New Amp Day - David Grissom DG 30

NBW said:
You need the infamous five button switch. They are rare and are usually quite expensive. I found the schematics and built my own. It almost works, right now the reverb button doesn’t switch the amp. But I’ll get that working again when I have time.

There’s a locked thread somewhere around here with a photo.
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Can you please send me your diagram so that I can try to make one?
 
I tried to get someone interested in designing me a board so that assembly would be trivial. The parts are quite cheap. In fact the switching itself is quite trivial, just pulling five bolts (supplies by the amp itself) to ground. The painful bit is the logic and driving of the leds, which requires some chips and a lot of very stupid wiring.

Nice enclosures to hold five buttons are hard to come buy. I gutted a Randall controller.

There used to be a company called bugg effects that built them and sold them at what I would consider a pretty reasonable price.

I believe you can also use Trace Elliott bass amp foot switches, there is a six button on reverb so cheap it might be worth a try.
 
NBW said:
I tried to get someone interested in designing me a board so that assembly would be trivial. The parts are quite cheap. In fact the switching itself is quite trivial, just pulling five bolts (supplies by the amp itself) to ground. The painful bit is the logic and driving of the leds, which requires some chips and a lot of very stupid wiring.

Nice enclosures to hold five buttons are hard to come buy. I gutted a Randall controller.

There used to be a company called bugg effects that built them and sold them at what I would consider a pretty reasonable price.

I believe you can also use Trace Elliott bass amp foot switches, there is a six button on reverb so cheap it might be worth a try.
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Thank you very much for that info. I will reluctantly share my sad tale with you.

I am the victim of foot pedal fraud.

It happened about 12 years ago. I really wanted the Gibson footswitch we are discussing. A guy calling himself Voodoo Man built and sold footswitches he made for amps. All different ones and from what I can understand, he started out doing so honorably and he really built people pedals. Well, at some point his business model changed. He must have realized that he could keep all of people’s money and not send them a pedal at all.

Sadly, that’s when I sent him a $150 US Postal money order to build me the Gibson pedal. I never got a pedal. At first, there were delays but then communication ceased. So, I tried to file a criminal complaint with his town’s police department across the country. They told me that they knew who I was talking about but he moved to the adjacent town. So, I called that town. They said that the crime didn’t happen in their jurisdiction because I mailed the letter to his old address in the first town, so I couldn’t file a complaint. Okay, the runaround.

I then contacted the US Postal Service Inspectors, the postal police, and tried to file a complaint with them. My logic was that I paid him with a US Postal money order which is what the Voodoo Man required, and he used a US Postal Change of Address Form to divert mail from his previous address with the intention of avoiding prosecution because the location of the crime gets muddy, as I said above. They were not interested in helping me, either.

I was pretty upset about it.
 
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That is very unfortunate. I used to design boards. If I could devote the time I could get something worked up. I mean once I got somewhere with the software I could do a lot.

The world would thank me. I need to retire, so I can finally do all this stuff.

It makes me sad to have to buy an amp kit, when the schematics are right out there.
 
I will brag on my work a little bit. I added a two color LED to the channel select, a small touch to be sure. I wish I could turn off the reverb.
 
NBW said:
That is very unfortunate. I used to design boards. If I could devote the time I could get something worked up. I mean once I got somewhere with the software I could do a lot.

The world would thank me. I need to retire, so I can finally do all this stuff.

It makes me sad to have to buy an amp kit, when the schematics are right out there.
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Sorry you lost the money on that. I also bought one of his pedals years back... still have it. Pretty sure it quit working not long after it arrived. I'll have to take a look at it sometime and see what went south.
 
RickP said:
Sorry you lost the money on that. I also bought one of his pedals years back... still have it. Pretty sure it quit working not long after it arrived. I'll have to take a look at it sometime and see what went south.
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Thanks. At least you got a pedal, but I’m sorry to hear it failed.
 
