Ep. 135: "Liquor, Candy, Model Airplane Magazines..."

Summary

Episode Summary: The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons - Ep. 135: "Liquor, Candy, Model Airplane Magazines..."

Release Date: June 26, 2024

In the 135th episode of The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons, hosted by The Fretboard Journal, Skip Simmons delves into a variety of engaging topics ranging from community stories and event updates to intricate discussions on vintage amp restoration and collecting. This episode, aptly titled "Liquor, Candy, Model Airplane Magazines...", offers a blend of insightful conversations, listener interactions, and useful advice for guitar enthusiasts and amp aficionados alike.

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1. Celebrating Fretboard Journal and Community Vibes

The episode kicks off with Skip and host Jason sharing their excitement about the budding popularity of the Fretboard Journal. Jason mentions a new copy opening up in Nashville, signaling the magazine's expanding reach.

Notable Quote:

[00:29] Skip: "Fretboard Journal content is different. It isn't just a bunch of advertisements stuck together and called an article. And that's one of the things that you did that I know you're never going to change. And that's why people save them. That's why they're such a good reference."

This appreciation underscores the magazine's commitment to quality content, distinguishing it from typical guitar publications cluttered with advertisements.

Skip also shares a heartwarming story about his old bandmate, Tim, who performed an impromptu rendition of "American Pie" during an evening gig in Winters, California. This spontaneous performance not only revived the spirit of the event but also fostered a sense of community and nostalgia among the attendees.

Notable Quote:

[03:20] Jason: "I thought you were going to say that person was someone famous."

[03:24] Skip: "It was just. It was just... such a break from, well, you know, the rest of the world. It's like he said it was really cool and really hopeful."

This anecdote exemplifies the unexpected moments that bring communities together, highlighting the enduring impact of music.

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2. Fretboard Summit: Excitement and Announcements

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to updates about the upcoming Fretboard Summit, scheduled for August 23rd to 25th, 2024, in Chicago at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Jason enthusiastically promotes the event, detailing the array of participants and sponsors, including Eric Coleman of Stumac fame, Chris Benson, Eli from Two Rock, Emerald City, Creston Lee of Creston Guitars, and many more.

Notable Quote:

[09:40] Skip: "Well, Kevin brought my stuff, which was pretty groovy. I mean, he had the Tweed Deluxes and yeah, all that stuff, but he blew some minds with some of the PA heads."

The Summit promises an unparalleled experience with more electric gear than ever before, thanks to Eric Coleman stepping in for Kevin from Ohio. The event aims to cater not only to those looking to purchase equipment but also to attendees interested in learning, networking, and enjoying live performances.

Notable Quote:

[12:04] Jason: "It's not a $20 admission for all three days... it's a pretty exclusive event, and that's just kind of the nature of how it all pencils out. So you pay a little bit more up front, and then you get everything included and you get to have a blast. And it feels like a big family reunion."

Participants are encouraged to register early to secure their spots, with Jason emphasizing the uniqueness and exclusivity of the event, ensuring a personalized and enriching experience for all attendees.

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3. Listener Contributions: Stories, Recipes, and Amp Queries

Throughout the episode, Skip and Jason interact with various listener submissions, ranging from personal anecdotes and amp repair dilemmas to cocktail recipes. These segments not only provide practical advice but also foster a sense of community among listeners.

a. Amp Restoration Tales

Listeners share their experiences with vintage amp repairs, seeking Skip's expertise on issues like ground hums and tube replacements. For instance, Drew from Winston Salem, North Carolina, discusses maintaining affordability while ensuring customer satisfaction in his amp repair business. Skip advises on tube replacement strategies, emphasizing the importance of understanding the specific needs of each amp and its user.

Notable Quote:

[44:55] Jason: "But do you try to upsell and change all of them at once or do you just explain, yeah, we'll get by with the one."

[45:01] Skip: "Most people, it's not just the amp you're fixing, it's the person. If it's a musician and it's his main thing, you know, I would probably want to send them away with... a backup set if you ever need them."

This exchange highlights the delicate balance between technical expertise and customer service in the amp repair industry.

b. Vintage Amp Discoveries and Histories

Justin, a longtime listener, shares an in-depth history of Ames Amplifiers, a boutique brand from the 70s, detailing its origins, design philosophies, and the challenges it faced. Skip responds with enthusiasm, recognizing the complexity and uniqueness of Ames amps.

Notable Quote:

[65:43] Jason: "Well, Justin, podcast listener since episode zero, writes in, he was on the design team for that amp."

[70:52] Skip: "Love it. Shows your thinking. Shows your thinking."

Justin's detailed account provides valuable historical context, enriching the conversation around vintage amp brands and their legacy.

c. Cocktail Recipes and Personal Touches

Adding a unique flavor to the episode, listeners like Drew and Carl contribute cocktail recipes. Drew shares his pimento cheese spread recipe, while Carl offers a simple "Boy Hatton" cocktail, showcasing the casual and personable nature of the podcast.

Notable Quote:

[20:39] Skip: "I say a couple of ingredients where that we have to have or we couldn't do it. And I don't mean you and me. I mean the sponsors."

These lighter segments balance the technical discussions, adding warmth and relatability to the show.

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4. Sponsor Highlights and Community Support

The episode features mentions of several sponsors integral to the podcast's production and outreach. Gres Guitars, Emerald City Guitars, Sumac, Humphrey Amps, Voltic Electronic Devices, Chase Bliss, JHS Pedals, and others receive recognition for their support.

Notable Quote:

[08:55] Jason: "We have more electric stuff at this year's Fretboard Summit than we've ever had... we'll have a pretty incredible guitar weekend."

Jason effectively weaves sponsor mentions into the conversation, ensuring listeners are informed about the valuable partnerships that sustain the podcast.

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5. Technical Insights: Amp Maintenance and Troubleshooting

A substantial portion of the episode is dedicated to addressing listener-submitted technical questions about amp maintenance and troubleshooting. Skip offers detailed advice on issues like ground hums, variable input impedance, and specific amp models.

a. Addressing Ground Hum Issues

Mike from Lansing, Michigan, presents a complex scenario involving persistent hums in his vintage amp despite replacing components and rewiring grounds. Skip provides a thoughtful analysis, suggesting potential causes and areas to inspect, such as grid loads and unexpected constant open circuits in the amp's circuitry.

Notable Quote:

[53:28] Skip: "It can make it a lot easier to compare circuits and things, but unless the amp has been modified, you have the schematic and you can look at it and see... check your grid loads."

This segment underscores the intricate nature of vintage amp repairs and the necessity for meticulous troubleshooting.

b. Exploring Variable Input Resistance

Bernie from New York inquires about the practicality of implementing a variable input resistance in amps, pondering whether integrating a 1-meg pot into the input jack would be beneficial. Skip analyzes the concept, explaining the electrical implications and potential outcomes, ultimately advising on its limited practicality for typical usage scenarios.

Notable Quote:

[75:54] Jason: "That's from Bernie. I'll include photos of Bernie's Bogan GA5 on our Instagram."

[86:58] Skip: "But there are volume controls first on guitar amps... I don't think it's something that everybody would want. But it'd certainly be worth trying in your own homebrew thing."

Skip's explanation provides clarity on the technical considerations involved in modifying amp input resistances.

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6. Personal Reflections and Stories

Beyond technical discussions, Skip and Jason share personal anecdotes, reflections on their experiences in the amp community, and humorous exchanges about daily life and podcasting.

Notable Quote:

[21:10] Skip: "I have a weakness. Okay. But I will... I'm still like walking around going, totally. God is whispering to you. To not drink as much at night."

This candid moment highlights the approachable and relatable nature of Skip, endearing him further to the audience.

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7. Closing Thoughts and Future Directions

As the episode wraps up, Skip and Jason encourage listeners to continue sending in questions, participate in the community, and engage with upcoming events like the Fretboard Summit. They express gratitude towards sponsors, Patreon supporters, and the dedicated listeners who contribute to the podcast's vibrant ecosystem.

Notable Quote:

[95:08] Jason: "We do have some updates from prior episodes. You had a baffler on our 134th episode, and our friend Jan at Body and Soul in San Francisco wrote in that you can turn that non reverb Princeton into a model 26 or a 6G2. Is that correct?"

[96:18] Skip: "I'll be here for you."

This affirmation encapsulates the podcast's commitment to supporting its audience, fostering a collaborative and informative environment for vintage amp enthusiasts.

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Conclusion

Episode 135 of The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons masterfully blends technical expertise with personal stories and community engagement. From discussing the unique content of the Fretboard Journal to detailing the intricacies of amp repairs and celebrating upcoming events like the Fretboard Summit, Skip and Jason deliver a rich and engaging episode. Not only do they provide valuable insights for vintage amp collectors and repairers, but they also cultivate a sense of camaraderie and shared passion among their listeners. Whether you're a seasoned amp guru or a curious newcomer, this episode offers something of value, wrapped in the warm and humorous banter that makes this podcast a standout in the guitar community.

Transcript

[Jason]

Good morning, Skip.

[Skip]

Morning, Jason. How's everything? Considering things are busy.

[Jason]

I just heard that someone in Nashville opened up their new copy of the Fretboard Journal, which means they're going to start popping up everywhere.

[Skip]

That's always exciting.

[Jason]

Yeah, it's a little nerve wracking.

[Skip]

I get all sorts of guitar magazines and I've been meaning to thank whoever sends them to me because I don't think it's me, it's somebody else. And I do appreciate it, keep my finger on the pulse. But a fretboard journal, let's just say I'm good for maybe 15 minutes on the other ones and pretty much seen it, you know, And I just want to point out that Fretboard Journal content is, is different. It isn't just a bunch of advertisements stuck together and called an article. And that's one of the things that, that you did that I know you're never going to change. And that's why people save them. That's why they're such a good reference.

[Jason]

Trying. Thank you.

[Skip]

Yeah. So we need another hopeful story to start out.

[Jason]

Oh, if you've got a hopeful story, I'd love to hear it.

