jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

its funny, I didn't know orange did anything but amps....

also, flay them alive before killing them and tan their hide to cut into drum heads... if you think real calf skin sounds good, girly-man-skin sounds better....

Face to face with the other band members present to shiw a united front even if you will be the spokesman. Make sure you are all wearing your boots (cowboy, biker or combat).

We should put a notice or something on the "create a new forum post" page that says:

If you're posting a "what gear should I get" thread, please include 1) budget, 2) your general skill level, 3) genre(s) of music you like/make/play

or even just being specific n the text of the question... "I need recommendations for a keyboard" is the same as saying "can anyone recommend a good guitar"

I'm about to just blurt out "buy a mid 2000s SG standard if ya got a grand in your pocket" when I realize you didn't specify what kinda music you are playing or even if you were talking about electric, acoustic OR classical.... this question was like that. I assumed he meant a controller just like I would assume someone looking for a guitar recommendation wanted an electric solidbody... BUT DID HE? We still don't know. Bork bork bork.

I thought that was the joke there.... I was going to ask him which channel is later

yeah, I would be all over that if I lived in the UK... I'd take my kid!

high output humbuckers.... hrrrm ... in gibson style buckers you are automatically looking at a high output pickup by mystandards except for the weakest PAFs, patent sticker and T-Top. Anything over 8kohms is pretty high output. Getting over 10kohms is getting silly. But a middling DCR rating like around 8 or 9kohms with ceramic or alnico8? loud ass pickups. Not on paper, but the strong magnets give them an unexpected wallop. Then there are pickups with like 3 bars all different types of magnets, those look interesting though I have never tried them.... Its a cool idea tog et more power from a passive bucker with less turns of wire. Too many turns of wire, even thinner gauge wire, has undesireable (to some of us) side-effects.

the JB is okay, so is the good old dimarzio super distortion at the bridge, Duncan 59 custom/hybrid is pretty high output and sounds really good in its unique way (not for everyone), the Duncan custom/custom is nice sounding overall as is the "whole lotta humbucker"... I am generally not so into high output pickups. The JB and super D are a bit hot for my liking but they have a classic hot humbucker tone that can be hard to deny when you wanna play heavy. I would just rather add gain down the line to a classic humbucker though. The humbucker platform already lacks some of the dynamics of a single coil as well as having a different low resonant frequency and pronounced mids, adding turns is really not so flattering to the way I play, and I just rarely get into ceramic magnets in pickups. They just don't sound particularly good to me. You can get more power from your pickups without having to add a lot more wire, but the overtones aren't as pretty. I tried a reverend with their railhammer pickups and was quite impressed with those. VERY high output but they were dynamic and clear as a bell. Defintiely worth checining out. I don't know why anyone would want anything higher output than a JB, custom/custom or super distortion. Most of my favorite metal was played with those older designs or straight-up PAFs, Patent stickers and T-Tops.... I don't think the sound of metal music has improved since I was a kid. Quite the opposite. Its been a slow and steady decline since the NWOBM and thrash scenes.

.047 should be brighter as should the new pots you put in. I would guess that some of the tone difference is the thick epi poly finish that doesn't breathe like the gibby finish. Some of it is wood. A lot of it is the pickups themselves. I will bet the baseplate and cover alloys are really debased if they are even trying to be vintage accurate. Does your lp have 57 classics? I don't think they are potted whereas the epis being burstbucker pro based will be potted making them darker. There's probably more turns per coil on the epis giving them more pronounced mids... I doubt the epis are wound with plain enamel wire. Its probably poly insulated making them darker...

You get the idea.

Go tubes.... not all custom winders make a great PAF for YOU, it depends what you think the PAF tone is. To me its the elusive ghost notes under distortion.

necroposting the 'bucker thread... what's everyone got in their guitars lately.... I know Liam has been changing his guitar collection around and pulling out pickups, rewiring everything....

right now my Yamaha 335 copy has the stock 70s Yamaha PAF copies, my Greco has the stock Maxon Dry Z PAF copies that rule, my sg has the stock 490R and an early 70s T-Top Gibson bucker, my silver LP has a burstbucker pro neck and Duncan 59 custom/hybrid bridge & my washburn has a pearly gates neck and another 59 custom/hybrid with the magnets swapped so its A5 neck and A2 bridge... I just put a fat bid in for another early 70s T-Top on the bay as I am eyeballing a silver SG special from '01 at sam ash.

