Tube Question (Gain)

[Guitarist-Jonny]

Hi all. I have a Peavey Valveking Head, it's great but it lacks gain in a big way. I want to replace the tubes so that this gain is increased by a massive amount if possible, what would you recommend? Or could it be a problem with the tubes that is giving me this lack of gain? There's no power lacking from the guitar, it has EMG's in it and the battery is fine in it :P! Please help dudes !
Thanks
Regards
Jonny

[jb4674]

Personally, I would add an overdrive box to the head instead and see how the sound changes. If you don't like it, you can always returnt the stompbox to the store as opposed to having the head rebiased by a pro everytime you change tubes.

Jimmy

[TheMusicBucket]

How old is the battery in your guitar?

[Guitarist-Jonny]

The battery is ok, I'm not sure how old to be honest but it sounds fine through the effects machine I have (I run it through pc). I also have a passive pick up equiped guitar that I use with it too. I want to use the tubes for distortion not pedals though, 'coz I do have pedals that give out fairly good distortion but I want to be able to use the amp for my distortion.
Regards
Jonny

[Mr.WizardNeck]

You are going to be using the amp distortion. An OD box just drives it a bit more. You can try replacing the tubes with ones that are meant to be more high gain but beyond that, 5150/6505 dude.

[Guitarist-Jonny]

Would changing the tubes to something like the tubes in those amps maybe help? Thanks for your help so far dudes I appreciate it !
Thanks
Regards
Jonny

[GuitarBizarre]

You're missing the point. An od box just makes the signal hit the amp a hell of a lot harder to DRIVE the amp into more distortion.


Also, if you need more distortion than an OD box can give you then you aren't going to get any more from your tubes. To get a lot more distortion you need to bias the tubes extremely hot, which shortens their lifespan and will end up costing you a lot of money.

[Guitarist-Jonny]

Sorry if this sounds nooby (lmao :P,) but do preamp tubes need biasing? Because power amp tubes seem to always come in either 1's, 2's, 4's or 6's most of the time but I've seen amps with 2,3,4 and five preamp tubes. I do understand your point I really do but I'm trying to go a different way 'coz I'm a cheese lol sorry. The Valveking has 3 12AX7's. My way of thinking is that one of these must go to the spring reverb, and then one to each channel- am I right? How many tubes does say the dual rectifier use in each channel dudes? I wanna get the best out of the Valveking- is it because of multiple say 12AX7's driving one gain channel that other amps distortion is just HUGE? I am running my friends GT-8 through it at the mo' and it sounds pretty good but I just wanna try 'n' use the Valveking's distortion instead, and just use pedals for mostly wah, chorus and delay.
Thanks again
Regards
Jonny

[neoclassical]

Preamp tubes do not need to be rebiased. Try these:
Tungsol reissue in V1 9th gen chinese or chinese silver specials in V2 and 3
EH in V1 Chinese in V2 and 3
All Tungsols or EH or all Chinese
JJ high gain in V1 EH or Tungsols in V2 and 3. Swapping tubes will only get you so far, then you need a boost in front.

Adam

[TheMusicBucket]

Originally Posted by Guitarist-Jonny

The battery is ok, I'm not sure how old to be honest but it sounds fine through the effects machine I have (I run it through pc). I also have a passive pick up equiped guitar that I use with it too. I want to use the tubes for distortion not pedals though, 'coz I do have pedals that give out fairly good distortion but I want to be able to use the amp for my distortion.
Regards
Jonny

Well, what kind of distortion are you after? And what cabinet are you running the head into?

Cause even with the gain halfway up(with the boost maybe?) I could get some pretty heavy distortion tones out of it through the standard Valveking cabinet.

Play with the A A/B knob on the back, rotate it to the A/B side, and try setting all Gain/EQ knobs flat. Then proceed to do minor tweaking to get more of the sound you want. Need it to sound heavier? Add some bass/resonance. Need it to cut more? Turn up the Treble/Presence. Keep the mids somewhere between 10 and 2 o clock.

Having played them on and off in a lot of different stores, and listening to various clips on youtube, I don't think you need more gain than the VK has, even with it's stock tubes. Unless you're just going for a completely different sound than the amp can deliver. Which is unlikely considering it's versatility.

[Guitarist-Jonny]

Thanks for all your advice guys ! Mathias- I tried what you said, this time using a guitar fitted with Air classics (Dimarzio.) The amp seems to respond less when I turn the A-A/B knob than it used to and it just doesn't 'chug' during palm mute riffs (E.G. Metallica stuff) like it used to I'm sure- I'm sure something isn't right somewhere dudes! I'm running it through the standard valveking cab also. Please help :P
Thanks for your help so for
Best regards
Jonny

[varador]

Get an EQ pedal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T36xOPmjbps

[Guitarist-Jonny]

Wow, that's a massive difference- I will definately try that! There's something else though, I used to be able to get fairly heavy distortion on the amp- without any other pedals like eq's. And like I said before the Texture (A-A/B) knob now seems to just make the amp quieter as I turn it towards A/B instead of slowly changing to a heavier sound- What's happened there do ya think? I also noticed that the preamp tubes are at different temperatures when I play the amp for a bit then turn it off and feel them (I removed the front/rear plate things for a lil while.)
Also, the amp sounds different on the lead channel to the other amps on youtube etc.
Thanks
Regards
Jonny

[GLG421]

I hope you're using gloves to handle the tubes, otherwise you're going to make matters worse.

Finger oils can produce hotspots on your tubes and cause them to fail. Always use gloves or at least handle with a cloth.


If your tone is changing on the amp without settings changes, it sounds like your tubes are going.


Just42dave has some tubes for sale in the classified ads section. Just bought some from him, good iTrader.

[Guitarist-Jonny]

Yea, One of the power tubes doesn't have the black 'bit' at the top- What's all that about too? Is it normal for tubes to go after over 18 months?
Thanks
Regards
Jonny