Ep. 139: "I'm Going Negative"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons – Ep. 139: "I'm Going Negative"

Release Date: October 18, 2024

Host: The Fretboard Journal (Jason) Guest: Skip Simmons

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Introduction and Personal Anecdotes

The episode kicks off with Skip Simmons apologizing for a previous scheduling mishap, setting a light-hearted tone. Both Jason and Skip delve into personal stories that intertwine with their passion for vintage guitar amplifiers, establishing a relatable and engaging atmosphere for listeners.

Vintage Amp Restoration Insights

Alembic Stereo Preamp Exploration [00:42 – 03:56]

Skip shares his excitement about working on a 1974 Alembic stereo preamp, originally developed for the Grateful Dead. He describes its robust construction, including heavy-duty components like bolted pots and jacks designed for rigorous on-road use. Skip emphasizes the preamp's unique features, such as individual outputs that allow for cascading overdrive effects, highlighting its innovative design for its time.

Reverb Amps and Vintage Tweeds [03:58 – 07:55]

The conversation shifts to vintage Fender amps, particularly the super reverb models. Skip recounts an encounter with a Fender dealer from Antioch, California, who introduced him to robust, albeit bulky, solid-state amps housed in compact rack spaces. He discusses the durability and design of these amps, noting their heavy-duty construction despite heavy use, making them a testament to their quality.

Listener Questions and Technical Discussions

Bias Modulating Tremolo Problems [16:47 – 19:23]

Jason poses a listener question about bias modulating tremolo issues in vintage amps. Skip responds with detailed technical explanations, describing common problems such as faulty intensity pots that disrupt the bias voltage. He shares real-world examples, including how a broken intensity pot can cause an amp to sound terrible and emphasizes the importance of thorough troubleshooting beyond the obvious components.

Transformers and Voltage Conversion [69:10 – 68:04]

The episode addresses concerns from international listeners about converting amp voltages for use overseas. Skip advises on using step-down transformers with adequate wattage capacity to handle multiple amps simultaneously. He highlights practical solutions, including recommendations from listeners who successfully modified their setups using specific transformers or variacs.

Tube Testing and Matching [25:34 – 28:09]

Gregory's question about the use of tube testers prompts Skip to discuss best practices in tube maintenance. He clarifies that while tube testers are useful, they should not replace hands-on evaluation. Skip differentiates between preamp and power tubes, advocating for more rigorous testing of power and rectifier tubes due to their critical role in an amp's performance. He cautions against over-reliance on testers, especially with specialized tubes like Telefunken 12AX7s.

Stories and Community Interactions

Ben Harper Movie Collaboration [21:33 – 24:19]

Jason shares a personal achievement of collaborating on a short film featuring musician Ben Harper. The project, born from a conversation about Harper’s unique Dumble amps, showcases the intersection of music and visual storytelling. Both hosts express enthusiasm about the project's positive reception and future screenings, demonstrating the podcast's commitment to celebrating vintage gear through multimedia.

Vintage Amp Collector Anecdotes [40:14 – 43:58]

Skip narrates stories about vintage amp pioneers, including an insightful discussion on Nat Daniel's unique amp designs. He explains the technical intricacies of Daniel's modifications, such as using DC filaments to reduce noise, and the trade-offs involved in maintaining tonal quality. These anecdotes highlight the ingenuity within the vintage amp community and the delicate balance between innovation and preserving classic sounds.

Special Segments and Personal Updates

Personal Purchases and Reflections [43:52 – 49:50]

Skip shares his excitement about purchasing a vintage Fender Duo Sonic guitar after 35 years of using a hollow body. He reflects on the differences in tone and playability between solid-body and hollow-body guitars, appreciating the clarity and volume that a Fender brings. This personal milestone underscores the hosts' deep appreciation for vintage instruments and their enduring impact on musical expression.

Tribute to Industry Figures [71:14 – 72:57]

The hosts pay homage to notable figures in the guitar amp world, including a heartfelt tribute to David Lindley and Henry Kaiser. They discuss the influence these individuals had on their careers and the broader music community, reinforcing the podcast’s role in honoring and preserving the legacy of vintage amp enthusiasts.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, Skip touches on the loss of his map-collecting father and the historical maps he preserved. This personal moment adds depth to the conversation, illustrating the interconnectedness of hobbies and passions within the vintage amp community. Both hosts express gratitude towards their listeners and sponsors, reinforcing the supportive network that sustains their podcast.

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Notable Quotes

• Skip on Alembic Preamp Design [00:43]:

  "It’s made just like an amp. So it has a power transformer, filter, capacitors, power supply, all the stuff that you'd need for an amp."

• Discussion on Tube Testing [25:51]:

  "The best tube tester in the world is a Silver Face Champ, something that just uses a 12AX7 that you can stick in an amp and fire it up and go, whoa, that thing sounds good or bad or weak or noisy or whatever."

• Voltage Conversion Advice [65:06]:

  "You just get yourself your own power station. Like your own hydroelectric dam that lets you power whatever you brought at its proper voltage."

• On Matching Rectifier Tubes [54:14]:

  "There's not much point in matching tubes that are parallel. The whole point in matching tubes is when you're dealing with tubes that work together, like in power tubes."

• Personal Guitar Purchase [44:10]:

  "I decided I could justify buying it as a learning experience of having a more traditional test guitar. Because not too many people play hollow body guitars with a de arment in it."

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Final Thoughts

Episode 139, "I'm Going Negative," offers a deep dive into the technical and personal facets of vintage amp restoration and collection. Through engaging conversations, real-world troubleshooting, and heartfelt stories, Skip Simmons provides invaluable insights for amp enthusiasts and collectors. The episode not only addresses complex technical issues but also fosters a sense of community and shared passion among its listeners.

Transcript

[Skip]

Yes, I'm here.

[Jason]

How are you?

[Skip]

Well, I have to apologize to everyone for. Not for breaking our date last week. My brain fell to pieces.

[Jason]

They didn't know you didn't have to break that fourth wall.

[Skip]

Yeah, I guess they didn't know, huh?

[Jason]

No.

[Skip]

Well, a little hectic. Little hectic around here. Probably same with you, but I'm fine. Yeah, I'm fine. Amps, amps, amps and fun, fun, fun.

[Jason]

Yeah. What are you working on?

[Skip]

Limit limited amounts. The 1974 Alembic stereo preamp is pretty amazing. Could talk about that.

[Jason]

What is that? Yeah, you sent me a picture of that, and I'll share it with everybody. But what exactly is that?

[Skip]

Maybe the picture wasn't good enough. But let's see. Guess we hardly ever talk about the Grateful Dead once in a while. Once in a while. Well, it wasn't long before they decided that just playing through a. A showman head wasn't enough power. But they liked the sounds of the amps. They just wanted to be able to not have them be 80 watts or 100 watts. So by 1974, Alembic, a company that basically formed to make gear for them, said, you know, why don't we just make the preamps in a showman head, and then you can come out of that thing and you could start. What they started doing was stacks and stacks of 200 watt tube Macintosh power amps and stacks and stacks of cabinets, right? So a cool guy, Hank Ulrich, he's. He was funny. He. He knew some interesting people. He was an Olympic dealer. And he came here and brought this thing. And I said, what am I supposed to do with this solid state? It's one rack space high. He goes, no, no, no, no, no. I said, okay, I'll take a peek. So when you open it up, it has a little sideways printed circuit board inside so that there's two 12 AX7s in it. But kind of like the way I do preamps. It's just beautiful. And it's. And it's. It's made just like an amp. So it has a power transformer, filter, capacitors, power supply, all the stuff that you'd need for an amp. It's not some sort of battery thing or starved voltages. It basically runs the tubes just like they'd be in a showman. And then it has individual outputs. He pointed out that you could take the output of one and put it into the input of the other. And what have you got? You've got, like, cascading overdrive like boogie does. Or did or does. And he was an interesting guy. And it was in really clean shape. And fairly recently I started making preamps where the tube sits sideways so they can be in little enclosures. And I was, I was glad to see it. Like I said, it looked like something I did. It's a beautiful shape. It. Even though he'd used the hell out of it. And all the stuff that you break, like the pots and the jacks and stuff, all just heavy duty and bolted right to the chassis like a Fender. So something I've never seen. And it's cool. It's definitely. I mean, I don't know how useful it would be for everyone, but it was, it was fun to see and definitely a slice of on the road from everybody has to have a big loud amp to everybody has a little tiny amp that goes through a pa, right? That's what you hear at a gig. Unless he saw the. And heard the wall of sound, right? Which of course was no pa. Every instrument had a mega amp. So what a long, strange trip that was, huh?

[Jason]

Yeah, exactly.

