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Duh Moment for Someone Who Should Know Better


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Despite my long-time editorship at GUITAR PLAYER, I'm fairly tech-stupid when it comes to my own gear. Case in point: I've never changed the tubes in any of my amps. Until now...

 

My Vox AC15C1 has been a workhorse and a true warrior throughout years of gigging. I simply plug in and tone happens. So I was embarrassed when my band performed at a big club in a hotel, and my sound was thin and tinny and just kinda awful. It was a quick staging change-over, so I convinced myself that I might have foisted some "operator error" thing under fire, and screwed the tone with amp settings, or pedal stuff, or even a cranky guitar.

 

Then, I got a huge show opening for X and Los Straitjackets at a theater, and during the soundcheck I realized what an utter dumb ass I am. The horrid thin tone was still there. I tried to adjust everything in sight, but the sound was like railroad ties being clanged together. I set my Gretsch hollowbody to the neck pickup, plugged into the Normal channel of the AC15, and set the EQ for maximum treble and midrange roll-off. The sound still frightened the crap out of me, but I survived the gig, and I don't think the audience noticed anything awful or suspicious. (This is one of those moments when you are super grateful to have a co-guitarist in the band!)

 

After the show, I was shamed â by the aforementioned co-guitarist â to do something I had never done before: Buy matching sets of preamp and power tubes and change out every tube in the amp.

 

No surprise hereâthat worked like a dream. All of the tone came back: The lush chime, the impactful overdrive, the awesome feedback/sustain, and the glorious attack.

 

I stood there with my guitar in my hands and thought, "Thank you, Santa Claus, for showing me that I'm an idiot so that this never happens to me again!"

 

Happy Holidays to everyone in the forum!!!!

 

Cheers,

Mike

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Way back when, I bought a Mesa Boogie MkIII head with Simul-Class and EQ. Drove down to the Boogie store in LA since our local dealer in Fresno did not have one.

Started playing with it and it would sputter and spit every now and then or the volume would drop and come back up.

 

The local store contacted Mesa, who advised checking the tubes. Back then, Mesa sold only tested tubes that were Made in the USA. The preamp tubes that tested the best were given a shrink wrap on the exterior to reduce microphonics and labelled SPXA7. I had a good friend who worked at the local store and one at time, we replaced all of the preamp tubes with SPAX7 tubes. You'd play hell to get those now!!!

 

The problem persisted. I made an appointment and drove to Mesa in Petaluma. Mike Benadelli was there and he took my head in the back. After some time putzing around and looking at the Mesa "museum" (gigantic tube PA for Country Joe and the Fish, an early amp for Carlos Santana and smashed Schecter Tele from Pete Townshend come to mind...), Mike B came up front and said he couldn't find anything wrong with the amp. They were ready to give me a brand new head identical to mine, in white. While they were looking to see if they had a black one, Mike B came out and took me back to his bench. He'd found a cold solder joint on an output tube socket, fixed it and wanted to show me the "hammer test" for reassurance.

 

With the amp hooked up with a signal generator and an oscilloscope, Mike took a ball peen hammer and struck around the edges of the amp chassis vigorously. The trace on the scope held firm, the amp passed the hammer test. He put it back together and I drove home.

 

Great amp, I loved it. A few months later I was at a gig, turned the amp on for sound check, all was well. Went up to play and it died on the first note - silence. Borrowed the other bands GK guitar amp, a nasty sounding piece of crap but it worked. It took me almost half an hour at home swapping tubes to find that V1, the first SPAX7 in the signal chain, had died. I used the amp with no problems for a couple of years.

That was the first of nine Mesas. I've also owned 3 vintage Fender tweed amps, a couple of Supros, an old Gibson, a Danelectro/Silvertone, a couple of Kays, a Fender Concert II, an Allen Accomplice and a Red Plate Blues Machine. I currently own 2 "clones", one a converted Hammond organ amp - 5D3 clone and one a converted hi fi - now a clone of the Top Cut channel of an original Vox AC15 with an EF86 preamp tube.

