DESCRIPTION:
Another clip of my Traynor Bassmaster. There have been a few minor tweaks to the amp since the clip from last year. I also now have a DiMarzio super distortion in the bridge of the guitar.

The text of the video's captions is below:


Here's a demo of my Traynor Bassmaster amplifier.

It was made in Canada in early-to-mid 1970's.

It is Traynor's take on the Bassman / Plexi type design.

It has the standard controls -
Normal Volume, Bright Volume, Treble, Bass, "Low Range Expander" aka midrange, and "High Range Expander" aka Presence

This year's model's preamp circuitry was somewhat different than the "classic" Bassman / Plexi arrangement.

According to schematics on the web, that is the case with Bassmasters post-1972.

I've modded this one several ways, right now it closely follows the more "classic" design from the 1971 schematic.

One change from that schematic is that I added a choke.

I also changed the coupling caps to the power tubes from 100 nF down to 33 nF to reduce blocking distortion at high volumes

I also added three switches for some flexibility in front end of the preamp.

I have a switch to either blend the channels or select normal only, or bright only.

I also have switches to engage or disengage cathode bypass capacitors on the first stage and the second stage to adjust the preamp gain.

Right now, the bright channel only is selected. The first stage gain boost is on, the second stage gain boost is off.

The current control settings are about:
Normal Volume OFF, Bright Volume 7, Treble 5, Bass 4, Low Range Expander 10, High Range Expander 4

It has 3 12AX7 in the pre-amp and 2 EL34/6CA7 in the power amp.

I believe all of the preamp tubes are various Russian New Sensor types (Sovtek, Electro-Harmonix, etc).

The power tubes are Groove Tubes EL34M (Chinese-made Mullard XF2 copy).


The guitar is a DIY strat copy.

The body is black limba (korina). The body and maple neck were made by USA Custom Guitars.

I finished the body with Tru-Oil.

The bridge pickup is a DiMarzio Super Distortion.

Now the channels are blended. Normal Volume and Bright Volume each at about 5, and Treble at about 7

The left speaker cabinet is an Avatar 1x12 with a Hellatone 60 (really a broken-in, rebranded Celestion Vintage 30).

The right speaker cabinet is a Sovtek 2x12" The speakers have no brand markings, but are probably Eminence.

Cranking the Normal Volume up to about 9, lowering the Bright Volume to about 3

Now engaging the second stage gain boost.

The speakers are close-mic'd with Shure SM57's. Unfortunately, the right microphone's cable was fritzy, so that track is not used. The left mic is panned center.

I also used a pair of Audio-Technica 4041 overheads for some stereo room ambience.

No effects, no compression, and no EQ were used in mixdown.

The Bassmaster output is nominally 8 ohms, but can handle down to 4 ohms just fine.

The 1x12 Avatar cab is 8 ohms. The 2x12 Sovtek cab is set to 16 ohms. I have put them both in parallel for a total load of 5.3 ohms.

With this arrangement however, the Avatar cab hogs twice as much power as the Sovtek cab. I used the 8 ohm hotplate on the Avatar cab set at -8dB attenuation to get the volumes roughly equal.

Thanks for watching!