[Skip]

I've been the last couple days all sorts of groovy stuff. And even this morning at 7:30 in the morning, old bandmate from when I was a kid. Tim, who's a keyboard player, still plays with all sorts of bands. He and his Davis, California band had an evening gig in the park at. In Winters, California.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

Which cool town, sort of getting to be famous because it was just a nowhere little farm town. But now it's very, very groovy. And of course hometown for both Keith Carey, guitar repair man, and Robert Armstrong, who played the Saw and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and was on the podcast. So anyway, Tim says it was fun. It's in the park, you know, there's a lot of people. It's evening, the full moon comes out before it gets dark. There's kids doing cartwheels. The robotics class from the high school was selling root beer floats and a guy walked up in between songs. He said that he looked a little rough, like maybe he'd been sleeping out, you know. Sleeping rough. What do they call that in England? I said, you know, it'd be really awesome if you guys could do American pieces. And my friend Tim just sort of went, yeah, but one of the musicians in the band goes, I'll do that. And he stood up there by himself with the microphone and a guitar and did American Pie and everyone flipped and the whole place was all singing along, you know, drove my Chevy to the levy. And he just goes. It was just. It was just. It was such a break from, well, you know, the rest of the world. It's like he said it was really cool and really hopeful.

[Jason]

I thought you were going to say that person was someone famous.

[Skip]

Oh, the. The guy that looked like a homeless person. Yeah, he was. Maybe. It might have been. You never know somebody that just barefoot with a guitar. It could have been Jonathan Richmond. Right. But it was pretty impressive that somebody, you know, one of those kids that memorized Alice's Restaurant or Bill Cosby routines or could actually remember, you know, 10 years something on her own. Moss grows. Something about a rolling stone and on. And I'm sure the guy was kind of thrilled. He probably been waiting for 10 years for somebody to ask him to do that. And Tim said, well, we may have to do that again if we're, you know, in the right kind of environment like that. And he said it was just a really groovy kind of community scene, so.

[Jason]

That's so neat.

[Skip]

Yeah, that is. Yeah. George was in Texas. Danger, usb. And one thing, two things. Big parking spaces in Texas, not the tiny ones we have here, because. And every park has the little bandstand, like the little gazebo, or you think, you know, John Philip Sousa marches on Sunday afternoon. It's beautiful.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Listener]

For our.

[Jason]

Our global audience, Winters was immortalized in the Crumb movie. That's where back in the day Robert Crumb lived. And it's sor of one valley east of Napa. And it's beautiful oak trees and rolling hills and a little hamlet that is probably now getting super developed and has McMansions and subdivisions. But I remember it when it was a cute Main Street.

[Skip]

It was just a farm town for a long time. And they had the. The old Winner's Opera House. And then there was always a few crazy hipsters who lived there. The house that Grum lived in is still there. And there's just always those kind of nuts. And then I think the powers that be there actually made the decision that it's either going to be like all these little towns along I5 where there's a gas station out by the freeway and nothing else, you know, or they're gonna have to get cracking. And now there's fancy restaurants and brew pubs and stuff like that. And I. I mean, I would be fighting it if I lived there, because I would have wanted it to stay a little dump, but really the difference between, say, Nevada City, California, And Marysville, by where I live, which was once the third largest city in California, is, you know, the course that the people and the politicians decide to take. Marysville is just a wreck. And Nevada City has been a gem since the 60s as people started fixing it up. And they do need to cut down a few trees up there, but that's another subject entirely. They just had a fire in this unbelievably beautiful Marysville hotel, which I've seen pictures of in the Golden. I went in it about a year ago, but it had had 50 years of homeless people living in it, right in the middle of town, right on the main dragon. And just a few days ago, the thing finally burned in a humongous fire and it's all brick. So now they're going to have to take it all down, make sure it doesn't fall on somebody's head. But, you know, some communities just don't do anything for a long time and then it's bad, you know, just gotta. Gotta take some interest. I probably mentioned going up to paradise where that fire was. Yeah, the spirit of can, the can do spirit up there was pretty noticeable. Even if you just were driving around a little and going to the store, it was a lot of building going on. And so I'm rambling, new rambling, but that is one of our. One of our hallmarks.

[Jason]

Oh, it's why anyone would tune in. And this is the 135th episode of this madness, the Truth About Vintage Jams podcast, which is mostly a show where you try to help people fix or troubleshoot their tube amps on the fritz. But we also do cover a wide array of topics.

[Skip]

Well, life's complicated.

[Jason]

Sure is.

[Skip]

Have you got any tales from the front for us today? New, newish, new issue for up or Journal. Yeah, probably already planning some sort of planning for the thing in Chicago. Right. It's the summit. You got another one of those scheduled already?

[Jason]

Yes, there is a. The fifth ever Fretboard Summit is taking place August 23rd to 25th, 2024, in Chicago at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I've been assured that the cicadas will all be dead by then. If you are coming and you listen.

[Skip]

To this, this August, this August end of this summer.

[Jason]

It's every year now.

[Skip]

I feel sorry for you. You know, you won't have Kevin from Ohio. He. He won't be doing that. Yeah, he just. That thing that just killed him. And he's a professional guy that goes to trade shows all the time. But he said, oh my Gosh, that was just an epic amount of work. Of course, he did way more than he needed to. But anybody planning to see a bunch of crazy stuff like he brought may be slightly disappointed. Or we'll have to rely on the kindness of other strangers.

[Jason]

No, they will not. And I have news. We have so many.

[Skip]

Cool.

[Jason]

We have more electric stuff at this year's Fretboard Summit than we've ever had. And when we heard that Kevin couldn't make it this year, Eric Coleman tones chaser on Instagram and Facebook stepped up. Eric Coleman of Stumac fame has. So we'll get a little more Marshall action than we did with Kevin from Ohio. But Eric's got a huge array of tube amps. Small, big, really loud, not so loud. And he's bringing them to the Fretboard Summit and you can meet him, you can try him out. I know that Chris Benson, former podcast guest, is coming. Eli from two Rock will be there. We've got our friends from Emerald City.

[Skip]

Are they bringing. They're bringing some stuff.

[Jason]

Oh, yeah, they're bringing stuff.

[Skip]

Well, Kevin brought my stuff, which, which was pretty groovy. I mean, he had the Tweed Deluxes and yeah, all that stuff, but he, he blew some minds with some of the PA heads.

[Jason]

He did. He did. Let me just keep rambling and make this a whole advertisement for the Fretboard Summit. Truth about Vinny Jam's listeners, Creston Lee of Creston guitars, Chris Vincent, DJ Lava Lamp, the R2R electric guy is kind of be there. We've got Chris Young from Union Tube and Transistor, of course. Henriksen Amps is sponsoring the show. Humphrey Amps, the high end tube acoustic leaning guitar amps, will be there. Maynard Madsen, Tava listener, is debuting or kind of launching his pedal company, Voltic Electronic Devices will be there. Chase Bliss, Josh Scott of JHS Pedals, Rhett Shoal, Blake Mills, one of the headliners. It's going to be a pretty incredible guitar weekend.

[Skip]

Yes, but she'll be just a shattered husk of a man by the end of it.

[Jason]

Well, we haven't posted the schedule yet because so many people are raising their hands and saying, I'm going to come now that I'm. I've got this spreadsheet where I'm trying to block out every day and everything keeps moving around and I don't want to lock into anything. So it's just going to be incredible. I hope, I hope a lot of Tava listeners can make it. It's Chicago, old town school folk music. You can [e-mail] and bring some money. Plug. What's that?

[Skip]

And bring some money. No, we have to make it. We. We can't just do it. You can't just do it as some gigantic public service.

[Jason]

Well, taking the cue of your critique and John Vander slices of quote unquote guitar shows, yes, there are hundreds of instruments and amps for sale. But I also wanted to make a weekend where if you are perfectly happy with your gear or actually trying to get rid of some of your gear, you can still just have a blast taking classes, listening to legends talk about how they started their companies or just seeing great music. So I think a fair number of people go not to buy anything, but if you want to go on a shopping spree, it's. It's there for you.

[Skip]

When I said bring money, I kind.

[Jason]

Of really meant to sign up.

[Skip]

I meant fretboard journal money.

[Jason]

Oh, yeah. Well, it's not. So here's the other deal, because I think people might wonder. It's not a $20, you know, admission for all three days, because the theater where Blake Mills is going to play and Colin Hay from Minute work, it holds 440 people. So at no point will there be 10,000 people going through some, you know, airplane hangar. This is a pretty exclusive event, and that's just kind of the nature of how it all pencils out. So you pay a little bit more up front, and then you get everything included and you get to have a blast. And it feels like a. A big family reunion.

[Skip]

It's kind of cool, right, because it's small enough to. To be personal or you can go talk to somebody. But it was definitely a lot of opportunities there that your average guy in Loma Rico wouldn't have to try amps and meet people and stuff like that.

[Jason]

Yeah. And one. One year, we'll double the. The price. It'll be like $1,000, and we'll get you out there, and we'll be able to charge more because you're coming.

[Skip]

I don't know. I'm not sure I'd be much of a draw. I beg to differ, but people do. I just. Just about when I think it's like everybody who's ever listened has listened, everybody who likes it said, thanks. This was one of the great boxes of all time from yesterday. Yesterday, the box, small but heavy and all caved in on one side. I'm going, what the hell is this? Somebody sent me an old. Must be an old PA head, and they packed it crappy. But no, it's Ben from Chattanooga. And Ben from Chattanooga, he just put it all together, right? We're talking Chattanooga rye whiskey, right? Absolutely. Hutton, Hutton and Smith beer from Chattanooga. A whole six pack.

[Jason]

Never heard of any of these things.

