MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Been sitting on this board for a bit. Finally had the gumption to build it out.
Another MIAB from Wampler. From what I can tell this is an earlier version without the mid-bump toggle.
I've mentioned before that I'm not the biggest fan of JFET based MIAB emulations, I think my preference is opamp+clippers to get there.
When I first built this, I biased the JFETs to 4.6v and I thought it sounded like crap. The gain was really fart-y and the breakup just didn't sound very good.
So I went back in biased by ear and got it sounding pretty good. Q1 and Q3 had the greatest effect on the way it sounded. I didn't measure where I wound up because I was just tuning by ear but I got it to the point where it sounds pretty good.
In the demo I compared it to another MIAB designed by Brian Wampler (I think), the J. Rockett Animal (PPCB Mammal) and just for giggles also compared it to the Barber Direct Drive (PPCB Candid Drive).
Which sounds better is a matter of personal preference but I kinda like all 3 of them. It's got me re-thinking some of the other JFET based drives I've built and leaves me wondering whether I should revisit them and bias them by ear as well instead of voltage. Even though I used SMD J201's I'll chalk it up to tolerances within the batches I have.
For the main part of the demo I used my recently "rebuilt" 60's Tele.
If you've been following my Telescapades the last iteration of this guitar was a Seafoam Green alder body.
It was a pretty heavy hunk of Alder and it felt a bit too heavy to me.
When I bought my postal scale not too long ago I weighed it, it was an 8.5lb Tele!
Anyway. I really wanted an Swamp Ash body for this, so I got a very nice fairly light swamp ash body from Dustin Bloomer.
It's so perfectly book matched that I could not tell it wasn't a one piece without looking at the end grain.
I'm not sure what he called this color but I'm calling it a "light burst". The guitar is now right around 7lbs and I can definitely tell the difference tonally.
It's much more resonant and "feels" better when I'm playing it. It's probably not noticeable to anyone else hearing it played but hey, it's all about me me me......
Here's what it looks like before...
And after...
For the demo, I dialed up a Plexi-ish clean tone on my Frenzel.
In the outro jam I also used my SG and boosted the Acrylic with my Modus Operandi boost.
Another MIAB from Wampler. From what I can tell this is an earlier version without the mid-bump toggle.
I've mentioned before that I'm not the biggest fan of JFET based MIAB emulations, I think my preference is opamp+clippers to get there.
When I first built this, I biased the JFETs to 4.6v and I thought it sounded like crap. The gain was really fart-y and the breakup just didn't sound very good.
So I went back in biased by ear and got it sounding pretty good. Q1 and Q3 had the greatest effect on the way it sounded. I didn't measure where I wound up because I was just tuning by ear but I got it to the point where it sounds pretty good.
In the demo I compared it to another MIAB designed by Brian Wampler (I think), the J. Rockett Animal (PPCB Mammal) and just for giggles also compared it to the Barber Direct Drive (PPCB Candid Drive).
Which sounds better is a matter of personal preference but I kinda like all 3 of them. It's got me re-thinking some of the other JFET based drives I've built and leaves me wondering whether I should revisit them and bias them by ear as well instead of voltage. Even though I used SMD J201's I'll chalk it up to tolerances within the batches I have.
For the main part of the demo I used my recently "rebuilt" 60's Tele.
If you've been following my Telescapades the last iteration of this guitar was a Seafoam Green alder body.
It was a pretty heavy hunk of Alder and it felt a bit too heavy to me.
When I bought my postal scale not too long ago I weighed it, it was an 8.5lb Tele!
Anyway. I really wanted an Swamp Ash body for this, so I got a very nice fairly light swamp ash body from Dustin Bloomer.
It's so perfectly book matched that I could not tell it wasn't a one piece without looking at the end grain.
I'm not sure what he called this color but I'm calling it a "light burst". The guitar is now right around 7lbs and I can definitely tell the difference tonally.
It's much more resonant and "feels" better when I'm playing it. It's probably not noticeable to anyone else hearing it played but hey, it's all about me me me......
Here's what it looks like before...
And after...
For the demo, I dialed up a Plexi-ish clean tone on my Frenzel.
In the outro jam I also used my SG and boosted the Acrylic with my Modus Operandi boost.
