Adventures in amp land

So it's been amp fest for me this week. Two and a half nights of playing my fingers off and annoying the neighbors.

I started out with the Peavey Triumph 60 and 1975 Fender Bassman Ten, one stacked on the other and both running hooked into my Marshall 4X10 (1965B).

That Triumph doesn't have what I'd call Fender cleans, but it's still pretty damn nice. Being able to switch between three channels is awfully fucking cool. Loves pedals, the crunch channel is quite versatile and dialable and the ultra channel is more gain than I typically use...which is great fun. Really glad I have this to fool around with, especially at the price I got it for.

The Bassman is simply not as loud as it should be. Given it has 2 6L6 tubes. I got to looking into that here at work and at home and figured out the replacement transformer is a 4ohm tap (only). So, all this time it's been running as a (more or less) 20 watt amp. No wonder! I don't have a cab wired for 4 ohms at the moment, and am thinking of getting a new Weber output tranformer for it. They're around $60 and would have 4 and 8 ohm taps (and maybe a 16 too).

My Cool Cat Drive came in and I've been messing with it the last two nights. It's pretty damn noisy with the Bassman, but quiet with everything else.(head scratcher) Regardless, I like it a lot and it's interesting to turn the gain all the way down, the volume all the way up and use it as a clean boost. I have a Transparent Overdrive (first gen.) on the way and am really looking forward to A/B them in that mode. Lots of gain on tap too if you push up the "Drive".

Then, last night I dug out my spare Silvertone 1484 head. It worked last time I played it a few months ago, but didn't seem loud enough then and I was nervous about a number of things. I've since found out the output transformer has a second tap at 8ohms that can be hooked up. I did that, replaced the kinda broken speaker jack and then put a better three prong power cord on it. It's as loud as it should be since the output and speaker cab impedances match up now.

I'd seen that Weber sells a replacement output transformer for these too and it's not very expensive, so I figured I might as well have some fun playing it till I get a chance to clean and do some recap work on it. If I blow something, it won't be a huge deal to fix it.

It was really acting up last night though and was making lots of scary noises...so I figured I'd fucked up somewhere or age and dirt finally got the best of it. In an attempt to start trouble shooting, I grabbed a chopstick and began whacking tubes to see what would happen. Damn...V1, the first gain stage 12AX7, made a shit ton of noise when I tapped it. It'd gone microphonic in a big way. No idea what kind of tube it is, can't see any markings, but all the others are original Silvertone tubes. I yanked it out and stuck a ElectroHarmonix in there I had laying around. Ding,ding,ding! No more noise at all!

God I love these (Twin Twelve) amps. I really like having a spare at home I can test pedals and guitars with. It's not exactly like my gigging amp, in part because I'm running it through the Celestion G10L-35 speakers instead of the old Jensens, which I think are much less efficient. I can hear the lack of speaker breakup at home. I also figured out my Vox footswitch will work with the Silvertone to turn the tremelo and reverb on and off. The reverb doesn't function on either one at the moment, but the trem does and sounds awesome! I'll have to come up with another footswitch I can add to my gigging equipment as I want to have one to use at home too. It's just a standard two button, stereo jack footswitch, lots of people make them.

This morning I ran my `74 Champ for a bit. It was acting up last week and I hadn't looked into why yet. It was acting up again this morning. Volume drops, sputtering, noise....I thought I'd try a new preamp tube since it still has the original. That didn't do anything....but while I was testing it, I heard some louder pops and cracks and noticed some faint wiffs of smoke coming from the input jacks! Holy SHIT!

I shut it down and pulled the chassis and took a look around. They place I bought it from had done some maintenance on it and in replacing the volume pot had done a shitty job soldering the lead to the input pin on V1. It looks like it's been variously shorting out and grounding out. I'll fix that next week and see if it corrects the problem. It had been working (and sounding) like a charm before this so I hope it's not too drastic. While in there I noticed it could use a retensioning of the tube sockets as well...

Here's a shot of the back of the Silvertone from the auction listing:

That's more like it.

I think it was three weeks ago now that I finished the `66 Corvette, but it may have just been two. I took a couple days to sand and polish the finish out. I started with 800 wet/dry and progressed through 1000, 1200, 1500 and finally 2000. I like using mineral spirits for the lubricant instead of water. Then I used my buffer with Maquires #1 & #2 polish it to a final shine. I'm very pleased with how this one came out, it has a great shine, the finish is quite thin and I have no sand throughs or significant flaws.

The pots and switch are new (CTS and Switchcraft), it's fitted with a treble bleed circuit and a TV Jones Powertron Plus. I kept the old guard and Grover tuners, but cut a new nut from bone. The bridge, of course, is the replacement Gotoh. It intonates perfectly, the frets feel great, and all in all it plays like a dream. Probably the best of all three of my `vettes.

About the only thing I may change is the pickup. I'm starting to really like the stock Gretsch Hi-Sens Filtertron in my Astro Jet. Much more so than the Powertrons in my other `vettes and the Powertron Plus in this one. The Filtertron doesn't have nearly as much of a humbucker character as these Powertrons do, and I find I prefer that. There is an edgey rudeness to the stock Filtertron and a lack of mids compared to the Powertrons that sound good in the mix with our band.

I think I'm going to experiment with some different pickups and may be switching all my Gretsches to what I find I like best. That could be a Hi-Sens Filtertron (essentially the factory stock Gretsch pickup), a Hot Rod Filtertron, a TV Jones Classic or a TV Jones Classic Plus. Those are my options, as I see things right now.

Click on the photo for the gallery of final pictures. No more refinishing projects this year as winter is almost here. I have a number of amp and pedal projects though, so I've got stuff to tinker with.

From 1966 Corvette finished