Hiwatt DR103 linked inputs emulator?

A

abacab666

New member
afternoon all...

sometime lurker, first time poster here, looking for someone to either save my sanity, or tell me that what I want doesn't exist/isn't possible so I can get on with my life 🤣

being a lifelong floyd fan, I decided to build myself a Gilmour pedal board, all going well so far. I'm no gigging guitarist, so this is just for my personal fun at home, and sounds ok thru the hiwatt model of my line 6 spider. now what I REALLY wanna do is recreate the linked input sound of the dr103 that DG uses, without having to remortgage my house.

I've found layouts for both the normal and brilliant channel inputs, but never one for linked, and, ideally, I'd like to be able to insert it in into the shell of an old bass amp ive got kicking around doing nothing, so would prob need some kind of Poweramp section in there as well (I know one of the layouts ive seen has a power section built in, but im buggered if i can find it now i need it 🙄)

so, is it doable, or is my imagination writing cheques that are only gonna bounce?

TIA
 
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jumping inputs on a dr103 puts two halves of a preamp tube in parallel driving the tone stack. depending on how much "brilliance" is needed, either a SHO or a naga viper boost would give you the added treble/presence with an increase in overall volume.
 
It is a bit of a mystery and the best I can tell, Gilmour's 'linked' Hiwatt is the two initial preamp stages in some form of parallel. Which is more like an equalizer. It is not in series (cascaded), which would boost gain.

Some photos of the amp shows it missing the 'Brilliant' channel volume knob, to which I surmise that his tech used a resistor mixer circuit (summing circuit) to balance the EQ the way Dave liked it and sent that off to the single 'Normal Vol' pot, which made it easier for the roadies to set it up on the stage.

I have built the PedalPCB 'Prince Albert Overdrive', which on edge of breakup Gilmour settings into a clean amp, is pretty convincing for Gilmour tones. Its C3 and C4 values approximates a normal channel and brilliant channel blend (Hiwatt JP-39).

The PedalPCB 'Windmill' pedal is like a DR103 through the normal channel only, ala Pete Townsend.
 
What if you build a signal splitter-mixer and
run one side into the Windmill circuit and
the other side into the Prince Albert OD
then mix them back to mono.

What I'm really suggesting, though, is try different ways of getting the sound such as ICTRock's booster suggestion,
don't get hung up on trying to replicate the amplification method Gilmour uses when trying to get close to the sound with pedals.

It's like how some amp's EQ circuits have been replicated in pedal format, but SCALED DOWN component-values for pedal-level voltages and component-tolerances — otherwise, from what I've read, it's like trying to run an F1 car on public roads... it just doesn't work like in the movies.



 
abacab666 said:
so he plugs into the low normal input, jumper from high normal to low brill, high brill is blocked off if that helps.
Click to expand...

Yes, that 'jumpering' is typical of that era's amplifiers. I have a Marshall JTM45 Offset Reissue that I jumper and set the Normal Vol at 3 and Treble Vol at '5' (even at 40w, this is ear bleeding).

Players like Gilmour, The Edge, Tommy Iommi and Brian May had (have?) their stage amps 'idiot proofed' and simplified, by removing external controls and making their settings which they never change, internal and permanent. This way the roadies can quickly set up the stage and the artist can make rudimentary adjustments for the venue at sound check.

As you pointed out, Gilmour plays in the low gain inputs and typically sets his amps volume a hair below the edge of breakup and lets his pedals do the work.
 
What era are you going for? Let’s not forget that for a good while DG completely bypassed the HiWatt preamps and used Cornish Modified Alemic F2-B preamp straight to the HiWatt power amps. So a modified Fender Dual Showman type preamp into a Hi-Watt power section. The Pulse tour for example, and was also using active EMG noiseless pups instead of vintage style

For the Alembic preamp you can look as the sushiboxfx Particle Accelerator.

Gilmour also preferred headroom over amp break up for his muffs and tube drivers. I can’t recall a sonic Gilmour amp breakup tone. It was always a powerbooster, fuzz face, muff, tube driver or one of Cornish modified versions of all of those.

Picture is courtesy of Kit Rae’s all things Gilmour lol.
 

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it's really not any more complicated than a small fixed boost and maybe an eq tweak ... parallel triodes aren't voodoo
 
I honestly would not get hung up on trying to recreate an exact Hiwatt sound with your equipment.

The big thing to remember is clean and loud and a good amount of Mids. That’s the core of the Hiwatt sound anyway.

It’s why he was able to reproduce that with the Alembics and Hiwatt Power amps.
 
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