Every pedalboard must have one of these...

Any gigging guitarist will tell you that one of their major complaints is the amount of noise that's generated through their rig due to overhead lighting and other signal interferences. I've noticed that as soon as I turn on my compressor pedal or drive pedals that the noise floor increases exponentially. Heaven forbid I actually play a guitar equipped with single-coil pickups. Yikes! Well, I've found an awesome solution to this problem and I'm telling you, it really works!

The Decimator pedal really lives up to its name. Place this beauty last in your signal chain, or run it through your amps effects loop and listen to it clean up the noise. It only has one knob for adjusting the amount of noise reduction you need. I start with it set rather low, then I turn on all my noise-makers and adjust the knob until I can't hear any more hiss or buzz. I have found that setting the knob above 12 0'clock tends to 'squish' your sound and some single-note runs may not be translated properly. This is a problem inherent with all noise-reducing circuits. At low to moderate levels they work wonders, but the higher settings start to negatively affect your sound.

I've done pretty much everything I can to keep my rig isolated from the hum and buzz of overhead lights and such, but having the Decimator in my rig has really made a HUGE impact. The sound guys I work with must have thanked me 20 times for buying this pedal. If you have a noisy rig, do yourself a favor and check out this awesome pedal!

Bigger IS better...

It's pretty obvious to us guitar players that as we get older, at some point we simply must own a huge-ass hollowbody guitar replete with a Bigsby vibrato. (I'm sure that it's written in stone somewhere in the 10 commandments for guitar players ;)

Far be it from me to go against the grain, so I decided that I'd join the club and get myself this beautiful Gretsch 5120 Electrosonic from Guitar Center. I've always envied Brian Setzer's guitar and while this is not his signature model it still comes pretty close for about a quarter of the price. I've played quite a few hollow body electrics over the years but have always been disappointed with the ones in my price range. Who wouldn't love to have a Gibson reissue ES-335? But at $3k there are few of us who can afford 'em. At around $600 you can cruise down to your local GC and try the Gretsch on for size. I played this one through a reissue 59' Fender Bassman and I was simply stunned. The pickups really nail that vintage Filter-Tron sound. The more expensive models have the TV Jones pickups in them, but I've not had the opportunity to try them out side by side to compare tonal qualities.

I really dig the clear pickguard they put on this guitar and the setup was really pretty good. I've played Gibson's that are $2k+ that don't play or sound this good. Anyhow, this guitar is one cool Cat and I highly recommend checking one out when you have a chance.

Tone for days...

I'll never admit that there is such a thing as having too many speakers. And even though I needed another pair of speakers like a fish needs a bicycle, I just couldn't pass these beauties up.

I got an email from Brian Wampler at www.indyguitarist.com telling me about this company that was blowing out Celestion Vintage 30 clones for $21 each. Evidently he had purchased some and was astounded at the killer tone for such a cheap price. Of course, I had to hear this for myself so I found the auction on ebay that he had mentioned and I ordered a pair for myself.

The company, Warehouse Guitar Speakers (WGS), evidently started when the owner bought a warehouse full of Celestion clones that used the same soft parts (cones, etc...) as the pre-Chinese made Celestions. The speakers are brand new and still need to be broken in to sound their best, but now that I've heard them myself I'm totally blown away. I compared them in an A/B test against my 2x12" speaker cabinet loaded with an Eminence Red Fang and a Weber Blue Dog and I have to admit that while there is a tad bit less high end, the overall sound is much more pleasing to my ears. I totally did not expect this to be the case, I just figured that at $21/each I would have an extra set of speakers lying around in case I wanted to build another cabinet. Now I'm going to pull the Eminence and Weber out and replace them with the WGS V30 clones.

Anyhow, if any of you are thinking of upgrading the speakers in your amp or cabinet I would highly recommend checking these out.

Finally...

Well, I finally bit the bullet and got myself a true 'boutique' amp setup. I bought the handwired 1965 Marshall JTM 45 head from CeriaTone and had Reason: amps build me a head cabinet and matching Bluesbreaker-style 2x12" speaker cabinet in green with gold piping.

