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What does V1, V2, V3 control? Looking to try different tubes etc, would like a little more knowledge on what each tube position affects. Thanks

I'm not 100% sure, but this ought to be close:

V1 - this is the input tube; one triode is for the regular channel, the other triode is for the bright channel. Internet hearsay suggests that for most tube amps, the input tube has the biggest impact on tone (and at least with vintage-style circuits, like the Triwatt, "V1" seems to be a typical convention for labeling the input tube).

V2 - in an actual vintage Hiwatt, one triode is unused; in the Triwatt, that unused triode implements the overdrive feature (if you do not have overdrive engaged, then that triode is bypassed, just like in an actual vintage Hiwatt). If I'm reading the schematic correctly, I think the other triode basically serves as a buffer.

V3 - tone stack recovery. Passive tone stacks, i.e. your treble/mid/bass controls, generally result in some loss of gain.

V4 - phase inverter, i.e. what creates the "push" and "pull" signals, one for each power tube.

Hope that helps! Hopefully, others will step in and correct me if any of the above is inaccurate!

Here's a link to the Triwatt schematic. Also, have a look at Mark Huss's Hiwatt pages for schematics of actual Hiwatts.

So, for each channel, with the overdrive off, the basic idea is:
- Half of V1 for input gain from the guitar
- Passive tone stack (loses a bunch of gain)
- Half of V3 for recovery gain after the tone stack

Is that correct?

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Go Buckeyes!

Therefore, the fundamental concept is: - Half of V1 for input gain from the guitar, with overdrive off, for each channel.
Half of V3 is used for recovery gain after the passive tone stack (which loses a lot of gain). drift boss