[Skip]

How about this guy who came over from Antioch, California, which is the home of this legendary music store called Web Music, that was a huge Fender dealer, Huge to the point that Webb could ask Fender to make them custom stuff. Like there's a whole bunch of tweed basements that are white Tolex because Webb asked for him in white Tolex. And it's just an old country telly. Guy got a couple of old, you know, super reverbs that are really hard to sell, by the way, because nobody wants big amps. You guys want to, want to buy something cheap, man, Get a super reverb or twin reverb. But anyway, he was leaving and all he talked about was music. And all of a sudden I said something. He goes, well, you know. And he had it in his car. He pulled out this big old binder. He was a hang glider pioneer in the hills of Altamont, you know, above, above San Francisco Bay there. And we're talking when you had to make a hang glider, right? So he had all these pictures of some young, bearded, long haired guy. That was him, of course, in like 1970, with all these other kooks jumping off of cliffs. Who knows, huh? You never know what people are going to tell you at the last second. Yeah, pioneer. Pioneer hang glider dude. Which is. That is bold, man. I mean, it's one thing making an airplane or paper airplane and throwing it and designing it and thinking about it, but making something and then getting on it and jumping off into. Yeah. Anyway, you never know.

[Jason]

You never know.

[Skip]

Like the guy, he was getting in his car and I asked him what he did and remember he said he was the cameraman on the Carol Burnett show.

[Jason]

Yeah, that was a good one.

[Skip]

Sammy Davis and the wrecking crew sitting around eating pizza with the camera guys between takes and. And Carol Burnett bringing, you know, a casserole. You look like you haven't been eaten. I made you guys a casserole too. Hilarious. Well, speaking of being nice, maybe we should discuss our nice sponsors.

[Jason]

Oh, what a great segue, Doink. You're a pro. Grez guitars is sponsoring the show once again. Now, Barry, just In the last 24 hours of US recording this revealed a brand new model. The grand tour. This is a 15 inch carved arch top. You can get it with two pickups. You can get it with one. It's under six pounds. It's absolutely stunning. It's got the f holes. Check that out on Barry's social. Barry is also part of the wood wire and volts. This is sort of the anti NAMM show. This is going on while NAMM takes place in Anaheim. Also in Anaheim, January 23rd and 24th. Curtis Novak will be there. Grez will be there. Satellite amps, who has been on the show before, will be there, as well as a bunch of other boutique electric guitar makers, pickup makers and pedal makers. So check that out if anyone's headed to the NAMM show. And that's what Barry's up to.

[Skip]

Well, I have a Barry comment. Guy I met recently is. Lives up on one of those islands in Washington and he's a wood hustler.

[Jason]

Oh yeah, Bruce Harvey. Was that who it is?

[Skip]

I think that was. I think that was. It was. He said something about big redwood.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Did he say billets that some people still used to make shingles for their house? Which he was going, why would you. It's like pouring gasoline on the roof of your house. Why would you use shingles on there? But anyway, a little sub underground movement. There's. There's a bunch of guys in the Chico, California area who are always on the lookout for walnut, which is, you know, becoming a bigger and bigger wood. And it's just sort of interesting. I. That must have been Bruce. Yeah, I think it is. Yes. It's Bruce. Something about going and trying to find a sycamore log for somebody and stuff like that. Just gotta love that, right?

[Jason]

It's the best.

[Skip]

Probably. He's probably looking out the window as he drives around in the country in case he sees A good piece of wood.

[Jason]

It's like bird watching, I imagine.

[Skip]

Yeah, yeah, Fantastic. I have a, I had a stepdad who was one of those guys that could build anything and he, he wanted a bedroom set, chest to drawers, dresser, big old huge bed, four poster thing. So what did he do? He started the chainsaw up. That was his first step right there. I mean, he fricking cut down the. Well, the tree may have been cut down that. I bet he cut down the tree. And a couple years later, here's this beautiful solid black walnut bedroom set. His bedroom. Got to have people like that man who can, who can do things.

[Jason]

Yeah. Our second sponsor is Amplified Parts. You can go to AmplifiedParts.com tell them Tava sent you last time around. I asked you what you were recently ordering from them and you were ordering a whole bunch of stuff. I know a lot of. I know most of our listeners out there also need new parts as well as the old parts that we talk about scavenging. They have matched preamp tubes. The apex tube matching is right on their homepage right now. If anybody wants to just get a pair of matching preamp tubes without having to go through all the testing, all the stuff they've done it for, you go to amplifiedparts.com Excellent. And then last but not least, he's going to be on the Fretboard Journal podcast, I believe this week. Emerald City Guitars. Trevor Boone was just here. They just had like three dumbles. If you are not following Emerald City Guitars on social media or on YouTube, you are missing out. Trevor is on this sort of, I don't know, semi permanent guitar safari mode. He's out there flying around looking for new gear, hanging out with rock stars, hanging out with famous people. And it's a lot of fun to see all of the crazy things they're getting at their Seattle showroom.

[Skip]

So. Yeah, the high rolling stuff.

[Jason]

Yeah. Tell them the Fretboard Journal and the truth about Vintage jam. Saying you. I know our friend Jeff Schick just went over there and hung out with Trevor and tried out some guitars and amps.

[Skip]

That would have been wild. Yeah, no, they always have the good stuff. And I, I'll say again, a music store is different than buying something online. And you know, it's not like there's a zillion undiscovered things, but there still are some undiscovered things. People should check out that tiny more Bigsby mandolin that's from the Skips Music in Sacramento estate. That's pretty, pretty darn far out. So.

[Jason]

Mm. I Believe Jeff Schick actually sent us a voice memo. And you can send us a voice memo, too. To podcast fretboardjournal.com please keep the questions coming. They are what powers this show. And if you want to get to the front of the line, go to patreon.com vintageamps Join us there. I share bonus outtake episodes and all sorts of fun stuff over there all the time. Skip, do you want to just jump into the amp questions?

[Skip]

I am gonna. For a change, I'm gonna start negative. I'm going negative.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

Although I have positive. I have a. I have a new cool, fun amp tweak that anybody can do. Has one of these amps that I'm really happy with that I'm gonna give away if you just text blah, blah, blah to such and such. I'm just kidding. It has recently come to my attention that the groovy world of the kegger, where everyone is nice and respectful and not just trying to push their own agenda, as you know, is starting to go towards the way most of these things do. Or eventually it's two men that have posted 50,000 times in one year. And if I have to start going, if I have to go on the kegger, I will. I can't have that. It has to be just. That's what you think.

[Jason]

Great.

[Skip]

I don't need to comment on it. You know, it's supposed to be about stuff that we have in common. And I really don't like people saying, this is the way it is. You know, I. I say that. I know I get away with saying, no, you're a knucklehead. This is the way it is. But I don't really mean it like that. There can be more than one truth, and that's always something to keep in mind. And whoever those people are or that person is who feels the need to say, you're kind of stupid, they need to go find another place to talk. So that's all I got to say.

[Jason]

Yeah. I'm on our Facebook group, and I don't.

[Skip]

I've had. I've had two people tell me that they asked a question and got like, a snippy, you know, somebody kind of telling them, hey, man, you're sort of stupid. And then the last little negative thing is I keep getting calls and emails from people who want me to send them. Do want me to. Who want to. Who work on amps and. And want me to send them work. And you got. Y'all just gotta know that that ain't gonna happen. Because I just can't know. You know, you could call me and say, yeah, I listen to the podcast and I fix amps here down in la and I. I can't get this twin reverb to something or other. You know, I help people with some little tech thing like that, but I can't just say, oh, a guy texted me, or, you know, I don't text. A guy emailed me and said, I work on amps and I live in Tucson, so if somebody calls me with a twin reverb, I can't send them to that guy in Tucson. Remember when you said you had a guy who wanted to sponsor the podcast named Barry? And I went, I don't know.

[Jason]

But then he became a beloved figure in the Tava community.

[Skip]

But. But why? Because he's a great guy and his stuff is great, you know, and you can't just know that right off the bat.

[Jason]

It's true.

[Skip]

So.

[Jason]

So anyway, you did start out negative.

[Skip]

I did. Starting to go, what about that cop? Did you get some of the home roasted coffee from a guy named Kevin?

[Jason]

I did. Thank you.

[Skip]

Kevin was the bomb.

[Jason]

You know, it went fast.

[Skip]

I have a neighbor that I gave some to, and I don't know, he might set fire to the house if I don't give him some more of the rest of it. It's a good job there, Kevin. That's. That's sweet Maria's. I don't know if it's really a business or if it's just something he did special for us, but it was pretty impressive.

[Jason]

It. It really was. That was really. Thank you. That was fun.

