03/08/2017 Pignose G40V Mods | Remy Chan

Remy Chan

PIGNOSE G40V MODS

Background
My best friend and possibly the reason I really picked up guitar in earnest, Nick Wan, has always
been a gear hound. Hes also a little contrary, so he ends up looking past the really common pieces of
gear and looks for the low-key wonders.

Over the last few years his interest has turned to a small 40 watt combo amp from Pignose. The
G40V runs 6L6s to drive a single 10 inch speaker. The amp was designed by Dennis Kager, who made
some waves when doing work for Ampeg. The circuit is similar to a Bassman or early master-volume
Marshall.

He eventually picked one up on Craigslist for a steal. While the amp sounded ok, he felt like it was
lacking. He saw potential and decided on a handful of mods he wanted done. Ive been Nicks
unprofessional guitar tech for yearsso he naturally turned to me to swap out the parts.

Mods
Nick found the mods while scouring forum posts about the G40V. I didnt have to do much but follow
a set of directions. I cant seem to nd the original conversation with a link to the posts that he found,
but fortunately I copied all of the content into a couple of documents. I would love to link to the
original posts, so shoot me the link if you have it.

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These mods will reduce hum and background noise, revoice the amp to sound more like a 59
Bassman/Marshal JTM, tweak the presence control, and increase the increase the low-end output.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Parts List:
Resistors:

33 kOhm
68 kOhm
56kOhm
27 kOhm
82kOhm

All resistors are 1/2 watt or greater. The original post speci ed the value but used a special character
that did not copy well. Im assuming the special character refers to a fraction, and the mostcommon
fractional watt resistors are 1/4 and 1/2. I made an educated guess and the repairs seem to be
holding up.

Capacitors

220 pF silver mica

47 pF 600V
.1 uF 100V
.1 uF

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Misc:

Shorting (NC) Switchcraft 1/4 inch jack

Reduce Background Noise and Hum

Most of the noise within the amp is related to how and where parts of the circuit are grounded. Step
1 was to replace the cheap plastic housing 1/4 inch jack with a nicer Switchcraft jack. They are drop
in replacements and wired just like the original.

59 Bassman / Marshall JTM Tone Mods

This is the most audible change to the circuit. The circuit follows a 59 Fender Bassman circuit pretty
closely.

First, a 33 kOhm resistor is wired in between the input jack and the grid of the rst tube stage (Pin 2,
Tube 1). This resistor, with the capacitance of the tub itself, will form a low-pass lter. The lter will
not changethe tone or gain signi cantly, but it will help prevent oscillations in the tube. The result
should lower background noise and hiss, and some protection against radio signals making it through
the gain stages and being heard in the nal output.

A 68 kOhm resistor is then wired in to the same pin on the second tube. This resistor, along with the
capicatance of the tube, will act as another low-pass lter, but with the increased resistance the
cutoff frequency will be lower. The results should be a little bit of high-frequency attenuation to
mimic the effect caused by the tone control of the Bassman.

The tone stack is next up. C12 isfrom 1000pF to 220pF, and as a result the cutoff for high freq
control moved up. R19 increased from 33k to 56k, slightly attenuating lower frequencies,
particularly the mids. C13 is a high frequency path to ground and is removed. R26 decreased from
100k to 27k and the presence control will now have a smaller maximum mid-boost.

Add 47pF cap between grids of power tubes.

Presence Control
The ground of the presence control was moved from the tone control board, which ultimately
grounds to the input, to the power amp side of ground. This reduces noise from the power section
feeding back into the input stages.

The 4.7 kOhm resistor that is in parallel to the presence pot is removed, and a .1 uF cap is connected
between the wiper and ground.

Bottom Boost
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Replace the 0.22 uF cap at C17 with a .1 uF 400V cap.

Review

My experience with Pig1

After nishing the mods on Pig1 I plugged the amp in and prayed I didnt see smoke when I ipped
the switch. Fortunately, all went well and I was able to slowly up the volume and test all of the
controls through their whole range. Everything seemed normal and after running for about 30
minutes I gured the threat had passed. It was time to test it out.

