jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

I'm out, said my bit, matsumoku type bridge

tell her a crazy engineer you know said YOU NEED A NEW AMP, A VOX TUBE AMP! if that's not strong enough I dunno... and tell the dealer that musicians never get the credit they deserve and they need to float you on the amp at the least.

man, this one closet classic juno, dude came down to $1500, so torn on it because its mint in appearance but not well tested.... and its full of dust apparently and the seller isn't making any effort to clean it up internally. Externally its cherry though.... tested and guaranteed to be basically functioning with no bad keys,but no other promises and it'll be a bitch to return the thing... decisions decisions

little change in strats until rosewood boards...

is it written in a magazine or quoted from an itnerview? Or is it written by some dude on a forum who was at a show in 83 and sort of remembers?

I didn't mean to sound like a dick.... so the brilliance switch, here's the dope on that. It was only on the earliest EF86 pentode preamp AC30s. Its a bright switch. It lifts one side of a treble bypass cap from a pot wired between 2 of the lugs. Its a treble bypass cap because it bypasses the resistance of the cap to ground sending all treble frequencies flying past the pot above the cutoff frequency of the cap. A small value adds sparkle etc. Bigger and you get a late superlead or JCM800 that's got a pile of upper mid flying by the pot to the enxt stage at low preamp volume settings. Its the same as a blackface fender bright cap, exactly the same, just a different value cap. Now the louder you set the volume control the lass it does because there's less resistance sending the other frequencies to ground, right? At 10 its effectively out of circuit depending on the quality of the pot. The top boost had this ahrdwired always on like a marshall or tweed fender's bright channel and it added another gain stage, a cathode follower and a treble and bass tonestack with mids reversed wired to lug 3 of the bass as before mentioned. Why they called it top boost I'll never know. THing is the brilliant channel is still brilliant because it has a fixed high apss built in between V1 and the phase inverter as a tiny coupling cap (1000pf to 500pf versus the normal channel's 0.1uf to 0.022uf... there were different voicings)... this takes out a lot of bass and the pwoer section amplifies a brighter sound. This may vary on new ones. I know my 90s korg and HW2X are pretty true to original normal voicing values but I've ehard the Customs and custom classics are revoiced with different values.

Anyway, what iw as saying is you will probably like the toen control channel a lot, that's all thenew ac10 has. No normal channel, no vibe/trem. The original version had pentode driven briloiant, no tone controls and a vibe trem. its to die for but it does one sound, AC10. There was also the head, the AC10 super reverb twin or SRT. That's more like the 'reissue'. If you don't love it I'll be surprised.

preamp tubes are self biasing (cathode biased), assuming you stay in the 127 family with correct pinout dual triodes with shared heaters at 12 volts you're good, and these are the most common preamp tubes.... there are piles of lesser known versions. Go to tube depot.com and look them up. Its worth buying one of each to try in your new amp as V1. Understand that as a 1 channel using an AU7 will take gain down substantially as there are cascading stages that sue both sections of the triode and you're halving gain 2 stages ina row.... A better choice is the lesser known 12DW7 which is half au7 and half ax7, although I forget which half is witch and don't know which hald is which stage in a new AC10 so its a crap shoot as to wether you get the au7 in the first stage or second or wherever (there's even a cathode follower stage in tehre as far as I know that lweors impendance to the tone stack using a whole triode as a unity gain impedance covnerter).... so with those concerns also consider an AT7 or a JAN 7025 or soemthing like that too.

In fact vox amps under 50 watts have always been self biasing even in the pwoer amp. They are cathode biased. Pop new tubes in and keep playing. The cathode bias is the source of the myths that they are also class A. they run clsoer to class A but are still push pull class AB amps. They are very similar in design to say a tweed deluxe.

jump on my gear porn page and look at my old girl.... that 62 has no tone controls, just the cut (labeled tone) that takes high end off globally... It has a hardwired treble bypass on the brilliant channel and bigger caps across the board. Nothing to set. not foreveryone but with me playing it with the right guitar into the right channel it eats other amps.