As you can see from the picture, the setup is rather easy on the eyes. I had considered ordering the head and speaker cabs in black tolex with white piping which is the status quo for Marshall amps, but I always like to be a bit different from the crowd so I went with the green tolex with gold piping. I'm considering replacing the CeriaTone badge with a retro-looking Marshall badge with block lettering, but I'm still undecided. The amp was manufactured by CeriaTone to the same specs as the 1965 Marshall JTM 45 schematics. The Marshall badge would be a nod to the designer, not the builder.

As for the sound.....it's awesome! I'm hoping to post some sound clips of this baby as soon as I figure out how ;) True to the original, this amp came with KT66 power tubes, a GZ34 rectifier tube and 3 ECC83's. The supplied KT66's were Shuguang and all the rest were JJ tubes. I replaced the KT66's with the newly released JJ Tubes KT66 and am pleased with the results. I have yet to try out EL34's or 6L6's but I will soon enough. I'll be posting some more pictures pretty soon of the chassis and wiring for those of you interested in amp porn ;)

Until then...

CeriaTone JTM45

Ok now, most gearheads will agree that the holy grail of amps is a 1950's Fender Tweed, a 1960's Marshall or the rarest of all amps, the Trainwreck or Dumble. These 'point-to-point' handwired amps are the epitome of craftsmanship as it pertains to tone. Very few amps these days are built the old-fashioned way, instead manufacturers have found they can save a ton of money by using PC boards instead of having the amps handwired. While PC boards afford a great amount of consistency from unit to unit, they also have some serious problems as well. Tube amps are famous for producing obscene amounts of heat which has a way of warping the epoxy which PC boards are made from. The traces are etched onto the board and can actually pop off over time as they are heated by the tubes. When this happens you pretty much have to buy a new board, which usually ends up costing as much as the whole amp. Bummer!

The few boutique amp manufacturers who are still handwiring their amps demand a pretty penny for their wares. Most of us working 'Joes' don't have $3k-8k to spend on a single amplifier. One of the latest crazes has been 'kit' manufacturers. Basically these small companies sell you kits with all the parts you need to handwire your own boutique amp. It's a great project for those with the know-how and the determination. The cost savings are incredible and the experience is priceless. But what if you aren't up for the task of wiring one of these complicated beasts? Well, there is a solution...

CeriaTone is a small amp kit company based in Malaysia who provide high-quality amp chassis, faceplates, transformers and all the parts you need to build your very own dream amp. They have made some of the most sought-after amp models available as do-it-yourself kits. Amps such as the 1959 Fender 5F6-A Bassman, the 1965 Marshall JTM45 and the Trainwreck Express. For a reasonable amount of money they will even build the amp for you and ship it to your door ready to fire up and scare the neighbors with. Nice!

Well, far be it for me to pass up an opportunity like this! I contacted Nik at CeriaTone about which amp he thought would suit my playing style. About 20 emails later I decided on the 1965 Marshall JTM45 which is Jim Marshall's variation of the 59' Fender Bassman amp; albeit with a British twist. Nik informed me that this amp has the reputation for having the sweetest clean channel known to man, but also has the ability to break up in a very musical way when pushed. Perfect!

Lead time on these amps is about 3-4 weeks on average. That should give me time to sell some of my other musical goodies to make room (read: cash) for this new addition. I am planning on ordering a custom head cabinet from Reason: Amps to house this beauty. The standard Tolex combinations for Marshall amps is either black, forest green or purple. Black is too common and purple is too psychedelic for my style so I'll be going with the forest green with gold piping and grill. It should look quite stunning with the gold plexi faceplate of the amp. I'd like to order one of their 2x12" speaker cabinets in the same color to complete the set, but that will have to wait a bit.

I got myself on the waiting list with Eurotubes for their new JJ KT66 power tubes which are expected to arrive the beginning of April. The original JTM 45 used the KT66's instead of the more common EL34's, but the KT66's have been out of production for long enough that the NOS supply is very limited. The sound of these tubes is supposed to be very rich and complex without the harshness that other tubes produce. Being that my style relies heavily on a nice warm clean sound I am planning on sticking with the KT66's.

