jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

Meat Beat Manifesto - actual sounds and voices

Frontline Assembly - implode

Depeche Mode - Violator

Suicide - Suicide

Future Sound of London - accelerator

Brian Eno - Ambient 1: music for airports

Alec Empire - generation starwars

Skinny Puppy - the process

I dunno really, I have so much of this shit in my record collection, I am just listing stuff I've bothered to listen to lately

that is one carefully laid out photo, dude... with the tele and fender just barely showing their logos? clever

and yeah, its a guild aristocrat, kinda guild's duo jet

there's a Yamaha 50 watt solid state guy like I pointed out to you

title says it all

everyone needs to own a stock ts9 for a couple years... the 808 is so negligibly different, just go ts9, plus if you stick with the solid state amp awhile the TS9 circuit was better optimized to sound good with solid state amps because they were so popular when the 9 series came out. Where a tubescreamer really shines though is slamming a fender guitar into a blackface fender amp.... if you want a british flavored tube amp I think the boss sd1 or its cousin the mxr badass OD are a little better voiced to work with fender pickupsinto marshall and vox. I am not a huge fan of the TS family of designs with humbuckers usually. There are a lot of guys who like to use them in front of Marshalls to tighten things up heavy riffage, but I am not a huge fan of this approach and when I've done it I still prefer the SD1 or even a lowly proco Rat set really low. The 80s shred guys favored the sd1 and rat and I don't blame them, those pedals do well with marshalls and the rat handles hot humbuckers like a champ which is amazing from such a simple design. But hey, basic can be best.

The Klon and OCD style pedals sound better to me with gibsons and super strats than the soft clipping ts9 style stuff and have more dynamic response than a rat or other brickwall clipper like a distortion+.... although my preference is to just let the amp speak for itself as much as possible. The ebst purchase I've mad ein a while has been the discontinued TC electronics Nova Drive. Blending the TS9 and Rat based drive and distortion in parallel with a little clean blend and some wild EQ and drive settings can create a more complex and lively sound to push an amp than any of the boutique stuff. There's some room for improvement still and I may try modding mine a little to make both OD and distortion more dynamic at higher gain settings, but the parallel routing and ability to save a hundred MIDI controllable presets is well worth the price of admission.... plus you basically get a voodoo lab sparkle drive, modded ts9 and a hot rodded Rat in one box. I totally recommend a nova drive as an alternative to a TS9 and a Rat....

there's nothing more punk than a tiny terror in that wattage/price range.... its all in how you work it, I mean, we are talking about minimal controls andoptions and that's as punk as it comes, and these are amps that don't require a lot of coaxing to distort

for my buck though I would look a rung or 2 up at an ac15HW1 if I eneded a combo or at a ceriatone 18 watt, 20 watt, spitfire or (my favorite modern 2 el84 design) the crème brulee (which is basically a matchless nighthawk with 3 bright switch flavors built on a turret board instead of point to point with floating parts)... the marshall 2xel84 amps are a little nastier sounding with an edgier distortion (think 50 watt JMP meets vox) while the vox and matchless style amps (including the tiny terror) have a more gradual and subtle breakup and a smoother, brian may distortion character. Both the marshall/Watkins circuit and the vox based circuits can do everything from british invasion to blues (the marshalls are very british sounding in a Cream sense while a vox can be shockingly American sounding if you know your shit) to classic arena rock and in the case or the marshalls some pretty gnarly marshally punk sounds without any pedals (but you will be playing at stage volume to get copious amounts of the good saturation).

If Austin has a store that carries high end marshall and vox and maybe some boutique amps with ef86 preamps like matchless, bad cat, dr z etc then you should go try them all. Do the reissues (an 18 watt combo and a 20 watt head) then try the new ac15ch, a tiny terror, an ac15hw1 and finally hit up the boutique stuff like maybe a badcat cub head or blackcat 15r and then a dr Z like the m12, maz18, Carmen Ghia....

then just for sake of argument try a fender pro junior, tweed deluxe RI, Eric Clapton tweed tremolux, supro dual tone RI, black magic and maybe a Princeton reverb RI to get a feel for the American 15 to 20 watt circuits at various price points.

