silver tone smart iii overdrive tamed.

[Bill b]

I found a silver tone smart iii amp for next to nothiby at a good will store. It works, but the over drive channel is crazy distorted, even on the lowest setting. Doing some reading, this seems to be a common complaint about these amps. I did 2 mods to drastically improve, tame, and make useable the overdrive channel.first I swapped out the leds that were the clippers (located right behind the overdrive pot. I replaced them with silicone diodes, which give a smoother distortion than the leds. The distortion sounded better, but still too aggressive, so I added and resistance, by replacing a jumper wire (the one closest to the overdrive switch) with a 50k resistor. Previously, with the drive level set at minimum, there was more distortion than I was ever likely to use. With the added resistor, at minimum setting, there is an increase in volume, but hardly any perceptible distortion. Dialing up to 2 or 3 you can get a subtle over drive. This amp actually sounds pretty good now. I've also added a Jack do that I can run an external speaker, and if you put a quality speaker on this thing, you can get a respectable sound, in my opinion. I was so pleased with my success that I found this website and made an account for the purpose of sharing my story.
P.s. changing the drive pot from stock 100k to a higher value seems like it would be a better fix, but no, that add the resistance in the wrong place, and will not help.

[nightflameauto]

Welcome, man. That's actually interesting to me as I've seen the crazy distortion Silvertone problem in some of my uncle's friends' amps. (They all grew up when those were THE thing to grab when you jumped in the game and they all have some version of it.) I'll have to hit them with this info and see what they think.

[Bill b]

The smart iii is a recent little practice amp. If you uncles buddies play vintage silver tone amps, it's likely a very different circuit. Although if it's using a pair of diodes for distortion, you could probably do something similar. But I think the old ones were all tube amps, and would therefore be very different.

[nightflameauto]

The smart iii is a recent little practice amp. If you uncles buddies play vintage silver tone amps, it's likely a very different circuit. Although if it's using a pair of diodes for distortion, you could probably do something similar. But I think the old ones were all tube amps, and would therefore be very different.

Ah, I thought you were talking the old Silvertones. I know some of them could go completely fuzz-tactular to the point of utter uselessness.

Oops.

[Bill b]

Your description fits the sound of the smart iii perfectly, sound wise. Maybe they were trying to emulate the sound of the old ones.

[nightflameauto]

Your description fits the sound of the smart iii perfectly, sound wise. Maybe they were trying to emulate the sound of the old ones.

Entirely possible. They did have that reputation.

[Riffraff]

Old and BOLD!

I've got a '65 and a '67. Here is my '65.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWgISAZ4PeI[/video]

I love these mofos! I've been using the '67 a lot lately.



My '65 is a museum piece. I bought it NIB from a guy that found in cleaning out the house of a relative who had passed away. It's beyond awesome.