[Skip]

No, no, just the local stuff. Moon pies. A box of little moon pies. Right. Which are these little, like marshmallowy things. Right. Some old model airplane magazines that he found from the 50s. You know, we love them. They have great graphics and stuff, so. Hey, Skip, quick hello from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Just wanted to say thanks for all the info you and Jason have put out there in the last few years. Been listening for almost five years now, and I've learned so much and found a lot of motiv motivation in the area of tube electronica. One more. Dude who did this? I slowly worked my way from the champ schematic to the Angela 5F2. Learned so much buying old junk from thrift stores, blah, blah, blah. Here's a little love from Chattanooga. Hope you enjoy it all. Fantastic. Liquor, candy, model airplane magazines. I mean, and so cool. Yesterday, out of the blue, a guy calls and says, so I hear you've been talking about me. And I go, what? It was Lynn Wheelwright. Huh? He said, this is Lynn Wheelwright. I go, what? I mean, he's one of the pre war electric guru guys that there's ever been and has been for a long time. I didn't know him. He's authored some stuff for. For us or journal. And just he was really interesting and fun and he offered up all sorts of pictures of ancient at Daniel built junk, you know, epiphone stuff. And he doesn't listen to the podcast, but someone else who's a friend of his does.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

And said, hey, Skip, I. I think I just in some ramble said that's something Lynn Wheelwright would know about. And somehow word got to him called and it was super cool.

[Jason]

That's amazing.

[Skip]

Yeah, he was really nice and I gave him. I went, what? I mean, I didn't just say, who are you? Right. Because that guy, he's. And he was into it when it was really unpopular. You know, that pre war stuff was. In a way, it's kind of doggy compared to a fender from the 50s. But it's historically so cool and the instruments are so interesting. And I like the fact that almost all of it was owned by pros. So you're talking about an early electric guitar and amplifier from the 30s. It's got a little history, a little story to it.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Here's a Story. The great Louis Garcia calls from the LA guitar show, Right? The one that the three amigos put on. It was last weekend in Costa Mesa. I only go to the one that they have once a year up in Marin County. But he calls and says, groovy friend of ours from Guitar Maniacs who looks kind of like me, tall, redheaded, freckly, a little stoned. Rick King bought the very first standalone. That was Speedy West's standoff.

[Jason]

Wow.

[Skip]

From a longtime dealer, Guitars West. Some Hernandez, nice guy. I remember he had some really cool tweets. And I don't know where. I guess he's had it for a really long time. But down there at the show, those two got together and so significant. Very right. And it also gives us the possibility of having that Speedy West Bigsby Steel reunited with Speedy West Standell amplifier, right. Decons the guitar. And now Rip King owns the app. And hopefully there'll be some pictures. And he's in. Is he in. He's in Seattle, isn't he? Or is it.

[Jason]

He's in Tacoma. Guitar Maniacs is in the old part of Tacoma. And it's a cool. It's a cool store.

[Skip]

Well, of course. And anybody hip enough to. I know it wasn't cheap, you know, that's short of the dumble or something that's, you know, one of the more valuable old amps. And I've just. Rick King, super cool guy. I'm glad he ended up with it. And maybe we'll even be able to see some cool pictures and stuff. I. I've only seen 1, 2, 3. I think I've only ever seen three of those amps. There's like around 100. And they were made by hand. All for certain people. And they're rare. Rare. Rare and cool.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

So there you go. There's some rambling.

[Jason]

That's pretty cool. Yeah. Rick King. Before anyone tells me, I've asked Rick King to be on this show like a half dozen times. And every time he says he's too busy.

[Skip]

So that's good.

[Jason]

It's good to be busy finding Standells that have never been seen before, apparently. Okay. We do cover amp questions on this podcast. We do have some sponsors. Gres Guitars just got a glowing review of his Mendocino Bas 6 on Premier Guitars website. He also just sent this incredibly cool Mendocino double cutaway guitar with dual lipstick pickups to the music emporium back east. That thing is completely wild. I love his guitars. I love that Mendocino. It's such a cool blank Canvas for whatever pickups you want or configuration. Everybody follow GRES guitars. I'm actually going to see Barry on Monday. Fun fact, Emerald City Guitars sponsoring the podcast once again here in Seattle, Washington. They just posted a YouTube video. I keep talking about their YouTube videos because their channel's blowing up. They found a Fender modified by Dumble here in Washington state that was owned by a guy who used it and commissioned it from Dumble so that he could play slide electric five string banjo. I'll just let you. I'll include a link. Everybody go follow Emerald City Guitars and what Trevor and Jay are up to. The coolest store around. And when you walk in there, like all the amps we did, we talk about or most of the amps we talk about. High end, low end, they're all there. We're also brought to you by Sumac. Once again, you can go to their website to find pretty much everything you need. They've got amp kits, they've got guitar parts, you name it. Tell them the fretboard journal sent you. And then of course, we have a Patreon for the show. Patreon.com vinajams. That's how you get to the front of the line because we field all your questions. And the way to get your questions answered by Skip or to tell us your family recipe or whatever is to email [e-mail] either send us a voice memo or just type it out. We have a mix of both today.

[Skip]

I say a couple of ingredients where that we have to have or we couldn't do it. And I don't mean you and me. I mean the sponsors.

[Jason]

Sponsors.

[Skip]

Because I wouldn't. I just said, all right, it was fun for a while, but. And the people that just keep listening and. Well, not just the people that keep writing in the questions, keeps calling, keeps sending us whiskey, stuff like that.

[Jason]

Yeah. Did you try the whiskey?

[Skip]

No, I have a little issue with that.

[Jason]

Oh.

[Skip]

I have a weakness. Okay. But I will.

[Jason]

I wanted to be as sharp as attack for the 135th episode and here we are.

[Skip]

Something like that or. It's just. I just. Some things are just hard to. Once you start, it's a little hard to stop. And then when you get older like me, then you're paying, man.

[Jason]

That's true.

[Skip]

You're just paying. Like I could. I could drink a couple of shots of good whiskey, but three or four. And then the next day it's noon and I'm still like walking around going, totally. God is whispering to you. To not drink as much at night. But that doesn't mean I won't love it. Yes. Chattanooga Distillery. 90 proof rye, 99 proof. Right. Gonna have to watch that splash of soda, 5 o'clock. It's gonna be good. So we also have to thank real quick John Ross. He, he sent a little pack seaweed snacks from Trader Joe's made from seaweed and they were really tasty, like little chips. Right. Because he was talking about it and, and he found a green sauce called Mexico Lindo. And I thought it was going to be like super habanero because it says it is, but no, it's really, really bright and tasty and almost like a zingy tomatillo thing behind the heat. Mexico Lindo. So see, John Ross, see, we have.

[Jason]

People that you just have listeners buying groceries for you now.

[Skip]

It does. It's happened quite a few times since the podcast started. Not like regularly, but it has happened quite a few times where. Remember the box of mangoes?

[Jason]

The mangoes, yes. Those were amazing but very dangerous because if I didn't pick those up, they would have been sitting on the office lobby for like a long weekend and gone rotten. So. Oh yeah, those, those ripen very fast. But they're delicious.

[Skip]

No, people are just. I, I, like I said, there's a lot of people who are normal people, they listen, they're never going to say anything. But thanks to those people who call or send, send something and you know, because that's, that's nice. It's nice too.

[Jason]

Don't be shy, everybody. Podcastreportjournal.com Introduce yourself. Talk about the amp in the corner that you just don't even turn on anymore because something's wrong with it. We're here to help.

[Skip]

Yes. Maybe you'll find a Velvet Touch. Yeah. So Gibson made Maestro amps. They are labeled Maestro and There's basically a GA40, Gibson classic great one called a GA45. And they were labeled Maestro and they have four eights and it's four 8 inch speakers. Part players. And certain guitar players just love that thing, right? Well, the great Louis Garcia turned one up that he'd had for 30 years. But it says Velvet Touch. It doesn't say Maestro. It doesn't say Gibson. The control panel is beautiful. It's not Dymo label makers or anything. This is like factory looking, right? And the volume controls go from E to F with half in the middle, empty half and full. That's how the volume controls are labeled on this thing. And the on off switch says ignition that's the best. Instead of on off. Right. And that's just. What the hell is that thing? And I opened it up and it had a business card from a guy I almost got today. Got to wanted to have on today Terry Dobbs who's a long time amp repairman from back in Indiana and it had his business card in it. So I called him up and asked him if he remembered it. He remembered the business card because his daughter had made them way back in the beginning. But he didn't remember the amp. If anybody's ever going to tell us anything about, about the Velvet Touch we'd sure like to know like what the heck. Empty to full. Oh, the tremolo says the controls say speed and frequency. Thinking about it, thinking about that's both the same thing, right. Those are two speeds, they work normally. Which is speed and intensity. Right. Or like the amount and the speed. But this thing says speed and frequency on it. I don't know if there was just one and someone was an unbelievably good at, at doing labeling on the chassis and stuff. I don't think so. I think, I think there must be some others out there. So find me the Velvet Touch.

[Jason]

Yeah. Terry Dobbs is Mr. Velco correct?

[Skip]

Yes. And okay. And he's. I used to think nobody could fix amps but me. Right. And he's been fixing amps for a long time. I think he wrote some stuff. What's that? There was. There's a small magazine that doesn't really ex cone Quest.

[Jason]

Tone Quest. Yeah.

[Skip]

Yeah. And I think he did some stuff with them and he was known for working on Valkos and stuff like that but once I got to talking to him, you know, he's just, he knows what he's doing. He's been doing it for a long time and maybe I don't do it enough but an absolute quest of this show ought to be to find a few more people that can, that can do what you want and that guy's in Indiana. And I said hey, we'll give you 20 minutes. But one of the main things would be get. Throw us out a phone number or email address that you have so that somebody with a silver face twin who lives five miles away can come over and have you fix it. He said great.

[Jason]

So yeah, we'll get to him.

[Skip]

We'll get to him for sure.

[Jason]

Tone Quest reports like this. The founder passed away but a new, a new team is, is relaunched.