I'm anxious for this new beauty to arrive. I have a limited experience playing through the high-end amps that are out there, mostly because I'm afraid that they will ruin my sense of 'content'. I remember playing through the Bogner Shiva head that RKS Guitars borrowed after the last NAMM show; I was quite disappointed with everything else after that. Last week I played one of the new limited edition Marshall handwired 1974x 18 watt amps at Guitar Center and was blown away. The sound was so different from what I've gotten used to with my budget tube amps. I guess it must be like driving a Ferrari after a lifetime of commuting in a Hyundai. The sound was so warm and organic; it really made the guitar sound like a living creature with a voice all its own. THAT is the sound I've been searching for. I'll keep you posted on the outcome when that baby finally arrives...

King of the Blues

In case you haven't heard, Guitar Center is putting on their annual 'King of the Blues' contest in hopes of discovering the newest blues virtuoso. It's open to all the GC stores in the lower 48. They accept 30 contestants per store who then battle it out for the rights to move on to the regional competition and eventually the finals . The prizes get better with every contest you win. The grand prize is a 2007 Ford Mustang, a year-long endorsement with Gibson guitars, $5,000 cash, a recording contract with Little Dog Records as well as some other cool stuff.

For those of us who missed the opportunity to enter the contest (I only just stumbled on the competition the other night when I stopped in at GC for some weekly gear-lusting) there is still an awesome prize for us too. Guitar Center recruited veteran producer and ace string-slinger Pete Anderson to write/produce the backing tracks for the competition. There are 22 tracks in every conceivable blues style from which to choose and they are offered either as a CD (only at GC stores) or as downloads from the KOTB website. The best part is that they are FREE!! Yup, now you can practice your blues licks while being accompanied by some of the best session players the world has to offer. Thanks Guitar Center!

Rock n' Roll: It does a body good...

This is Eddie Van Halen at age 52.

Need I say more...

How to cook a tube amp?

I recently read a great article on the Barber Electronics forum entitled "How to cook a tube amp". It describes how to use a clean boost pedal to "cook" the front end of your tube amp. A clean boost pedal provides up to 30dB of clean boost which drastically increases the touch-sensitivity of your amplifier's preamp section, making both clean, rhythm and lead sounds much fuller and more responsive.

Barber makes the Launch Pad specifically for this purpose (plus the added A/B switching capability). There are other pedals out there which do basically the same thing, such as the Fulltone Fat Boost, MXR Micro Amp or Jack Orman's Mini-booster pedal. I'm currently building a clone of the Mini-booster and am anxious to try it out.

While I was reading a review of clean boost pedals on the AMZ FX site I noticed that they listed the Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive as a great clean boost pedal. I own the Sparkle Drive and have used it as a high quality substitute for the Ibanez Tube Screamer, but I never thought to use it as a clean boost pedal. I'm always one to experiment with new ideas, so this weekend I was playing a gig with my trusty Fender Blues Deluxe and decided to try "cooking" the amp. I placed the Sparkle Drive at the end of my signal chain just before the amp and cranked the Clean and Volume knobs on the pedal (which disengages the Gain and Tone controls) and adjusted the amp's volume accordingly. WOW!! I was so amazed I almost lost my cookies. The touch sensitivity was unbelievable. I had a friend play my guitar while I felt the cone vibrations on my Eminence Red Fang speaker and I gotta say, it felt like a cat waiting to pounce. The amp was set dead clean with the volume around 2.5 and I could feel the speaker responding to his every move. Even if he wasn't playing notes, just sliding his hand lightly up and down the strings the speaker responded to every minute detail. This is what I've been looking for forever! Anyhow, I recommend that you give this a try as soon as you can. You'll be amazed at how different your amp sounds. Have fun...

The sound of Mississippi...

I've always been attracted to the sound of slide guitar and blues harp ever since I saw the movie "Crossroads" way back in the 80's. I'd never gotten any closer to "The South" than Las Vegas until I visited my wife's family in Biloxi, Mississippi a few years ago. I've got to tell you, it really changes you. The whole area feels, well.....old. I mean, here in California everything is bright, shiny and new, but in the south time seems to move so much slower. You can just tell by breathing the air and walking through the dirt that so many important things have happened there. The music of the south has a purpose much deeper than fame and fortune. History has been preserved and recounted, passed down from generation to generation through song. This is what draws me to the blues, bluegrass and folk music. It's storytelling at its best.

