My mission to modify a Peavey Bandit 112 into a boutique amp
Posted: 31 Jan 2018, 23:50
Well maybe not boutique but certainly customised beyond what a Peavey Bandit SS usually does!
I love Bandit's since they're indestructible and very loud for cleans (that's another post).
So I picked up a good cond Bandit 112 Red-Stripe on Gumtree and I've decided to re-design it as a new(-ish) amp.
The nice people at Peavey have supplied the schematics for my amp on request and I've set about scribbling over them with ideas.
Here's my plan:
Am I crazy??
I love Bandit's since they're indestructible and very loud for cleans (that's another post).
So I picked up a good cond Bandit 112 Red-Stripe on Gumtree and I've decided to re-design it as a new(-ish) amp.
The nice people at Peavey have supplied the schematics for my amp on request and I've set about scribbling over them with ideas.
Here's my plan:
- Keep the existing power amp board pretty much as is - I like the Tube transformer and sag emulation circuit with the T-dynamics control - so I'll keep all that as its quite usable.
- Re-use the existing 2 channel pre-amp board by stripping components off and adding new ones to make new circuits. I'll use wire and track cuts to modify the board as needed.
- Clean channel: Replace the bipolar tranny input stage with a JFET Fetzer circuit and change the tone-stack for a Fender blackface style one. I'm after a Fender Twin sound out of this thing if I can get it.
- Dirty channel: Rip the whole diode distortion guts out and replace with new gain stages made from JFETs to get a Plexi style distortion. The tone stack is already Marshall style.
- Replace caps and anything else which looks broken and maybe add some nice status LEDs on the front panel.
- Give the whole front a face lift
- Upgrade the speaker from Chinese Blue Marvel to something nice (Jensen maybe for that Twin sound?)
Am I crazy??