NBW said:
dcim100goprogopr1298-jpg
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Thank you NBW for pointing me in the direction of BuggFX. He is making me a footswitch for the Gibson.

6-B1-F7-A58-18-FC-4033-BF9-F-F69708-B84324.jpg
 
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LSchefman said:
They're actually equipped with 7189s (also called EL84Ms - but there's a big difference in plate voltage - and there's a Russian tube designation as well).

They were designed to military specs, and have a 50,000 hour operation life. I got my DG30 in 2014, and it's still on the original 7189s!. I'm told that they were also used in some early amps like the Magnatones, etc. Regular EL84s would literally melt in a DG30. In fact, the amp has two fans to keep the 7189s from overheating.

If Tahlee's has the Brimars, chances are it's a "First 20", about which more, below.



Mine has a very different clean sound from my HXDA, though my HXDA can get VERY sparkly clean.

The DG's clean tone is actually fatter, because it has more midrange balance (even clean) and as you say, it's very lush. But it's not all due to the power tubes; the circuit design is different, I think the transformer is different, it's tube rectified where the HXDA is solid state rectified, the position of the phase inverter in the circuit is different, and other stuff that really matters. I'd bet that if it had EL34s, it'd still sound pretty much like a DG30, and not like a Plexi.

At first, I used the DG30 as my clean amp, and the HXDA as my dirty amp. However, I discovered I was really missing out both ways.

Regarding whether it likes to get dirty, you bet, the DG30 can get plenty dirty, in a different way from a Marshall style amp, and it can rock pretty hard. It is definitely a great pedal platform, but so is the HXDA when used to its potential. The HXDA has sparkly, very bright cleans when the guitar volume is rolled back, and I was missing out on that at first, too! So the choice of which of the two to use on a track can be pretty interesting, and the inherent tone of the amp is called into play, not just whether I want clean or dirty.

I set both amps up with my guitar volume up a little over halfway (PRS guitars do this very well because they retain their highs with the volume rolled back), so the amp is just on the verge of breakup. Lower the guitar volume for cleans, raise the guitar volume for dirty, and suddenly you have Tone World right at your fingertips!

I've used both amps with overdrives and boosts, and without them. Now when I use gain pedals, I don't use them for more distortion -- I get that with the guitar's volume knob. I use them to add color, so I turn the pedal gain to unity.

The amp's rear panel Boost control pushes the amp in a different way than the standard setting. The top-cut control on the back panel is pretty cool. You'd think you only need the treble control on the front panel, but the two combined create different high frequency Q and turnover points, much like using an old Pultec EQ with its boost and cut controls used at the same time. So the amp can be dialed in to give you a nice high frequency push, a little more high end grit, for example, and the cut control can be used with it to prevent an ice pick sound.

It's pretty slick, and the turnover frequencies are very well chosen, both for live performance and recording.

Seems to me there are a lot of tone influences in the DG30 that of course aren't in the HXDA, which is purely late '60s Plexi. I once put the DG30 in a Tweed category, but in retrospect, I think that was incorrect. I do hear a bit of Tweed influence in the midrange, but it's tighter in the bass, and not as brittle on the high end as a Tweed amp. A Tweed Deluxe, for example, will get mushy (in a good way, of course) in both the low and high frequencies.

The high end responds a little bit like an AC30, though a Vox has more "crushed glass" in the higher frequencies. The DG is smoother, unless you crank the treble, and the DG has much more bottom than a Vox. A friend has an old Magnatone, and I hear some of that; maybe it's the influence of the 7189s?

But at heart, I think you'll find that the DG30 is its own, independent, tone beast, with a lot of surprising tricks up its sleeve.

Anecdote time:

Doug Sewell told me that Grissom put a lot of himself in this amp. When the first ones were introduced at Experience in the fall of 2013, and they were putting the last-minute finishing touches on the amps literally the night before it opened, Grissom wanted the amps to go over so well that he was actually helping to select and install the tubes in the shop!