I'm not doing gear by year... its mostly goofy.... unless its a vintage guitar article where guys proudly date their old axes or soemthing like that its really hard to tell a vintage instrument's year or if its secretly a reissue. Custom shop guitars look mighty convincing these days unless you inspect them in hand and know what you're looking at. Amps by year should be right out. Many models didn't change at all for years in ANY way. Other amps like the marshall superlead might change all throughout the year in little ways due to parts availability etc

There are some items that just aren't going to get substantiated and should be made less specific by a certain date if they're not proven.

no, you're thinking of a treble booster or just the treble bypass cap maybe depending on value which varied... there's no top boost switch, its always on tone controls man. There's a treble rise at lwoer volumes with the bright cap but its treble and bass controls, vintage vox amps mostly didn't have them. mid 60s innovation, originally a rear panel dealer add on like my 1962 had before i ditched it. And that 'bright cap' ? its only active with the volume turned down on the channel, its just jumpered across pot lugs to create a high pass that goes past the shunt to ground.... so as you turn up it gets less and elss present, the boost isn't a fixed decibel voltage at all.

try a 12at7, or 12ay7, the au7 is a great tube and I've experimented with it too but electronically despite its lower output impedance and nice linearity it really lacks sufficient gain to drive the next stage in most guitar amps (some were designed for them... if you want lower gain AND a lower output imepdance for sparklier top end? AT7 is a better call electronically. An AU7 is typically making the phase inverter work too ahrd. Is a 12ax7 hotter than it needs to be for most guitars? SURE.... does it have assymetrical clipping characteristics and a garbage output impedance? yes.... the au7 though is too extreme the other way in circuits not optimized for it. That said if its your sound go for it. Now The AU7 makes an awesome phase inveter, aprticularly in smaller amps in a cathodyne configuration with V1a as a driver and V1b inverting ;-) If you want an amp designed for an AU7 and big, clean all the way up to 10 tube tone I'll make you one that's designed for that linear low mu triode and I'll make the gain up elsewhere while maintaining linearity (ef86 in front of a tonestack followed by an au7 as recovery and cathode follower into an ac coupled phase ivnerter come to mind).

With respect you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about here, you've confounded a slew of different features in your mind and that's easy to do when you don't know electronics, there's a million circuits with similar marketing names.

try the AC10 for sure, the enw ones are nice and more versatile than originals the tone controls are a plus, only one very rare ac10 head in the vintage line had treble and bass controls :-)

you don't actually know what the top boost circuit is LOL! Its just tone controls on the brilliant channel and depending on the era an additional bright or 'treble bypass' cap like the fender bright switch or marshall high treble input, the stock AC30 of the 50s and 60s had 1 global tone control in the power amp, phase splitter specifically, the treble and bass tone cotnrols are the top boost circuit as they have the classic FMV tonestack mid scoop unless you turn both down which is close to flat all thigns being equal. See, in this circuit the abss control is also reverse wired for mids so as bass goes down mids go up and the center of the mid band is set by the treble control as well as it setting treble attenuation. This is only on the 'brilliant' channel which has a big bass roll off between V1 and the stage that drives the tone controls via a tiny 500pf cap in the normal/topboost voiced models (there's treble and bass modal too). Anyway, they took this from the ac30 and added it to the ac10 SRT head in the later 60s. Then once korg bought vox they added the top boost channel toe verything. Trust me you will like it. Its more what you're used to. The other channel is very unique but its like it or lump it.

ac10, the new one is closest to the old AC10SRT model (not the ac10 2x10 model which is wya different other than the cabinet) and that's a great alla rounder at a reasonable wattage. I was pretty impressed with the current 10 copared to the chinese 15 and 30. At least the AC10 at one time came with top boost controls and no trem/vibrato in one iteration whereas there was never an ac15 with tone controls and it always had all tube vibe/trem like channel 3 of a real ac30, the new one is just a half power chinese 30TB, double bastardized... but I digress.

