Fender Blues Deville – work on your tubes
I dug out my Fender Blues Deville amp the other day and played it on what I thought was full in the middle of my living room expecting the walls to come down, I was quite surprised to discover that a loud fart was the best sound I’d get out of this. This all opened a door for me to try some stuff Ive wanted to try for a while since reading and learning a little more from others how important tubes are to amps. A few discussions from my trusty amp tech at Tipton Amps and a little reading up from people at Music Radar and decided to work with some different tubes. A visit to HotRox and Tube Amp Doctor later, some cash has been splashed and time has fast forward I have new set of tubes and my spare set of Fender badged tubes.
My new tube array
This little bundle included a 6L6WGC-STR GE-Style black-plate premium matched pair and TAD 7025 highgrade selected valve pack from Tube Amp Doctor, some gold series 12AV7′s from Groove Tubes, and gold and black model 12AY7′s from Electro Harmonix, as well as the Fender branded (Groove Tubes I believe) Red valves. I first put the Fender Red’s in as a straight swap out, the volume came back and all was well, however I wanted to experiment. I normally do a slight mod swapping out the first pre-amp tube from a Electro Hamronix 12AY7, this really cleans up the clean sound and gives a lot more head room, it also warms up the sound a little for me. Instead of the 12AY7, I tried the groove tubes 12AV7, this warmed the amp sound up compared to the Fender tubes, and certainly gave more headroom, but the clipping it gave was a little harsher than the 12AV7′s. My next plan was to remove the second pre-amp tube and again replace it with a groove tube. This was done and it really made a positive different, cleaned up the sound massivly, and removed the clipping almost totally, but then when I drove the amp harder I got the clipping back, but it was much better much more full, but also still a little mid/tinny, almost like a cheap distortion pedal for the mid’s sound. Groove tubes to one side, I dumped in the Electro Harmonix black 12AY7′s in place of the two groove tubes, ahhh that’s more like it much much nicer, fuller sound, much deeper clean, warmer, and the clipping is very natural, I really had to drive the amp to get it to break up too. Very pleased with this, on my Blues Deluxe I use the Electro Harmonix gold 12AY7′s, as I’ve said on this blog before, I think I can hear a difference in them, slightly smoother, dropping out the mid and high end a little, and softening the bass side a bit, now that said I only think I can hear that, in that I’m looking for something different becaue thse are supposed to be different. I dumped the golds in and was happier with them, either because I’m nuts, or there is a slightly different sound to them. Now for more experimentation, for the phase valve I dropped the Fender out and put in the TAD 7025 not much different in terms of tone, but it really opened up the sound, made it sound a little louder and the speakers rang out so happy with that too. Now the big boys, the plan is to give myself so much clean head room that the pre-amp valves don’t muddy the sound, the power amp tubes do, so I dumped the Fenders again, and used the TAD 6L6WGC-STR’s. Perfect, it’s like a new amp, I’ve got a great clean Fender sounding amp, that I can drive really hard, and when it dirtys I’ve got a really natural and full driven sound that’s pretty much all created from the power amp, rather than pre amp. I’ve still got a few glitches with this amp which will require amp tech touches, such as the drive channel is slightly louder than the clean (never use the drive channel so it’s not a big deal, but I’d like to know if there is a problem) and as I’ve not used this amp for a while I want it to have a good good service
Reminder for myself what valves go where
Pink1 and 002BA Progress
Project Pink1 and 002BA (details on oo1BA here ) are underway. If you are aware of what the “black1″ is then this will make more sense to you. I made a prototype strat a while ago out of an old (80′s) Fender USA strabody and 40′th aniversay strat neck, with some custom wound pickups from Bare Knuckle Pickups. The project was to make a less harsh strat and experiment a little with sounds, setups and playability on the strat. it was a big sucess to me, and my guitar tech really liked it too as a strat, different from the norm and very playable. Taking what I learnt from that, with a bit more thought I decided to make a next generation model which for reasons which will become clear in a minute is called “pink1″. A big part of the features of the prototype partsocaster nick named MDJM was based on a sound from John Mayer’s custom shop stratocaster “black1″, and some of the parts for pink one have been taken from a John Mayer signature strat, in this case the neck. I pickedup a John Mayer 2009 Fender signature stratocaster neck for a snippet of the price, which has a nice C shape profile which I like on it. It’s currently had the laquer removed from it which I now do as a matter of personal taste, despite the think satin laquer on it. This neck has a nice African Rosewood board on it and the longer string tree placement, so should suit me perfectly and fix a few of the issues I had with the MDJM. The body has been found from a another 1982 alder stratocaster body which is a great lump of wood, and I’ve found a 1972 USA Fender trem unit. That’s where that currently sits at the moment.
