Any experience with a TC Sentry on an EVH 5150 III 50 Watt?

[Mike_R]

I've got a 5150 III 50w and a 100w Stealth. I run a Fortin Zuul off the key input connected to the guitar signal with the gate in the effects loop.

It's really, really quiet when gated, even if I have a mountain of gain on the red channel or an HM2 clone before the preamp dimed. When the gate is working you should only hear a tiny bit of noise from the power amp. My understanding is that the power amp is essentially on full for these amps from when you power up the amp and all volume control comes from the strength of the signal from the prramp. It shouldn't matter which channel/how much gain/volume you are running if your gate is working properly off the guitar signal.

The power amp doesn't care which channel you are using, so a loud red channel while gated would be indicative of the gate not being able to kill the signal from the preamp (like others have said above), or possibly an issue with the amp. If you can borrow another gate to rule out the possibility of a gate issue I'd give that a try. I'm assuming you have played with the threshold and other settings on the gate, and that you can hear an audible reduction in noise when the gate is engaged on the blue channel. If the blue channel is about the same whether the Sentry is on or not, you might not have the proper settings on the Sentry to get the gate to do its thing.

 

[sevenstringgod]

You only need to swap out V1, as that will reduce the gain that all the other tubes receive. I've never cared for a 12AT7 in V1 of my amps (5150s, 6505s). I find that it takes away a little too much, uh, balls...for lack of a better term, and I can't get it back by turning up the gain. I do use a 5751 in V1 though, which does reduce the gain a bit, but doesn't decrease the aggressiveness.

The red channel is noisy regardless. If I have it turned up loud, and mute the strings with both hands, there is a pretty loud hum. The NS-2 kills it instantly, and has no trouble doing so. I use pretty light-handed settings on it too. It shouldn't be that hard to kill preamp hum. Really, the red channel has entirely too much gain if you go beyond 10 o'clock. You're not really gaining anything by turning it up higher (see what I did there) except to oversaturate the preamp and reduce the definition of your chords. Especially if you're boosting it. Have you tried lowering the gain and testing to see if your Sentry still struggles with it? When I have boosted the red channel, I find that I had to turn the gain below 9 o'clock to get anything useable, and this is with a 5751 in V1. And I love, love, love tons of gain and saturation.

Well actually I have, but maybe I have to spend some more time tweaking with the red channel, the boost and the sentry, but I'm starting to believe the 5751 in V1 is a must then.

And also, the plumes od isn't noisy at all, but on the other hand, the deadhorse od makes the noise fucking unbearable. I'll keep you guys posted.

 

[sevenstringgod]

I've got a 5150 III 50w and a 100w Stealth. I run a Fortin Zuul off the key input connected to the guitar signal with the gate in the effects loop.

It's really, really quiet when gated, even if I have a mountain of gain on the red channel or an HM2 clone before the preamp dimed. When the gate is working you should only hear a tiny bit of noise from the power amp. My understanding is that the power amp is essentially on full for these amps from when you power up the amp and all volume control comes from the strength of the signal from the prramp. It shouldn't matter which channel/how much gain/volume you are running if your gate is working properly off the guitar signal.

The power amp doesn't care which channel you are using, so a loud red channel while gated would be indicative of the gate not being able to kill the signal from the preamp (like others have said above), or possibly an issue with the amp. If you can borrow another gate to rule out the possibility of a gate issue I'd give that a try. I'm assuming you have played with the threshold and other settings on the gate, and that you can hear an audible reduction in noise when the gate is engaged on the blue channel. If the blue channel is about the same whether the Sentry is on or not, you might not have the proper settings on the Sentry to get the gate to do its thing.

I'm gonna try the noise gate directly to the loop without any other pedals and I'll start from there

 

[Azarea]

I'm gonna try the noise gate directly to the loop without any other pedals and I'll start from there

Yeah I'd try turning down the gain and turning off that boost before getting inside the amp.
Changing V1 is a great painless "mod" for that amp but at stock settings think of the gain pot on the red channel as a compression control past 9 o'clock.
What are you looking for from your boost? I know this is SSO so common consensus is that you have to boost the living shit out of everything but the red channel of this amp is a pretty good counter example, even with a seven string.

 

[sevenstringgod]

Yeah I'd try turning down the gain and turning off that boost before getting inside the amp.
Changing V1 is a great painless "mod" for that amp but at stock settings think of the gain pot on the red channel as a compression control past 9 o'clock.
What are you looking for from your boost? I know this is SSO so common consensus is that you have to boost the living shit out of everything but the red channel of this amp is a pretty good counter example, even with a seven string.

Yep I just realized that, it's overkill with the red channel. I'm used to needing it in front of other amps to actually get into that kind of tone territory but this amp doesn't even need it. The blue channel gets tigher and nicer all around but it kinda compressed the red channel. It sounds way more open now and less noisy.