THe vox isn't a sexy peice of gear, but its going to eat your pathfinder for breakfast and do more for you as a musician. If you don't fall out of love with the little rpactice amp once yo spend time with the AC10 I'll eat the manual to my MOTO 828ES. That vox is a workhorse, studio as well as stage.

pardon my typing, my kid's hanging allover me.

nice... I started in '90 or 91 I think. Maybe 91? Anyway, give me a crusty old amp over even a vintage sinspired boutique. They don't make them like they used to. although a few british manufacturers get close if you want to overpay.

so in short, "I don't think thats it except maybe it is." Look I've been in the store in I think Olympia where kurt used to go for mods and stuff. Not sure if its still there but it was a real place that traded gear and modified stuff in that era and plenty of guys like King Buzzo went there for goods and services.

but yeah, the thing looks stock on further inspection... a stock what? well, think japan, the bridge is the same bridge as a washburn falcon. look it up. That guitar was made by matsumoko udner contract.... they also made aria.

I am a guitarist as well as a synthesist and yeah, I resemble that remark. I'm the reenactor with the actual 19th century springfield musket.

you make a point, its a golden age of gear in a way but I meant more that the majority of gear is looking backward.... got the modal yesterday and its pretty unique sounding but it still takes tried and true ideas and takes them to strange new places. The last time I played a really new and exciting isntrument it was software and it was a while ago. We're going through a greatest hits period with wavetable and FM finally making hardware comebacks... but what's next? When are they going to do something really innovative and make it a real isntrument I can hold in my hand?

I think the lack of limits and subversion is kind suppressing youngsters' creativity. I was a lot more creative when i was younger trying to do what I wanted with limited resources.... tape machines, ADATs etc. I got FL studio to replace a sampling drum machine because I couldn't afford one. It was fruity loops then. I manually cycled trough the 9 playlist patterns as needed while recording out of my wim95 PC to tape or adat (and briefly high density mini disc. Its so much easier and 'better' now. My workflow is so streamlined now that I seldom need to create a workaround and then I seldom do anything really weird with my gear like the way I would make workarounds as a teen.

on the argon8, its very much like a hardware serum or massive wih a few limits due to being hardware but really nice sound quality fitlerwise... and fun to work with.... there's just no satisfaction twiddling with massive or serum despite their sound quality. And while NIs filters tend to sound decent, I find serum's to be just tolerable. Not wet farts and angry robotic bees likefreeware, Helm for isntance, but as digital fitlers go its not a knock on UHe's or like a virus or this fella. Hell I think my 90s yamaha boards have better sounding filters than serum. It would be cool WITHOUT the filter honestly. That said I'm still figuring out how to change the fitler models in the argon, its pretty complicated even with a knob laden front panel.

its probably a japanese strat knockoff modified for a humbucker... he was well known to like cheap strats and he would take them to have a dimarzios isntalled at a store in seattle before he had a tech

the bridge actually looks like the bridge on my washburn falcon.... maybe a Lyon by washburn of some sort, they did strat types I think, definitely made lots of pointy, poodle metal shredder guitars for beginners

well, he had to chew the glass bottle, not drink it, but he drank te contents first and then ate the bottle, yeah

HA! the Tannoys are from the same era, those are 90s k1 PBMs, not the 00's mk2s

they haven't improved on music a whole lot since the heady days of techno and EBM and stuff. And only SOME gear has been improved, MA8s can't be improved, the better edirol version sounds too good, the 90s ones are whats pup, if you make it sound good on them they sound good on ANYTHING

I think I bought both the tannoys and edirols new around 98... or scratch that I got the tannoys from someone I worked with, second hand

You know, it is pretty shameful that they would add Vodka to Till Lindemann, but not add Jack Daniel's to Lemmy's page...