Anyhow, I've finally committed myself to learning to play slide guitar and blues harp. I found some great videos on YouTube of people teaching the basics and it inspired me. I bought a DVD by one of the posters, Ronnie Shellist, on how to learn blues harp (a.k.a. Mississippi Sax). I ran down to the local Guitar Center and picked up a Hohner Special 20 diatonic harp in the key of A and away I goes...

The DVD, entitled "Harmonica Foundations" takes a totally green beginner like myself and teaches you the in's and out's of blues harp. I've seen the Mel Bay books that try and teach you how to play 'Kum by Ya' on the harmonica, but that's not for me. I've only gotten through the first half of the hour-long DVD and already I've learned some very important things.

I'm a firm believer that if there is something you want to do or learn in this lifetime, you'd better get to doing it. Who knows how long you can put it off before it just slips away from you. I don't want to be a senile old fart pushing my walker around the halls of a hospice gumming my harmonica and playing nonsensical squeaks and honks. Damn! I wants to blow some HARP!! Yesssum...

Another great speaker...

I just received my new Eminence Red Fang 12" 8-ohm AlNiCo speaker and installed it in my Fender Blues Deluxe. I had recently swapped out the stock speaker for a Weber Blue Dog (see previous post) and was quite pleased. However, I've been really curious what difference there would be on the tone with an AlNiCo speaker instead of a ceramic magnet. The Red Fang is a 30-watt speaker compared to the 50-watt Blue Dog, so there will be some difference there as well.

First off I noticed that this speaker has much more bite than the Blue Dog and more pronounced bass and treble frequencies as well. The notes sound more rounded and warm with the Blue Dog, but still very good to my ears. I've only played the Red Fang for 2 hours so far, so I'm going to give it some time to get into my head so I can put the Weber back in and compare. I noticed that Eminence has a new sound clip page on their website of all their guitar speakers. They used a loop pedal to record 3 different guitar parts (clean, overdrive and heavy) and ran the loop through each of their speakers. It's a great way to hear the tonal differences of each speaker.

My Fender Blues Deluxe tends to be a very treble-heavy amp on its own, so the Blue Dog did a great job of taming the extended high end frequencies, but the Red Fang also lends itself well to this amp. Because the amp is a 40 watt all-tube amp and the Fang is only 30 watts the touch sensitivity is really there. I can hear every nuance of my playing with great clarity. It's especially nice at lower volume levels when you simply can't crank the amp up enough to get the speaker to move air.

So far I'm really impressed with the Red Fang, but I need to play with it awhile before I try the Blue Dog again. Either way I'm sure to have a winner. Next I'd like to try the Eminence Cannibis Rex hemp-cone speaker to compare yet another driver. Ahhh...the possibilities are endless (unlike my wallet).

Another 'Must-have' pedal

I've really simplified my rig these days. I've got a closet full of effects pedals, multi-effect processors like the Roland VG-88 and other miscellaneous toys. However, I'm finding that I can do so much more with fewer effects in my signal chain. Currently I'm running my guitar into the AWESOME Barber 'Tone Press' parallel compressor, then into a Seymour Duncan 'Twin Tube Classic' and finally into my Fender Blues Deluxe. The Tone Press is a true bypass parallel compressor which adds some nice clean boost as well as smooth compression without coloring your original tone. Most stompboxes tend to unnecessarily change your tone (known as 'tone-sucking') even when they aren't engaged. I notice this especially with my BOSS pedals and my Dunlop Cry Baby Wah. I'm all about the purity of tone now, so the old adage "less is more" is my current mantra.

I highly recommend that you give the Tone Press a try and see what it can do. BarberElectronics makes some really great pedals that are quite inexpensive compared to some of the more well-known brands such as Fulltone and Keeley. The Tone Press will run you around $140 direct from Barber, while the Keeley Compressor is $219. I can't imagine a pedal being built better than the Barber; they spare no expense on quality components. There are sound clips of a few of their pedals on the website if you want to hear them before buying.