I really like the 70s Gibson buckers in SGs, they sound very RIGHT for these guitars.

yeah, all the funky finish fenders are collectible, even the imports... I got hella good money for my floral MIJ tele even though it was NOTHING special other than the wild 60s paint job.

Pawn brokers are really hip to guitar and bass values where I live, but there are still good amp deals to be had if you are wiley. Other parts of the USA pawn brokers post on ebay but they are a bit confused about value. Some things they overprice grossly and others are just given away. My favorite guitar was bought from a Pawn guy. He sold me a rare 70s Greco fr under 500USD shipped and they regularly trade for a grand on ebay and reverb. Got me. But at the time he had acquired 2 and wanted to move them and there weren't any recent sales on ebay to reference. He also mistook the model of the one he sold me, which helped me. If he ahd checked G-Base and Reverb he woulda known better than to sell mine for less than $800 and the lesser one (wish I had bought both, grr) he woulda sold for at least $700... and yet he posted both for $500 with a best offer feature. Thanks duder!

Its a buyers' market right now though.

Ceriatone (a good way to break in as you can buy partially assembled kits and finish them to get comfortable and they offer a BAZILLION circuits and variations), Weber speakers (the original amp kits), Mojo, Marsh, Triode Electronics, BYOC does a few amps and not just pedals now (my buddy built the tweed royale and its pretty cool because it can go from single-ended tweed princeton to 5E3 deluxe, the tone control is defeatable so it can also be a champ w/1 control AND you can kick the negative feedback n and out to voice the power amp like different champ and deluxe incarnations... neat kit, good quality, great instructions)... and of course the crème dela crème for tweed fender kits is Mission Amps

maybe referencing your awesome new bass blew the font up to EPIC scale?

bought the traynor, packed and shipped... negotiated the dude down low enough that I might buy a guitar too

oi

Personally I think tubes should fall into a category that's not guitar related as they are a part for lots of music equipment from amplifiers to microphones... or maybe they could be added to either amplifier parts OR microphone parts depending on who is posting the review or what artist they are being added to. This is really about reviews though as most artists have not gone so far as to endorse a particular brand of tube. I think Liam has asked for people's oppinions on current production 12AX7es about 3 times now. Since "Nashville Rocker" or whatever his name reviewed a pile of 12ax7, el34 and 6l6 tubes it seems like it needs a category. Every manufacturer's version of a tube behaves and usually sounds different, so its a big deal. Its one of those things like guitar speakers and microphone placement. Subtle but HUGE.

Maybe put tubes in a general "other gear" or "music accessories" category. Vacuum tubes aren't strictly used in guitar amps and not all guitarists play through tube technology (especially in the post-fractal landscape).

Hofner guitars and basses are all over the map, especially since they started outsourcing their low end.

I meant the Memphis in the 90s was the worst bass.... otherwise no preference I guess. I tend to like the musicman stingrays.

also, beware of ground loops, some guitar amps don't daisy chain nicely (this means bridging channels between 2 different amps, going into input 1 of amp 1, then connecting input 2 of amp 1 to input 1 of amp 2 which is how the 70s hard rock acts would slave their walls of amrshalls prior to the JCM800 series which can't do that because the inputs are not wired in parallel) and also will not work together with a simple Y cable like Pete Townshend used to use. Most modern amps get on well though.

I tried a hotone plexi flavored mini head. It sounded pretty nice. Not sure about the mooer copies. Probably built in the same plant as the hotones though.

so the field has narrowed... vintage 70s MIJ ES339-style guitar in road worn cosmetic condition (the dealer who has offered it o me is consigning it, so he took pics and gave it back to the owner so he can only tell me what he remembers about it when it was in the shop being added to his site inventory and that weirds me out)...

OR an 80s Gibson LP jr reissue modified for a humbucker and badly oversprayed with black bicycle paint (It looks kinda cool, but I am sure the bike paint is not good for the tone....I can get this unfortunate junior for a pittance and fix her up as I have time... which may be never, so I am not sure I want a restoration project of this magnitude, there is a good chance that as I try to remove the black spray paint I will take the heritage cherry lacquer off too, hrrrm... otherwise this is a hella nice I with the wrap bridge, double cut, big neck, just killer BONES)...

OR 70s traynor PA head that is only a few components away from Pete Townshend's signature 70s Hiwatt heads. The traynor is very tempting as I love Hiwatts but can't afford one, and I especially love The Who's Hiwatt sound. At a conservative 50 watt rating its a bit loud for me, but I want the cleanness. The handwiring, 4 independent channels and massive old Hammond transformers and choke make this worth the $375 buy in. Its also an easy mod platform if I wanna bring it to exact hiwatt specs. Its just a few cap and resistor values. An hours worth of soldering and a whopping 5 bucks in parts. ..