001BA was a telecater project I wanted to build, initially I wanted it to come direct from Fender, or even the custom shop, but from what I wanted (telecater with a minibucker neck pickup and rosewood board) didn’t exist from Fender, and the custom shop price for these minor alternations was crazy high. 002BA is another telecater project in the same style, I wanted a slightly different sounding telecater and found the La Cabronita telecaster from the Fender custom shop, however this is £5000, and for what it is, well, it’s a lot of money. Plus I wanted a two pickup version rather than their standard one, so 002BA will be my own take on a custom shop telecaster and it certainly won’t cost £5000. Wroking with a luthier we’ve selected body wood (alder) and working out some template patterns for shape and layout. It’s very early yet, but it is moving.
Vomit stops music
I was supposed to meet a bass player and a drummer this weekend and was really looking forward to it, however since Thursday evening I’ve been feeling progressivly worse/sick, with what started out as a very minor cold to feeling like utter crap over the weekend. I’ve not been able to get in contact with either the guys I was supposed to meet up with, so I’m hopeful they are not annoyed and still keen to meet up to talk about playing. I think I’m over the worse of it now and coming out the other side, but I won’t know until tomorrow, thankfully it’s a short week this weekend and I can hopefully make ammends and do some music next week.
Slow moving band mates
I’ve had a few people to contact in the last week or so, and had some really good and positive exchanges over email, it’s been a slow process but I’m starting to move towards meeting people (my working situation makes it slow). Quite excited about a drummer I’ve had really good communication from and a singer songwriter who I don’t think will do “my” thing, but seems worth meeting up with, chatting more about doing something different, he seems keen and well structured in his approach. Had contact from a bass player who seems like a really nice lad, however I’m a bit worried about this as on research he’s a young guy, really young and I’m a fair bit older so I don’t think he’ll either want to play with me, or want to play the sort of thing I want to play (looks very emo) but that said lets find out, don’t know to you ask and meet up. Had some other responses too, but they have either been no-go from the start or taking a really long time to progress. It’s shocking how few people will talk to you without you sending them at least three tracks (and by the way if you are asking for tracks to be emailed to you STOP using yahoo and hotmail address that can’t take big files, get a proper email account, you want me to take you seriously yet you have a limited free email account called metal_maniac_238472394@freemail.com – it’s a two way street you know). What happened to the good old days, of meeting up, seeing if you where on the same page personally, then jamming, rather than expecting people starting a new project to have amazing quality recordings up front before people will talk to you. Most of the people I’ve met who have asked for these sort of pre-requisits have sucks as musicians, it’s the ones that are just keen to talk/meet/play any way that I’ve had the best response from (few exceptions to the rule if you’re one of the guys I’m meeting who asked for tapes).
(note just realised I called them “tapes” – I’ll not change that, but just keep it for ammusment of how things have changed. That was a genuine typo though. )
Studio vamp and a failure in time and history
Working away from home is taking it’s toll on my musical aspirations, I’m not far enough away to warrent taking a guitar up, but I’m not close enough to home to sit down beyond having a fiddle. I’m trying to make a forced effort to sit down and play beyond pleasure, but stuggling. A big part is my playing and recording environment, it’s been a mess for god knows how long and I’ve never quite been %100 happy with the layout and setup. The past few weekends, bar a few nights out I’ve taken to updating some of the gear and re-arranging my space. It’s %80 there, the gears bought, updated and in place, and it’s getting a much better and tider/spacious layout where a mic cable can be laid out without the fear of pulling every item of every shelf down, and it can stay there for longer than a few days. If this doesn’t make it easier for me to sit, play, write and record I don’t know what will.
I’ve had contact this week from a Bass player and a female singer, as well as follow ups from a guy doing his own recordings. Not much to say on them as it’s very early doors, but hopefully a meet up with them next week will be productive.
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- Cracking first practice with new band mates 3 hrs ago
- phew, almost had to call of our first practice together, found practice space at the last minute. Thanks POM studios </plug> 10 hrs ago
- @ElgeeLovers please confirm both you and @bradders made it out alive. in reply to ElgeeLovers 12 hrs ago
- @VodafoneUK it's not odd, I've made many posts on your forum about my poor experiences this last year, with no resolution responses. in reply to VodafoneUK 16 hrs ago
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