Anyhow, that's my Rave for the day. C-ya...

Weber 12" Blue Dog ceramic speaker

I just installed a 12" 50-watt, 8-ohm Weber 'Blue Dog' Ceramic speaker in my 93' Fender Blues Deluxe to replace the stock Eminence 12" that came in it. The stock speaker was rather thin sounding, especially in the low to upper mid-range. The treble frequencies also had the unenviable 'ice-pick' highs which we all so love to hear (sarcasm, sarcasm...). I must say in Eminence's defense that they are indeed great speakers, you just have to have the right one to match the amp and tone that you are looking for. This speaker was clearly not the right one for me.

So, in goes the Weber and suddenly a silly grin appears on my face. The amp is now complete! I have obtained tonal Nirvana!...well, it was a great improvement anyhow. The amp is now much fuller sounding and the higher frequencies are no longer piercing. The addition of the rich middle frequencies have given the amp the sound that I have been looking for. It's not a Bogner or a Bad Cat, but for $500 for the amp I can say that I can finally live without spending the money on the aforementioned boutiques. The Weber sounds just as fabulous whether played clean or dirty. The notes bloom nicely and have a great natural compression now and the overdrive sounds have a nice, smooth, throaty growl. Being that this speaker has a ceramic magnet the clean headroom is quite high. I have yet to push the clean channel into speaker breakup, but I can attest that it will be a much higher volume level than I can comfortably stand in front of.

I spied this speaker on eBay and was able to win the auction for $84.00 including shipping. I have recently come to realize the vast importance of speakers in obtaining a good tone. I have spent years and lots of $$ trying out different stomp boxes, pickups, etc...searching for a particular tone. Until now I have ignored the importance of speakers. DUH! Oh well, better late than never, huh? I am interested in trying out some hemp-cone speakers and AlNiCo magnet speakers to see what benefit, if any, there is. Eminence makes an affordable hemp-cone speaker called the Cannibis Rex which sports the same hemp cone that Tone Tubby uses. It runs about $90 new compared to $140 for the Tone Tubby. I'm all for saving $50, right? Also, the Eminence Red Fang is a 30-watt AlNiCo speaker which is supposed to be similar to the Celestion AlNiCo Blue, but at $150 it's a hundred bucks cheaper than the Celestion. Sounds good to me!

I'll keep posting my little ditties and acquisitions in my quest for tone, but I think that short of building my own tube amp, I've gotten pretty close to what makes me happy. Hasta la bye bye for now...

Tube swapping (part 2)

While running rabidly through the endless nirvana that is the NAMM (north American music merchants) show I noticed some cool stuff at the Groove Tubes booth. The thing that interested me the most though was their new 'Substitubes' tube reducer sockets. Basically these little wonders allow you to run your class AB tube amp in an open-ended class A configuration by using EL84 tubes instead of 6L6, 6V6 or EL34s. This also greatly reduces the power of the amp, allowing you to crank it into power amp distortion without breaking the windows out of your house. Too cool! A duet of these babies will run you around $120 while a quartet is $240. Yikes! I decided to check out what eBay had to offer and noticed someone selling a nearly new quartet. My friend Dan offered to split the auction with me since we each only needed a duet of sockets, so I bid on them and won the auction for a whopping $88 including shipping.

I installed the Substitubes in my 93' Fender Blues Deluxe along with a matched duet of JJ brand EL84's. So, how did it sound? Well, it basically left me with no clean channel and the dirty channel was, well.....dirtier. Keep in mind that I was running all 12AX7 preamp tubes which are pretty high gain as well. So, I swapped in a 12AU7 (lower gain tube) in V1 which feeds the clean channel and voila! My clean channel was back. The volume was significantly reduced as well and I am now able to run it up to 5 without it blasting me out. I'm probably pulling around 18-22 watts out of this 40 watt amp.

I don't think that there is anything I can do about the anemic dirty channel in this amp (short of a major modification) so I will just have to focus on getting myself a really versatile pedal to do the job. As I mentioned in a previous post, the Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic is a perfect candidate for the job. I'm not looking for seething distortion, just some nice grit for rhythm playing and some smooth sustain for leads. To this amps defense I must admit that it makes every pedal I've ever put in front of it sound awesome. I've run pedals in front of other amps and they aren't nearly as pleasing as with this one.

