NAD: Traynor YGM-3

[sal paradise]

Thanks to a generous head’s up from the lovely JSett, this accidentally come into my life for an excellent price. Speaker has been swapped for an V30. And wow, now I know why so many folks here rate Traynor amps.

It’s delicious. And loud. Need an adapter for my attenuator so can’t crank just yet. Tried using a pedal as volume with the amp cranked, could only get clean sounds. But I’m excited to find out what it sounds like pushed. The videos I checked out gave me a Marshall drive meets fender roundness, which might be my perfect sound.

The tremolo is TR-2 levels of aggressive! In fact, go beyond 1 on reverb or trem & it’s immediately pushing the limits of sensibility. What a cool amp! Horrifically ugly & over-sized, balls-to-wall even clean, and incredible sound. I’m in love

Behold!



70s party


What Canadian tunes should I learn to play through this? I don’t remember Robbie Robertson using Traynor amps. But it’s well past time I should know some Band songs.

[MechaBulletBill]

these are GREAT. take the back off for a more fendery, less bass-heavy sound. make sure it's recapped and get a clean fender-voiced speaker in there and you'll never think "deluxe reverb" again

[BoringPostcards]

Canadian songs to learn:

Land of Talk - Breaxxbaxx
The Tragically Hip - Locked in the Trunk of a Car
Sloan - People of the Sky
Eric’s Trip - Viewmaster
Broken Social Scene - 7/4 (Shoreline)

Congrats. Traynor make really sweet amps. Even their new output is great, although the vintage ones are more sought after.

[JSett]

Passing deals like this your way is just my way of trying to pay you back for the LPC heads-up I gave one of these to a friend about 10 years ago (maybe more) and I always regretted it somewhat. I know what you paid, obviously, and it's a killer deal for that amp.

I concur with MechaBulletBill's advice to remove the back panel if you want the clean to swirl around you like a Fender combo. I forgot about that one.

[BMWRider]

YGM-3s are fantastic amps. I used to do some local house parties with one, but it was a heavy piece to haul around. Probably the only EL-84 equipped amp I ever enjoyed playing long-term.

Good Canadian tunes to play:

Wild Eyes-The Stampeders
No Time, No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature- The Guess Who (they used Garnet amps, but we won't tell!)
Working Man, Fly By Night, In The Mood-Rush
Small Town Bringdown, Little Bones, New Orleans is Sinking-Tragically Hip

[s_mcsleazy]

i have one too. super interesting amps. kinda like someone described a deluxe circuit down the phone. weirdly. my favorite thing to do with mine is run it with a "metal" distortion to get that 90's skate-punk/surf-punk goodness.

[MrShake]

"Cinnamon Girl"

Hell yeah, play that thing loud and proud!

[sal paradise]

Thanks everyone

Adapters for the speaker should be arriving today so hopefully get to play with the pushed sound via attenuator.

I’ve made a playlist of the Canadian tunes - will get listening & start learning!

[MattK]

"I Feel it All" - Feist
"Amelia" - Joni Mitchell
"Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" - Neil Young with Crazy Horse
"Famous Blue Raincoat" - Leonard Cohen
"Echo Beach" - Martha and the Muffins
and of course
"Working For the Weekend" - Loverboy
Love that Strat too, killer 70s vibe.

[UlricvonCatalyst]

A fine amp indeed, and related to a Deluxe as others have said. Therefore pretty much anything electric by Neil Young should satisfy the Canadian brief. My My, Hey Hey's a good one once you get an attenuator.

[sal paradise]

Finally got the adapters so hooked up my attenuator.

It gets subtle break-up with volume on 5. Once you get to 7 the bass starts to be a problem & it’s really farty unless I drop the bass to almost 0. Can’t go past 7.5 volume without it sounding crap.

Ideally I’d like to get it to that more saturated sound but not have to dial the bass right back. It's got a V30 so I thought that should sound pretty great for my needs. Is that normal with these amps, or might it need some TLC?

[B.T.]

What Canadian tunes should I learn to play through this?

Joni Mitchell - The Circle Game

Congrats! I had my eye on picking up one of those years ago. My memory fails me but I think it was basically a Princeton Reverb but with EL84’s? A lot of his designs were copies of Fender amps but with a few twists.

I currently have a Bassmaster MKII. That’s possibly the best rock bass amp ever made. It’s a tweed Bassman/Plexi circuit but with really high voltage on the power tube plates. Gets 90W from two EL34’s. A lot of very loud clean headroom for bass especially with a clean preamp in the chain right before input. Crank up a guitar direct and it’s like something off an early AC/DC LP. It has a sort of Marshall plexi meets HiWatt tone and even more headroom with 6550’s. And comparatively light up against SVT’s and VT4’s. Super well made. Especially the era with the cabinet bumpers.

Yeah Traynor’s are amazing sleeper deals.

[MrShake]

I made my vintage weirdos bed and I'm gonna lay in it, but damn y'all are making me wish I'd picked up a Traynor back before they were known to be hidden gems. These sound awesome.

[JSett]

Finally got the adapters so hooked up my attenuator.

It gets subtle break-up with volume on 5. Once you get to 7 the bass starts to be a problem & it’s really farty unless I drop the bass to almost 0. Can’t go past 7.5 volume without it sounding crap.

Ideally I’d like to get it to that more saturated sound but not have to dial the bass right back. It's got a V30 so I thought that should sound pretty great for my needs. Is that normal with these amps, or might it need some TLC?

I cant remember if we spoke about about it but it almost certainly needs a cap job, that might tighten up the bass. Also, experiment with the back on/off.

Fwiw, most Fender-y amps have too much bass when cranked and can sound farty. Everything being in good health and with some tweaking you can get amazing tones though.

Fwiw, my Bassman always lived with the bass on about 2, VibroChamp 4, Vibrolux 3-4, Pro Reverb 3... Says a lot

[sal paradise]

Finally got the adapters so hooked up my attenuator.

It gets subtle break-up with volume on 5. Once you get to 7 the bass starts to be a problem & it’s really farty unless I drop the bass to almost 0. Can’t go past 7.5 volume without it sounding crap.

Ideally I’d like to get it to that more saturated sound but not have to dial the bass right back. It's got a V30 so I thought that should sound pretty great for my needs. Is that normal with these amps, or might it need some TLC?

I cant remember if we spoke about about it but it almost certainly needs a cap job, that might tighten up the bass. Also, experiment with the back on/off.

Fwiw, most Fender-y amps have too much bass when cranked and can sound farty. Everything being in good health and with some tweaking you can get amazing tones though.

Fwiw, my Bassman always lived with the bass on about 2, VibroChamp 4, Vibrolux 3-4, Pro Reverb 3... Says a lot

We hadn’t spoken but I did see some posts elsewhere about changing the giant dynamite stick cap that’s in there.

The tone controls on the Traynor are v different to my Princeton. They’re super responsive, whereas the Fender is pretty much on or off.

Gonna get a quote for changing the caps when I get my other amps fixed, and ask about cost to convert into head. Starting to think there are easier routes to getting great clean tones in a manageable head though.