[Skip]

Well they were, they were interesting. I, I bought a huge stack of those at a at a yard sale from a guy who had passed away. And I looked through them and they had a. They had a DIY ethic and kind of cool and not a bunch of ads and kind of zany, you know? Yeah, I didn't agree with everything I read in there, but who would? We don't have to all agree about everything.

[Jason]

No, we don't. We have some updates from prior episodes. You had a baffler on our 134th episode, and our friend Jan at Body and Soul in San Francisco wrote in that you can turn that non reverb Princeton into a model 26 or a 6G2. Is that correct?

[Skip]

A model 26. That's a really early Fender, what they call a woody, right. That I've only ever seen a few of. And I'm not exactly sure what that schematic is, so I'm not so sure about that. And actually, the 6G2 is brown to a brown 6G2. That's a brown Princeton amp. And yes, that's getting mighty close. But the real answer we were looking for is a tweed Vibrolux. If you look, you'll see that a silver face, non reverb Princeton has some pretty terrifying similarities with the tweed Vibrlux, which is called a 5F11, I think. I believe. I think so. So it's just another one of those amps like the Silver Face Champ that have the separate treble and bass controls. But the. These two particular designs don't really have enough gain to make those controls work, although those controls work fantastically in all sorts of other Fender amps. But in the Champs and the non reverb Princetons, the amps tend to sound a little dry and clean and a little boring. And all it takes is that tone control to liberate the gain that the separate treble and bass tone controls take away. Those treble and bass things are sort of subtractive. So when both are on 10, that's kind of like stock and basically it just cuts treble or cuts bass. Whereas that single tone knob thing we use doesn't really affect the gain so much and makes those amps sound really good. Yan, he must not drive because he's only in the Bay Area. And I've had a huge, huge collection of pedal parts, new stuff that I've been saving for him, but I can't get them to come up and get them, and they can't be shipped because they're in these big, huge plastic, like, chests of little tiny drawers, you know, and they're all Organized, I mean, hundreds. Maybe I gave him enough time. Somebody else needs to come and get that stuff. It's like five big plastic boxes that are maybe a couple feet high and they're full of drawers. And I have them all wrapped up in plastic because.

[Jason]

Get on it, John.

[Skip]

Yeah, all the parts, even if they were all in a big huge bag, they wouldn't be nearly as valuable. It's the dividing of it. I go through that every time I'm out in the barn. It's like, here's this huge bag of old resistors. Well, you really need to have them. 100k, 27k, you know, so you can go and get one and use it instead of digging through a pile, which I do sometimes anyway.

[Jason]

I guess, I guess the Bart doesn't go to Loma Rica yet. Okay, but.

[Skip]

But Larry Chung, he shall not be named. He made it to Loma Rica on his way back from that fiddle festival in Idaho.

[Jason]

Idaho? Yeah, he told me. I saw him on the front end of his trip. You saw him on the back end?

[Skip]

Yeah. I gave him a bunch of free junk and then I charged him a lot for some old cool thing that he wanted. And he bought. He brought Idaho spuds, which are like a little candy bar thing that's kind of like, kind of marshmallowy, almost like a moon pie. Right. And he was fun. And also, Lee Jeffries, steel player, sent me a little video of Todd Klein Smith, who makes Bigsby steels in Oregon, playing at Weezer with some good fiddle players. And apparently he's using a PA head I built for him a few years back. That sounds good. So some PA head action on that little video too.

[Jason]

I'm not going to put you on the spot to come up with a question now, but our friend Josh in Brooklyn, this goes actually back to Jan, who needs to pick up his parts from you.

[Skip]

Yeah.

[Jason]

The proprietor of Body and Soul. Josh writes, way back when I was the lucky winner of the amazing Tone Bender style tava fuzz that Jan built. It's been a total joy to play. So much so that I ordered a second one. I thought it'd be a cool idea to put this mind blowing fuzz, complete with the El Pado duck illustration, back into the tava community. Totally up to you guys, but maybe Skip could ask one of his tricky questions and a winner could be selected that way I'll pay for shipping and get this back into tava land. That is from Josh in Brooklyn. Thank you, Josh.

[Skip]

Super kind and generous, but that's not enough. No, no, it's not enough. I looked in, talk about a guy that didn't know anything and then just said, oh, I'm going to do this. I looked in that. That Tone Bender thing. It was just. I'd have been proud to say I made. It is beautifully made. And then I gave it to a real guitar player who said, wow, you know, who has all sorts of great vintage pedals. It helps if your stuff is good.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

You know, like, just because you make a pedal doesn't mean we love. Well, doesn't it? Doesn't mean we're going to tell everyone your stuff is great. And you can't believe the people I know who make, you know, tweet deluxe clones and stuff and want me to say how great they are. But that Yan thing, guys gotta, he gotta. He got touched by an angel or something to kind of sped through his learning curve and went right to the good stuff right away. So I've got to come up with a real good reason for someone to get that. I'll be thinking about it. Maybe before the end of the podcast, I'll. I'll come up with a good one. Yeah, something you can't just Google. Right. That's when I stopped having the Baffler. You had the answer before, you know, five seconds later. Oh, well, that's obviously so and so. Right? It's too easy with the Google. You got to make it something a little bit tougher.

[Jason]

Totally. Jan is at BS Instruments on Instagram if anybody wants to follow him.

[Skip]

Well, his stuff is cool.

[Jason]

Speaking of, we were talking about Yan needing to get on a train. Bruce Bacon wanted to let you know that the Big Boy steam locomotive is rolling near your place this July. This locomotive is 132ft long and weighs 1.2 million pounds on some train line.

[Skip]

So that's a tiny little passionate niche as well. Whenever really historic, like steam trains, 40s and 50s trains, a lot of them still exist. Whenever they go somewhere, you'll see 10 cars parked on an over crossing out in the middle of nowhere and they're all just sitting there waiting for that thing to come by. And it is. It's pretty amazing. I've seen some old trains up close and I'm definitely planning on getting close to that because it is coming right down. I believe it's coming right down through the Feather River Canyon, which is a really crazy historic train route. And one time, a couple of times, I. I rode on the Feather River Canyon hopping a freight in the daytime when I was in high school. I had a friend who wanted to be a locomotive engineer, and he knew a lot about it. And we would drive up to Oroville in the middle of the night, and then he would know where to wait in the train yard. And we would hop on this train that wasn't moving, and it would slowly cruise up through this beautiful Feather River Canyon. Along the river, going really slow because it's really twisty. And he even knew the spots where it would slow down so slow that you could just step on and off of it. You know, we didn't do any of that running and falling or any of that. Right. And he even knew when the. Even knew when there'd be a train coming back. So we'd sit there along the river for an hour, you know, just soaking up the sun. And sure enough, because it's. They're all pretty regulated, here comes this train and it slows to a walking pace. And if you hop on it, and it's been in the mid to late 70s, and we probably did it four or five times, it was quite an experience. The trains are pretty neat. And I might not have known about the Big Boy coming. I think it's getting some attention in other media, but I sure do appreciate the heads up from that listener. I'm going to make every effort.

[Jason]

I wonder where it's coming from.

[Skip]

I don't know. But someone. But someone knows, believe me, it has a home, a home port, so to speak, in the 80s in Sacramento, where there's a giant train museum, they had a train, a thon, like some sort of sentence, Neil something. And they had trains from all over the United States. And one of the main lines went by my old house in Dixon. And there was a couple of weeks where you'd be out working and you'd hear the woo, woo. I should have brought my train whistle in. I have some cool vintage ones to blow. And there it would be, you know, the smoke pouring out of it and everything. And it's pretty cool to see. Pretty amazing and probably a really nerdy interesting crowd, right? Trailer Park Boys, who here loves trains? Maybe not enough Trailer Park Boy listeners to catch that, but. But old. But old trains are definitely cool. And thanks for letting me know. And I plan on being on one of those overpasses or somewhere where it's going to stop for a while and check it out.

[Jason]

Yeah, well, some podcasts, you know, insert ads throughout the podcast randomly. We kind of do that with the actual amp questions. This first one is from listener Drew.

[Drew]

Hey, Skip. And Jason. This is Drew from Winston Salem, North Carolina. Second time caller rep, board subscriber, patreon person, blah, blah, blah. I'll cut to the chase. I'm just starting to fix amps for money. Don't worry, Skip, not too much money. And I've had a couple instances where I've had clients who have a, you know, a 4el84 style amp and they have just one power tube shorted, dead, whatever. And I'll replace just one. Because the whole idea is I don't, you know, I, I, I throw it out there, but I just, I just know that they don't have much money and I'm trying to keep the bill low and, yeah, satisfy the customer. But it got me thinking, what does Skip do? And I had a, a client who I replaced one power tube in their AC30, one of the newer circuit board ones. And I saw them six months later at a show and they said, oh, I've been down to Austin, Texas and back and played tons of shows, played, gone on several tours, and it's still kicking, still going. And I was just wondering what Skip does when he encounters one power, two of a push, pull pair or quad. Did he replace Juan? Do you do all of them? Just wondering. And a couple other things. You're always talking about how their amplified parts doesn't have a catalog, but I'm one of the music stores that I pick up amps from handed me a catalog, and it's a CE distribution catalog. And I'm pretty sure they own amplified parts or vice versa. But anyways, I'm sitting here, you hear me thumbing through it. There's the tube shields, a bunch of guitar stuff, capacitors, etc. All the part numbers. Sure you know this or maybe you don't. I don't know. All right, food suggestion. Pimento cheese. You get yourself a block of sharp cheddar and grate it up. And as soon as you grate that cheese, you throw that grater into the sink and you spray it. Because there's nothing worse than having a cheese grater with a bunch of. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And then you put up dollops, a couple dollops of mayonnaise on that. We have dukes down here in North Carolina. I don't think you all have that. And then some roasted red peppers cut up real fine. Or not. And then I like to put some jalapenos in there, chopped up real fine. The jarred kind, the cheap kind, not the fresh one that's too hot. And then put that on some ritz crackers or eat it by a spoonful or on some homemade sourdough. And yeah, you're off to the races. Nice quick lunch after a hot day. Or during a hot day. Anyways, that's it. Thanks for the podcast. Thanks for all that. You all do. Really appreciate it. All right, bye. Thank you.