[Skip]

Negative, positive. Now I'm ready for an amp question.

[Jason]

Well, I was gonna say, do you know what I've learned from throwing a guitar show? The thing that luthiers hate the most, this has come up multiple times, is that an inordinate amount of people who go to a guitar show are like wannabe luthiers, and they bug the established, legendary whatever. Luthiers, and ask them, like, how'd you do this? How'd you do that? And they, of course, have no interest in buying a guitar. They just want to go back home and build a guitar for themselves with some, you know, hacks. But apparently this really drives luthier's nuts. I've learned that over the last month, so.

[Skip]

Well, I went. I went for decades telling people that. Called it, you know, that. With an amp question to. Well, the answer is to bring the amp to me. Yeah, right. And Mrs. Simmons probably still thinks it should be that way, but I've had to moderate that. You know, I've. I've even told people that are getting paid. I've given them some tips on how to get something fixed that they really ought to know how to fix if they're competent. But I get my butt kicked all the time by fenders. And so I figure, well, it's not like I need any more work. And I'm not going to refer people to someone and say, oh, this guy does great work, unless I know that they do. But on the other hand, I do want to encourage people to learn more. And even if it's somebody who's actually getting paid for working on amps, I understand. I've had to call people and say, what the hell? Why doesn't this amp work? In fact, I got a good one on that topic for today, so. So I can understand where luthiers don't want to have a guy who's never going to buy anything, ask him why they made the bridge that thickness or whatever. But I'm somewhere in between. Hippie, trippy, everyone, love each other and teach everyone and just cranky old grumpy guy, which is like, you want me to do it, I'll do it. Otherwise, leave me alone. So there's room in the middle, I would say.

[Jason]

To be clear, you've shared invaluable information over the course of 138 episodes of the Truth Podcast.

[Skip]

So, okay, here we go. Bias modulating tremolo. What?

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

Started with a Falcon that I couldn't fix. What? You know how many of those I've made? I couldn't figure out what's wrong with it. And I mentioned this, I had to give it to Bill Kernard from two Rock, and he finally figured out that the intensity potential was acting is in this circuit is basically the load for the grid on the power tubes. And the intensity pot was open on one side. Very, very rare. So the tremolo still worked and the amp still worked, but as you turned it up, the bias was off because that grid load wasn't there and the amp sounded terrible. So a couple weeks ago, the great Louis Garcia had an amp here with bias modulating tremolo. And when you turned it on, the power tubes wouldn't draw any current. Was it. They just wouldn't. It was. It was a fixed bias amp and the negative voltage that supplied to the grids of the power tubes was sky high. So the power tubes wouldn't draw any current. But the reason why it was sky high, this intensity pot for the Tremolo again, but broken in a different way. That was allowing all this negative voltage to go to the power tube instead of like half as much as it should have. It has a voltage divider effect in the bias supply. And that part of it wasn't working. So I had to replace the intensity pot to get the amp to bias. Right. And so when somebody calls me who should know how to fix something and doesn't, I. I'm. I've mellowed some.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

The only thing I won't tolerate is that's the way it's supposed to be. That's. That's the way these sound. When I know that's not true. You know, somebody with a Fender amp and this tech tells them that's all. That's what the reverb's supposed to sound like. And I say new, that's not what the reverb's supposed to sound like. Now, come on. But being stumped is. No, I mean, I get stumped a lot. A lot.

[Jason]

Who knew all that could be going on in the intensity pot?

[Skip]

A. Who would care? Hopefully 50 of our listeners are putting up their hand, but. Yeah, it just ain't easy. Man. Make me some bread. Isn't that episode one that was.

[Jason]

I. So there's no. Really. That's sort of the end of the line. There's it. You can't really test the pot, but if that's the only thing that hasn't been fixed or addressed or tested properly, you know, it's the pot. Is that how it works?

[Skip]

No. Sherlock says once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever's left, no matter how improbable it is, must be the truth. So there's something in there, but I try not to get involved in it. Must be this. Because I've looked everywhere else. You know, we do do that. I remember a guy brought me a Brown Deluxe and he wanted to buy an output transformer. And I said, why? Well, it needs an output transformer. We've checked everything and everything else is fine. So it must be the output transformer. So he brings it over. Early 60s Fender used a right angle speaker plug. Really cool, you know, really flat so it doesn't stick out. But they were made out of aluminum and it's good conductor. But go look at something aluminum that's 50 years old. It was so crusted with stuff like it had this white furry stuff all over it. And all I did was clean it with some steel wool and plug it in. And then the amp worked. So we need an output Transformer, because we checked everything else doesn't always work. It's always something else. Right. Possible that you can get something that you just hadn't even thought of yet. Makes it fun. Or it makes it challenging. I had to do a Dan Torres amp recently because the guy was local, was challenging. So he said it was a deluxe reverb that had had some modifications, but when he brought it, it was really a deluxe reverb chassis with a Torres amp built in it. You know, like the whole print circuit, the whole circuit board and everything, all that stuff, all different. But it always comes down to, you know, a bad solder joint or something. You just got to be patient, keep after it. Don't give up or give up for a while, but then come back. Love it. Yes. We better get a question before I deliver another earth shattering easy amp mod that everyone. Well, not everyone, but some people just.

[Jason]

Keep people in suspense.

[Skip]

In suspense.

[Jason]

I showed, you know, I made a movie with Ben Harper. Did you know this?

[Skip]

I knew you were a star of the stage and screen.

[Jason]

Well, not really, but I knew something about that. Yeah. We screened it at this film festival last night here in Seattle right before the incredible Brian Eno documentary, which was really cool. But, yeah, we made a movie with Ben Harper. When I interviewed Ben harper for the 53rd issue of the Fretboard Journal, he told me a story about one of his dumbles. And I said, we should make a little movie about this. That. And so we did hired a film crew and we showed a preview of it at the Fretboard Summit, and people liked it and Ben showed up. And then last night, we showed it at the Seattle International Film Festival's doc fest. It's like a. Our movie is like 14 minutes long. Yeah, it was a packed house. I think everybody was there to see the, you know, movie. But it was great to do that and, you know, I got to figure out where it's going to screen next. So that was my day.

[Skip]

Are you. Were you happy with how it came out?

[Jason]

Yes. I famously try to do everything and never delegate, which is why I wear like 18 hats here at the Fretboard Journal and do all these podcasts myself. But in this case, I knew we had one chance to film it and everything needed to be in focus and white balanced and all that good stuff. And so I hired a pro. And it was great to, you know, have somebody else's perspective on it, but it was essentially the story Ben told me. And, yeah, I'm happy.

[Skip]

And is Ben happy?

[Jason]

Ben was really happy. We Were. You know, he saw it in Chicago for the first time, I think, and he seemed to love it.

[Skip]

And so did you guys have to wear makeup?

[Jason]

Nobody wore makeup. I don't think anybody wore makeup. Yeah.

[Skip]

Whatever it takes.

[Jason]

And now everybody's going, when is this going to be on YouTube? And I'm in no rush to put it on YouTube, so I kind of like the idea of having it be a special thing that screens every once in a while.

[Skip]

Got to make a little bit more effort than just yawning and opening your computer. Takes more than that to get our content.

[Jason]

I'm in no rush. I'm enjoying just making it, you know, an event. I'll send you a link if you want to see it.

[Skip]

I might be able to get through 17 minutes.

[Jason]

Yeah, you might like it. It's not the typical. Let's talk about Dumble amplification. So.

[Skip]

Well, no.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Remember our brief appointments?

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

He wanted to talk about fire prevention.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Then I yelled at him for skateboarding.

[Jason]

And he told him to sell all of his Dumbles and give him charity.

[Skip]

Told him to give all the charity.

[Jason]

And somehow he still returns my phone calls.

[Skip]

Well, we were having a conversation in a good way. You know, I wish you guys have been, like, sitting there with the cigarettes, like, you know, Phil Donahue show or A Firing Line with. With William F. Buckley and. And Ben Harper. Right. Like, with your knees crossed in those cool chairs and. So tell us, Ben. No, that's great. I'd love to talk to him again. And I. It was my. My comments were fueled by love. I just went, what? You're doing what you're supposed to have your hands insured, like Segovia or something like that, you know? Come on, now. We just don't want to be. We don't want to have any less of Ben Harper. We want it all. So take it easy. Right? Sure. No, he was the greatest. He called from the forest where they cut wood for Stradivariuses. Was nearby, I think he said. Right. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah.

[Jason]

He was in Europe. I forgot all about that.

[Skip]

He just called during podcast. That was really honest.

[Jason]

More. More people should do that.

[Skip]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Jason]

If only they knew how.

[Skip]

If only they knew when.