 

I've had other tube related problems, will skip forward. Two years ago New Years Eve I took my lovely Red Plate Blues Machine that I had been gigging regularly to the gig. Fired it up for sound check and it was feeble and crappy sounding. I made it through the gig, rebiased the tubes at home and it sounded good.

 

I've never gigged with a tube amp again. Tubes are not reliable and I NEED reliable. I gigged with a Peavey Transtube Red Stripe Studio Pro 112 for a while and then had an opportunity on a deal for a Boss Katana 100 Combo and the six button footswitch. That's my gigger now, very reliable so far and once I learned how to dial it in I don't miss tubes at all.

 

If I was going to gig with tubes I would get a Tech 21 Charactor pedal, as close to the amp I was using, and put it in my gig bag for backup. I wouldn't even trust a backup tube amp anymore, done.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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@KuruPrionz , Wow Mike Benadelli I know Mike from when I was at the Boogie Shop in Petaluma. I do not remember what I was there for or which of my long gone Boogies, but he fixed it. Later on I sold him some PA gear I had at that time, as he also had a sound reinforcement company and he rented/supplied PA gear for live concerts. Over time I became a friend of his and stopped by the shop to visit with him whenever I was in Northern Ca. It has been a long time since I heard that name. It was in the late 80's when all that happened.

 

@ GuardiansGuitar Tube swaps are so easy, I always change my tubes myself, and have been doing so since I started playing guitar in the middle 1960's

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Despite my long-time editorship at GUITAR PLAYER, I'm fairly tech-stupid when it comes to my own gear. Case in point: I've never changed the tubes in any of my amps. Until now...

 

...I was shamed â by the aforementioned co-guitarist â to do something I had never done before: Buy matching sets of preamp and power tubes and change out every tube in the amp.

 

No surprise hereâthat worked like a dream. All of the tone came back: The lush chime, the impactful overdrive, the awesome feedback/sustain, and the glorious attack.

Excellent! Hey, I want to HIGHLY recommend Doug's Tubes for future such tube-purchases; tell Doug what amp you're getting tubes for and what guitar and pickups you're plugging into it, and your wants and needs in tone, response, feel, clean vs dirty, etc. He'll select the PERFECT tubes for you. Myles Rose, formerly Head of the Special Applications Group at Groove Tubes and GT Electronics, also associated with 65 Amps, recommended Doug to me, and I've been exceedingly happy with Doug's services. And if you don't know already, ALWAYS replace the Driver/Phase-Inverter Tube (that drives the Output/Power Tubes) at the same time as replacing the Output/Power Tubes; and with many tube-amps, that should be a "Matched"/"Balanced" Tube for that application- though if memory serves, I believe that isn't necessary with your Vox, that varies with the circuit-design. It made a night-and-day difference for my beloved Carvin Vintage 33!

 

...I got a huge show opening for X and Los Straitjackets...

That ROCKS! Congratulations! You must've been stoked- that is, unless being the jet-setting Rock Guitar cognoscenti and former GP Ed that you are, you've become a bit blasé and jaded about such mundanities... ;)

 

Happy Holidays to everyone in the forum!!!!

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

Thanks, and echoed right back atcha, Mike!

Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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@KuruPrionz , Wow Mike Benadelli I know Mike from when I was at the Boogie Shop in Petaluma. I do not remember what I was there for or which of my long gone Boogies, but he fixed it. Later on I sold him some PA gear I had at that time, as he also had a sound reinforcement company and he rented/supplied PA gear for live concerts. Over time I became a friend of his and stopped by the shop to visit with him whenever I was in Northern Ca. It has been a long time since I heard that name. It was in the late 80's when all that happened.

 

@ GuardiansGuitar Tube swaps are so easy, I always change my tubes myself, and have been doing so since I started playing guitar in the middle 1960's

 

Very cool story DBM! I didn't spend much time with Mike B but he was very nice and a straight up guy. I admire that he kept at the amp until he found the problem.