OR I can go with 40 watts of tasty, old fender clean and buy GC's 65 Bandmaster head for $500. Its mint, works well and is a great, classic fender head from arguably their finest era.

My friend with the tremolux is not yet ready to sell... oh well.

I do not actually NEED any of this stuff. Or any stuff at all, but GAS is strong. I haven't gotten a new toy in a while, and not a big ticket toy since summer of '15. I am trying to keep my costs around 600 bucks so I am only spending FOUND money, hence why the options are fixer uppers and such.... also, if I can get the seller to budge on the junior I can maybe get the amp and a fixer upper Gibson without spending much or even ANY of my actual income or savings. If I go with the vintage semi-hollow or Fender amp I cannot buy two items in good conscience as I will go way over budget.

Thoughts?

that's a broad question... do you want a controller or a hardware synthesizer with a keyboard. If its a synth, do you want something that's more of a workstation that can sample or do you want something more old school. If Old school, are you thinking analog sound or digital. If digital do you like FM or wavetable? What about phase-distortion synthesis? If analog, do you feel okay with modellers like the Nord and Access units, or are you set on true analog? Are you willing to deal with a finicky vintage analog, FM or Wavetable unit or would yu rather go new like the current Moog offerings or Dave Smith designs? There's a lot of better-than-vintage analog synths on the market these days. Then there's old, hybrid designs like my beloved Ensoniqs which has digital wavetable oscillators capable of a world of cool noises, but its got great analog filters as well as amazingly tweakable digital envelopes and LFOs. The world is your oyster these days. What do you want and how much can you spend?

I rememberthe big splash in the industrial and rave scenes when Aphex TAwin first started to come to prominence in the 90s. Hes always been a big thing in all the EDM communities, kinda like Autechre.

It was pretty fresh sounding music when it came out. I have not followed subsequent AT releases though. Kinda got bored with them after 2000.

not sure I am into this Bay character but he has an attractive rig...

Are you thinking it should be a subcategory of Amplifier accessories > parts?

http://i.imgur.com/DP3T6IC.png

sure, that COULD work... problem is tubes aren't just amp parts! what about tube condenser mics that use EF86 and ECC81/2/3 variants? tube mic pres? Let me tell you that the much-lauded old Telefunken 12AX7s and EF806 sound better in recording gear and hifi applications than guitar amps. At least to me! As a guitar part I would give the Tele EF806 a 3 star review, but in a microphone circuit that runs on a small signal pentode like the C12 or ELA-M251 I would give it 5 stars. Whereas my favorite EF86 in a vox-style guitar amp is by far the mesh-plate, british made Mullard EF86, but its got too much internal harmonic distortion for recording applications, plus those Mullard pentodes are prone to microphonic squealing and the EAT Tube Damper tames it in a guitar amp or Hifi amp where there's space for this giant device, but you will never fit that huge shock absorber inside a microphone or 2RU mic pre, will you?

So is the very valuable and rare 50s/60s Telefunken EF806 a mediocre amp part OR an excellent microphone and recording console part?

see? I knew no one paid attention to this BS

no one cares what happens at award shows, be they british or the big-time American Grammies.... no one is paying attention. At least no one with a brain.

yeah, laney's EQ section has been based on the tweed fender/marshall arrangement since the 60s, but its a little different, I remember on my GH50L if you dropped the gain to zero it would produce a warm clean sound even though a Marshall 800 (on which its based) goes completely silent with gain at zero... but the Laney would go down to a whisper even with the gain at 10 if you turned all 3 EQ knobs to zero, whereas the marshall passed sound with all 3 bands zeroed as long s it had a notch or two of gain. They are 99% the same circuit, a gained up bassman with el34s, but a few components causes these different behaviors at extreme knob settings.... the marshall behaves a lot like a plexi or bassman with an extra gains tage and a master volume (which is what it is), but the 80s and 90s laneys are a little different, probably because Laney's 100 watt "supergroup" head of the 60s was a bit different even though clearly copied from the plexi... I actually really like the old 60s Laney heads because they are 100 watt plexis with better transformers than Drake. Laney used the same badass Partridge transformers as Hiwatt did, whereas Marshall dropped their awesome Radiospares transformers of the JTM45 era in favor of inferior Drake iron because RS didn't make a 100 watter and they were doing dual output transformers on the earliest superleads. EXPENSIVE