[Jason]

Sure.

[Skip]

Okay, come on, now. Questions.

[Jason]

All right, listener. Greg, we'll start basic. Gregory wants to know when does Skip use his tube tester or does Skip use his tube tester on every single amp that is on his bench? If not, under what circumstance do you use your tube tester for almost every.

[Skip]

Amp, you know, because I can and it's, you know, I have a couple that I know how to work. They're pretty fast. But it's not all. It's certainly not always a tube. I think in Jack Dar, he has a little list of the things that are likely to be wrong. And I believe he lists tubes as number one. And I have to disagree with that. Now, years later, number one is always dirty tube sockets, you know, and. And physical connections that have gotten funky over 50, 60 years. So I'd say almost all amps, I would test the tubes, you know, deluxe reverbs. You better check out those 6V6s. They run hot. You know, if an amp doesn't sound as loud as I think it should. And how do I know that? Because I've had the same guitar in the same cabinet 40 years. By the way, I bought a new guitar. What? Talk about that. I know, earth shattering. So if something is like, why isn't this amp as loud as it should be? You know, I usually check 12 at 7s, the phase inverter tube in a Fender, because if they get way out of whack or they're really weak, then the whole amp just kind of loses snap, right?

[Jason]

Sure.

[Skip]

So most of the time. And if you're serious, it'd be good to have one just with all the caveats. It takes a while to. To learn to use one. Remember George Danger? UXB bought the really fancy orange tube tester, which works really great on a lot of stuff, but fails all Telefunken 12 AX7. Now you start throwing away your Telefunk and 12 because your new tube tester says they're bad. You need an attitude adjustment when it comes to preamp tubes. The best tube tester in the world is a Silver Face Champ, something that just uses a 12AX7 that you can stick in an amp and fire it up and go, whoa, that thing sounds good or bad or weak or noisy or whatever. Power tubes and rectifier tubes are the ones that you put in an amp that cause fuses blowing and smoke pouring and bad smells. So it's much more important to check power and rectifier tubes than it is bring out tubes before you put them in an amp. How's that?

[Jason]

That was great. Thanks for the question, Gregory. Be like Gregory. Send us questions or voice memos to podcast fretboardjournal.com this is from Eric in Bergen. Just a quick question. S old amp chassis from a rockola jukebox on the Norwegian version of Craigslist, minus the tubes seller wants $75 for it. Condition unknown. Just curious if this could be a project worth considering to learn about vintage tube amps. Also, could it be a usable guitar amp? Can't quite say the exact tube layout, but it's looking as if it has four EL84s plus four nine pin sockets, of which three at least are 12 AX7s. That's from Eric and Bergen.

[Skip]

Yes, and I saw the picture of that and that's real late stuff that you usually don't see. Jukebox amps are. They go way back to two A3s and stuff in the 30s and 40s. And then most of them have six L6s after that. Yes, that would be a good thing just to learn a bunch of stuff on. You probably don't have the knowledge yet, but if you get the thing first and start studying, you know your knowledge can dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink. One thing I'll have you look at, it might be two amps. You said it's four EL84s. Well, they might not be push, pull, parallel like an AC30 Vox. They might be two separate amps that drove two separate speakers like a stereo amp. Or in jukeboxes they'll have an amp that drives a big 15 and then they'll have a separate amp that drives a smaller speaker, like a. Like a two way amplification thing. So if you find an old jukebox amp, if you can figure out what the power supply, the output stage, you know, like the phase inverter, the two 6L 6s or two Al 84s or whatever, if you can figure out that part of it and get it working, then you can make a guitar amp from that. If you're willing to build a guitar oriented simple preamp to go in front of it, just taking it and making it work and stick in a guitar chord where it says what would that be a phonograph input for a jukebox? That might not work, but you just. It would be a good thing to learn if you could sort of draw out the schematic and learn about what that amp actually is, then hell yeah, you could learn a lot of stuff. You're probably not going to find a tube. Is that Switzerland?

[Jason]

No, he's in Norway.

[Skip]

Nor. You're not going to find anything for 75 bucks that uses tubes. So I say snag it.

[Jason]

All right.

[Skip]

Yes.

[Jason]

Hopefully Eric's listening to this and buying it as soon as possible.

[Skip]

There you go.

[Jason]

Well, we should just keep it International I guess this is Ben from sunny Dublin, Ireland with some observation and queries. Monitor out a la GA 17 RVT. I have implemented this in other amps. If it is too spiky, add a cap across it to 0.02 to 1. Experiment with values. That's I guess the observation clears the query. Has anyone added modded line out on an amp? Using two pots to vary output level and treble roll off.

[Skip]

That's getting pretty far out. So basically he's talking about a speaker driven line out which is one of our tava go to's because it connects to the speaker and it only is really just two resistors. And it's a way to get the sound from a speaker into something else like the PA or recording device just via a cord. So what he wants to do first is he's messing with adding capacitors across those resistors to alter something. I've never done that. I just used the stock two resistor circuit like falcons. Later Fender amps from the late 70s have a line out recording jack. It's the same thing. It was actually a lot of things had. It was pretty common. And it's just a couple resistors so it's really easy to do. I've seen amps where one of those resistors is substituted with a pot that gives you a variable line out. But I never do that either. I just put the two resistors in there and figure turn up or down the next thing in the chain rather than add a pot right there. And as far as that capacitor thing, I've never done that. But I could only imagine that capacitors across the resistors or to ground would certainly affect the sound that you get coming off of that line out. Hank, with the F2B, you go, well I'll. I'll make it quick. Same guy, the guy that brought the Olympic preamp, he brought a silver face champ with a line out that he said was done 40 years ago. And I went wow, I wonder what it's going to be. And I opened it up and it wasn't that. What they did was they went to the second cathode of the preamp tube and they put a little electrolytic capacitor from there to an RCA jack. And that reminded me that it took me a long time to figure out how Ampeg reverb rockets work because we're used to the signal coming off the plate of a tube and going to the next stage. But there are some amps where the signal comes off the cathode of a tube and goes to the next stage. So this crazy line out from 1972, wasn't the speaker driven line out with two little resistors, but actually a preamp line out from the second triode cathode. And five people know what I'm talking about and 500 are going. But it's interesting.

[Jason]

Did you sound good? Did you try it?

[Skip]

I haven't actually tried the line out yet. I just noted it as being like, wow, that's pretty amazing. I haven't really thought about ever doing it that way. The, the beauty of the speaker driven one is that it, if the amp is distorted, the line out's going to be distorted. Right. But the beauty of the preamp one could be you could have a speaker really, but the line out would still be really clean, which maybe would be something somebody would want in a recording setup for some reason.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Oh, man, I'm all over the map today.

[Jason]

Ben also over in Ireland says, any secret or not so secret Quilter operators out there, I like them as standalone units. And if you slave a tube amp monitor out into one, watch out. It's kind of like Neil's 5e3 into the Baldwin exterminator. And then Ben concludes with my go to brekkie at the minute. Full fat Greek yogurt, fresh fruit and good real honey. Modified 007 fare. Hang tough and don't forget to vote. That was from Ben in Ireland.

[Skip]

That's some good stuff right there. Yeah, yeah, that's some good stuff right there. What was it right before the yogurt Quilter? I just sort of wish that I had was in charge of that company when they first came out. Probably been about 15 years. I thought they were great. And a lot of our friends who have tube amps got them because they're super light, super loud. And the first ones were very simple. They just had volume, treble, middle bass, maybe reverb, something like that. Now they make a bunch of quilters with what I call the overabundance of knobs. Boogie disease. Not the Great song by Dr. Ross on sun, but Boogie Disease, which is just too many knobs. It takes forever to get a sound off the thing, and by then you don't feel like playing anymore. So some of the newer ones are a little bit more complex, but the old ones have a very normal. You plug your guitar into it, it's just like, okay. I found that with old customs, with a K that are solid state, certain PVs you can plug in, it's not like, oh, man, this is. This is not a tube amp. I can't play this. But they are a little on the dry side. And I have a few. A few fans who use little tube preamps with a Quilter, you know, if they can't take anything heavy like a big Fender amp. So putting on, putting a warmer sound into it is always, you know, a thought.

[Jason]

That's great. Since we just had two Euro questions, I might as well read Jim's comment that he's a huge Tava fan. He's been there since the beginning. He's currently nine months behind in his listening, though. And in case it hasn't happened yet, he recommends that we seek out guest amp technicians who specialize in non Fender amps, especially non US Amps, though a MESA expert would be great as well. He would like to see Marshall, Vox, Orange, et cetera, mentioned more. He loves the show, but he's mostly into British amps and he wants to hear a whole bunch about them. That is from Jim.