For the next installment of 'Tube Swapping' I plan to try different preamp tubes to see what, if any, difference they make. Until then...

My Fave music store...

My friend Dan and I went to True Tone music in Santa Monica today to see what goodies they had for us to covet. Well, they pretty much had everything you could imagine and then some. I saw a wall of custom Bad Cat amplifiers and every stomp box known to man. Walls and walls of guitars and other cool things. Too bad they aren't closer to us!!

Cool guitars...

I stopped by the Reverend Guitar's booth at the 07' NAMM show and played a few of their guitars. I was blown away by how well they sounded and played, especially considering that most of them are in the sub-$500 range. I dig that they have that cool retro style about them...very hip. If I had more room and money I would get the Flatroc in Orange with the optional vibrato bar. Too cool...

Every guitarist must own this album...

If you've never heard The Allman Brother's 'Live at Fillmore East' album, then you need to grab yourself a clean pair of shorts and head down to your local record store. Trust me, you'll need that clean pair of BVD's when your hear Duane Allman and Dicky Betts trade solos on songs like "Mountain Jam", "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "You don't love Me/Soul Serenade". Actually, they just released a deluxe edition of "Eat a Peach" which has the entire original album remastered, plus some of the best cuts from the "Live at Fillmore East" concert of 1971. Totally worth getting...

Ahhh...success

Have you ever had that feeling of elation when you finally complete a really cool project? I've been swearing for years that someday I was gonna build a guitar speaker cabinet and when I was done it was gonna sound good.....really good.

Well, my buddy Brendon and I finally did it. We got to talking a few months ago about building our own 2x12" cabs and a few weeks ago we actually got off our butts and committed ourselves.

We drew up our plans and headed out to Home Depot to buy the necessary toys, er....uh...tools. We chose a couple of nice 4x8' sheets of 7-ply birch plywood and some 1" square stock to reinforce the inside corners. Originally we were planning on dadoing the speaker baffle in place and using double rabbet joints on all the corners, but we kept having trouble getting the whole router situation to work for us. Brendon inherited a nice router table and router, but the router only accepts 1/2" shank router bits and all we had were 1/4" shank bits in every possible shape. Also, the router table mounting plate won't allow us to use our Craftsman 1/4" routers. Grrrr... So, we threw up our hands and said "screw it". No, seriously, we decided to use screws and wood glue (you didn't really think we'd give up that easily did you??)

Anyhow, we got all the wood cut in one day and spent today assembling everything and wiring up the speakers. Brendon decided to buy a pair of Weber 12" 8ohm 30 watt ceramic magnet speakers (one Blue Dog and one Silver Bell) for his cabinet. He's running a highly modded 5-watt all tube Epiphone Valve Jr. amp (another one of our mischievous projects, more on that later) and wanted a cabinet that would be responsive to a lower wattage amp and yet sound punchy and full. Well, we were able to get his cabinet done today, but mine will have to wait until we get some more wood from Home Depot.

We couldn't believe it when we were able to actually plug in our newest creation and hear our handicap...uh handiwork. The speakers actually produced sound, and it was good. We both stood there with silly grins on our faces as we played every cheesy rendition of "Smoke on the Water" we could muster. Ahhh, good times, good times...

Tomorrow we will try and finish mine. Should only take a couple of hours since we have a better idea of what 'not' to do. All told, Brendon's cabinet cost him around $275-ish. Mine will be much cheaper since I'm going to reuse the Celestion Black Shadows I already have. We still have to buy the Tolex covering and grill cloth to finish the aesthetics on the cabs, but at least we can play through them in the meantime. I'm anxious to hear the difference that speakers make in identically designed cabinets. My speakers are rated at 90-watts at 8-ohms each with heavy dope on the surround, whereas the Weber's have light dope. We are wiring the speakers in parallel for a total load of 4-ohms.

We discovered a really awesome product made by Weber speakers, called 'Beam-blockers'. Basically, they are a dome shaped sound diffuser that is mounted in front of the speaker to disperse the high frequencies. We installed one in front of each of the speakers in Brendon's cabinet and they sound great. I'm planning on putting them in my cab as well.

