The rock and roll lifestyle...

[MikeK]

I hardly live that... but I have played a bit here and there.

One other obsession I've had is guitars and amps. I've seen some talk of that here before. Let's fire it up.

I've thinned the herd since then. I kind of went crazy before I got married and bought a shit ton of guitars. I was also playing in a band at the time, so I somewhat justified it.

All I have left is the Martin Acoustic, the Sunburst Strat, and the P bass. I've been playing bass more than guitar lately - Les Claypool inspired me.

There are some others missing, I'll have to see if I can find some pictures.

[Raventele]

Strat with pedal board --crybaby , rat distortion pedal, flanger and a delay.. Amps, no matter so much though I would like to get back a Twin Reverb ..Or even the old Vibro Champ... a Twin Reverb with Vibrato, a distortion pedal and a wah..that's all I need

[MikeK]

Any backstory to your strat?

Mine is V neck American. Came with SCN pickups. I ditched those for some Kinmans, which are OK, but not nearly as good as a real 'noisy' strat pickup.

I've hated the trem on mine since I got it... but I've never blocked it. I keep saying one of these days... those things are a major tone suck IMO.

I've kept this guitar because I love the feel. I've never had one where I loved the feel and the tone... still looking.

I've played a couple real beaters in shops that I liked, but I could never get the courage to buy one. I figured I might not like it as much the next day.

I really want a SG to replace the LP. That guitar roared, but the feel wasn't there for me. Love the look, but prefer the playability of the SG much more.

[Raventele]

A a really nice , unmodified strat..given to my from a a fellow player who just did not like the "feel" <Shrug>

Tone is a subjective thing, but signal strength and fidelity not..Always crank all volume and tone nobs to their max on the guitar..fool with amp nobs, leave the guitar nobs be. Even a cheap little amp can sound half-decent if you but follow that advice..
I seldom care about trem bars..seldom leave them on.. always seem to make it impossible to keep the instrument in tune..Though I have never really noticed any issue with "tone' there..generally speaking, adding mass to a guitar body or neck can noticeably increase sustain though.

[MikeK]

I've just always preferred hard tails. More direct connection of the string to the body.

Actually my trem stays in tune great. Takes forever to get there, but it's almost like an auto compensation.

I've built amps, dickered with guitar wiring and knobs. Tried all sorts of shit. I have a couple amps I really like now. Two are ones that I built, one's just a plain old AC15 combo. The Vox always surprises me for being a 'cheap' amp with a lot of sand in there... it's really a tone machine.

I've played the handwired version and it's not much better. I could build an amp as good as that one for half the money.

I've also had the privilege to play some real vintage Fenders. Very sweet. All in the iron and speakers. It's hard to find magnetics of that quality today.

Building your own amps and getting some quality iron you can really make some nice amps. One of real things I've found is the tubes today are different than the old ones. They just don't sound the same. A JJ 6V6 doesn't sound like an old GE 6V6. They are more aggressive and not as creamy. I have a few old tubes that sound really sweet that I only play on special occasions.

As far as pedals I've nixed a lot of those too. Had a ton. Everything from Big Muffs to high end flangers and delays. Didn't do much for me. I have a germanium boost pedal now and that's it. I usually just use the amp, sometimes a couple in parallel (it's really easy to build a signal splitter for the guitar). One of my favorite setups is one clean amp, and one dirty amp in parallel. Dirty about 5 Watts, clean about 12 Watts... pretty even balance, nice stereo sound.

[MikeK]

For bass... best rig I ever played was a 70's 100 watt Ampeg V-4 through a Mesa 4x12 slant guitar cab. No idea what speakers were in there, but they were guitar speakers and man they rocked.

[Raventele]

Well, keep it simple! The best speakers are 12's.. simple.. I could wire my own amp ( lots of electronics engineering classes ) but have never bothered..It's a lot of fooling around..Not long ago sold an old Sears Silvertone and let it go for 150 bux, reverb circuit needed a bit of work..Just stumbled into the footswitch..Prolly sell it for 50 bux.. Had an old "Premier" tube amp a friend gave me..it was in one of his barns .. replaced a couple tubes and played that thing for about 10 years and sold it..cranked up it had some crunch..never seen another..they were made some place in upstate NY..

[MikeK]

If you ever do wire your own or work on your own... BE CAREFUL. Tube amps have very high voltages and can kill you easily.

I nailed myself good once with alligator clips in a live amp, tuning while playing. Didn't put the guitar down... touched something live accidentally, my other hand was touching the strings which are grounded. BLAM!

Literally stiffened my body like a board and shot me up out of my chair. Felt like getting kicked by a mule. Guitar went flying... the live side burned a hole in the tip of my finger. It hurt. Right across my heart too, which is the worst (arm to arm). I was pretty lucky.

I've been hit by secondary AC as well in a faulty amp. That hurt, but nothing like the high voltage, low impedance DC.

[Raventele]

^^Capacitance!

[MikeK]

A single 15 can be a heck of a speaker too, if the cab is right... for bass, or for guitar.

4x10 over a 1x15 with a crossover for bass can be badass too.

Obviously the 8x10 fridge works... I've been blown away by them at many concerts.

I sold my 4x12 cab. Just too loud for playing at home.

And it wasn't the capacitance that got me... the amp was ON! Eventually, against your better judgement, you get up the balls to work on live amps. It's not that dangerous if don't hold something that is grounded - the one hand rule. I only had one hand in the amp, but my other hand wasn't really doing what it should have been - that is not touching anything but myself.