Most Creative Use, Misuse or Abuse of an Amp?

[Old No7]

Some of the stories on the recent "Improvise, adapt, adapt, adapt..." posting that I'd start inspired this new thread...

 

What was you most creative use, misuse or abuse of an amp?

 

Here's mine.............

 

Back in the early 80's out at UMass Amherst, besides the Chopped M3 & Leslie 145, the Peavey PA speakers with mixer for the Crumar & Moog, I also had an old Ampeg guitar amp that was 250 or 300 watts that I used to use with an old Farfisa organ. We didn't use it all the time, but it was always available as a backup. Living in a fraternity, one day the president came to me and asked if I could "Help wake up the house at 7AM on a Saturday morning" as a full work day was planned, including scraping and painting the exterior, and all hands on deck would be needed. Getting 10% of the guys up at 7AM would have been tough enough on any Saturday -- as 20% probably weren't even home by that time...

 

Anyway, I had an old electric alarm clock that had one of those obnoxious alarm sounds (that ironically was probably based on the technology which led to the original Hammond organ tonewheels) -- that years before I had wired with a 1/4" output plug, so we could play music from the AM/FM radio through the amp. We sometimes used it outside for music, at reasonable volumes -- but never for the alarm itself. So the plan was made, the trap was set, and at exactly 7AM the next morning............

 

WWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The power amp'd alarm went off!!

 

I successfully work up the whole Pike house!

 

And the sorority next door, plus the one across the street!

 

And the four other frat houses and two private home in the immediate area!

 

And when the police showed up with sirens and blue lights flashing, I was told I "Woke up half the campus and town........."

 

Oh well...........

 

I got summonsed for Disturbing the Peace, which the president gladly paid because the work day was a huge success and we got the house painted. The cops did take the Ampeg amp away -- they really wanted to take all my gear, but after lifting the Leslie, they put it back down and made me promise to "Never do that again". I recall that I got the Ampeg back a few days later, but I had to go and fetch it.

 

But that was the craziest thing I'd ever done with an amp.

 

Old No7

[16251]

For many years while gigging I used two Roland KC100 amps.

 

They did come in handy when moving as I placed them sideways on a Rock n Roller for my keys.

[mate stubb]

I built a high powered leslie one time. It had a lower cabinet with 2 15" Gauss woofers (both with a rotor) plus an upper cabinet with a giant JBL 2482 driver. It was biamped with a Crown amplifier and a weird crude crossover built by Bob Heil.

 

It was monstrously loud. Until Jan Hammer blew it up.

[CEB]

Bob is a genius.

[Reezekeys]

For a few years my rig used a power amp I built from a kit. This was from a company called Southwest Technical Products Corporation. In the 1970s they produced a bunch of power amp kits and I built a few of them. This culminated in their "Tigersaurus" which was an ugly monster of a 250 watt amp. I was playing a gig in St. Croix USVI with this amp going to an old Fender Bassman cabinet I had installed JBL speakers into. I was driving this amp to thermal shutdown every night and the sound was kind of thin. To get through the gig I removed the perforated steel cover and set up a large fan to blow on it. The amp was on the floor next to the speaker cab. One night a bottle of beer I put on the cab did a little dance from the vibrations of the cab and sailed into the inside of the unprotected power amp neck side down. Needless to say the amp was done, but only for the night! I dried it out and cleaned out the residue of beer, replaced a fuse, and was back in business the next night.

 

The kicker is that I discovered I had wired the two 15" speakers in my cab out of phase! That was the entire reason for the thin sound and having to run the amp full tilt. As soon as I fixed that, this beast roared! It barely got warm and kicked serious ass. No more fan, and no more beer bottles on my speaker cab!

 

[Threadslayer]

I had a Tiger back in the 70s too but it wasn't as pretty as the one you had. It was open frame and survived all sorts of abuse at bar gigs.

 

[cassdad]

OK, I'll join in (Apologies for the long story! :-): My (small) high school had an auditorium where all students met at 8am before classes started every day, where the Principal would address everyone with the days' announcements, etc. ("Morning Assembly") This auditorium had a performance stage in the front, and on the floor in front of the stage was an old Hammond organ. The Hammond sound came out of 2 very large amps/speaker cabinets raised high in the air (almost to the ceiling) to the left and right sides of the stage. The PA system also fed these speakers (and was used daily for the Principal to address the school).

 

My buddy and I decided it would be a fun prank to record a loud toilet flush, and have it play back about ½ way through the Principal's morning address, and use the massive Hammond amps/speakers for this loud, gigantic toilet flush. (Boys will be boys, toilet humor!) These massive, high-powered (for those days) wall-sized amps / speaker cabinets would be perfect for the task! We would have the entire school roaring in laughter!

 

I recorded a toilet flush on a cassette tape (for those who remember what those were), and physically broke into the school late one night, and wired in a portable (junk) cassette player directly to the Hammond amp inputs. I left about a 10 minute leader pause on the tape before the flush. So, just before the morning address, I quickly went backstage, and hit the "play" button. My buddy and I sat nervously during the Principal's morning address, like children at Christmas time, waiting for the thunderous toilet flush.

 

Then nothing. Absolutely nothing. After the morning address was over, I went backstage - the cassette player and all the wiring was gone! I could not even believe it, could not make sense of it! My buddy and I were stumped as to who could have discovered it, no less remove it. I went hours through the school day consumed wondering what the heck had happened....