I would stay away from vintage if I had a limited budget and no electronics skills... they don't make 'em like they used to on the whole, but the old stuff ain't that much better that you want to risk having your new old amp in the shop for a few months the 1st year getting old solder re-run and filter caps replaced. There are good enough versions of almost everything worth owning at all price points now. ALMOST... pretty much only blackface fender is still plug n play vintage right out of the gate, and even then not always. Everything else will likely need service or cost top dollar because its been serviced recently.

but yeah, there's my .02 on 12 to 20 watt tube amps.... I've owned and used a lot of them: Princeton reverb, 18 watt clone, 20 watt RI head, 90s ac15tb, tiny terror, ac15hw1, 5C3 wide panel deluxe, Gibson ga14 (a 5E3 tweed deluxe by another name), magnatone varisty, vintage supro dual tone 24 etc

all similar (except the Princeton, which is the tightest and punchiest mofo in this wattage range) and yet the feel and the way they cut the mix when overdriving can be very different.... some of it is speaker selection but a lot of it is little details in the circuits....

When I was younger and just starting to attend live shows I was the guy who was gear spotting (of course), and always wondering about stuff like: What does everyone like to have in their monitors? What banter and interactions between the band am I not privy to? Do they like the way the mix is sounding at this specific show, do they hate it and are just putting on a nice face? What do they think of the crowd haha

the band has no idea what the mix sounds like, even if they go out and check it out from the FOH position at soundcheck while their techs play for them, once the place is full of fans acting as 5' to 6' tall sound diffusers that raise the temperature of the air and all their sweat drives the humidity up effecting the speed of sound? the mix will be tweaked at FOH subtatnially during the first 2 numbers... so the band has no clue. As for monitors, some guys are like me and just want a couple key feeds loud and proud every night so they can ock and do their thing with confidence, while other people might vary it based on the size and shape of the stage because that effects perceived stage volume and diffusion. Even if you use sidefills every stage can be a crap shoot and you might need different stuff everynight if you aren't a kick/snare/bass guy. If you cue off the vocalist and not the rhythm section for example.Then there's the in-ear bands, you know, the wimps..... sorry, I just think earbuds on stage are wimpy. We're not DJs, we're supposed to be interacting with eachother and balancing ourselves, and putting a pair of cans on is not helping. Its a viable way to get a great FOH mix but I think it hurts the organic quality of a performance and it starts turning into a bit of a modern pro tools session.

dude, I am not getting to it for ages... sometime in the near future I'll order a 25" scale, pre built neck-thru neck and crave some wings for it, but god knows when that will be. Then once the whole thing is assembled I know I will probably leave it sitting unfinished with no hardware for another 6 months while I get in the mood to spring for electronics and that evertune bridge.... then finishing it will be a bear so I'll procrastinate that too unless my friend Zach will do it for me.

I'll create a thread when I order the neck though.... who knows when it'll be though because this has been in my head to do for like 2 or 3 years

try the freezer before malleting, if it still gives you trouble you could try sanding the neck pocket with medium grit paper, routing will be too extreme... maybe an hour of careful sanding followed by a good hour in the freezer should give you a mm or 2 leeway if cold alone won't do it

report back, I wanna know how it goes for you

cheers

"ask me the questions bridge keeper, I'm not afraid!"

I can build or install anything, it'll be fine! just time consuming, but its my hobby, so yeah! when I get around to building that one off neck thru I am thinking evertune bridge

that picture is dead on, the wood will contract substantially in an hour or so... you want your room COLD, like70 degrees farenheit or less to avoid finish checking on a finished strat body.... hitting warm air and humidity after an hour in the fridge will cause even poly to crack

you all laugh, I personally know luthiers who do this to make the tightest possible neck joint on their bespoke set necks

freeze the body for an hour or so and slap the neck in with a rubber mallet.... I can't promise it will be right the first shot viz-a-viz neck angle, you may need a shim, but its a starting point