I put a couple of hours of play time through the amp, playing through different gain settings and
working the tone controls to nd some really lush sounds. Most of my testing would have been done
with a hot-rodded Epi LP Standard. I was able to cover some serious sonic territory from nice sparkly
clean tones to really aggressive overdrive.

My favorite thing, though, was setting up my 20W JCM2000 combo in stereo. It was entirely too
much sound for one small bedroom, but the stereo effect was amazing. I had dialed in each amp
separately and their EQs were pretty different. While playing through riffs some sections would t
into the sweet spot on the Pigand ring out in one ear, then others would get the JCM going just right.
The result was a swirling ping-pong effect that was really a lot of fun to play with.

Unfortunately, the amp didnt still around too long and I had to break up the stereo setup to return
the Pig to its rightful owner.

My experience with Pig2

A few years later Nick picked up a second G40V and wanted me to mod the amp in the same way. The
second round of mods went smoothly until I powered it up and got no sound. Over the next few
months I slowly poked at it, but it wasnt until Nick was coming back into town that I had some real
motivation and worked to get it up and running. It turns out I wired the input jack all backwards, and
after 15 minutes with a soldering iron the amp was up an running.

Unfortunately, because I let the project sit so long, I didnt get much chance to play it beyond going
through some basic stress testing to make sure it wouldnt blow when dimed. It sounded good from
what I heard, but with only an hour or two I couldnt cover as much ground as I had with Pig1.

Fortunately, Nick Wan is never more than a IM/Snapchat/whatsapp ping away.

Nick Wans thoughts with two years to compare

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The rst pig was modded sometime in 2013 and the second was nished summer of 2015, which has
given its owner Nick Wan plenty of time to run it through its paces. I checked in to get his current
thoughts on how theyre performing and how they compare.

NW:

really, pig2 cranked up to 3 o clock on volume and master

thats where the cream is

unsure if i even found that on pig1

pig1 is just a great amp for the bedroom and if you want to play live over a drum you can

but pig2 is really that like fender bassman hot rod feel

RC:

so pig2 is the badder of the two?

do you have a preference between the two?

NW:

mmm i feel like i have more control over pig1

but pig2s simplicity and power makes it more fun to play out off

if that makes sense

RC:

totally

the pig2 is an amp that you plug in because it sounds better to play through an amp loud
sometimes

NW:

yeah correct. i can get the same sounds out of pig1

but just not the same attitude

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and thats hard to really measure by microphone

Demos
What good are a bunch of photos of resistors and capacitors if you never get to experience the most
important part? Check out the samples below

Piggy #1
My best friend Nick Wan (of Farewell, Nick Wan) recorded his debut album Dainty entirely through
the rst modded Pig.

By Accident
Dainty download share
by Farewell, Nick Wan

2. By Accident 00:00 / 02:54

A few comments from the man himself:

but all of Dainty was recorded with pig1

with the same guitar

just different pickup settings

mostly the same pedals i think I was only using the 8bit and the rat

actually, from that album, by accident would be the best representation of just the amp

i went all-clean for that song, for the most part

except for the end

which is split between the rat signal in one ear and the 8bit in the other

King Creep

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Dainty download share

by Farewell, Nick Wan

8. King Creep 00:00 / 02:54

Thoughts from NW:

king creep probably 2nd

but that has a little more effects throughout

not 100% clean amp until the end

Lies
One of my favorite tracks fromDainty is Lies, a short instrumental interlude. Its clean and raw and
has a great ow. Its also a good example of a more or less direct path from guitar to amp. A little
reverb was added in post, but other than that its just the guitar and amp.

Dainty download share
by Farewell, Nick Wan

5. Lies 00:00 / 02:54

NW:

oh, thats just guitar through amp. but theres some post

stuff on it

so the reverb is digital

which isnt my style tbh

but it matched it

also its 100% neck pickup i believe

Piggy 2

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The second pig hasnt been featured on an album just yet, though I have gotten a couple early demos
from the next project. There are no recordings just yet, but Mr. Nick Wan himself has promised to get
some tracks over to me when hes not too busy nishing his PhD, interviewing for sports statistician
jobs, live coding, and running his neuroscience blog.

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