Grateful Dead Music Forum

I was struggling to get a GREAT sound out of an amp that sounded VERY GOOD.

So I tried diming the tonestack and was completely blown away by the awesome sound!
(using single coils but needed to back off the bass with dual coils)

Someone, at the gig, said it sounded great too but that I was cooking my tubes.

This person knows a thing or two but I find them passing off their hypothesis as fact.

It's always been my understand that in a Fender style guitar amp (and most amps) it works like this:
Input jack > first gain stage > tone stack which only cuts > second gain stage....

And with that logic I am only avoiding the cutting and may hit the second gain stage with a hotter signal but by no means "cooking".

Please edumacate me

He's wrong, you're right. ,

was this with your fargen?

What exactly did you do to the amp? was it a matter of bias in the tubes or did you have new caps installed? (out of curiosity)...

caspersvapors wrote:was this with your fargen?

Yup, my 20W DR style Fargen, not my 40W 1/2 Twin style.

"Cooking" tubes is just a matter of bias. Turning up the tone controls all the way up should have very little effect on the life of the tubes. If you're afraid you're "cooking" the tubes, you can bias them a bit colder but then you're probably sacrificing tone. Tone is more important than the life of the tubes anyway.

mijknahs wrote:Tone is more important than the life of the tubes anyway.

Very much agreed. Aforementioned dude made it sound I'd get weeks or months vs years.