[Skip]

Tasty, strong ending. How can you go wrong with melty cheese and jalapenos? And that's.

[Jason]

That's the official sandwich of the Masters golf tournament.

[Skip]

Yeah. And y'all don't have dukes up there? Of course. I know. Dukes is famous. You know, famous. Man, they said they didn't have dukes. Will this do? Right? Let's see. In the middle. Come on now. Don't make me come out there and slap you. CE Distribution is the parent company of First Antique Electronic Supply, which is what it used to be called tubesandmore.com. i can still remember that. But now they basically changed it all as far as the retail side to amplified parts.com. and I still bemoan the catalog. But yes, CE Distribution did put out a catalog 2018, maybe. And so when I buy stuff, I buy it from them. And if you think it's a lot cheaper or you'd be wrong. That's why I send customers to their retail side rather than buying tubes and reselling them, because it's not a hundred percent, not even close. So what they expect you to do is buy at the CE price, say it's $8, and they want you to resell that part for $16. But the fact is that anybody can go to Amplified Parts and get the dang part for $10. So just all you got. If you're serious about getting into doing this for money, you can save some money if you're willing to go through the trouble of getting a whole the wholesale account from the parent company. But it's. I. I just don't think it's a good business model to try to make money buying and selling tubes like that. Someone just brought me a brown Super, Brown Tolex super from, like 1962. And he also brought the estimate from the other shop in Sacramento for $780 to fix it. And almost 300 of it. $250 was all new tubes. Well, people, the thing had the RCA black plates in it, right? It didn't need a bunch of. It had. All the tubes were perfectly fine. So there are shops that want to buy a little cheaper and then bump that price up a lot for resale, and it's just. Just not my bag. And Then at the very beginning, yeah, power tubes don't really. They weren't such a problem. But EL84s run hot and they have a unique sound. But the reason when they were invented is because they're cheap, you know, they're junky and they're not as bulletproof and heavy duty as some of the other audio tubes. So if you have an amp that runs four EL84s, which is pretty common these days, and it sounds crappy or is blowing fuses, I'd absolutely Say check those EL84s. They run hot. Also on new tubes, it's the high initial failure rate. It's another reason why I don't buy and sell new tubes. If they've been in there for a while, they're fine. They're probably going to be fine. JJ's and Softex and all those tubes that sound like they're old American tubes, but they're not like Tungsaw. You know, they bought all these names like Mullard. You know, it's not made in England, no matter what it says on there. And I would absolutely have no problem replacing one tube if one was shorted. I'd test them all real carefully. And if there was really only one bad one and it wasn't somebody going on their world tour, then I just replace one. But I tell anybody with EL 84amps to have some backups because they're far more likely to die than 6L6 is, say, for instance.

[Jason]

So. But do you try to upsell and change all of them at once or do you just explain, yeah, we'll get by with the one.

[Skip]

Most people, it's not just the amp you're fixing, it's the person. If it's, you know, what's the worst that could happen? He lives, you know, 50 miles away and he has a billion amps and he's heart, you know, it's different. It's. If it's a musician and it's his main thing, you know, I would probably want to send them away with. Here's a backup set if you ever need them. You know, if you're going on a tour in your Econo line around the Western U.S. it's a little different than you're. If you're just a guy, you know, who's an orthodontist and has this amp, you know, in your office to play when you at lunchtime. So as. And to this, to that repairman who's doing stuff for money, I'd say I point that out as well. A big difference between what you do for this, what you do for that, and that person. Or that person. Another part of that seven hundred and something dollar repair estimate was a new output transformer for this brown super because the Brown super had a non original output transformer. Hey knucklehead, that output transformer was from a blonde twin. A really rare and valuable super cool vintage output transformer that worked fine in this application. So why do you need to go buy some new one and stick it in there? I wonder what would have happened to this rare valuable old Fender output transformer if the guy had ended up taking it there. And I wonder where the black plates would have ended up, the valuable, valuable 6L6s if the guy had taken it there. So if you're going to be repairing stuff, you better, you better give a crap. Otherwise you'd be tempted to go down the long road of that other Drew Remember I found those two A3 power tubes that are probably worth $500 or even a thousand dollars each. Some people would have just kept them, but can't live like that. That won't do.

[Jason]

All right, next Kevin from Georgia writes subject line Frying Bacon Hey Jason, Skip, I'm working on a homebrew amp that I built. It's loosely based on a 5v3 Deluxe preamp with a black panel Deluxe power amp. Started with a 7025 and V1amp sounded great. Quiet as a mouse, but a little too much gain. I subbed in a 12 at 7 and while the gain was a little more in control, I got the classic Fender bacon frying sound. I tried 3 other at 12 at 7s all with the same result. Then I put the 7025 back in and the amp worked perfectly. Again, quiet as a mouse. Then I put in one of those 12 at 7s in the phase inverter position and the amp still works perfectly. Any ideas on why that v1 position just does not seem to agree with a 12 at 7? I really enjoy the podcast and have learned so much. Thanks, Kevin.

[Skip]

Hmm, the classic bacon frying sound. That statement is from Ken Fisher, who wrote way back in the beginning in those Groove tube books about how to work on amps. Super smart guy. And it is true that a lot of mid-60s late-60s fenders, especially basement amps, can get this just just like that. In some cases, if you leave those amps on for hours and hours and hours, it'll go away. If that's the case, it has to do with moisture condensing and cheap carbon resistors that Fender started using. But if a different tube gets rid of the frying bacon sound, then it ain't the resistors, it's not the amp circuit. I would guess that you just had three noisy 12 at 7s and that if you kept finding 12 at 7s, you'd find one that worked fine. Might also suggest a 12 ay 7. Right. Which is interchangeable and a little less gain. And you could also think about sticking with the original tube. But why don't you put a little switch in there that disconnects that first bypass cap. With that thing disconnected, you'll have all sorts of more headroom and cleaner sound. And then when it is connected, it'll be much more, you know, gritty and crunchy and growly. Love it. How's that?

[Jason]

That was great. This next one is from our friend Mike in Michigan. And it's. You can tell we know Mike, he's been on this podcast many times. He's also been to our fretboard event in Chicago. But you can tell he's a longtime listener because he prefaces the voice memo with and yes, I did clean the tube sockets. So this is from Mike over at Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan.

[Mike]

Hi, Skip and Jason. It's Mike in Lansing, Michigan. I've been listening to every episode and loving the podcast as usual. I have a bit of a weird one here. It's kind of convoluted. I'm going to be. Try to be concise as possible. I apologize if I go on a little bit long, but here's what's up. Working on a Rick, I believe it's an M11 for my boss and it's one of those old ones from the 40s. Two knobs, two inputs. It says like Rick across the. Across the grill or the baffle rather. It's pretty cool amp and it had this super, super loud 60 cycle hum coming out of the amp. And, and I pinpointed down, it was coming from V1, the first preamp tube. And I had checked all the grounds and they all metered out fine. So I was going through and just kind of replacing, not replacing, but testing, clipping in replacement parts to see if I could figure out which, which component was the problem. And I did that with the cathode bypass cap and the hum went away.

[Jason]

Great.

[Mike]

So I replaced that cap and when I fired up, still hums. So, okay, so I back up when I was clipping it in, I, I didn't actually clip the new component across the tube socket where that cap is mounted. I had Clipped it to the ch. So I just lift one leg of that cap again and I clip it directly to the chassis. Sure enough, hum goes away. Clip it to the tube socket and it hums. Okay, so there's a problem with that ground. So I reflow the ground. Still hums. All right, that, the ground is, is, you know, it's a piece of that sort of braided cable that they use on like a lot of old fender amps. I thought maybe that's, you know, it's bad, it's impregnated with moisture or something. Replace that with a nice new piece of wire. Bus wire. Still ground, still hums. Okay, so it must be that joint. Maybe there's corrosion between the joint and the chassis. I don't know. I, I take some high grit sandpaper, I sand a little fresh patch of chassis, and I move that ground over to that spot, and it still hums. I can ground that cap anywhere else, anywhere else in the entire area, except if I ground it on the tube socket, it still hums. And that just seems so bizarre to me, you know, a fresh path to ground a new piece of wire, a new solder joint, and, and, and it, and it hums. And the weird thing is the amp was always working perfectly, he said, and all of a sudden one day it just started humming like crazy. And now you hear stories about this, like, you know, yeah, the amplifier made a noise and then I moved ground 2 inches down a bus line and it stopped making the noise. But I don't know, Skip, if you have any insight whatsoever as to why that would, an amp would do something like that, it just seems so weird to me, and also such a hard thing to diagnose. I mean, just the moving a ground, you know, an inch away and all of a sudden the hum goes away. It just makes you wonder why you even try to do this stuff. I, I just, I don't know. But thank you so much for the podcast. And, and I also, I don't know if you know anything about these amps. I couldn't find a schematic anywhere. I found a lot of schematics for the three input, three knob version of this amp, which came a little bit later, but this is the real early one, I think from the very late 40s. Just two knobs, two inputs, and, and not a schematic anywhere to be found in the whole world, so. But thanks.