80s USA Kramer like a baretta? or an import? if its a USA one then it should be darned close to fender spec, freeze th body for a few hours, keep your work room cold to avoid finish checking when the guitar body comes out of the freezer and then smack the neck in with a rubber mallet

do not fuck with a neck pocket that you're saying is a millimeter or 2 off, that's a tough routing job, better too tight than too loose... check your measurements and heed my above advice

if the guitar is an import just get a new body for christ's sake, 80s cheapies from the far east are often made of scraps of any wood they hd lying around

okay, got the sprout fed and ate some meatloaf myself (what a disasterous coking experience tonight and I am a trained chef! I need a vacation)so Dude, I I need more info to help you...

general advice: but if its just a tight squeeze by a mm or 2 I would freeze the body so it contracts and slam the neck in with a rubber mallet, the tight fit wlil actually improve the coupling.... tighter is better on bolt ons, really tighter is better across the board for all glued or screwed joints on a guitar

a common problem with aftermarket replacement necks with the licensed fender joint is they are a little loose, you're good if you can contract the body enough that the neck becomes and easy fit.... also, be aware that the angle of the neck pocket may not be right out of the gate and you may need a shim, particularly if you plan to set your vibrato up to float

I've been thinking about building a neck thru of my own devising and was looking at trying an evertune since the whole affair will be a pretty modern design, particularly by my standards. The evertune concept is fascinating and it looks very well engineered and manufactured.

you get any new stuff lately, Michael? Your board has been pretty consistent since I joined about this time last year....

yeah, you are not the 1st new member to make a test page only to find he can't delete the fictitious artist, but you ARE the 1st to be a standup guy and post to the forum about it.

Thanks!

or you can just turn your amp up and if its too loud you're too old, err, I mean to say that if its too loud get something smaller like a 5E3 or an AC15 ;-)

I was totally that guy writing TV music in my 20s, but I don't know if I woulda called myself a pro in the pro page sense.... I didn't quite my day job running the recording studio! If I relied on TV royalties for rent I woulda been evicted.

welp, almost every overdrive falls into the categories he listed, I think he just assumed most musicians know more about electrical engineering and sound engineering than they actually do, so elt me see if I can toss some info at ya to clear thigns up Michael.... and even the Klon and Clons fall into a subcategory of diodes to ground... an exceptional design is the Fulltone OCD and the discontinued Voodoo Lab overdrive it borrowed from, these drives use hard clipping back to abck diodes (or in the case of the OCD a pair of mosfets wired as diodes with an extra germanium diode for Boss style asymetrical clipping) sandwiched between 2 op-amp stages of a dual IC, but the revolutionary idea that makes these pedals more dynamic than a DOD overdrive 250 is that the diodes don't shunt the clipping signal tog round, they are wired to the bias potential of the 1st op-amp stage subtly changing the clipping threshold based on how hard you drive the opamp. You can actually do this to any diodes-to-ground OD/distprtion with a little knowhow. An OD250/distortion+, rat, ds1 etc.... but voodoo lab came up with the diea and fulltone tuned and perfected it (the voodoo lab OD didn't sound that great). As usual, Mike Fuller does nothing new, but he's always willing to tinker with someone else's circuit until its a killer.... then there's the red llama camp of CMOS inverter logic chip-based gain bangers, pretty unique stuff in a lot of ways. Design was pioneered by Craig Anderton as his 'tube sound fuzz' roject and has been expanded upon in the EHX hot tubes, Ibanez mostortion, red llama, mule, CB hyperpak and SCOD.... I could go on. Then there's the brown sound I a box that takes a fuzz face style transistor cascade to new levels of interesting intricacy, but I have a feeling the author classes those as amp in a box pedals. Still, the BSIAB2 was quite revolutionary and was a blueprint for all the CB foundation drives, the cmat brownie, JHS Charlie brown and even in a really general way the ZVex box of rock, metal and distortron! very original when the BSIAB and BSIAB2 hit the DIY scene when I was a kid. Now the ideas are commonplace but it was an epic thing. Revolutionary like the tubescreamer and boss SD1

you will also find that the MI audio tube zone is a pretty unqiue design, not quite an amp in a box or a BSIAB2 variation.... a similar idea was used by George Tripps on the way huge fat sandwich... lots of cascading stages of fets and opa,ps producing tube-like clipping along with some diode implementation to give you a really unique sounding distortion with lots of cumulative overtones from different parts from a complex circuit. Like a pre-stacked OD/distortion....

did that help?