[Skip]

That makes sense. I just do. I just talk about what I see, and it's a lot rarer to see that stuff, you know, a Selmer, you know, I've only ever seen 10 or something. Right. A Watkins Dominator. You know, I've had a few, but not much. So I would say one. One good thing would be to have some of our listeners who have Euro amps feel free to ask questions about them, because some of these things we talk about are universal. You know, it doesn't really matter what country the amp was made in. There's still, like, fundamental stuff that we can discuss, even though I can never bring that. The experience and just the sheer numbers of repairs to the table like I can with American stuff that I see more of.

[Jason]

Sure, that makes sense. Yeah, we have. Oh, let's bring it back home. Let's bring it back to the. Even the west coast of the United States. Listener Bill says the following. I just received a Croaker triple toad made in 2016. Jerry Croker is said to begin building amps in 1961. I believe he is or was in Salem, Oregon. Does anyone know if he is still building amps? This amp has a 6 SJ7 preamp tube feeding, a 6SC7 phase inverter and two 6L6s with a 5U4 rectifier. Also a separate transformer to diodes for DC to filaments of the 6 SJ7 and 6SC7. As I believe the filaments to these tubes can be noisy with AC on them. If Jerry Croker is still alive, he would be an interesting guest on your show. That is from listener Bill.

[Skip]

I don't know about him. Yeah, I have a few comments. 6 SJ7. 6 SC7. Those are tubes from the 40s and 50s. 1940s and 50s, that hardly anybody uses anymore. Octals, Right. Very cool, though. There were millions and millions of amps, very high quality that used them that did not have DC filaments on them. So that guy's wrong about that. However, the croaker guy is going for super low noise. Instead of heating those old antique tubes up with just AC voltage from the power transformer, he's built a little power supply that supplies those tubes with DC voltage, which lowers the noise. Really fancy hi Fi stuff, Fisher. Things like that. They put DC voltage on the filaments because it reduces. Excuse me, it reduces noise. So that's a cool guy who's using a groovy combination of ancient and new. August from Otis Amps does that. Ancient and new, but. But also dead silent amps for studio work because he's willing to take the extra time to have the filaments of the tube run on DC instead of just ac. Does that sort of make sense?

[Jason]

Yeah. That's great.

[Skip]

All right, one more. Someone asked me to talk about this. Okay. Keith Carrey.

[Jason]

Oh, sure.

[Skip]

Great.

[Jason]

Great.

[Skip]

Luthier from Winters, California. Nat Daniel.

[Jason]

Yes.

[Skip]

The cheapskate genius.

[Jason]

Yes.

[Skip]

A lot of his amps. The preamp tube sits up in a top chassis and there's an amp at the bottom of the cabinet, too. Like there's a single 12 or two 12 or whatever. And they take forever to warm up. Why? Because the power amp has to warm up completely. The 6V6s and the 6L6s. And then there's a wire that takes the cathode voltage of the power tubes, which is dc, and sends it up a wire to light the filament of the preamp tube. So the whole amp is on and you can hear it humming, but it's still dead. And then after about 10 or 15 more seconds, it comes to life because that preamp tube is not heated by ac. It's heated by DC in a super budget budget amp. But he felt that it was worth it to keep the noise level down, which makes sense, right?

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

And you can go berserk and say, well, I'm going to take a tweed deluxe and I'm going to do all this stuff to make it quieter. And I say, have fun. You might lose something, but it's you know, you might lose some fun in the sound of the amp. Perhaps too many, too much filter capacitance, like big gigantic filter caps like hi Fi guys are into using. They don't sound good in tube amps. It makes them not just makes them sound too flat. So experiment with DC filaments if you want. And it's the preamp tubes that are the ones that cause the most noise. So that's a hip call.

[Jason]

Okay, thanks Keith, for mentioning that.

[Skip]

I don't know that guy. Croaker. The Croaker, though, That's a pretty good name.

[Jason]

Just want to thank our sponsors once again. Amplified parts go to amplifiedparts.com order from them. Tell them tav sent you grez guitars as well as Emerald City guitars.

[Skip]

All right. There's a notable period, late 60s, 6768, where Fender for a while changed the biasing design of all their big amps. The schematic is usually labeled AC568. You know, for most of those amps, it uses a combination of cathode biased and fixed bias. And they didn't do it for very long and they went back to the old way. And most people would say that strange little circuit that they used for a little while is horrible and must be changed immediately. Well, I had a basement here that was that circuit and it was nice and clean. So I just serviced it and fixed it. That thing rocked. I don't know why they did it. I don't know why they, they invented the circuit and then I don't know why they got rid of the circuit. But the reality is that those amps with the, with the part cathode bias, part fixed bias, they sound fine. It's not, it's not like you plug into it and it's like, wow, this is completely different. I've got to change this. So if any of you guys have one of those amps and you haven't already changed it, light it up and try it. I, I think it's interesting that a huge company, you know, made this vast change on their big, you know, top of the line amps, but. But then within a year or two got rid of it. So I'm just curious if anybody might have any ideas about why that was, whether it was a reliability issue. I always thought they probably sounded crappy compared to the ones to the other ones, but I don't know. This basement sounded pretty good. So both the next great tweak.

[Jason]

Oh yeah, are we gonna hear that now?

[Skip]

And I have a new. I bought a guitar.

[Jason]

We Got to hear about both these things.

[Skip]

First, that's the first time I've bought a guitar in 35 years unless it was, you know, at a yard sale or something for 10 bucks.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

The same guy that brought the alembic. Hank. Hank Ulrich. As part of his big pile of stuff that he, that, that he brought him and his wife. Ex wife. Was a guitar that turned out to be a refinished 66 duo sonic, which is a Fender amp. That or Fender guitar. It basically looks like a Mustang, but it doesn't have the whammy bar. And it does have the longer scale. Not the super short 3 quarter scale neck 66, but repainted a garish kind of red. Looks all right. Pickups changed to something. I don't know what. And big. Well, not too big a shallow tuners, you know, not the original tuners, no case. But man, what a piece of wood. And vendor people. This thing has a slab rosewood board which I thought they stopped doing in like 62, 63. It doesn't have the curved laminate look, rosewood on top of the neck, but actually a big thick slab of it. But I took the neck off and it does say the 66th of January in there. And it's pretty amazing after 35 years of using a hollow guitar with a D arm and pickup in it to go back to a solid body Fender guitar. You know, they sound so different. And so I. I decided that I could justify buying it. Oh, the lady said she'd be fine with 500 bucks.

[Jason]

Wow.

[Skip]

So I just, I decided I could justify buying it as a learning experience of having a. Having a more traditional. Not traditional, having a more typical test guitar. Because not too many people play hollow body guitars with a de arment in it. Right. But everybody's got a Fender. And I've been having fun playing the Fender, which, you know, I used to have lots of that stuff in my band days. But I haven't had any of that quite a while. And so if anybody comes, there'll be a flashy red duo Sonic 2 over on the stand next to my beater hollow body with the de arment. And if that thing was in nice shape, I think maybe two grand or something. Sure, it might, it might be. It might be worth more than five. But I did a bunch of other stuff for them, a bunch of repairs and I fixed. They had a Princeton reverb for sale and I got them a good price on that to one of my local friends, Rustic Kevin. He's super happy with it. So I decided I would splurge a little bit. And man, you don't know. I don't buy stuff. I, I haven't bought anything for $500.

[Jason]

That wasn't like you can't buy anything for 500 car.

[Skip]

Well, I just mean I don't spend money on kind of myself, you know, but I've been enjoying playing it, so that's great.

[Jason]

This is going to, when you're voicing your amplifiers, this is going to change everything.

[Skip]

No, I'm not going to change everything. But, but it, but it does. I was working on a PA head the other day and I said, well, you know, now it's time to try the Fender. And I go, whoa, that's, it's certainly enough with a Fender, you know, if, even if I might not think it was bright enough with some old funky hollow guitar. So yeah, that's the idea is just to have a guitar that has a texture that more people have. Now why didn't I have that guitar or why do I have the test guitar I have? And the absolute number one reason was I'm poor. And if I had a guitar that was worth $200 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, I would have sold that sucker. So the reason why the test guitar exists is because it had no value. It's really a silver tone hollow flat top guitar with a nice little D arm and pickup in the sound hole. None of which amounts to any real money. But if I had like say this duo sonic back then I would have sold it like a thousand times. Maybe needs a new pair of shoes, you know, I just didn't, I just didn't have any money for anything like that. So. But I'm glad I did it because of course, as we've discussed a million times having that standard, I can just hit the strings of the guitar with my pinky and not even play it and say, yeah, this, this Fender is getting close to being what we want. Because I'm just so used to it.

