Carvin V3 Mods?

[Chris Migdalski]

After owning 3 Crate Stealths sine 93' I decided I buy a Carvin V3 about year ago off Craiglist's, took some time to tweek, figureout and get used to but changed the tubes to Electro Harmonix EL34's and preamp tubes and rebiased the amp to hot. Well that still wasn't what i was looking for and realized the Carvin cab that came with it was horrible so i tried my old 98' Crate Vintage 30 equipped Blue Vodoo marine birchwood cabs and it really made a huge difference...so I decided to do the 18 volt removable MOD in my Ibanez RG2228 8 string...almost acceptable untill recently I decided to try channel 2 for my metal tone and it seems to be a right combination for me....Now I have a RAN 8 string invader V coming (after waiting a long long time) with Seymour Duncan blackouts and Im Afraid it will be a big difference in tone from my EMG 808's....SO is there any Carvin V3 MODS out there anybody know about for gain's etc

 

[right_to_rage]

You might want to boost the signal with an overdrive like a tube screamer or a boss overdrive to get gain and definition.

 

[ShadowFactoryX]

i honestly cant believe you're having that hard of a time getting good tone out of a v3. they're solid amps

but more importantly, what tone are you going after?

 

[Chris Migdalski]

I played a 100 watt Crate Stealth tube head as my main rig I owned since 92', always plugged my Ibanez universes strait into it. Never one for any effect pedals. Like to keep it simple for quick stage setup and quick gear break down.... I really just enjoyed its natural tube tone (Always used Electro Harmonix or Sovtek tubes and biased it hot) I ended up buying 2 more over the years and had many successful gigs with them etc. Always got great compliments, always been happy with my signature metal distortion tone and natural clean tone from that amp. Even built a dual stereo foot switch to run 2 at the same time lol...anyway Over the years I searched for an alternate amp that I could eventually transition to when the time comes and I knew it was coming because all 3 stealth's began giving me more trouble than I could handle...being a RF electronics tech most of the repairs i did were quit easy and I just got tired of fixing the amps,...tried many amps just never could match the stealth's sound...some people think of Crate and cringe but I feel the stealth was the best amp they ever made...but I felt it was time to move on....
took a chance with a V3 and I could tell it had potential as more reliable replacement so I bought it and decided to retired my main stealth and sell the other 2 after I rebuild them again
anyway The tone I'm trying to achieve on the V3 I think I about got it...I would love to get the LINE 6 'insane setting' metal distortion but that is a completely different animal so I'm working with what I got plugging strait into it....the amp is very metal and very loud and i think impressive enough that I'm confident when my band actually gets back out people hopefully will like it...

 

[incinerated_guitar]

Gotta keep this thread going! I really want to get a V3 for my band and id love to know if theres any good mods out there!

 

[Chris Migdalski]

I havent had time to look into mods for the V3, I've been really working on designing and building my own distortion pedal...it sounds great very metal..i basically just doing the project on a bread board to get the intial distortion and eventually i will add all the bells and whistles like gain, volume etc but what i got is very cool sounds very tube like.....i also have video of my first attempt too

 

[Chris Migdalski]

I have a theory:

Just looked at the Carvin V3 schematic ands its a real bummer they have a lot of stuff blocked. I was analyzing my tone last night at practice and realized that I dont have as much distortion on my 8th string as I do on the 7th through 1st string. Being tuned down 1 whole step doesnt help as much either..The 8th tuned to E is an octave below a standard guitar (82Hz) so my guess is Carvin didnt consider this when they developed the circuit years ago. Probably only thought most metal guys may go as low as a 7 string tuned down to A (55hz?) My guess is the capictance and resistance of the gain circuit may be set up for about this frequency and higher and anything below it...well there wouldnt be as much gain. So I'm interested in making a MOD that would compensate for this if my theory is correct.....

 

[Ishan]

Don't over think this, get a good boost OD (it'll cut bass in front and clear the mud), change those terrible EH tubes with some good tubes (V1 Tung sol 12AX7, v2 v3 v4 JJ ECC83S, V5 balanced triode Sovtek 12AX7LPS, power tubes : anything JJ should be great) and get a good cab like a Mesa or Orange.
Any of these steps will clear things up a lot.

 

[capone1]

So I'm pretty interested in your ideas for a v3 mod as well. I ended up getting one for next to nothing so I'm definitely interested in messing with it.

How did you like the EH el-34's? I'm close to pulling the trigger on some JJ kt-77's but nothings in stone yet.