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/24169-state-of-the-stomp-overdriven-to-tears

"I'm gonna fight him, but I'll let him live.... now give me my dynamite."

-Steve Zissou

I've been up since 6 or 7am eastern, which would be 2 or 3am your time

here's the model rundown for your 80s epi

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_b4CdeOh_48Y/TLYA2Xn0UeI/AAAAAAAAALI/n1gRl57hHkw/s1600/Epiphone+Genesis+Original+Pictures.jpg

I think its currently reissued but only as the 'deluxe'? not sue

jumpphilly.com, is this guy from my home town? I've never seen him around....

Epiphone Genesis, 1980s... Gibson's answer to the popular Japanese doublecut LP style guitars that were so popular in the 70s into the early 80s (Steve Miller, Ace Freely, Bad Company, Santana and Bob Wier of the Dead endorsed different company's carved top couble cutaway models when Norlin was making the shittiest LPs and SGs in Gibson's history... took Gibson awhile to take a hint and they tested the waters with the Genesis before coming up with a few different USA made double-cut LPs)

http://www.sheltonsguitars.com/images/2011/05-24-2011/epiphone-genesis/big/bigDSCN3185.jpg

the one your guy is using is the cheaper version w/o neck binding and trap inlays, you used to see them all the time, maybe worth $500 today...

goodnight

(I'm from Canada so FAVOURITE is how the UK and Canada spell FAVORITE for America in case you thought it was a spelling mistake)

not all Americans are provincial idiots

so 'colour' me offended

Greco's close, but not quite there. The knob configuration isn't right.

its right for an MX series guitar, depends on the year.... some years they had 3 knobs and a switch, some years they got 3 knobs in a diagonal row and other years they got the traditional Gibson layout.... and some years they mixed it up based on model.... the Greco MR's had some variety in the low end with knob placement too, though the nicer ones like mine all have Gibson layout every year... mine's so old I don't even know if its an 800 or 100, it has a wrap bridge, but everything else about it is upscale MR1000 features and it even has top of the line pickups that were usually reserved for the top of the line 59 LP copies that NO MR or MX guitars should have. But the electronics are blatantly stock. The more I look into it the more I suspect mine was a one off that was ordered factory direct by Mr Cho (whose name is on the case, and a custom case is a bit of a giveaway that mine's a special order). The only rule with some of these guitars is that there were no rules.

MORE PICS

The top one is actually extremely similar to Greco MX600, the volume/tone knobs and switches are clearly in the same position.

I am not thinking Greco anymore because it doesn't have the smooth carved Greco neck joint common to even the low end MX and MR models... so I think its more likely an Ibanez made to very similar spec at the same factory. I haven't picked up a low end Ibanez Artist in a while, but I wanna say they might have that bulkier neck joint and heel than the top shelf Artists and the Greco guitars like mine.

It could also be a low end Yamaha SG too. Even the High end SGs and Super Flighters have kinda bulky neck joints and heels. They are great guitars and all, but the similar Greco and Ibanez guitars got really long neck tenons (mine goes right to the end of the neck pickup route and possibly beyond, though I suspect it stops flush with the end of the route - also, if anyone tell you it doesn't make a big difference to the sustain they are fulla shit, that guitar resonates better than any other guitar I own) and so old grecos and iabnezes remain stable even with the surrounding body wood sanded flush in the cutaways and at the heel. I'm not sure the medium tenon Yamis and super short, SG butt joint style cheapies from Yami and 'Nez woulda survived this long if they had a more elegant carve around that joint.