This isn't just an amp with some star's name on it. Blood, sweat and tears when into designing and building these. I'm lucky enough to have gotten one of these "First 20", and they have some pretty sweet NOS glass that was installed at the factory (Brimar preamp tubes, for example, that at the time were going for over $100 apiece).

And of course, a tone demo:

I wrote the little piece of music below to demonstrate the DG30 with my 594 Soapbar and 594 guitars a couple of years ago. The Soapbar is first. I used a Fulltone OCD at unity gain, just to add some color with the humbucker 594. I did not change the gain of the amp for the cleanish rhythm track or either of the lead parts. It's all guitar volume control and pickup selection stuff.

I've posted it before, but it does show the amp's capability off pretty well, and damn, the Soapbar guitar sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it? The Soapy is the first solo, the 594 is the second solo.

https://soundcloud.com/lschefman%2Fmessy-20
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=*Zombie thread resurrection*=

Excellent information ! Thanks Les !

Definitely this amp is it's own thing and not trying to imitate certain amps. It is as if it has all the characteristics and elements of what makes a Tweed, black face , brownface, Hiwatt, VOX, and Marshall 50 great. Basically Grissom's amp pallet at the time, how unique ! Played it for 30 minutes with the DGT and knew right away there is something special here. This is a keeper ! I will will probably be buried with it haha.

Also check this out! David Grissom on 5 watt world talking about making his DG30, certainly Les covered it. There may be some other layer of insights that have not been shared by David Grissom in the past, or at least a good overlap. Non the less, still exciting to hear when you own one of these. Cheers!


 
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Your cab looks like half my Goldtone super. God damn I love that Goldtone.

By the way Daves has a DG30 and a matching cab in stock.
 
NBW said:
Your cab looks like half my Goldtone super. God damn I love that Goldtone.

By the way Daves has a DG30 and a matching cab in stock.
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@NBW yep, just more room for other other gear ;):D

Goldtone super sounds and looks slick!

I just looked a Dave's that where I picked up my PRS Stealth 2X12 cab with G12M Creambacks. Also almost snagged a DG50, glad I did not.

I am very happy with my DG30 as it is a 2013 NEW OLD stock model that was purchased in May 2020 from an amp dealer.. Someone from the The Gear Page Forum then sold it shortly after. I confirmed it from the seller on Reverb that he bought it from TPG. Then I did detective work and found the add on TPG back in May 2020 and the post had matching serial numbers to my amp. Kind of cool to know the story behind your gear! The DG30 cab I picked up from guitar center was labeled as 2010's and the clerks could not determine the year of the cab. So I took a risk. When it showed up it was looking brand spanking new, it even had the original PRS tag with inspection signature attached to the handle. When I opened it up to my surprise it was a 2019 model, score ! I am set
 
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Maximum Guitarage said:
@NBW yep, just more room for other other gear ;):D

Goldtone super sounds and looks slick!

I just looked a Dave's that where I picked up my PRS Stealth 2X12 cab with G12M Creambacks. Also almost snagged a DG50, glad I did not.

I am very happy with my DG30 as it is a 2013 NEW OLD stock model that was purchased in May 2020 from an amp dealer.. Someone from the The Gear Page Forum then sold it shortly after. I confirmed it from the seller on Reverb that he bought it from TPG. Then I did detective work and found the add on TPG back in May 2020 and the post had matching serial numbers to my amp. Kind of cool to know the story behind your gear! The DG30 cab I picked up from guitar center was labeled as 2010's and the clerks could not determine the year of the cab. So I took a risk. When it showed up it was looking brand spanking new, it even had the original PRS tag with inspection signature attached to the handle. When I opened it up to my surprise it was a 2019 model, score ! I am set
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So, you're liking the amp and cab combination?
 
The DG 30 is still my dream amp. I know I will eventually pull the trigger on one and that my wallet will weep with anticipation and after the purchase as well. The only thing holding me back is that my little matchless just sounds so good with all my guitars
 
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