[Skip]

Bye. That's a tough one. Well, one thing I always say, unless somebody's been in there and changing parts, you have the schematic you're just too lazy to look at it and draw it. Well, I'm too lazy, right. But I've gotten a lot of calls from people that want a schematic because they think that if they have it, they're going to be able to fix their amp. It can make it a lot easier. It certainly is easier to compare circuits and things, but unless the amp has been modified, you have the schematic and you can look at it and see as far as grounds go. Yes, there are situations where a ground connection can't be made just any old place, even though you think ground is ground. But in this particular amp, we don't. We may be laboring under a whole bunch of misconceptions, so to speak, because we don't really know. I, I trouble. I, I traced it down to V1 and I traced it down to this cathode bypass cap. Really. That's the place where the most amplification of an amp is going on. It takes that little tiny guitar signal and boosts it up a gajillion times. And the great Bill Kernard is always telling me that noise in an amp can be hard to, to, to say it's coming from this part of the circuit because of the fact that the power supply in the amp is connected to everything and noise can get into an amp. And you think, well, if I pull the phase inverter out, everything's quiet. It must be that. Not necessarily noise can get into a circuit almost anywhere, even though it's not necessarily directly connected to the part you think is wrong. What I'd be looking at on this amp and lots of other problems like this resistance to ground on the grids of the preamp tube. If your ohmmeter shows that all the ground connections are all really close to each other, you know, within a few 0.5 ohms or something like that, fine. But you check from ground to the grids of the tubes where the signal is going in. I got a feeling you might have like an open volume control or something like that that that would cause that problem. It's almost like there's a part of the amp that's on 10 all the time that shouldn't be. So check your grid loads and feel free to call me, you know, see Michigan. So that's real. 7:30. Yeah, well, you can always call me, you know, 7:00 in the morning, anytime up to, you know, three or four in the afternoon and have that thing handy and I'll fire off some questions and maybe we can get that thing fixed for you. But. But our guy there in Michigan said a bunch of stuff in there that we don't really know is true. Right. Like I thought, well, it must be this. How many times have I said it must be this and it wasn't that? A lot. Right? So don't get discouraged. You know, it's. It's simple. But make me some bread. That's got to be the title of one of the first podcasts, right? Because.

[Jason]

Oh, it is.

[Skip]

If you don't think it can go wrong, you haven't tried it, because a lot of stuff can go wrong, even though it seems really easy. So I invite that guy to give me a call. Get your own meter out and measure the ground from all the grids in that circuit and make sure they're what they should be. That's my advice.

[Jason]

Okay?

[Skip]

Okay, that's great.

[Jason]

Keep the amp questions coming, folks. Podcast fretboardjournal.com you can just record a voice memo on your smartphone and send it that way, which is easiest. That is not what this next person did, though. And this person is riffing on something that was said on our last episode, episode of 134. Dale in Washington state had a question about his VHT special six amp. I think that was an amp you didn't have much to say about, Skip.

[Skip]

Well, I don't know. I. I know it's a. I know It's a little single 6v6 or 6l6 kind of amp, which of course shows that even the big companies are getting cooler by the second because that's a great circuit.

[Jason]

Well, Justin, podcast listener since episode zero, writes in, he was on the design team for that amp.

[Skip]

Oh wow.

[Jason]

I was part of the design team of the VHT Special 6amplifiers. Basically, the preamp here is similar to most black panel Fender amps in its architecture. Input to triode, to tone stack to volume to Triode. There is a tone stack in this amp, but it's static. It has the familiar treble middle base filter, but there are no pots. They have been replaced by resistors that gave the best performance for both single coil and humbucking pickups. The first prototype I built had three pots, and once we were done adjusting for best results, I carefully measured the resistance of each and replaced them in the circuit with resistors. The tone control is an additional tone shaping element that is across the volume pot. Not unlike the bright cap and Fender amps, but it has the ability to add high frequencies or dump them to ground at the tone pots. Extremes I had never seen this before. My colleague came up with it and it worked to give it a bit more tone shaping when switching between single coil and humbucking pickups. It also allowed for tone control for the boost circuit. The boost basically switched out the tone stack by adding resistance to the middle resistor. The clever part of this is that the traditional tone stack tends to scoop middle frequencies around 1-2 Hz and when you engage the boost that scoop went away and you got a fairly flat response in the middle. This is what most guitar players want when looking for solo voice that is Tube screamer. I don't really remember how noticeable the tone control was, but I don't remember it being useless. If someone got in there and removed one of the caps then I could see it. Not useful. I would also try adjusting it when the boost is engaged. You may find it more useful then. The entire point of the Special 6 was to produce an affordable hand wired vacuum tube amp that the user could simply play or mod to their liking. This was 2009-2011, just after the guitar amp world was having a fit over the Valve Junior. Entire message boards were dedicated to modifying amps. This product was designed and prototyped in Haywood, California, built by our contract manufacturer in China, then tested back in California. The Special six came as a head or a small cabinet with a 10 inch speaker. We prototyped the cabinet with a celestian gold 10 inch speaker which is spectacular sounding but hard to include in the price point. We were going for the speaker then it was shipped with is decent but was a compromise and we assumed the mod crowd would replace it anyways. We had been building amps here using sub assemblies from our contract manufacturer in China. Cabinets, partially assembled, chassis, populated turret boards were all shipped to California where we would do the final assembly and test. All of these amps use celestian G12 H30 speakers. Remember this was at the beginning of the Great Recession and we were hiring people to build and test guitar amps. We were on shoring jobs but in the end it did not go far. This was all done out of Axl Musical Instruments which has close relationships with contract manufacturers in China. I was hired as a design and manufacturing engineer. As the manufacturing engineer I was the liaison between the customer and the factory and I set up, tested and built protocols. The owner of Axl wanted to create a house brand and gave me freedom to design whenever I wanted. So I designed a bunch of tube amps. It was great. I taught myself about all about tube circuits, tubes, transformers and speakers. Axl had been making small parts for VHT amps in Southern California, and the owner developed a relationship with the owner of Axl. Long story short, VHT borrowed some money from Axl, and part of the terms of the loan was if the loan was not paid back in a certain timeline, Axl would get ownership of the VHT name. The timeline was met with no payment, so Axl legally registered the VHT name and started using it on the amps that I designed, amps that had no pedigree, similar to the original vht. That's from Justin.

[Skip]

Wow.

[Jason]

Yeah. Thanks, Justin.

[Skip]

Kids, stay in school, right? Get a good degree, and you could be a guy at that. So that's a sweet gig, isn't it?

[Jason]

I think so.

[Skip]

Imagine doing that. Wow. Well, thanks to our crowd. You know, maybe somebody will ask a question about Shakespeare, because remember, one of our listeners is the curator of the Shakespeare, the largest Shakespeare library in the world. I heard your question about Shakespeare, and let me just respond by saying, blah, blah, blah. No, that's. That's good. Good knowledge. The only thing that caught me in there was a tone control that boosts trebles, or rolls trebles off at each end of the travel. That's the one we put in Champs. That's the Tweed Deluxe. Tweed Princeton. That's the Fender. Single tone control that doesn't reduce gain, but it does roll off highs to the left, and it does boost highs to the right by engaging, basically a bright cap, just like a twin reverb has a bright switch. When you flip it up, it puts this capacitor across the volume control and lets the highs bypass the pot unattenuated so it makes it seem brighter and louder. But that's some good knowledge on the. That's all we need to know about that. Hopefully the guy that wrote in with the original question, we'll get some good knowledge from that.

[Jason]

Yeah, yeah.

[Skip]

Taking a. Taking a tone circuit with three knobs, turning it to where you like it, and then replacing those pots with resistors at that setting. You know, if you're looking to cut costs, I mean, that's a few resistors instead of three pots. And that has. That's. That's an interesting approach.

[Jason]

Very clever. I need to rest my voice. I'm going to play this next voice memo from Carl.

[Carl]

Hey, Skip and Jason, this is Carl from Philly. Last time I called with a cocktail recipe, it was a little fancy and had lots of ingredients. Everyone was like, what?

[Skip]

What? What?

[Carl]

What is that? So I got a simple one for you. It's Called a boy Hatton. I stole the idea from a friend. It's just whiskey, an ice cube and bitters to taste. Like about six dashes in there. Ice cube, whichever size you want, depending on you know how. How you're feeling and how alcoholic. That whiskey is. Another plus up for somebody who's not drinking these days. Little seltzer or those laguanitas. Hoppy refreshers throw little bitters in there, alcoholic or non, and enjoy.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

I wonder if he's the guy that brought me some bitters. It's like, could be. It's like distilled twigs, you know, it's just really earthy and woody tasting and you can't drink it straight. Believe me, I tried. But it's a unique wild taste with soda water in it and just the right number of drops of that in other liquor, like in whiskey is a classic thing and it definitely changes. It opens it up. So that's a couple of good, simple ones right there. Good one.

[Jason]

Have you ever heard of Ames amps aims?

[Skip]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are wild 70s tube. Kind of like plush. I think it might have been associated with plush. There's a couple of companies in the 70s that basically made kind of like Fenders, like Showmans and stuff, but were smaller brands and I don't think any of them survived into the 80s. Plush is one. Ames is one.