Body looks small for an Yamaha SG though and the horns aren't devilish from what I can see in this shot. I'm not sure if Yamaha or Ibanez ever copied the Greco MX series' 3 knob + switch control layout either. I've seen Super Flighters with this screwball control layout, but never an SG with anything but the Gibson layout.

it might also be an epiphone, there are some rare 80s and 90s epis with this design, they evolved into the Gibson Tak Matsumoto (?) signature I think

if you guys can get more pics I'll ID this sucker, these are my favorite type of guitar, I like the higher end ones with the nice appointments and electronics, but I generally love all the MRs, MXs, Artists, Yami SGs, Gibson LP Studio DCs and even the Japanese Epi doublecuts... I am sure even without a headstock shot I can ID this thing... any time I see a guitar in this style I have to play it

I really don't think he will be happy with a bass amp for guitar. The speaker will have a bss cone for sure and while that can be cool coupled with a guitar-voiced amp with small coupling caps and guitr-centric tone control center frequencies, it'll be way boomy (pun intended) for guitar when coupled with a circuit voiced for bass. Hes going to wind up running the bass at 0 all the time (though if he gets a gig playing bass hes set). If hes going to go LOUD solid state in a small package with a master the blackstar ID amps or Roland Blues Cubes will serve a guitarist better for practice and light stage use. And they are pretty darned light 1x12s. I also recommended the old Marshall Lead12 to him. Great little solid state practice/small gig amp... if Narcist were primarlily a bassist the Rumble would eb a cool amp for practice and some gigging that could serve as a guitar amp in a pinch, but as hes primarily (as of now EXLUSIVELY) a guitarist, a bass amp will not make a lot of sense since hes not even going to use it as intended.

in 5 watt tube amps the big cotnenders are the blackstar, the ac4tv, the marshall class 5 and the VHT 5 watter (is it a custom 6 or something? I forget, but its a good value).... ya gotta decide if you need a lot of features or just a good core tone, if you want an EL84 or a 6V6 and then decide if you need it to be handwired.... the VHT with a 6V6 is pretty cheap, is hand-wired on a nice turret board for easy service and gives a nice,bare-bones tweed Princeton type circuit for not a lot of scratch.... a used ac4tv might be even cheaper, but its more british sounding obviously and its made on a PCB... the mashall uses a 6V6 I think but sounds more british than a champ and is a lot darker than the vox (also PCB construction but not nearly as affordable as the AC4TV and for my bucks is a muddy sounding amp comparatively).... then there's the blackstar stuff that is generally higher gain and voiced on the modern-side of things, lots of features to putter with, PCB construction, but I am not familiar with all f their models, the 5 watter included.... I got really turned off to their affordable amps after trying some venue series heads. Not my bad though they will suit many people in the high-gain crowd. Maybe someone know more about that HT-5 than me and can chime in.... I just don't like most of blackstar's offerings other than the artisan stuff that's basically boutique or vintage clones. They're like England's Mesa. Too many options. In brit high gain I find the orange stuff to be cooler, Ade Emseley is really decisive about voicing the amps and oesn't clutter tham with switches and extraneous controls..... but I digress. Maybe someone can describe the HT-5 for our young friend??? OH! There's also the Laney Lionheart 5 watter that sounds fantastic and is a lot like the AC4HW but with Laney's voicing and a switchable extra gain stage that actualy sounds really good... its a got a lot of knobs and switches for a handwired 5 watter though. However, the Laney sounds more like a Marshall to me than the Marshall Class 5, can get voxy set clean, and its made better (a rarity for Laney, usually they are like chintzy plexi, 800 or vox clones). My buddy has a Lionheart 5, I always liked it and still like it.

I like simple amps whether they are big or small... 1 to 3 knobs is a good way to go, there's less between your hands and the speaker! and in the case of PCB amps, the simpler the design the better the reliability (and tone! less traces means more space between the traces and therefore less crosstalk and stray capacitance mucking up your sound)