[Jason]

So I love it. Congratulations. Is the, is the splotchy refin paint job going to bother you at some point?

[Skip]

No, it looks pretty good. It looks like Fiesta red. If it had racing stripes on it, it would look just like a Mustang from that period. It's got a solid red peghead with just Fender on it. Like they got a decal that just said Fender. And it's probably done in the, I'd be guessing probably done in the 70s. So it's got a nice original look to it, even though it's not original. And of course, you think I would have even offered to buy it if it was worth fifteen hundred dollars? No way. But five hundred, everybody's happy. I'm looking forward to fooling around with it. Stays in tune a lot better. And my guitar has all these overtones, you know, it doesn't have a pure note in it. And it's amazing to plug in a Fender and go, you know, this is part of why he took over everything. Because you could have half the size of an amp and your guitar would be just as clear and loud or clearer and louder than the other guy. You know, if somebody was playing a tweed baseman with a big jazz guitar, you could be up there with a little tiny, you know, Princeton and a Fender guitar and. And your sound just. It's such a pure tone, right? Which comes from Fender wanting the guitar that sounded like a steel. Like a steel guitar, you know. No, not a bunch of resonance and a bunch of overtones and stuff, but just a pure tone. And it makes them seem louder, you know, than they are because they just cut through so well. Fender. What a guy.

[Jason]

Speaking of which, our friend Larry Chung messaged me. I learned this through Larry. There is a YouTube channel which anyone who is into old Fenders should. Should follow. It's called Fender Guitar Files. I don't know who's behind it. It just launched. They add a video or two every week. It seems somebody was making or producing a documentary on the history of Fender in, like, the 90s, and it never came out. And this is all of the footage which was beautifully shot. I mean, it's. You know, it's not like today's cameras, but It's. It's like 60 minutes from those. That era. Like, somebody had professional gear and mics and interviewed all these players that you've heard about over the years. Bill Schultz, Tom Wheeler's in it a lot. Don Randall talking about the sale to CBS. And they're these little 7 to 15 minute segments that I guess we're going to get sliced and diced into a movie that never came out. It's a time capsule. It's super cool.

[Skip]

That's very cool. And why didn't that movie, you know, get made?

[Jason]

I don't know.

[Skip]

Heck, they're gonna. They're gonna make that Dan Electro movie. We think they got some more money for that thing that I was involved in with Steve, so. Yeah, but I would. I've said for years that there absolutely should be a pbs, you know, show on Fender. You know, there just should be. I. Maybe somebody with A deep pockets will see the footage and and get it together to finish it. And boy, I'd love it if they ask me because I know why Nat Daniel was cool and I know why Leo was cool. And I've, I've said it a lot of times over the years. I have it kind of refined now.

[Jason]

Right.

[Skip]

Is what the people like that did. It's just amazing on a lot of different levels. So that's good post that. So all the peeps can go to see that. Thanks to Larry Chung.

[Jason]

I'll include that in the show notes. And for anyone who doesn't like how the truth about Vintage Amps Facebook group is going, you can go onto YouTube and fill your time that way. There's hours. I mean it's incredible. We have some questions and a voice memo that I'm going to try to play. But first let's talk to Frederick from Sweden. We just. I think Frederick was just on a recent episode, but he writes. I've been listening to the podcast since the early days and it's by far my favorite podcast out there. Thanks for keeping on doing it. I have a matchless DC30 that can either run GZ34 rectifier tube or two 5v4 rectifier tubes. I want to try going down the 5v4 route and when I was going to order the tubes, there was an option to get two rectifier tubes matched. Oh, this is just what I was talking about with our sponsor Amplified parts. Would this be preferable? Never heard about matched rectifier tubes. At the same time, more than one rectifier tube is quite rare in itself. Is that a hi fi thing? That's the question from Frederick. And then he's got a food recommendation.

[Skip]

There are. There actually have been quite a few amps that use more than one rectifier. If you're a weirdo like me who looks at lots and lots of amps, you'll. You'll see. You'll see some. There was a Fender tweed twin that used two 6L 6s and two 5U 4s. There's a basement like that tweed basement like that too. So he's got a DC30 matchless, which is the first beautifully made kind of a cop. A roadworthy AC30 was what those guys were trying to do. And if he's got one of the ones from the early days, the they're made so painstakingly they make fenders look messy. I mean that guy was into just some insane organized wiring, you know, like Very well. Probably had a little bit of a mental issue. You know, people who were that organized. Right. Probably has to take a little pill once in a while just to keep on a level. Keel. It's just like Temple Grandin. Psychotically organized. But they did put two rectifier tube sockets in that amp. There's not much point in matching tubes that are parallel. The whole point in matching tubes is when you're dealing with tubes that work together, like in power tubes. If you've got two power tubes and a push pull amp, you want the two output tubes to be fairly closely matched so that they're operating as close to each other as possible. In a preamp, you've got a 12ax7, which is a dual triode. Well, if that thing is a phase inverter and it uses both halves of the triode, you'd want those triodes matched. Although, please don't worry about matching triodes and preamp tubes. That's getting pretty far out there. But rectifier tubes. No. I suggest that changing the rectifier tubes will lower the B plus and make the amp just a little bit softer. And that guy can get any kind of 5v4s he wants and put in there and fire it up. He doesn't have to worry about matching.

[Jason]

To sum it up, Frederick also has a food recommendation.

[Skip]

Absolutely.

[Jason]

I don't know how to pronounce this Frederick. It's spelled N D U J A Nuja mayonnaise. Nuja is a spreadable spicy Italian sausage you get in a jar at your local Italian shop. I would imagine it's available in the US as well. You have way more Italians than we do over here in Sweden. You grab your favorite mayonnaise or make your own and mix in the nuja to taste it. Is.

[Skip]

Which is ground sausage.

[Jason]

Yeah. It is a fantastic. It's a fantastic spicy mayo that works so well with grilled meat. So you're putting the meat on the meat on sandwiches, on burgers, et cetera. Sorry, Jason, Nothing vegetarian this time. Nuja is also fantastic. On your smashed burger, add a teaspoon on top of the patty before the cheese and let it melt over your burger. Fantastic. And then he included the Wikipedia link for nuja, which I will share in the show notes. And that was from Frederick in Sweden.

[Skip]

Well, that is very inclusive of you to read his recipe. That sounds like, what, I gotta grind up some pig meat and do what with it? But no, I could see. I mean, you're just talking about a really savory Mayonnaise as a meat eater sound fine to me. And we, we appreciate your indulgence in the non kale related recipes.

[Jason]

Yeah, I'm having some issues with our voice memos, so keep those coming. Send them to me podcastboardjournal.com because I will fix it by the next episode. But also send us questions. And I'm just going to read all the questions today. We have some more if you're ready for them.

[Skip]

I'm ready for one.

[Jason]

Okay. We had a lot of step down transformer questions. Oh yeah.

[Skip]

Oh, let me say real quick that Amazon, Amazon has variacs for 40, 50, 60 bucks. Everyone with an old amp, that should be the next thing you buy. You can run Your amp on 110 like it's supposed to be. You can use it as a slow warm up for amps that have been sitting for too long. Everyone needs one case closed and, and there used to be kind of hard to find, but now you can just put variable AC transformer, you know, in there and they're all over the place. They have a little digital readout. Of course they're made in a faraway land where they pay people a dollar a day. But that's okay for. I'm just saying it's such a useful thing if you, if you think about it, almost all the amps we have were made to run on 110.

[Jason]

Sure.

[Skip]

Because it wasn't until about 1980 that it started really creeping up to the current 125, 128. Right. So there's just really no excuse not to have a small variac for a lot of people. Especially if you have amps that have been. That might sit for a year because you got so many. And it gives you the ability to slowly turn that amp up over 10 or 20 seconds. 30 seconds or 30 minutes. And that's the kind of thing that can save you a lot of hassle. Not to mention being able to run your. Your old amp on a voltage that's a lot closer to what it was made to run on. Okay, sorry I interrupted.

[Jason]

No. Nathan in Brooklyn, who I think you must have done work for. Or maybe he's just called you up. Subject line. There are no electrons. Two quick things. I was listening to episode 88. God, that was a while ago where Skip gave a kind of reluctant discourse on chokes. It made me think of a book I read a while back for those who are interested in understanding things like what a choke is and what job it's doing in an amp. But Aren't down for a dry textbook pick up. There are no electrons. Electronics for Earthlings by Ken Omdahl. Very silly, very crazy, slightly trippy, Extremely informative.