 

[sevenstringgod]

The best thing I've done with my 5150 III 50 watt was swapping out the v1 12AX7 with a lower output tube, a JJ 12AT7. This cleaned up all three channels, and allows me to run the gain at 5-6, whereas before I had it at around 3-4 out of 10 on the red channel.

I typically don't even bother running my TS808 and Boss NS2 these days. If I do, the NS2 cleans up any bit of noise with no issue.

How can I tell if my fx loop is working? I just connected erverything just like this and it's like if the pedal isn't even connected. And also tried the other way and it's the same thing, no sound is coming out of it.

 

[Mike_R]

How can I tell if my fx loop is working? I just connected erverything just like this and it's like if the pedal isn't even connected. And also tried the other way and it's the same thing, no sound is coming out of it.

I don't have a Sentry, but I'd try the following. If you have the amps footswitch, you should be able to engage/disengage the effects loop. If you had another pedal (like your reverb) you could run your amps loop send to the input of just your reverb pedal, and the output of your reverb pedal to the amps loop return. You should be able to play through the amp at this point and engaging the reverb pedal should result in an audible effect. If that works, swap the reverb pedal for the Sentry (using the effects loop routing described earlier in this thread, but without using the guitar input/output on the sentry).

Once the gate is in the loop with the pedal off you should hear your typical noise. Switch the gate on (I think you would flip the switch on the face of the pedal to gate). If the hiss stops, turn the threshold knob counterclockwise until the hiss returns. If you engage the pedal and the hiss remains, turn the threshold knob clockwise until it stops. Once you find the point that the gate engages/disengages you can adjust the knobs to taste for your playing style.
When you are not using the guitar signal through the gate you may find that your settings for one channel might not work for the other channels or if you change the volume. The benefit of the gates that respond to the guitar signal is that they are effective regardless of what channel/volume you are using.

 

[sevenstringgod]

I don't have a Sentry, but I'd try the following. If you have the amps footswitch, you should be able to engage/disengage the effects loop. If you had another pedal (like your reverb) you could run your amps loop send to the input of just your reverb pedal, and the output of your reverb pedal to the amps loop return. You should be able to play through the amp at this point and engaging the reverb pedal should result in an audible effect. If that works, swap the reverb pedal for the Sentry (using the effects loop routing described earlier in this thread, but without using the guitar input/output on the sentry).

Once the gate is in the loop with the pedal off you should hear your typical noise. Switch the gate on (I think you would flip the switch on the face of the pedal to gate). If the hiss stops, turn the threshold knob counterclockwise until the hiss returns. If you engage the pedal and the hiss remains, turn the threshold knob clockwise until it stops. Once you find the point that the gate engages/disengages you can adjust the knobs to taste for your playing style.
When you are not using the guitar signal through the gate you may find that your settings for one channel might not work for the other channels or if you change the volume. The benefit of the gates that respond to the guitar signal is that they are effective regardless of what channel/volume you are using.

Thanks a lot, it never even crossed my mind to try with the footswitch.

 

[sevenstringgod]

I don't have a Sentry, but I'd try the following. If you have the amps footswitch, you should be able to engage/disengage the effects loop. If you had another pedal (like your reverb) you could run your amps loop send to the input of just your reverb pedal, and the output of your reverb pedal to the amps loop return. You should be able to play through the amp at this point and engaging the reverb pedal should result in an audible effect. If that works, swap the reverb pedal for the Sentry (using the effects loop routing described earlier in this thread, but without using the guitar input/output on the sentry).

Once the gate is in the loop with the pedal off you should hear your typical noise. Switch the gate on (I think you would flip the switch on the face of the pedal to gate). If the hiss stops, turn the threshold knob counterclockwise until the hiss returns. If you engage the pedal and the hiss remains, turn the threshold knob clockwise until it stops. Once you find the point that the gate engages/disengages you can adjust the knobs to taste for your playing style.
When you are not using the guitar signal through the gate you may find that your settings for one channel might not work for the other channels or if you change the volume. The benefit of the gates that respond to the guitar signal is that they are effective regardless of what channel/volume you are using.

Hey, it worked like a charm. Now everything's sounding fine and dandy. I'm still in need of some tweaking, and I might need to try some other bolst pedals that don't add so much noise, but everything's much better from where I started. Cheers!

 

[EdgeCrusher]

I'm really considering it tbh. How noisy is the red channel if you aren't playing? Even if I mute the strings a lot, it still lets out a lot of noise. I love the red channel though, leads are creamy as hell so if I manage to fix that I will literally have my dream amp.

Also, did you just swap the v1 12ax7, or the v2 and others as well?

I Just double checked, and I actually have a JJ ECC82 in v1, which is a 12AU7, not a 12AT7. So it is a considerably lower gain tube than stock. All others are the stock JJ ECC83. The red channel is very quiet now, and all channels are just less a bit less fizzy. It allows me to run everything at 6, like the old 5150 666 settings, which makes it even more metal, lol!