[Jason]

Let me read you a question from one of our listeners. Okay, this be the other long email I read. Hey, skipping Jason, Greetings from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Thanks for all that you do. I've learned so much from the podcast, which has pointed me towards some of the less popular dark horse and sleeper amps out there, notably vintage trainers. My favorite of which are the YGM3 and the YBA2. A basement mate mini head. On that subject, I'm wondering if either of you has any experience or intel about Ames Amplifiers, a home brew boutique brand from the 70s out of Arizona. I'm a folklorist, so I've been interested to read the varied legends about Ames online, the most common of which is that the company was founded by disgruntled Fender employees who left in the wake of the CBS buyout. That is apparently a myth, though their amps do share topologies with classic Fender designs. As far as my research has revealed, Ames was an acronym for Arizona Instrument and Musical Supply, a small operation based out of Arizona Music Center, a musical instrument shop founded in Phoenix in 1960 by steel guitarist Ruby Dominguez and her husband, guitarist Richard Lee Dominguez. A Fender and PV dealer Arizona Music was a fixture in Phoenix, popular for music lessons and catering in particular to the local Latin community until it was bought out amidst a storm of lawsuits and shady bankruptcy filings in 1993. At some point in the late 60s or early 70s, Lee Dominguez began building amps out of the shop to supplement revenues, possibly in collaboration with an in house amp tech named Bob Olson. For a time Ames was apparently distributed by Randall, which is maybe how the Fender employee rumors began. They stopped selling their own amps in the late 70s for financial reasons and the Dominguez's divorced in 1981, after which Ruby bought out Lee and helmed the shop for another decade. In the 1980s Arizona music even released a few records on their own independent imprint. The Ames amps I've seen are all incredibly powerful and heavy, mean and clean, high wattage logging trucks mostly all tube but with some lower wattage solid state models that maybe came later. The only Ames I own is a VTB120 personalized producer which I believe was designed as a bass amp, though I also play guitar, lap steel, banjo and keyboards through it. It is quite versatile. It has two channels each with a deep and bright switch with 312 AX7s, 112 at 72 6550s rated at 120 watts RMS into 5 ohms. Bizarre but intended for a matching cab with a with 632 ohm 10 inch speakers. I run it with 1 or 28 ohm 12212 cabs so sometimes at 8 ohms and sometimes at 4 ohms. It's massively and absurdly overbuilt and over engineered with beautifully sparkly scooped cleans, huge bass and crystalline highs and an endless headroom. Aside from the 6550s it most closely resembles a black panel Fender basement on steroids. Another model you sometimes see for sale online is the personalized Eclipser which is the guitar equivalent featuring reverb and trim. There are also various PA and vocal amp models and some enormous multi speaker combos that look extremely unwieldy. Information online is muddled and pricing is all over the place because they're so unknown and unpopular with collectors. The graphic design of the panels at least of the mid-70s and later models is very 70s psychedelic with a D and D fantasy novel looking baroque Black Sabbath esque typeface that allegedly inspired the appearance of the Earthquaker devices sound projector amp. But despite their look, I've read that Ames were most popular with southwestern country and Mexican American bands looking for loud cutting cleans for outdoor stages. Do you or any of your listeners know more about Ames? What do I have wrong? I'm curious to hear more from someone familiar with the Arizona Music Center, Phoenix music history, or the Dominguez family. Also, what other amps out there are designed for 5ohm output? I've never encountered that before. Finally, a recipe. For those of you with access to fresh head on shrimp. He included a link to that. I'll share in the show notes for the mosquito supper clubs. Boiled shrimp. That's a New Orleans restaurant. He adds, it's easily adaptable for live crabs if you prefer. That is from Brendan 5ohms.

[Skip]

Remember, 100% up or down, right? I think what happened there is they wanted to use six speakers and they got a deal. They didn't want to have like them all hooked up in parallel or they didn't want to have a series parallel setup like Marshalls. And that's just what it ended up as. And I wish you'd have played that so I didn't have to sound stupid at the beginning. I was right about the amps, but I was wrong about the plush and the New York City connection. That's another amp that I can't bring to mind. I didn't know that Ames was from Arizona and maybe the Baffler could be. Is there another person that knows more about Ames amps than this guy?

[Jason]

That person wins the pedal.

[Skip]

That person wins the pedal right there. Right? That person does win the pedal. I'm not sure, you know, that was the take. We're done. So if somebody, if somebody can come up and say, you know, my next door neighbor was. Worked there in 1975 and then, then they get, then they get the pedal. That's good. That's good knowledge. And if Ames had made a Princeton reverb or a deluxe reverb, they'd be way, way more well known and popular. The thing about the Ames is I've never seen any that were smaller than 265 50s. And that's just two power tubes. But those are big bruiser tubes. And in, in certain kind of amps that just. Those two can be 100 watts if they're run real. If they're running them really hot. One caveat about those amps I would. That just comes to mind is they were made to use tubes that you can't afford to buy anymore. So that might be a good candidate to use a variac with and lower the, you know, the voltage a bit. Because I'm sure they used American made Sylvania. GE. 6550s. And now those are well over a hundred dollars a piece, I would think by now. So is there someone that knows more about Ames? Good job. A folklorist.

[Jason]

I gotta see how I need pictures of this thing. He didn't include any pictures.

[Skip]

Anyways, they're pretty. They're pretty. They're just giant, you know. And I say great. I mean, some of the best deals out there are. Are on physically large amps. And if you don't mind, if you got space for it, then, you know, you can get that stuff for half the price. Well, I always tell people in the Fender world, you know, the deluxe reverb is twice as much as a twin reverb of the same year and twice as easy to sell in a way because times change and people don't want the big amps. Just got to remember, in the 70s, if you wanted to be loud, you had to have a loud amp because the PA was crap and it would only handle vocals. And if you were out at the county fair, you know, or out in some field with nothing behind you, all these big twins and aims and things like that, big trainers, they sound great. It's just trying to get him to sound great in your apartment that's hard. There you go.

[Jason]

Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for the question. We'll do a couple more. This next voice memo is from a familiar voice.

[Bob]

Hi, Skip and Jason. It's Bob in Boulder County, Colorado. I've gone back to episode one and started listening all over again. That's how crazy I am about this subject. Anyway, I'm kind of the pronunciation police. I've teased Eric Daw about the way he says Yamaha. I'm the guy that says it should be reverb, not reverb. And Jason, you are an amazing journalist and published the most fantastic magazine out there. But there's no X in et cetera. Anyways, on to my question. Way back in the early days, there was discussion about adding a tweak to a silver panel Champ which involved incorporating the MagnetOne 213 device potentiometer. I guess that allowed you to have a variable capacitor, I believe you said, on the biasing of the preamp tube. Anyways, I like my silver panel Champ just the way it is. However, I might be interested in adding that magnetone 213 tweak without doing the tone control famous modification that you have discussed for many years, period. So that's my question. Can I do the 213 without the other model? I think the answer Is.

[Skip]

Yes.

[Bob]

Thanks so much for the greatest podcast out there.

[Skip]

Well, there's some Jason love there, I think.

[Jason]

I apparently say etc wrong.

[Skip]

But, yeah, especially it was a little. A little, you know, a little judgmental at the beginning. Right. Pronunciation police.

[Jason]

It's okay.

[Skip]

Magnetone 213s use a tone control that gradually adds a bypass capacitor to a cathode resistor in the preamp. Not the same as the tone control we talk about a lot. And I'm going to continue my policy of not saying, oh, just hook the red wire to the blue wire, and no go look at the dank schematic. You can see that you could build that. And you could see that there's a similar. There's a part of that. Part of a Fender circuit that's just like the Magnetone. And you could add that magneton tone circuit. Do it yourself if you understood how it worked and how to wire it up. And then when you do, let us know how it came out. It's just another way of altering the sound. And I probably mentioned it because someone was asking about tone controls, and that's a really unusual one. I've never seen anything really quite like that. We talk a lot about connecting and disconnecting bypass caps and preamp stages, but a pot to roll it in and out is pretty unique, pretty interesting. Okay, how about this? You could rest your voice for a second more.

[Jason]

Oh, sure.

[Skip]

I try not to rail about fools who are ruining America too often, but the shop in Sacramento that wanted to tear out that incredibly valuable alpha transformer and just put some new thing in there. But there's another one guy sent me a California Vox. So that's a Thomas, Oregon box. They made a very common one with two EL84s. It's called a Cambridge Reverb. And I think there's a slight. A Berkeley Reverb is the head version. And he wanted me to fix it. And he sent me this junk from the Internet about what he was really interested and wanted to do. Like, and this dude, I think, well, I don't know, had a name, cute name, Tones. I think it was Tone Smiths. And there was about two paragraphs about how these boxes, Thomas Organ boxes don't sound good. And here's what you do to change it. And what he said to do was to raise the value of the cathode resistor on the output stage. And if you did that, it would lower the B plus voltage being fed to the output stage. Now, I know this is boring, but this is elemental if you build a little dam in your creek in your backyard, when you're five years old and the water comes up and you go kick a hole in the dam, the water goes out. If you let more current flow through an output stage, the B plus goes down. And this guy, Tone Smiths is like, oh, yes, well, you're going to want to do this, because this and that, it's absolutely wrong. Like, not just kind of wrong, like drilling a hole right in the face plate of your old amp where it says Fender, but just elementally wrong. And this person is out there on the Internet telling people what they should do with their. With their boxes. I took one read of it and I called the guy and I said, this is unbelievable. This is absolutely backwards. And he was convinced that it was going to give him all these fantastic sonic benefits to this amp. And you know what I did? I fixed the dang thing, and it sounded great. Those amps don't sound like boxes. They sound more like a Princeton Reverb, but they're a little hard to work on because of the way they're constructed. But those things sound great, and he didn't need any of that nonsense. And I just can't believe that in this world there's people saying things like that are just so wrong. Like, how could anybody even. All you'd have to do is put your voltmeter in there and go, well, that didn't do what he said it would do. And yet because of the Internet and the age of the expert, some. There's just some validity to seeing it on your computer screen. That's why. Don't tell me what somebody on the Internet says about anything. If somebody I know says something about something, then I'm listening. Otherwise, you can't believe the number of people that say, you know, well, I. I got in the Internet, and this one guy says he used this, that. That part, and that he thinks it's the best he's ever. Okay. We just don't know who lives in their mom's basement and who is a real musician. And that's the problem with information on the Internet. And it's. I just stupefied that it still goes on. It give. Gives himself a cute name like Tone Smiths and is dispensing wisdom. And he's just. It's just stupid. Didn't I say you cut your thumb? You go to the doctor and he says, I'll patch that thumb up, but I'll put another thumb on your hand too, so you can have two won't that be better? No, thanks, doc. You know, you're just upside down in your thinking, so. Fire. Caveat emptor. And if you. The more, you know, the more ability you have to see through some jive like that. Unbelievable, right? You need a good. You need to. Need a good binge viewing. Binge viewing. Clarkson's farm, it's this kind of like reality show. It's real, but it's a pretty wealthy English guy who's well known in the motorsports world. Like he's a car guy. He decides in real life that he's gonna buy this funky old farm out in England where it's the hedgerows and all that stuff, and he's gonna try to make a go of it. And it's really well done. It's very good at showing why people who live in the country like it because it's very rural. And the guy's very charming. Even though he's an actor. He's very personable and down to earth. And he gets a farm advisor who comes and says, well, you lost £10,000 this year, right? He's got a next door neighbor who's a young kid. He's the star of the show. He's kind of like the, you know, the Barney Fife of the show. He's a young guy who's grew up on a farm and he's not impressed with this movie star dude at all. He likes to call him a Muppet, which is something I've been used. You. You're such a Muppet. Because the rich guy tries to drive a tractor and crashes it into the telephone pole, you know, and he. He's just not a farm. Whereas the young guy who lives next door grew up on a farm and is trying to help him out. And it's. It's just really well done. They start, they want to have a little farm store so they can sell some of their produce. But the village council in this billion year old little village that they live in, good try, right? They don't like this guy. He's loud and they don't want cars parked out there in his field and stuff, you know, so he really goes through quite the trials and tribulations. Like the badgers are ruining his field. If you kill a badger in England, like you're going to jail. Like, they are serious about stuff like that and it's just charming. A lot of live farm stuff. A lot of births, a lot of deaths, you know, because he buys cows. And then, you know, they have to be this tri. Pigs and the Chickens get out. And it's, it's really well done. And, and if you, if you ever lived out in the country or on a farm, you'll, you'll chuckle. And if you ever wonder why people would want to do that, you give that a, you give that a spin. It's really, it's really, it's really interesting. It's a lot more fun than I thought it would be. And it's. Clarkson's farm guy's name is Jeremy Clarkson. He was, he was the host of who Wants to Be a Millionaire In England, and he's famous for going to, like, Grand Prix and driving Lamborghinis. Yeah. And he's just really charming and having him just scratch his head and go, what? When the farm advisor guy says, well, all this wheat you bought, you know, all spoiled because it rained, you know. Oh, weather. You know, listeners know I talk about weather a lot. And when you're a farm guy, you know, it's just. It rained and it rained and it rained for three weeks and you just lost a jillion dollars, you know, because your crop can't work if it's all buried in mud. So Clarkson's farm is a lot of fun.