that's the Jim .02

prepare to be bummed out

the VR is not terribly voxy. Even the tube-based input stage is not directly based on the ac30 or 15 from any era. Its totally bastardized. Its a shame because a hybrid ac30 and 15 might be cool. your amp might cop some Petty vox tones on the clean channel but keep in mind a lot of the most coveted petty tones are not voxes anyway. The first few albums are mostly a 5C3 tweed deluxe for lead and Tom playing rhythm through a fender quad reverb or another big silverface amp. All Fender. I am not sure when Mike Campbell acquired his blonde ac30. Tom used it on VH1 story tellers in the 90s and rumor has it Mike uses it in an ISO box in addition to his stage setup of a non-reverb Princeton and the aforementioned 5C3 deluxe (as well as a separate fender head driving a vibratone, which is fender's 1 speaker version of leslie). I've spotted Tom playing his red Marshall JTM45 and matching 4x12 (I think its a really late 45 by the cosmetics and will be one of the least fender versions of this amp before the complete switch to EL34 output tubes and a solid state rectifier) at shows and in footage the las 10 years and occasionally I will see him with a blonde/brownface fender head and cab (or two) but I don't know if its a bassman, showman, tremolux, bandmaster or what... I've also seen Petty paying through a tweed 5F6 bassman or 5E7 Bandmaster....

the heartbreakers' use of vox amps is overstated... they use all sorts of stuff new and old in the studio (runnin down a dream was a groove tubes head, no shit, mike campbell si really open about it) and not as much vox as one would think... though back in the day they toured with solid state Vox Super Beatles,, if you see the Super Beatle setups on stage these days theya re props and their real amps are hiding behind the wall of shitty amps and are usually fenders and the odd marshall I mentioned. That other guy who switched from drums to guitar tends to play dicided by 13 boutique combos, not sure which ones specifically, but given that they appear to 1x12s they aren't voxy circuits.

regardless, even if you knew which petty sogns were the blonde ac30 you are not reproducing it with a valve reactor... the old amps from before 64 run hotter (you can fry an egg on the top of my 1962 30B after about 10 minutes of playing and it definitely affects the tone), are usually not top-boosted stock and have some hefty output transformers your little amp won't cop.... not to mention the critical ingredient which is the blue alnico celestions. The weird, marshally tonestack with an un-voxy midrange and less interactive treble and bass as wella s the lack of a 'tone cut' because there is no phase inverter tube on the valve reactor is in your way, the overall topology of the ac amps is a big part of their sound.... you could putter with it, but its not really meant to be a legit vox. If it was they wouldn't be able to sell guys like me an ac30hw for big money!

Additionally Mike Campbell's ac30 that he and tom both use sometimes is even older than my vintage ac30 (and mine's OLD AS FUCK). It may be the notorious ac30/4 circuit (there was a crossover period with blonde cab cosmetics and the coppertop chassis/circuit with 6 inputs instead of 4). If that's the case forget it. The EF86 pentode that drives those amps is a unique hifi tube that nothing replicates except a few old TV pentodes and to a lesser extent the 5879 pentode favored by Gibson in the 50s. Nothing quite sounds like an ac30/4 or a similar modern amp like the heritage ac30 and matchless stuff. I honestly get my best 'mary jane' rhythm tones from my matchless on the ef86 channel, though my 62 gets in the right ball park if I really fiddle the treble, base and tone cut carefully. My ac30hw is the furthest from the mark. its a little too polite, and in 'hot mode' its too rude.

So my suggestion is to enjoy the ac15VR for what it is, which is one of the better sounding hybrid amps I've heard, and not try to get something out of it that it won't do. Find your own tones on it and have fun! My suggestion will lead to hours and hours of enjoyment (hopefully) whereas seeking tones gotten from completely different gear will lead to frustration and buyer's remorse. Unless you play in a heartbreakers tribute band, if that's the case, buy silverface Princeton and a Gibson GA6! it'll get ya close to campbell's tone! For petty try any blackface or silverface fender head, even a reissue OR maybe Fender's new bassbreaker 45 amp. Mike and Tom use a fair amount of pedal overdrive to push their amps over the edge (I've seen pictures, Mike sets both amps' volumes low, around 3 at the edge of breakup and Tom's JTM45 was always set more on the clean side too)... both guys like the way huge Red Lama (Mike has an old Camel Toe which is a Lama and a Green Rhino mk1 in one box.... theyt alk about reissuing thru Dunlop as the 'Campbel' Toe) and tom ha a standalone, pre-Dunlop Lama and may also use an old Tubescreamer.

