Seeing as I am about to have a tube buffered effects loop put in my 1970 SFSR, I thought it might be worthwhile trying some of these mods while the amp is being modded.

http://www.torresengineering.com/tubampkitmor.html

Anyone done them? Which ones are useful? Did they have any affect on the original sound of the amp when bypassed?

Cheers

TZ

Well I got flamed over at the Weber Amp forum for posting this same quesion, so I guess the Torres Engineering site is considered a big no-no. Until this week I had never heard of Torres Engineering, but obviously he has pissed off more than a few amp techs. I think I will purchase Ken O'Connors "The Ultimate Tone" and see what mods he has in there.

Personally, I think getting all sentimental and religious about modifying something as basic as a box with a few wires, tubes, sockets, bolts, etc. to help you make better emotional music, is taking things too far, but each to there own I guess.

Cheers

TZ

Sorry for such a late reply. I have a Fender Silver Faced Bassman Head. It is not a bad amp, but I wanted more. I ordered a effects loop for it so that I could use a reverb unit. I was in Germany, so I had a tech put it in and it worked great. I (the tech actually) then put in a Bassman Magic mod and a 6 way midrange switch and all of a sudden, the amp sounds like total dog poo! It warms up the tubes and after about 30 minutes, it's like playing with a distortion pedal on the whole time. It never cleans up! Forget the funk and jazz that I wanted it for. I came back to the States and was told it would cost upwards of 300 dollars to send this puppy in to have it put back to stock. You'd be better off without Torres. Unless you live in some hick town 1000 miles from a tech, don't bother! All of their mods you can find online if you look hard enough, or just find a good tech! The effect loop is good, but the rest............

I've tried a couple, and they are not recommended by me. The Silverface to BF mod. Two others I can't recall, it was so many years and brain cells ago. Not only do I not recommend them, the prices he charges for a few loose parts should be a crime.

Understood. I got the same opinions about Torres stuff over at the Weber amps forum. I have a very good tech, who really knows his stuff, so I will be sticking with him.

BTW, the FX Loop has been done and sounds awesome

TZ

Same here. I've tried two; they were both terrible, and were promptly uninstalled. I don't recommend them. He (Dan Torres) also has a "book" on tube amps and tone ("Inside Tube Amps"). I don't think I've ever read a more poorly written and carelessly edited book in my life.

Yes, speaking as an novice amp tech the Torres mods are garbage. I have yet to hear of anyone who did then who left them in. Lord know's I've removed a couple of two. If your looking for a tube FX loop, keep looking there are better designs out there.

-Lefty
http://www.leftyshouseoftone.com

All I can say is that my amp tech started out working on his own amps because he got tired of Torres screwing them up. Was he the guy that used to recomend using Gunk (carburator cleaner) on amps?

Is it you or the equipment?

would anybody know anything about rivera amps and possibly enough to split the two channels on a quiana and have two seperate inputs for each channel?

The only decent mod from Torres from what I've heard is the $8 Champ mod. It isn't something real freaky, and it doesn't require undoable changes.

I have heard really good things about the Champ Champ mod...but that's the only one.

mate, these are the guys, outside of harry kolbe, you wanna go to:

http://www.voodooamps.com/


ml

Hey. I just saw this forum and wanted to comment. I got started modding amps w/ torres kits and His book. My first mod was the super od. When I installed it it sounded awful. My friend had done the same mod and It sounded ok.( not great ). After about a month of frustration and many calls to Torres I was looking at an AB763 schematic and noticed the 10pf across the 3.3M resistor and looked at the Torres schematic and saw that He had left that out. His book is full of mistakes. If You know a little about electronics I highly recommend The Ultimate Tone. Torres is no guru.Some of His stuff is a rip off of TUT and his modified driver in His book is a rip off of The Mesa Boogie driver. Besides He seems to be infatuated w/ death. All His cicuits will kill You. That's His favorite discription. Kevin Occonner is a guru and is an exellent teacher. The Ultimate Tone tells You so much about how most vintage and modern amps work. I wore out a copy and replaced the plastic binding and wore that out too!

Have to agree with guittguy1, the reason my amp sounded like caca was that the information was incomplete for the mod. The second tech that I took my amp too said that the first teck did a great job, but did only what Torres had said to do. I got it totally reworked by the second tech and it cost me about $280. So for the by the first tech, the completion of the mod by the second tech and the mod itself, I spent well over $600. Worth it? Hell no!!! The amp sounds great now, but I could have gotten it done for 1/6th of that easy.