[Skip]

I have never heard of that. No, I've never heard of that. But I want it.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

I like the cartoony ones, like the. The books that they published for World War II GIs to learn how to work on. Radios that had like the art crumble. Well, like the tube man, that I've used as my logo forever, you know, they'll have like little electrons running through a tube and then the tube is getting smaller because the size of the capacitor is smaller. Or just like super simple cartoonish type explanations of things, which is what we need because we're talking some complicated stuff. That's why it was a reluctant. Reluctant answer is I got to define Henry's and inductance. And I came into this learning and I came into this to fix stuff that, that already existed. And I didn't come into it through years and years of learning about how does. How things are designed, right? So all I ever did with a choke was measure it with an ohmmeter and make sure it wasn't open. Other than that, you know, so I'm weak on stuff like that. And that sounds like a fun book that I should check out.

[Jason]

The COVID alone. You should all go over to Amazon or your favorite retailer because there's a guy looking like a wizard, there's some sparks, and then there's a woman who was reluctantly asked to be the model. It's. It's a whole scene.

[Skip]

There are no electrons.

[Jason]

There are no electrons by Ken Arndahl. I'll include a link in the show Notes, currently available on Amazon for $13. We'll see if we drive the price of that up, but that's where it is right now.

[Skip]

Sell out.

[Jason]

Nathan also says long ago Skip reassured me that subbing a 6 SL7 for a 6 SN7 in a 1947 Gibson BR9 would be fine. Fellas, I'm here to tell you it's more than fine. This amp is a wailing beast. Now that extra kick of gain was exactly what it needed. Beautiful art deco style, great warm vintage tone, one knob. Dirt cheap. What is not? What's not to like? That's from Nathan in Brooklyn.

[Skip]

What model? BR.

[Jason]

The BR9.

[Skip]

Those are these little tiny ones that are really cute and they have this sort of plastic cover plate on the front that says Gibson. And they're kind of a tombstone shape, but the amp is really small. And really quirky. I can't remember the all the quirks, but it's two 6V 6s and only one 6sn 7 as a preamp tube. And I said try a 6sl 7 because they interchange. The N has a amplification factor. I know snooty of 20. The L has an amplification factor of 70. So they're both dual triodes but the L is amplifying more in the same spot in the amp. So he stuck an L in there and apparently it made it sound a lot better. I think those things don't have a true phase inverter. Right? They're missing a tube. I. I'm not. I can't remember if they're parallel single ended or it may be one of those ones that sort of push pull but doesn't actually have a phase inverter. A really cheap skate circuit that. That some companies used in the 40s to keep the cost down. But I'm glad that that quick sub made a difference. That's just like putting a 12ax7 where a 12A U7 was. You're. You're substituting a tube with the same pin out and the same functions, but just one with more gain. Groovy.

[Jason]

That's great. We have many questions about. I guess everybody's leaving their country to go to another country. So there are many, many questions that all seem to have happened in the last month that are all about transformers. So I'm going to read one of them. Subject line My20. My 240 volt conundrum. Greetings skip and Jason. I hope everyone is safe and well on the left coast. I was lucky enough to speak with Skip a couple months ago and he suggested our discussion would make for a good podcast topic. I have been in the US for about 15 years, but I am potentially relocating back to Australia. I've managed to assemble a small but wonderful collection of vintage amplifiers that I would really like to take with me. But I'm not sure of the best way to convert them to the Australian 240 wall voltage. Skip suggested that some of the Aussie listeners might already have a good solution for their vintage gear. So I thought I would throw the question out to the brain trust. I guess that would be the rustic piss up in the bush group and see if anyone has some good knowledge to drop on a beginner like myself.

[Skip]

So crikey. We want a specific. Yeah, we want a specific. What we'd like to know is we want Crocodile Dundee to write and say, hey man, they Sell this one here. No problem. And we've been using it here for our fender, this and that twin reverb, whatever for years. And it costs 125 bucks. And it's just a matter of. We just need someone to direct us to the. To a good proper thing. Not the crappiest one, not the most expensive one, but one that somebody's been running their Supros and fenders and other American made junk through in Australia. So come on down under, let's. Let's give this guy some knowledge so he can move back home with confidence that he can play all his amps. And no, you don't mod, you don't put different transformers in the amp. You just get yourself your own, you know, your own power station.

[Jason]

Yep.

[Skip]

You know, your own hydroelectric dam that lets you power whatever you brought at its proper voltage. Yes. Which in which in this case is a 240 to 120 step down transformer with enough current capability to handle your biggest amp or a couple of the biggest amps you'd ever have plugged into it at the same time.

[Jason]

Yes. There. I did post this to on the rustic Keger Facebook group there is an a whole Australian chat thread just for our Aussie listeners. It's a beautiful thing. And I got many responses, not any. No one actually had a specific model. So maybe somebody listening to this will share one that I'll share to the original poster. But Jared said I imported my 74 basement 10 out of the US about 15 years ago and I replaced the mains transformer with a 240 volt version that I bought here in Australia from an old time supplier. Either a Mercury or a classic tone. Can't remember which it is but it's us made. The other option is to run a step down transformer which we just talked about. I've got a couple of 110 volt filmo sounds that run just fine on a 240 volt step down transformer. And I've got a B field variac that does the job as well. He should definitely bring his vintage gear back home. Everything here is pretty well unaffordable. Andrew added. A step down transformer with an American outlet is the most common approach here. Especially if a few amps to run a decent sized one. A thousand watts or more will run a few amps at once so they can leave everything plugged in at home. An amp for gigging is a little different. Pulling a transformer and replacing it with something local might be more practical. Bush Bash is a Local term or bush doof. If you're into the electronic side of things, learn something new every day.

[Skip]

Yeah, well there's, there's some guys who change the transformers and if you're an amp tech and it's not like a super valuable amp, that baseman 10 is kind of looks like a super reverb. It's like a big old 410 silver face thing with 6L6s and stuff. Something like that. You can buy a bolt in Hammond or Classic Tone. I think they're out of business. Then that's an option. Especially if it's something you're going to take down to the pub. They do have pubs. Right. If you're going to take down the pub because you don't want to take. Have to take a extra gear, you know, really, if you don't have to. That's why that guy that makes the Brown Box is getting rich because it's. He made a simple, you know, less complicated but sturdier variac kind of thing for people so they could run their amps on 110 instead of 125.

[Jason]

You know, I don't know who invented or came up with the Brown Box, but it's actually a woman owned company.

[Skip]

More power to you. I just, I'm just mad that I didn't do it. No, not really. I just mean they're pretty expensive and for a homeboy a variac in my opinion is way better because it gives you the slow warm up that the Brown Box doesn't do. Plus it gives you. You can run that amp on whatever voltage you want, just set it to wherever. But for somebody going to a gig, Brown Box, pretty groovy.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Yeah. I'd like to make a simpler one. Maybe one that one that just had 110, you know, maybe or something. But some of our. One of my customers came to me yesterday and said, you know what she needs? You need the Skip Amp Saver, which would be a box that you plug into the wall. It always delivers 110. And then when you plug your amp into it it takes like maybe 10 seconds to generate the voltage. In other words, to give you a little slow voltage warmup and a 110 source in some small little thing with just like maybe an on off switch and a light. And that would be neat. I don't exactly know how to do it, but it would be. If you could get something like that down to $150, it would be something that a lot of people would like because it would Enable them to run their old junk on the right voltage and just that keep telling you, just 10 or 15 seconds from zero to full voltage is really good for an amp. You know, that's, that's what keeps filter caps from blowing up and stuff like that, especially if the amp's been sitting. So there you go. Australia. I'd love to go there.

[Jason]

We one of the many questions asked from all these people moving around the world but still listening to the truth about vintage amps, which I love. Yearn, who is in Norway, had the basic question, which is he just got a Fender vibrant from 1965 with US voltage. He needs to do a step down transformer to convert it to his 220 wall voltage in Norway. And he just wanted to know basically what size he needs. He says he knows that his amp says it's 5 watts, but he doesn't know exactly how much. How to calculate how big of a transform.

[Skip]

Okay, so that a Champ puts out 5 watts to the speaker. That's. It's a rating, a measurement of power. But a lot of amps on the back, if you look, they'll say like a little champ harmony thing. It'll say 80 watts and you're going, what? That's how much it uses in power. Okay, so watts can mean two things. It can mean how much power it puts into the speaker. In the case of a vibro champion, 5 watts, 4 1/2 watts, or how much wattage it uses. It consumes in running like 100 watt. Light bulb uses 100 watts to get going. Right. Also, there's other ways to measure it. My Variac uses amperage, which measures the current in a different way rather than the power consumed. So our Aussie guy said a thousand watts is enough for a lot. 500 watts is enough for a lot. A champ runs about 80 or 90 watts. So if it's just for the champ, you could probably get away with 100 or 150. But I'd say get a little bit bigger one if it's only a little bit cheaper. Because your next score might be some kind of Marshall or something that uses more juice. Right? Yeah, 500 watts would be a nice, a nice size.