[Jason]

Okay, we have a long email from your Ferguson tractor soulmate in Australia, but I'll save that for a while. I think I maybe forwarded that one to you already, but this next one was about Bogans. I'm going to read it to you. This is from Bernie in New York. Subject line, Variable input impedance. Absolutely love the podcast and everything you're about. Throughout the El Pado steep journey, I've had many questions, but always felt they were either answered in the next episode or I just didn't think were relevant. Anyway, I did come to this one question. Would a variable input resistance be a practical or even worth it idea? I know Skip for the most part states a 1 meg input resistance is what you want to see to get the most out of your amp. But what if a 1 meg pot was wired into the input jack so a full sweep of variability was on tap? Just a wasted endeavor or worthwhile attempt. Also, though, this doesn't apply to at all to my question, Skip always talks about Bogan PA amps and figured I'd do a little shout out to their short run of guitar amps. This is my 55 bogan GA5. Probably as close as I'll ever get to a tweed Princeton, though vastly different. But at the end of the day, if it's old, clad in tweed and only has a Volume and tone. That's enough for me. That's from Bernie. I'll include photos of Bernie's Bogan GA5 on our Instagram.

[Skip]

Two PA companies, Bogan and Newcome. I'm trying to think made traditional guitar amps. You know, an amp with a speaker in it and a little case with a handle. And they're cool and they're undervalued because they don't say Fender on. And there's a Newcome with 112. That sounds really good. And there's a. The Bogan. I think there's another bottle bogan too that's a little bit more powerful. But if you see an oddball little combo amp that's us made just because it doesn't say Supro or Rickenbacker or Fender or something on it, there's some. There's some good sleepers in there. Very cool. And I already forgot the rest of the question.

[Jason]

It was about the putting a. Oh yeah.

[Skip]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, so there are amps where the guitar signal goes into the amp and it goes to a pot. It's called the volume control on an amp. Almost all the great amps, the guitar signal goes into a tube that amplifies the crap out of it. And then it goes to a volume control. But there are volume controls first on guitar amps. Also, a lot of hi fi stuff will have what's called an input level control, which is just basically a pot right at the input. And you could try one. But think about this. When you plug a guitar in, the volume control of the guitar is. Is that, you know, it is that it's at the other end of the guitar cord. But basically it's a pot right there at the output of the pickup. And putting another one on an amplifier is probably not going to knock you out because it's just basically going to duplicate what the volume control on the guitar does. I could see an application where maybe a harp player or just for whatever reason somebody liked to turn that little input level control down because it would have a tendency to tame the guitar. But it really is basically the same as the volume control on the guitar schematically. And it's in the same place in the circuit. So I don't think it's something that everybody would want. But it'd certainly be worth trying in your own homebrew thing. I'm thinking especially for maybe harp players, you get that also. You get that resistance down too low and it affects the sound as you turn down a volume pot. The highs are reduced out of proportion. Highs are the first thing to go. That's why when you plug into the number one of a, say a regular Fender amp, it's so much brighter and louder than the number 2 jack is. Because the number 2 jack is only 175k above ground, whereas the number 1 is a meg. So there. Love it. Shows your thinking. Shows your thinking.

[Jason]

Well, let's do one more. I'll save the Ferguson tractor post as well as many others for next time around. Anyone?

[Skip]

I want to wear you out.

[Jason]

We don't know anyone listening to this can can be a part of the show. Podcastritboardjournal.com Please send us a question. Send us a voice memo. Send us your comments. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts. We'll end with with this one from another recurring guest on this podcast. Here we go.

[Listener]

Jason Skip, your old friend Papa Woolly. I'm freaking out. I've had the two prong hat since it first came out. I was I think in the second batch and the other day I'm looking at it and swear to God I think it says if am I being crazy or did if you guys talked about this before has that's been brought up on the podcast? It now I can't not see it but anyway I was listening to the podcast the other day and I thought that young Will was going to be my new superhero. And then the week following you had Larry Chung on and his insights were amazing about the sensitivity and touch on an app and I wanted to get his input on what he thought was contributing to that because I've found that same magic thing on a couple amps and I've noticed that the common thing was their fixed bias so they just seem more touch sensitive than my other amps sound fantastic but the ones that have that feel that Larry's talking about, I wondered if he he could comment on that. Another deal you were talking about people that have pedal boards like Helix and stuff like that. With old pas I leave the phono input in or I make a jack for it so you can use that. That's just like an effects return on an amp and they blast like hell. You're using the power amp portion of the of the amp so it's fantastic for those. Finally some dude was talking about GM on a tube and I IP and he didn't know what that meant. It's simple stuff. GM is transconductance and that's basically the gain of the tube the higher the transconductance the more gain the tube has. So you want to have those matched gain tubes. Just make sure the transconductance is matched. Some tube testers will give you that IP is simply plate current. So anyway, updating on the my barn finds from. From Mr. Skip. Everything I've got so far is working fantastic. I've left the first four original. The fifth one, man, I'm going crazy on it. Making a band master clone out of it. And so far so good. But you guys have a great day and we'll. We'll be seeing you.

[Skip]

That guy came and just went wild in the barn. Spent a pile of money but got a bunch of great stuff and has obviously been having a super good time messing with it.

[Jason]

It nice.

[Skip]

So that's good. I think he sells some stuff once in a while too, which is good. Separates you from the beast. You don't want to keep every new little thing you make. Now was there a con. An actual question in there for me? I'm already lost.

[Jason]

Yeah, I don't think so.

[Skip]

Think that. That there was something in there that I was going to dispute, but I can't exactly remember what it was. That's okay. We're moving along just fine.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Did I ever wreck. Did I ever recommend the books called that are called All Music Guide.

[Jason]

Oh yeah, those were great. You recommended those a long time ago.

[Skip]

Yeah, I say. I'm gonna say those again. It may be one of the ultimate books to have in the bathroom. There's a. There's a rock one which was good because I stopped listening to music, you know, in the 80s and 90s and I had no idea, you know, who all these people are, you know, and it's get you up to speed on things that you don't know about. And there's a blues one that also includes a big section in the back of soul, jazz, blues, like, you know, like Shirley Scott on the B3 and stuff like that, which is. Which is a genre I really dig. And the reviewers are really cool. There's an early wine, I think that. I think his brother, the repairman from Stuart McDonald's brother and the guy that did smoking in the boys room, Cubcoda from Brownsville Station. And it's. They're great books because you'll find a lot of music that you'll want to listen to if you just have a thing to browse through. So put down your phone, get an all music guide to the blues and just flip it open and go huh. Book a white and read about it. They're well done. The reviews are not super treacherous like the old Rolling Stone reviews where they just want to trash somebody, but really good. I definitely recommend both those books as a way to get off the computer for a while, stare out the window and. Or, like I said, in the bathroom. I mean, the only point in going to the bathroom is to have a cool book in there.

[Jason]

Exactly.

[Skip]

Well, there are other. There are other reasons, but that's the main reason, right?

[Jason]

Yeah, the main reason.

[Skip]

Yes. And thanks to Papa Woolley for that nice email.

[Jason]

Yeah, we're talking in mid June. Where are you at with repairs? Are people allowed to send you stuff?

[Skip]

Yes.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

I still have a problem with a few people who will remain unnamed that have had things here for way too long, like years. But I'm doing okay. And I'm trying not to be the guy where it takes a year. So I also, for whatever reason, have been getting more pas. You know, people are really into that stuff. I've done quite a few Mascos and things like that lately as opposed to just the regular fenders. But there's always somebody coming up. Somebody coming up today with, you know, four fender amps from two or three hours away, making a long haul to bring some stuff up to me. So basically the same. A lot of yard work, some fires, nothing close, you know, and, you know, chugging away.

[Jason]

Well, Skip, we did it.

[Skip]

Yes, we did. Thanks again for everything. Like I said, gotta have those sponsors and Patreon people and gotta have the people that continue to write in and send questions and send Moon Pies and we sure. We sure appreciate it.

[Jason]

Yeah. Thanks, everybody. Keep the questions coming till next time.

[Skip]

I'll be here for you. Sa.