, and switchable trails (if I bypass the effect input).

Nashville Power Tele(Tweaking) + 300STER

Yes, The power bridge is a botch. Was reapired 3 times, and replaced one...besides, it kills the tone in many ways... no good.
I removed all the power bridge circuit and saddles, but kept the bridge...

With a little effort I was able to tightly fit the vintage saddles on the bridge. Ant there it was - instant sustain and clarity! I couldnt believe how bad the fishman saddles sounded.
Now this guitar sounds great... but there is allways more...
So while I was at it I decided I'd do a little more tweaking, and built my 300STER OD into the guitar... tight, but doable, and I used the battery compartment already offered.Afther removing the powerbridge circuit, Redid all the guitar wiring, and built the overdrive PTP on prefboard. Also added a treble bleed on the volume pot.
A switch fully bypasses the OD circuit, another one connects the bridge pickup with the 5 position switch, giving both the Tele classic switching or strat 5 way switching. The tone pot position is a level control for the drive, and the treble bleed lets me control the drive amount from the volume pot.
Now I don't have to carry an overdrive pedal anymore....

Leonidas Amplification - Cabinets

Our cabinets are artisanal hand made in Portugal, using the finest solid wood available, and handcrafting techniques that portuguese wood craftsman are known for.

Mr Casual (Blackheart - tweaking)

Decided to take a new approach on the drive circuit of this amp. So changed the path a bit, and lowered the grid stopper resisance, discarded the bleeding cap, but introduced a 10k grid leak variable resistor for the second drive stage.
In my oppinion, the circuit tone has improved, with adjustable grid control for diferent stages. Including the previous mod for the phase inverter stage.
Now It can get a "matchless-like" vibe going with an alnico speaker... Nice!

Guitar Tweaking (bridge saddles)

This is a very simple mod, that in my opinion has a great diference in sustain, clarity and high frequency response on an american strat guitar.
Usualy they come with cast, block saddles like the ones bellow:

Afther replacing them with vintage style, bent stainless steel saddles, I tested with the same (old) strings, and have to say it was very diferent tonewise. Almost like as if I replaced with fresh strings. In fact  block saddles tend to dull out the sound.. So I have to say that it is not a myth that quality vintage saddles sound better than modern block type. Also another simple trick I use, is to remove the cover of the back cavity, I realised it also dappens the sound a bit. Replacing the tremolo block may also help with sustain, has I noticed the original apears to be lame on design and material quality...It is a shame that this kind of attention was lost down the production line...
Here is a picture with the vintage saddles insataled.

EQD - Dispatch Master (2 in 1)- Review

One of the main problems of a large effects chain, is the loss of tone that happens, and even if the chain,even if mostly true bypass, the tone dulls out, with each additional pedal. buffers may help but even so, the best is to have the shortest path possible, from the guitar to amp...
In the effort of reducing the signal path before the amp, I was looking to repalce my AD9 and reverb, on the pedal board, this little pedal came up very handy, it has both warm sounding anlogue-like delay, and a dark sounding plate reverb.
Whne off, its true-bypass, when on, the direct sound is analogue, and the buffer seems quite transparent, so the dyanmics keep its the natural smoothness, and avoid digital conversion.
Altough it is a digital effect, the algorithm is quite warm, and has a vintage vibe. Both effect blends with the dry, without loosing presence. The reverb sounds has a dark, warm plate, with a little modulation on higher settings, the delay is in the analogue sound domain, and has a slight degrade along the repeats.
Even tough I belive this pedal was made focused on ambience effects, it sounds great has a short delay and slap-back echo, or even standalone reverb plate sounds. But the true magic happens from the combination of both.

Champ 600 - (Second Upgrade)

Afther the other mods, I decided to have a little more tweaking in order to improve this fellow a little bit more.
One of the upgrades was a VMP output transformer,  the exact same model we are using on our Valliant 5.

The tone of this transformer is smoother, louder and has a tad more bottom, and resulted from an extended research made for Leonidas Amps.

The other was an old Oxford AlNiCo 6" Speaker, that showed up to be a very nice addition to this little combo. A big difference from the ceramic speaker.
Even tough it still has a few issues compared to the Valliant 5(like hum, harsher tone...) , with a few mods  it is a nice portable practice amp.

Leonidas Amplification!

Amplificadores de guitarra 100% artesanais, feitos á mão com os melhores componentes vintage para o timbre mais orgânico e puro possível. Circuitos inspirados em clássicos que fizeram história nos anos 50 e 60, mas que continuam a ser desejados.

Artisanal Top Quality Guitar Amps, Hand-build with the best available vintage components to provide the Greatest Purity & Organic  Tone possible. Inspired in classic historical circuits from the 50's and 60's, that are still in  great demand.

100% Made in Portugal!
By Pedro Leónidas &
Vintage Music Parts

300STER II

I built this circuit, based on the the first 300STER, but with a second drive circuit instead of the Fet boost, for a secondary and diferent overdrive flavour. Also handwired point to point, features NOS germanium diodes, and an oil cap for warmer tone. This circuit is also capable of a clean boost, that can be bright or fat. Great with a vintage style amp.

300STER III

300STER III ads a new od channel (germanium diodes) at the end of the circuit, allowing the user to switch between the Boost (also featured in the first 300STER) or the new germanium overdrive sound that is closer to old marshall's crunch. Handwired point to point, true bypass, and also allows a 9v. battery.





Samples:
(home-recorded with an sm57, 20cm away off-axis. the amp is the Spartan30 w/gain set low)

Stratocaster (w/ SCN pickups) - Overdrive 2 - (guitar volume on 10)


Stratocaster (w/ SCN pickups) - Overdrive - smooth mode, (guitar volume on 10 part was played clean, then with overdrive)


Stratocaster (w/ fat 50's) - Overdrive - bright mode, (guitar volume on 10)


Stratocaster (w/ humbucker) - Overdrive 2 - (guitar volume on 10)