[Jason]

That's great. Thank you. Yearn for the question. Yearn also wants to recommend a great record. Sweet Sunny north by David Lindley and Henry Kaiser.

[Skip]

Oh yeah, Lindley and Steve Malka Sethian. I think I'm gonna have to write a card or something. I don't know, I just, I feel like I'd want his wife to know, you know, just what. He just had a major impact on me, you know, which. And how many, how many people get to say that, you know, that they had an impact on someone? Right? And not that I wouldn't have been an amp repair guy or whatever, but it those. And like I mentioned on the last podcast, the writing, you know, I basically only knew him through his writing and how many people can develop a personality and a style and sort of get. Get you to know them through writing and a catalog at that. It's not like we're writing, you know, reading his non fiction or his novel about growing up and you know, in the 60s or anything. We're basically just reading his print catalogs of stuff he has to sell. And yet his, his personality and his knowledge and his snarkiness all came through and he's. He'll be missed.

[Jason]

Yeah, I've heard from. I guess the, the little tribute that I posted on fretboardjournal.com is one of the few mentions of his passing. So I've heard from some of his high school buddies. I've heard from a whole bunch of people. It's gonna be at a big impact.

[Skip]

Well, he's, he's the kind of person like little Charlie Beatty, you know, or John Vander Slice. You know, it's not that they're famous, but famous people know them. You know, they're. They're avatars, you know, they're people that cruise around in that world even though they're not necessarily somebody that we know really well, you know.

[Jason]

Steve, we're going to end with one more. I have discovered a cheap and easy output transformer dynamic test for tube amps. As I use a 120 vac primary to primary, measure the AC at the plate taps and ascertain that they match within a few millivolts ac. If not, it has shorted turns often as a gross disparity. But I had one off only a volt or so. That was toast as well. Cheater chords.

[Skip]

Interesting.

[Jason]

Cheater cords work great here. Unplug the amp first. LOL. Just 120 vac plate to plate is a fraction of what it will deal with.475VB plus twins. It's 800 volt PP. Do you want to tell me what I'm reading?

[Skip]

I can tell you what we're talking about. Okay, which is. Output transformer goes between the power tubes and the speaker. It links the. The high impedance of the power tubes to the super low impedance. Four ohms. Eight ohms of a speaker and it consists of two coils of wire. One is very fine like pickup wire, and that's on the primary side that goes to the power tubes and the other side goes to the speaker. It's heavier wire. And I always say you can't really test output transformers. If you suspect one, substitute another one. You know, I keep an output transformer with alligator clips on it that I can clip in if I suspect I have a bad output transformer because it's pretty hard to tell. If you take an ohmmeter, you can measure the primary winding and in an amp with two power tubes, push pull, there'll be a center tap of that winding and you can measure from the center tap to one side and the center tap to the other side and see if they both have continuity but shorted turns. Jack Dar will tell you it's pretty hard to turn up. What this guy is doing is he's basically just taking some wall voltage and he's feeding it to this primary to see if the same voltage shows up on each side of the primary, therefore showing that the coil is right. I guess I've never done that. Yeah, I'm probably not going to start doing it that way, but it does seem potentially valid. I just, I would just say don't do a test. Don't throw away your telephone control AX7 because your brand new $400 tube tester says it's bad. If you do this groovy test to an alpha transformer, get results that make you think that the output transformer is bad. Before you throw that thing away, you might want to give it a spin because I mean, you could be wrong, right? There's could be some variation there. So I think the technique definitely is valid, but I haven't done it. And maybe some of our more adventuresome types can try that out. Maybe take a blown output transformer and hook it up like, like, like we're talking about here and see if you can see the problem in another way. Because like I said, output transformers, it's hard to measure that. It's hard to measure the performance of an output transformer without some really sophisticated test equipment. And this is kind of a down and dirty way. That sounds to me like it can indicate whether there's a problem in an output transformer. I will probably still substitute because it's a night and day thing. You if it's bad and you put in a good one, it doesn't have to be the exact right one, it just has to be a working one. Then all of a sudden all that distortion is gone and all the volume is back. And you can say, okay, it was a bad output transformer, but hats off to somebody thinking of a more scientific way of doing it than just my way. I could touch the stove to see if it's hot. He has a little thing that says, hey, it's 95 degrees. Maybe you better not touch that. So I. I tend to do things more simple and stupid, but that does seem like it has potential.

[Jason]

Okay, there's more.

[Skip]

Is there?

[Jason]

Kevin Hill Bibber, who is based in Olympia, Washington, adds rebuilding reverb tanks. Walter Cybenbaum. Do you know who that is?

[Skip]

Walter and I go way back. No, I don't. I don't.

[Jason]

Walter. Seb flew out to Seattle when OC was bought by Accutronics as he had family here, but recalled me from visiting them in Milton when my shop was in Madison, Wisconsin. Sucutronics destroyed his tooling and the machines. He gave me tons of parts, springs, coils, three spring tanks and told me a few things they learned on the production floor that was not in the three patents that were the company's sales value. 440 machine screw, not a sheet metal. 1F coils replace the outputs. The only ones that broke the interconnects broke mostly at the RCAs. I still have 50 or so output coils with real wire on them to fix the plastic ended ones. The all aluminum ones are not worth the effort. Polystyrene was a completely different resonance, so effectively damped the tensile aluminum tray. I rebuilt tanks for 10 years with those parts. Reverb is my favorite parlor trick. I get into them granularly. Pink Floyd used them to cement me to being an artist serving artist with them. That is from Kevin in Olympia, Washington.

[Skip]

Well, I think it was the last podcast that I told you after all these years, I changed the coil in a reverb tank.

[Jason]

Yeah, I think he was responding to that.

[Skip]

Yeah. So for one thing, I would say don't bother me. Maybe you can get that guy to. To repair the original 64 reverb tank from your deluxe reverb rather than you having to get a brand new one. Right? And we know it is possible and they are. Well, you better have your big old glasses on. There's a little hook on the spring that goes into a hole like a tiny little needle hole. And it's not easy. I had to get the flip down Leo Fender glasses. You know, magnifiers going to do that. But I would suggest what we need is somebody that saved that old original tank from a valuable amp to send it to him and see what it takes to get that thing fixed. Yeah, that's pretty far out knowledge right there.

[Jason]

Thanks for your submission, everybody. Please bail me out. Send voice memos to podcast fretboardjournal.com I can't pronounce the mayonnaise. I don't understand half the stuff I'm reading. Just send me a voice memo and then I can't screw it up.

[Skip]

Well, I'll give you one more. I. A couple of my friends have told me to bring this up over the last few months, but I never have.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

My dad passed away. He was a map collector.

[Jason]

Oh, wow.

[Skip]

And he loved maps. And one thing that he did was he got a couple of vintage maps that are railroad related. The western United States, 1890. You know these are maps from 1890, right. And there's a California one, I think from 1903. And when he passed away, he had. Well before he passed away, he had gone to a big gigantic publishing house like a. Not a print shop. And he had had lithographs made of these two original maps.

[Jason]

Wow.

[Skip]

Big full color, super detailed. Like if you take a magnifying glass and look, there's like 50 towns between here and there because they were little stops along the way to put water in the steam engine. Right. And it was epic. They were way up a bunch of flight of stairs and I carried them and I've been storing them and they're really heavy and we need to find a home for some of these things and anybody who comes over needs to take one home. I'd really like to find somebody that would like to. I have thousands really like to find.

[Jason]

Somebody that would Stones. These are like the actual lithograph?

[Skip]

Yeah, they're full, they're. They're sealed up in the brown paper from the print shop. They're super high quality. Basically posters of an original map and they show all sorts of crazy stuff. You know, they're just really historic and really neat and I got to do something with them. Oh no.

[Jason]

You want to have them scanned and turned into a book or something?

[Skip]

No, I just want to. I want to give somebody 50 or 100 of them and let them sell them. My dad used to sell them to the train museum in old sack.

[Jason]

Wow.

[Skip]

So my sister called and wants to know if I'm still meeting for lunch in an hour.

[Jason]

Oh, you gotta go. I don't know where that lunch is, but you gotta go.

[Skip]

Yeah, I better. But hey, thanks everyone. We did it. I was late last time and, well, we did run kind of late today, too, so I guess.

[Jason]

Oh, it was great.

[Skip]

We're making up for it. Thanks to all our sponsors and everyone.

[Jason]

And thank you.

[Skip]

We'll all talk again soon.