I am not saying the VRs are bad amps. The gain channels are silly, but the clean channels sound cool enough... but having tried them (real ac30s are heavy), they don't really keep up with a custom classic... and the truth is that the custom classic is a shadow of the glorious vintage ac30s... check my review here on of the vox ac30 right here on equipboard for detailed info all things ac30! the vox ac30 is my favorite amp and I'm something of a vox afficianado.... I check out every amp to wear the ac badge

the bottom picture has what appears to be a Yamaha SG of some kind... either that or a Greco MX500 or MR500? Or maybe an Ibanez Artist from the 80s, one of the lower models.... the lack of fingerboard binding pretty well says its a low end Japanese-designed doublecut

I'm going to be a total dick here because I can't help myself:

what's your girlfriend's (or boyfriend's name, I didn't mean to presume you were heterosexual) name? can you post a flyer from your last show? do you perform in musical theater, more traditional non-musical productions or a bit of both and if so what was the name of the last show you were in? Who wrote it and what part did you play?

I totally buy that you are an A student in jr high who does more than his fair share of housework for busy parents, rides his bike through the woods, putters with shortwave radio and reads a lot when he's not on EB. Totally fits.

If you can fit all that stuff you listed in on a regular basis and still contribute to EB in bulk on a regular basis like you do then I am curious when you sleep? I appreciate you putting all the work into the site, I'm just saying that you might strain your arm patting yourself on the back so hard.

I like Bing too... different kinda thing than Nat apart from the x-mas music. As far as great songwriting, Bing Crosby, the Gershwins and Cole Porter set the bar pretty fucking high right at the birth of recording....

if I am not asking myself what the Beatles would do when writing my own songs I am generally asking myself what the old prohibition-era American masters would do.

songs like these are hard to deny (I started you at one of my all time faves):

https://youtu.be/bdg8dI5nWFI?t=33m52s

I'm a pretty big fan of Nat. I encountered him like most, thanks to x-mas music. Lets face it, he's the standard. But many people don't realize he was an even better pianist than a singer nad prior to doing poppier vocal music hs jazz band kicked some serious ass during the period where small combos were reinventing jazz in small clubs dotted around America's major urban areas. Check out the sweet guitar playing too:

please tell me some of that Heineken's for next week... a couple of them will make cleaning up more fun, all of them will defintielyd emotivate you

I certainy abused my fair share of substances from my teen years into my early 20s, even put myself into rehab to put it all behind me. God that's like another lifetime. But a lot of the drug use was more about being wakeful to play and record more music and make more artwork and if I had it all to do over again I would just focus more in school, I don't know if I would change anything else I did. I had a lot of experiences in my life I wouldn't trade for anything you could offer me.

My parents were totally against video games for young kids so by the time I was allowed to have them and was old enough to raise money to buy my 1st console I was hopelessly inept at them and had lots of other interests. I rarely found myself playing Sega or Nintendo alone, though the desire to buy my 1st used system did teach me the value of a dollar! Video games were a social thing for me as a teenager and that is all. As a result I was a really productive sort of teenager, but being a rebellious type I completely (and intentionally) failed to channel it scholastically. Its not like anyone gave me any practical sense of direction though. Just because you could become a scientist or teacher doesn't mean you are inclined to... and parents and teachers shouldn't bully you in a direction you don't want to go. Rather its good child raising to help a kid channel their talents in a way that will actually make them happy.

I don't think Gibson's afraid of you, sorry Boom. They do have nightmares about the EPA though....

no offense, but I don't think thousands of submissions and the top gear IQ is a badge of honor. Its helpful for EB and I am glad you are doing it because I couldn't be bothered to... and I have way more down time that can only be filled at a computer than when I was a teenager. But when I was a teenager I filled my free time playing the guitar. if I was home I was practicing or writing throw away songs to hone my craft. Or I was painting or drawing. That's when I wasn't busy partying like a... well, a teenager! I was playing shows (had a band from the age of 13, played my 1st small show that year).... I always had a girlfriend or at least some young ladies in my life. back then my gear IQ woulda been ZERO. I can't imagine not having SOMETHING better to do...

Now I have a career and a kid to raise so there's a lot of puttering around the office or house. EB is a godsend to kill some time, but I still can't get motivated to keep up with your level of obsession. I just like the forum for the most part (because I spend most of my time talking to non-musicians or home alone with a 2 year-old and never get to talk about my interests and might go days without talking to another adult except to say thanks at the grocery store).