 

At lunch time that day, as usual, I went into the school band practice room to play piano and talk with the other band musicians per my usual practice..... In walks the school Music/Band Director, who by that time was a good friend, very kind to me in many ways, and was my main musical motivator at that time.... He directed me to meet him in his office..... where out of his lower left desk drawer, he pulled out the cassette player.... he said "I found this hooked to the organ / PA system this morning - do you know anything about it?!" I sheepishly replied that no, I knew nothing about it. To which he said that he was positive that I was the one who had hooked up this cassette player, as he knew of no one else who knew enough about how to do it.... so it must have been me. He wanted to know what I planned to use it for.... to which I steadfastly continued to profess my innocence. To this day, I have never figured out how he found that cassette player, or even knew to look for it. It remains an unsolved mystery!

[Reezekeys]

I had a Tiger back in the 70s too but it wasn't as pretty as the one you had. It was open frame and survived all sorts of abuse at bar gigs.

 

 

Ah yes, the "Universal Tiger"... I think I built two of these. Also the "Tiger .01" which was a later, slightly less powerful amp. Audio folk still speak approvingly of Dan Meyer's original Universal Tiger circuit design, saying it was ahead of its time. Thanks for the memories!

[mate stubb]

Speaking of power amps, anybody remember Phase Linear flames?

 

I played a NYE gig in a stone barn with marginal heating and even more marginal electricity. Our entire PA rack of Phase Linear amps caught on fire. It was quite a sight to see flames behind the VU meter windows.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

OldNo7, that is a terrific story. I wish I had anything like that in my rep (but I'm glad not to have it on my rap :wink: ).

 

For many years while gigging I used two Roland KC100 amps.

... so... running in stereo then?

 

I still have custody of the practice amp that came with my brother's Squier Strat at Christmas 2001 or thereabouts -- a Laney HardCore Max. You can imagine what it sounds like. Comes in handy for those "we just need it to make sound, who cares" rehearsals and such...

[area51recording]

It was monstrously loud. Until Jan Hammer blew it up.

 

Jan Hammer....to this day my all time favorite lead guitar player.....

[Pat Azzarello]

I built a high powered leslie one time. It had a lower cabinet with 2 15" Gauss woofers (both with a rotor) plus an upper cabinet with a giant JBL 2482 driver. It was biamped with a Crown amplifier and a weird crude crossover built by Bob Heil.

 

 

Would love to see a picture of that.

[elif]

Ah yes, the "Universal Tiger"... I think I built two of these. ...I too built a couple of those Tigers, and also the SWTP preamp. Those pieces and four large Advents were the heart of my system for years.

[KuruPrionz]

For a few years my rig used a power amp I built from a kit.

 

Speaking of power amps, anybody remember Phase Linear flames?

 

I played a NYE gig in a stone barn with marginal heating and even more marginal electricity. Our entire PA rack of Phase Linear amps caught on fire. It was quite a sight to see flames behind the VU meter windows.

 

Long ago and far away, I built a Heathkit power amp. It was rated at 200 watts per side @ 8 ohms and could be run at 4ohms. It had power capacitors the size of beer cans and a huge power transformer.

I also built a pair of 3 way PA speakers using Electro-Voice components - 15" woofers, midrange horns and tweeters. It didn't take long to blow the tweeters should have been crossed over higher. Overall, it sounded better than the Altec "Voice of the Cafeteria PAs with the column speakers.

 

My band was rehearsing one day and one speaker we used for practice went silent. I looked over and flames were belching 2 feet high out of the top of the amp. The left side was toast. I bought a new board and components from Heathkit, built it again and it worked I sold it, I don't know if it burst into flames again.

[elif]

Speaking of power amps, anybody remember Phase Linear flames?

 

I played a NYE gig in a stone barn with marginal heating and even more marginal electricity. Our entire PA rack of Phase Linear amps caught on fire. It was quite a sight to see flames behind the VU meter windows.

Thus the nickname 'round these parts, "Flame Linear."

 

Speaking of amp abuse, a local sound tech decided that the DC clamping circuit on the output of a Peavey CS800 power amp affected the sound in a bad way. I don't know the actual problem with them but he removed them from all his CS-800s. This was a Bad Thing. On a gig, one of his Peavey FH-1 folded W horns started smoking. A lot. He had to flip it on its back and run a garden hose in there to put out the fire!

[allan_evett]

My story falls under abuse of an amp. And it's not quite as convoluted as some of these posts, especially Old No7's headline. That one was like Animal House on Acid, and I loved it!

 

In the late 1980s to early 1990s I had a Marshall Keyboard Amp, model 8015. For clubs and such its sound carried well on stage; though as it was resonably portable (@45 lbs?) I also gigged it for private parties, corporate events, etc. Its preamp/mixer layout was similar to early Roland KC keyboard amps, though it sounded far better.

I was playing a wedding reception, and had returned to the stage for the final set with a cup of coffee - which was in a cup and saucer. Because the stage was very tight the cup and saucer ended up on top of my amp. During the opening song, which was uptempo and loud, I noticed that the cup was shaking and pouring coffee onto the saucer which was shimmying across the amp. By the end of the song I saw that a significant amount of coffee had poured into the vented top of the cabinet. I barely had time to throw a napkin on the mess before the bandleader counted off the next song, which was a Whitney Houston ballad that had a very 'exposed' 80's EP intro. My DX7 had never sounded quite like that; it was truly an 'underwater' effect. Upon hearing the burbling, crackling and popping, the bandleader gave me a memorable 'WTF' look; I just shrugged and kept playing.

 

The amp survived the ordeal, and after some external and interior cleaning looked and sounded almost new. I miss that cabinet.