Traynor T-50B Preamp

Pre-amp of the highly sought-after Traynor TS-50B bass amp. The unmistakeable tone of Shellac-era Steve Albini, Bob Weston and David Wm. Sims.

The circuit is almost identical to the guitar model other than the tone section, the bass model having entirely passive BMT controls rather than the active Mids gyrator circuit on the guitar version.

The circuit has some unique elements. The op-amp and Fender style tone stage are fairly standard, but after the tone the signal is split into 3 bands, each of which is distorted separately. Why? Ask Traynor's engineer for the technicals, but tailoring the compression to the individual bands makes for some really sweet clipping.

Lots of headroom thanks to the very expensive +/-15V DC converter supplying the juice.

Note: With gain and EQ cranked you may get high-frequency oscillation depending on your setup. This can be mitigated by having this circuit in a buffered chain, or simply winding things back a bit. You hve been warned. If you aren't happy with that, don't order.

If you go for top jacks we'll supply Lumberg jacks so they'll fit nicely above the pots.

If you want the PCBs without parts there's a link for that at the bottom of the page.

Partial kit: PCBs, all board-mounted components (not footswitches), pots.

Full kit: As above, plus footswitch and appropriate daughterboard/components for your selected bypass type (see Downloads section for details of those), jack sockets, DC socket, battery snap, hook-up wire, LED.

Enclosure (pre-drilled) is available as an option with full kits, and will not take a battery. Knobs are not included.

Builds are only available with full kits including enclosures. Please choose appropriate knobs.

Inspired by: Traynor TS-50B Preamp

Difficulty: Medium

PCB size: 80 x 50mm

Knobs required: 5

Enclosure: 1590BB

Download the INSTRUCTION PDF