 

He fixed it. Boogies are great amps, I had a MkIII head, a .22 Caliber 1-12, Maverick 1-12, Blue Ange 1-12, Subway Rocket 1-10, Subway Blues 1-10 (two of these), DC5 1-12 and Express 5:25 1-10.

As you can see, I am a combo guy.

 

I am phobic about mini-switches - they are fragile. So I kinda prefer the simpler, older amps. I probably played the most gigs with the Maverick, never took the DC-5 out even for a jam. It was insanely loud.

The Subway Blues is a fun amp if you can find space to turn it up a bit.

 

Now my amps are much lighter. My load is lighter too, I've gone all-in on built in effects. Fewer cords is fewer problems and shorter set up times. My "pedalboard" is super simple and offers more than my real pedal board did in a much smaller space.

 

The thing I think people don't get about using the SS amps is that they've really gone to lengths to emulate tube amp behavior but you won't get that output saturation tone unless you dial back the power.

I run my Katana in the 1/2 of one watt mode. Yes, .5 of a watt. Then I can turn the Master volume up to noon or so without being insanely loud. It starts to really "feel" like I'm playing with tubes at that point.

If you put it on 50 or 100 watts, you will know your are playing solid state for sure.

 

The same thing happens when I dial my Peavey Vypry VIP 3 down to 1 watt, it really sounds much better that way. Enough that most of us would be fooled if it was behind a screen.

 

It's not like I haven't spent 40 years playing tube amps...

 

Happy Holidays to ALL! Kuru

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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After the show, I was shamed â by the aforementioned co-guitarist â to do something I had never done before: Buy matching sets of preamp and power tubes and change out every tube in the amp.

 

No surprise hereâthat worked like a dream. All of the tone came back: The lush chime, the impactful overdrive, the awesome feedback/sustain, and the glorious attack.

 

I stood there with my guitar in my hands and thought, "Thank you, Santa Claus, for showing me that I'm an idiot so that this never happens to me again!"

 

Happy Holidays to everyone in the forum!!!!

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

It's always nice to have a fresh set of tubes. I never had any problems with my Fender tube amps. I did check my tubes on my buddies stingy tube checker once a year back in my gigging days when bouncing my amp over bumpy roads. I always made sure the tubes were in their sockets before firing up after loading and unloading. I also checked the tubes anytime I heard any changes in power, tone, etc. as that's the beauty of having tubes. Most problems can be solved without having to go to the shop. I always ordered my power tubes in matched sets and had the bias checked anytime I changed them. The pre-amp tubes could be replaced without a bias check.

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our forumites and have a Happy and safe New Years celebration! :2thu:

 

Take care, Larryz
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Not an Amp & Tube issue, but one of the sillier and more obvious mistakes I'd made in the past year or so was with a Delay pedal.

 

The I/O jacks were on top, and there was an EXP In on the side, so of course, during one hurried sound check, out of habit I plugged my Amp cable into the EXP jack, instead of the Out jack, and then stopped for a minute, wondering what had happened to my sound. Once I realized my mistake and changed the connections, the rest of the evening went well, although the EXP control never quite worked the same after that . . .

 

All the best to everyone here, whatever you're celebrating this week!

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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Not an Amp & Tube issue, but one of the sillier and more obvious mistakes I'd made in the past year or so was with a Delay pedal.

 

The I/O jacks were on top, and there was an EXP In on the side, so of course, during one hurried sound check, out of habit I plugged my Amp cable into the EXP jack, instead of the Out jack, and then stopped for a minute, wondering what had happened to my sound. Once I realized my mistake and changed the connections, the rest of the evening went well, although the EXP control never quite worked the same after that . . .

 

All the best to everyone here, whatever you're celebrating this week!

 

I've had those "duih" moments too!

One gig I was trying to get my amp to channel switch. It needs to be set on the front of the amp to Lead for the footswitch to work.

I figured it out eventually... me am not smart!!!!

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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