Peavey Rockmaster Preamp Clone

[J0K3RX]

I figured I may as well post this here for anyone who may want to clone this thing... I ain't never gonna have time to do it so, if this is on your bucket list or you're just bored, sitting around waiting for nuclear annihilation or another bio-weapon attack... then this may keep you busy while you anxiously await the destiny of mankind...

[jmpj45]

This is awesome. A lot of work though

[bmxguitarsbmx]

Thanks Jok3rx! Hilarious. But, also awesome. I have one of these and it rules. Surprisingly modern and brutal. Can't say I have utilized the 3 independent FX loops or adjusted the very sensitive active EQ beyond +/- 2 notches.

[J0K3RX]

Thanks Jok3rx! Hilarious. But, also awesome. I have one of these and it rules. Surprisingly modern and brutal. Can't say I have utilized the 3 independent FX loops or adjusted the very sensitive active EQ beyond +/- 2 notches.

@bmxguitarsbmx

Yeah, I used to have one back in the 90's and it was extremely brutal as i remember... Don't know really why I got rid of it, probably because I was a compulsive dumb ass gear whore... I owned just about everything at one time or another and had to trade or sell to get something else I thought I wanted so, it was a revolving door of guitar rigs, amps pedals and guitars. I regret not keeping my stuff but, what's a poor musician gonna do..? I really didn't know anything about building or modding back then or I would have but, I was more interested in practicing, playing clubs and getting laid... I would see some other dudes rig and loved the sound so I would go buy all the same stuff and find that it didn't sound anything like his... then I would see him again and he told me somebody modded the amp to get it to sound like that by then i was frustrated and confused and decided to get married and everything went down hill from there..

I was gonna grab one and mod the sh!t out of it but after several unsuccessful attempts at bidding on a couple I thought sh!t I can build one myself... and this was as far as I got. Really not as many parts as it appears, more jumper than anything else. You could leave half the stuff off because you would probably never use most of it like the ridiculous amount of fx loops, xlr out and the push/pull pots can be standard pots and just use toggle switches etc.. after that you can mod the crap outa the thing until you find what you like... I do remember the tone controls being drastic and the slightest tweek would go too far one way or the other. I ran it through a mesa simul-class 290 power amp which i hated and ended up selling. Actually I hated all tube power amps I owned because they never sounded the same from one gig to another, noisey, always making pop noises and overall unreliable so I git a MosValve 500 and ran it in stereo and it was LOUD as hell and consistently sounded the same anywhere. I didn't even have to rely on some d!ck sound guy to give me enough volume because I could level a club with that thing if I needed to

[bmxguitarsbmx]

Thats a good story. I think in many cases you were wise to practice and play (and get laid). I had the bad habit of tearing my shit apart and barely getting it back together before going onstage. Looking back I got kicked out of a couple bands directly because of self induced technical issues. I scored my rock master "broken", and it was just a faulty tube! it does the tone I am after almost perfectly. It's dry and brutal, but still juicy enough for leads. Prices have gone through the roof lately, thanks to youtubers. The way to go may be to score a peavey Valveking, which has a passive EQ that is actually an improvement. Or mod something like an Ultra.

I am very tempted to try this build. Does it require the Peavey potentiometers?