But when you have no life-&-death responsibilities as a teenager you almost owe it to yourself to have a life and do everything for yourself you can possibibly do before its too late! The internet wills till be there when you are 30....

your youth is disappearing at the same rate regardless of what you do with the time. Make the most of it. My 2 least favorite words are "too alte" and believe you me, it can be too late sometimes, don't let anyone sell you that "its never too late" line. Not true...

I have seen or played every vox ac amp ever made from the 50s to present, other than the super rare 4 input blonde AC30 introduced in 59

all of the modern AC amps have a master volume setup.... whether the 1st level knob is labeled 'volume' or 'gain', its the same thing. Its gain in voltage between the 1st and 2nd gain stage. With the master at 10 or better yet bypassed (that's an option on the master volume equipped handwireds like the 2 I have) it becomes a straight volume like it is on a vintage amp because there's nthing downstream limiting the gain to the power amp. On a modern vox (other than the AC50 and 100 custom classics) the master volume is always the last thing before the power tubes. In an AC4 its just another 1 meg audio taper pot slapped downstream of the 2 or 3 gain stages because there's nowhere else to put it where it would produce the desired results. In an ac10, ac15 or ac30 it is a dual ganged 1 meg pot after the long-tailed-pair phase inverter tube that allows you to overdrive the preamp a little and get some real saturaton out of the phase inverter (technically part of the power section and wired in such a way that it produces different overdrive than a triode stage configuredto operate as a voltage amplifier in a preamp, the PI provides some gain in this type of amp, but its main role is to split the waveform in half so the 2 output tubes can split the work of amplifying and therefore produce more wattage) while dialing back the amount of voltge that hits the output tubes. It sounds closer to driving the whole output stage than just having a high gain preamp and is a popular mod on older amps. It really sounds good on voxes so ever since matchless implemented it on the DC30 every AC30 style amp has incorporated it and even Vox decided it was a worthwhile addition back in the late 90s.

so there ya go

I actually like the matchless/vox post phase inverter master as a tone shaping tool. When you have the amp cranked up pretty well you can balance the 2 volume knobs on these amps to change the balance of where the amp is distorting and add more 'fizz,' 'grind' or 'cream' based on the interplay of the 2 parts of the amp producing distortion (preamp tunes, phase inverter and power tubes). You can jumper channels, putter with the 2 channel gains like you would a plexi and the top boost tone controls to get the voicing where you want it and then find a sweet spot on the master control where you get a really marshally overdrive with a lot of preamp and phase inverter overdrive and just a little power tube distortion (and more punch because the power tubes are just barely out of their comfort zone). Or you can disable the master and go all Brian May, running those dainty el84 tubes well into saturation.... apart from volume control (which is pretty effective as long as you don't try to go down to midnight noodling levels), the extra level knob in a vox expands the amp's range a lot.

I keep thinking you might just wanna bite the bullet and get a small, light solid state amp with enough power to play shows that sounds good at bedroom levels. Which is the Roland BluesCube Stage 60 1x12.... it will serve you well, especially because you have a tube OD. If you want to play clean the AC4TV is a bit small. It really exclls at light OD. It is a great midnight amp for clean as well as crunch tone though (thanks to the built in attenuator). But even through a bigger cab the AC4 platform is only giggable if you are okay with a gritty rock n roll clean sound. For me that's fine. I don't always care about being squeaky clean anymore. When I worried about having a perfectly clean sound I played 40 to 80 watt Fenders to make sure I had headroom and bandwidth aplenty from my clean amp.

I can't get a band-level squeaky clean sound out of any british design less than 30 watts. My best luck using 1 amp has been to use volume and pickup selection with the matchless. With smaller rectifiers in it at full power the volume jump from clean to dirty gets minimized thanks to the compression introduced by the dual 5Y3 rectifiers' inability to supply enough voltage to exceed the 30 watt rating when called to, so I have a very dynamic and fast cleanand a compressed, singing drive.

You really had me hijack this thread. We probably shoulda gone into Guitars for this one.