I mean... Pretty sure Lemmy was something like 33% Jack, 33% Coke, and 33% Nicotine. So I don't know that'd be equipment so much as just part of his DNA?

I'm not sure there was much coke in there... but still, like Keef the substances aren't equipment at all. I mean, Keef probably can't ever pass a drug screening ebcause he's still peeing undiluted cocain from the 70s

https://postimg.cc/fSD2JTYK

1st wave

Some long time gear

Also, do you feel like you'll eventually need a sub for the new 6" JBLs (yay, I always really like Harman's JBL offerings), or are they covering enough of the sub bass range as-is?

I'm cool with 6.5 to 7 inch, ns10 and pbm 6.5 man but I also have a 4 sytem setup with 3 way yamahas, 10" woofers, 4 inch mids, no porting on a good amp :-) I dislike subs

Glad to hear you're staying financially buoyant in these rough waters.

hope you are too, I had roughpatch in june but made it through

a nd yeah, I'm a 40yearold studio rat turned social worker.... I've worked in some nice joints back in the day and on a couple major label records as the house engineer/assistant

just got the bulk of the packages today

need to upload pics to imgur but going to the beach with my best friend's wife and kids tomorrow.

I sue those piano key ones to mark up scores when I'm arranging other people's music LOL

and hylighters to color code the ranges on a piano score to break things up in string and horn registers.... so I should put those on my equipboard

Equipboard. https://equipboard.com/pros/tom-morello/pencil

Turns out it's kinda difficult to come up with a hard rule or guideline for what's appropriate on Equipboard.

I have coins on my equipboard as pelctrums and shit I made myself, we can't be too confined to intended usage or commercial availability. I recently did the westworld score cnotest with priceley synths but also a plastic toy moana uke my sone got as a party favor a few yeas ago. And I played it with an oddball wood pick I think or maybe a piece of emtal, not sure which takes went in the final mixdown.

I also played some toy drums with spoons.

its funny but even for writing the dixon pencils now actually do break more!

okay... here we go:

DELL XPS mac slayer laptop, i9, 64g ram, tb ssd etc etc (need to be portable to communal studio if I want to use it there)

cooling pad for it

MOTO 828es main interface, thudnerbolt of course but with ethernet AVB capabilities for expansion with microseconds latency with other motu products as well as adat/smux inputs up to 8 at 96k, whoa

focusrite clarett octopre (on layaway, haven't paid it yet because I don't need it right away, but I want it for the extra 8 line outs as much as the preamps)

also on the agenda is a motorized fader setup, probably a presonus faderport but I'm still considering it before pulling the trigger. I'm really looking to buy used... but I've also considered the softube console format too.

jbl LSR306p mk ii powered monitors, retiring the events on powered duty, too directional for doing mainly DI synth work... I'm still going to be running my Tannoy PBMs or NS10Ms though as my main mix monitors, love them, used to them. And a set of 3 way nonported passives too. But those aren't new.

I also decided to try a samson servo 120 for the tannoy/yamaha setup as my current poweramps are hifi amps or more PA oriented and people rave about the servo as bang for buck.

When I pull the trigger on the octopre I am considering adding a warm audio bus comp and either a pheonix or dangerous 16 channel summing mixer to try out. I've never done hybrid mixing like that and want to see if I prefer to ITB or if its just psychoacoustic, but its a steep buy in if I'm not impressed. I KNOW I prefer a console not just for workflow but punchy great soundstaging... but there's so much more to a console than the summing. I'm torn and decided to old off. Also seeing whatthe government is up to... I'm home with my gear until january unless my employer suddenly decides to reopen so depending on what I'm making per week my budget may vary as I refuse to spend savings. In fact I'm increasing it despite my spending. It was a rocky start, but in the end turned out very well for me financially.

if I ahd a big enough windfall I would get fancy and buy one of the smaller format no preamp SSL mixers with automation.

agreed... whenever I wear a goofy hat I make millions! Its a legit piece of gear.