I'll be posting some pics of the cabinets in a few days as well as some sound samples of the two A/B'd so you can hear the sonic differences.

Until then...

Tube swapping (part 1)

In my never ending quest for tone I decided to do a comparison of different tubes on my 93' Fender Blues Deluxe. It came stock with 6L6GC's which produce approximately 40 watts RMS @ 8ohms, but it was too much power for bedroom playing. As all tube amp lovers know, the amps sound their best when they're cranked up, but you can't always stand to be in the same room with 'em.

Anyhow, being that this amp was designed with a glaring flaw in it that prevents you from being able to bias it without having to change capacitor values, I used my bias-probe to check the bias with the generic tubes it came with to see where it was registering. It should have been around 38-42 mA to keep it idling properly and out of crossover distortion, however my reading was around 23mA! Waaaay too low. It was no wonder the poor thing sounded anemic. I ran out and bought a hotter duet of Groove Tubes 6L6GC's which biased at a more respectable 30 mA. Better, but the amp was still running too cold. (I have since purchased a do-it-yourself kit to allow me to bias the amp with the simple turn of a potentiometer, but that's another story...)

So, the GT tubes made the amp sound much better but I was pretty sure there was room for improvement. I scoured the Internet forums for some other possible solutions and discovered that by using 6V6 tubes you can lower the wattage of the amp by as much as 12 watts while still maintaining a respectable amount of clean headroom. With that in mind I ordered a re-tube kit from www.eurotubes.com and installed them in the amp to see what the difference would be.

The kit came with a matched duet of JJ 6V6 power tubes, a balanced JJ ECC 83s for v1, a hot JJ ECC 83s for the distortion channel in v2 and a standard JJ ECC83s for the clean channel in v3. I noticed right away that the volume knob was way less sensitive than before (a good thing) and I could turn the amp up to 3 before it blasted me out. The clean channel still had tons of headroom, but the dirty channel was still brittle and useless. Bummer. All said and done I was very pleased with the new power tubes. It comes in handy to swap the tubes based on what gig you're going to play. If I'm playing someplace where I need the extra power, then I drop in the 6L6GC's, but if I'm practicing at home or playing at church then the 6V6's are the way to go. I have yet to explore the myriad possibilities of swapping preamp tubes, but again, that's another story...

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment in my tube swapping adventures... (rolls eyes)

Gotta get this...

Well, after another maniacal trip through Guitar Center to twist every knob on every amp and pedal within my reach I finally found something that I actually can't live without. Honestly. It's the new Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic Overdrive/Distortion pedal which sells for around $190. This stomp box has two channels each powered by a 6021 minature vacuum tube with separate volume and gain controls. The only other controls are a master bass and treble control. Very simple, but effective. My friends Brendon and Dan went to the NAMM (North American Music Merchants) convention in Anaheim, CA last weekend with me and we saw the demo of this pedal at the SD booth and were pretty amazed. But, until you actually play one for yourself you never know whether or not it's as cool as it seems. I can honestly say that this little gem is waaaay better than I had expected. I'm currently playing my guitar through a 1993 Fender Blues Deluxe amp which has the most amazing clean channel, but the dirty channel is really anemic. It's really only suited for adding a bit of growl to your sound, which is great for blues, but if you're looking for true overdrive crunch or a smooth sustaining lead sound the dirty channel leaves you disappointed. So, with this in mind I tried out the new Twin Tube to see if it would bridge the gap in my sonic palette. All I can say is, WOW! It's so smooth and warm sounding and has the most effective tone controls I've ever encountered. The bass knob actually affects the type of gain the pedal creates, for instance if you back the bass control to around 9 o'clock you get a smooth Marshall JCM 800 type overdrive, whereas at 12 0'clock it becomes more Tweed-like and full on it gives the characteristic Mesa-Boogie growl. Truly a versatile pedal. I have yet to compare it to the Radial Tonebone Trimode Classic and the Fulltone Fulldrive 2. I'm anxious to see how they all compare to each other. Stay tuned for the results of the shootout!