TMI? its funny, none of you English guys know about amps, and I always figured every Englishman was an expert on vox, marshall, hiwatt, laney and orange circuits and history.....

late 80s Memphis branded p-bass clone, belonged to my best friend's older sister in highschool

welp, depending on the tone I want I daisy chain them using the 2 inputs per channel OR I use my radial ABY box

That sick dream is MY rig. Though sans effects these days. But 2 ac30s or an ac30 and a matchless. Its a powerful, wide and 3d sound. I like to set one for light od and the other (a modern one) at 1/2 power pushed into full bore poweramp clipping. Spread the cabs widefor an obscenely good time.

Feuckin kids and amps. My son can now reach the knobs on a head seated on a 2x12. Madness! I had this great setting on my hc30 with the channels bridged and he jacked it up yesterday.

someone just added a bunch of preamp and power tubes to "guitar amps" so we need a new category for tubes (or valves if you are British)... as there are always questions about what tubes to put in a tube amp here on the forum I think adding them as a category with reviews is a good idea

I had written this whole big response to you trying to explain a lot of things, but I realized it was too long and rambling and therefore failed to explain anything or even express my informed opinions... and the key point in the beginning was one I made last time you asked about preamp tubes. so I just deleted it.

JJ 12ax7 types seem to be the "least gainy" 12ax7es in current production while the "most gainy" I have tried are the Chinese shuguangs and new sensor's tung sol branded 12ax7s. Okay? I think the Tung Sols sound quite good in most amps, especially vox and Marshall circuits.

Have fun with your tonequest.

hey xyez, why not flip the script on this and do like me, run 1 guitar through 2 amps?

depends if its a baxandall style tonestack, EQ at 5 is not flat on every amp, even solid state stuff. 5 is flat ina baxandall or "james" tone network, nothing else that is commonly used for guitar. Most guitar toneentworks are flat with everything at 10 because they strictly cut being passive in nature. The other exception besides the aforementioned baxandall type networks is the Vox AC30 top boost which is flat with both controls at zero (though only with the volume at 10 since there is a bright cap on the input of the topboost channels volume control, but hypothetically the tonestack is flat when both treble and bass are at zero)... this is not to say that the ac30 boosts signal, it appears to do so by creating a midrange notch that is adjust in Q and center frequency by the position of the treble and bass controls. If you change 1 resistor it will behave like a tweed fender or Marshall and "flat" will be all controls at 10.

nah, an amplifier of any kind is just a big applied physics project

no no no degreaser or oil! get contact cleaner for home stereos. Its special for audio pots! anything else will destroy your pot!!!!

good kind of loud? of course it is! I didn't know there was a bad kind of loud?

for all I say against extreme volume its mostly because the world is always trying to turn your tube amps down, given my druthers I would play through like 4 amps all turned way up, set to KILL... its just that I don't make a lot of friends playing at 60 to 200 watts anymore.

PS: you are a gainiac, but I expect you'll outgrow it.

sure. If you have 2 independent channels with separate inputs like a larger blackface fender its a snap... but any old tube amp should have 2 inputs even on a single channel. As a kid I would have friends over all the time and whoever played bass would use the #2 low sensitivity input of my 64 Princeton reverb and it got the job done well enough for writing. If your amp jacks 2 channels a y cable should work well enough and you can adjust the balance with your guitar controls.It will be much the same as using both inputs on a single channel where there's high and low sensitivity jacks like I mentioned. it will change the impedance loading on the instruments, but it will work. I wouldn't record that way, but it works.

yeah, well, amps are meant to be turned up until they sound thick. If a drive channel sounds thin it means you don't play loud enough OR you are secretly looking to join cradle of filth.... If you cannot often get the drive channel up loud enough for it to sound right then you need a smaller amp. 30 watts is LOUD, right? Now you get it. There's only a few dB difference between a 30 watter and 50 watter thru similarly efficient speaker cabs. 5 to 7 watts is effectively half as loud as 30 to 40 and 12 to 15 watts is half od 50 to 60. And the difference between 50 and 100 is negligible. Its more a feel-it sort of volume jump. A dimer 50 watt lead versus a dimes 100 watt superlead becomes a question of punchiness as the loudness is pretty similar.

did you spray the scratchy pot with some cleaner and give it a good 500 turns? If not I suggest assigning your 2 year old to turning, they are good for this sort of work.