So much wisdom there! Can't quote it all...

Jim, does the prophet2k bring joy and strength to this relationship, or is it one more dependent to tend to?

the answer is its a PITA with a mediocre keybed but once I get it going it brings a smile to my face most of the time. For what i could flip it for in good shape I could get plenty of easier things. Its a tough one and as I redo my home studio this month bit by bit space will also play an issue. I'm in a terrible space crunch as my museum grows nonstop.

she's cute, yeah.... always helps

the content bit is very important too

(for Mary Spender, this is particularly easy, as she's a YouTuber).

her name is really a bit of a misnomer since she gets so many demo units.... not that I can tlak, but my nameisn't spender and I just dropped some pretty serious loot redoing the home studio this week

As much as I love the proph2k it might go out, it needs a USB drive, floppies are awful.... load time is ridonculous.... with stock waveforms its like a stiff proph600 and I have one.... Its more of a wave memory synth that you customize the waveforms at a whopping 16 bits LOL! I might sell it. I'm seriously debating the prophet X for ahrdware sampling. Go modern. Although I fear I won't be able tog et those amazing timestretch sounds from low sample rates on longer samples. Filter probably sounds the same though.

you may be right, my experience with them is nil, I just know someone who has one that's seldom if ever turned on LOL

I just got distracted, modal is sending me and argon8m to keep! sound design time! HAHAHAHA but maybe its a good time to scoop this when I'm rolling in loot from spending on nothing but bills

Nothing beats free new synth. That's awesome! Maybe it's a sign to just hunker down and learn the Argon8m for awhile? Maybe this Juno 6 is cursed? (probalby not).. but free synth... damn. Enjoy that!

Did you beta test for Modal? You have dirt on them? What happened there?

I'm realtively new to their family. This is the second modal product coming my way to tinker around with. not sure if they want somepatches. It won't be mint condition, I think its a refurbed beta test model or soemthing, but whatever. I don't want to talk about the previous experience. THe mid sized keyaboards been around for a good 6 onths now but the odule and the big keyboard were on hold for awhile. I thnk the synth engine is the same on all of them. We'll see what its all about. Its a big all digital synth with an overtly digital sound, which is interesting.

austin guy? do you happen to know Donal Mohr, Get Off My Lawn Record, ex of austin?

I'm an eastern los angeles guy. I've only spent time in Austin once in my life, sadly. Great city. I was referring to Equipboard HQ, listed as Autsin, TX.

derp... I somehow forgot about Michael and Giullio

got a bead on a minty closet time capsule juno6 right now. $1700 USD on ebay. Negotiating. Seems like it just eneds the sliders cleaned well.

That's awesome! My earlier opinions re: sliders still stands: budget for replacing sliders, and be pleasantly surprised/grateful if cleaning fully revives smooth/consitent performance for any of them... but if sliders are the only issue, it'll likely give another 40 years of service no sweat.

Godspeed!

I just got distracted, modal is sending me and argon8m to keep! sound design time! HAHAHAHA but maybe its a good time to scoop this when I'm rolling in loot from spending on nothing but bills

I'm widowed, I have a son but fear keeps the local children in line... just gotta love up my gearz.

I'm so sorry to hear that, Jim.

thanks for your sympathy, its been so long now and we weren't getting along and separated for a few konths prior, my one feeling is a bit of guilt about winning the child custody battle but I tolf ehr she would lose and offered to settle well ebfore her demise so.... its like half guilt half regret that i married such a stubborn hardhead, love her though I did

but you can't do the draw on it fairlight trick, right?

I disapprove of these gods of whom you speak

austin guy? do you happen to know Donal Mohr, Get Off My Lawn Record, ex of austin?

got a bead on a minty closet time capsule juno6 right now. $1700 USD on ebay. Negotiating. Seems like it just eneds the sliders cleaned well.

I'm widowed, I have a son but fear keeps the local children in line... just gotta love up my gearz.