 

[Chris Migdalski]

I really like the EH EL34's they were a huge difference, also a big fan of Sovtek's too just didn't have that option at the time (I've been using them exclusively since the early 90's)...Sovtek had a killer pre amp 12Ax7wxt's for extra gain..so I tried EH's preamp tubes and they sound pretty good...Ishan is correct the ECC83s are very good too...Back to the MOD's. Maybe Ishan is correct on this too maybe I am over analyzing it but I do like to tweek and tinker with circuit stuff...I've been racking my brain on any other mod ideas

 

[capone1]

Nice, any experience with kt-77's as a el-34 replacement?

You have the blocked schematics from Carvin right?

 

[Pedrojoca]

I played a 100 watt Crate Stealth tube head as my main rig I owned since 92', always plugged my Ibanez universes strait into it. Never one for any effect pedals. Like to keep it simple for quick stage setup and quick gear break down.... I really just enjoyed its natural tube tone (Always used Electro Harmonix or Sovtek tubes and biased it hot) I ended up buying 2 more over the years and had many successful gigs with them etc. Always got great compliments, always been happy with my signature metal distortion tone and natural clean tone from that amp. Even built a dual stereo foot switch to run 2 at the same time lol...anyway Over the years I searched for an alternate amp that I could eventually transition to when the time comes and I knew it was coming because all 3 stealth's began giving me more trouble than I could handle...being a RF electronics tech most of the repairs i did were quit easy and I just got tired of fixing the amps,...tried many amps just never could match the stealth's sound...some people think of Crate and cringe but I feel the stealth was the best amp they ever made...but I felt it was time to move on....
took a chance with a V3 and I could tell it had potential as more reliable replacement so I bought it and decided to retired my main stealth and sell the other 2 after I rebuild them again
anyway The tone I'm trying to achieve on the V3 I think I about got it...I would love to get the LINE 6 'insane setting' metal distortion but that is a completely different animal so I'm working with what I got plugging strait into it....the amp is very metal and very loud and i think impressive enough that I'm confident when my band actually gets back out people hopefully will like it...

i really don't see how you can own such an amp and at the same time call a line 6 an animal.

 

[capone1]

Just looked at the Carvin V3 schematic

So I can't read. I'd be really into getting the low end overdrive worked as would the rest of us v3 users anyway I think theres real potential for a super moded marshall sound with this amp..ala Fortin.

I know crucify me a carvin isn't on par with mike's stuff but that ballpark maybe.

 

[Chris Migdalski]

Here is some pics from my prototype DIY distortion Pedal that has me side tracked from my V3 MOD research. It's currently in the 'Development Phase' of the OP amp circuit but has yielded some impressive test results even though it's just on a breadboard with a volume knob. I do have video of the intial testing of it connected to my V3 clean channel too.

 

[capone1]

Whats the design? What tone are you going for with the pedal?

 

[Tyler]

Im surprised, the V3 usually sounds pretty well normally =/

 

[Chris Migdalski]

The V3 is a good amp, I'm just creating a DIY distortion pedal to use for backup or possible enhancement of the V3 sound for live purposes. I have several short clips of video of the intial test firing of the pedal in my Lab, playing through the clean channels of a Crate G130CXL, Crate - Stealth, Crate G60 and my Carvin V3.....My goal is to try to emmulate a tube head distortion and this pedal so far sounds really good... I want to to post these videos just haven't had time.
Once i figure out how to bypass the distortion circuit I'm going to encase the original circuit that's on the breadboard in a (2" x 4" x 6"?) plexiglass box which will look like a frankenstein pedal that i can use live so people can see the intial mockup of it...I have a few guys here locally that have heard it in person and are very interested in me building them one on a regular circuit board encased in a strong sturdy stomp box.

As for the cicuit I designed and yes I did get some pointers from a couple of circuit design engineers and other techs at my job...i had to calculate low pass, high pass freq and gain for my 8 string guitar using a simple formula (1/2*PI*R*C) to figure out what value the components will be from 40Hz to aprox 2K...not sure what harmonic freq are yet? but I feelI'm on the right track...

 

[capone1]

Ive got all of 20 minutes with mine just to make sure it worked. For the price I paid I'm ready to put a few bucks into it to tweak the tone.

Why not right

 

[GibsonVGuy]

I haven't played the Carvin v3 but as far as cabs go...The Crate BV cabs are one of my favorites. They are built quite a bit better than the Marshall 1960a. The corners are steel and the handles are steel as well. I compared my Crate BV cab to the Marshall I had (sold them) and it was better.

I care more about the tone than a brand name. If you get one though, try to get the Celestion equipped model. The Crate speakers are terrible!!

 

[Chris Migdalski]

alright here is some footage of my distortion pedal that is still a protype that has been filmed over the last few weeks

My DIY prototype distortion pedal - YouTube