← The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons
The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons
Ep. 160: "Some People Can't Stand an Unused Triode"
01:22:16
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- [00:12]
Skip
Good morning.
- [00:13]
Jason
Good morning. How are you?
- [00:15]
Skip
I'm groovy.
- [00:16]
Jason
What's the latest?
- [00:19]
Skip
The very latest?
- [00:21]
Jason
Yeah. What's the very latest?
- [00:22]
Skip
The very latest is a guy who's here this morning, English professor from Southern California who brought four tweed amps and came up here and went fishing for a couple days. And I fixed up his tweed amps, and he just came by this morning and picked him up on his way back down to Los Angeles. He brought tamales, and he's a cool dude. I'm calling him Mr. Trout because, you know, of course, he was coming up to go trout fishing, but he was digging the NorCal, you know, he's from down there, and he hadn't been up here much, and it was nice weather, and of course, it's deserted. So he drove around up in the mountains for a couple days and camped out and did some fishing, and it's pretty cool.
- [01:10]
Jason
Is. Is the fishing known in your area? Is this something that people should do?
- [01:16]
Skip
Oh, yes.
- [01:17]
Jason
Oh.
- [01:17]
Skip
Oh, absolutely.
- [01:18]
Jason
Okay.
- [01:19]
Skip
Well, actually, I want to make bumper stickers that say, welcome to Loma. Now go home. No, just east of me and north and south is a big chunk of the Sierra that people very rarely go. The Plumas National Forest, and you've got the Yuba river and the Feather river, and there's just nothing going on up there, especially since blogging was put out of business. There was a lot of mill towns and stuff up there, but no primo, primo trout fishing, for sure. So he was. He was excited, and he brought a bunch of cool stuff, and it was overall, good books, you know, have you. I know you read Moby Dick, but have you read the other Melville? Right. Stuff like that. So that was early, but that's why I pushed the podcast up a half an hour. I didn't want to rush the guy. He had a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But he brought homemade tamales. So Junior got into him when we weren't looking, which is very unusual. He'd been under the weather. He was sick for a couple weeks, and I had to take him to the vet and lost some weight. Now I think he's eaten everything inside. He's back on his game. So how about you? Good weather?
- [02:41]
Jason
Well, we're having the most abnormal winter ever. So, yeah, it's good weather. It's like 60 degrees and sunny, but the ski resorts are all closing, and it's basically May.
- [02:51]
Skip
So you never got any snow?
- [02:53]
Jason
Never. I mean, they got enough to open, and then they never got anything else. And I think the middle of the country is doing even worse. But yeah, it's just been kind of a weird, you know, like bugs are out. That's weird weather, man.
- [03:08]
Skip
Oh, we have mosquitoes like crazy. Yeah, it's probably in the 60s now. But one thing we haven't had in at least probably a decade is valley or what they call Tule fog in the Central Valley of California. I had to drive a couple hours down towards the Bay Area the other day, and I didn't leave till 10:30 in the morning. And we still had some places where you couldn't even. Even in the daytime, you had to go about 45 miles an hour to be even halfway safe. That's out on the highway. So if you moved here in the last few years, you might be really shocked. Like people who moved to Nevada City and didn't know it snowed up there. But when I was a kid, the Tule fog was pretty normal and forget it. You'd have to open the door of your car and look down and hope you can see the stripe on the edge of the road. Like you could hardly see the distance of a car in front of you. And we haven't had that much. But for whatever reason, our crazy winter with tons of rain and then all this fog mushrooms. So, I don't know. How'd you like to be a weatherman? Those guys are always wrong. So always wrong. And how about getting the new edition out? Was that a big sigh?
- [04:25]
Jason
Got the new issue. Fretboard Journal 58. Well, it's not a big sight because the minute it goes out into the world, we hear about people who change their address but didn't tell us or somebody got two copies instead of one or whatever. I don't know. So, yeah, but it's fine. And we're already hard at work on 59.
- [04:43]
Skip
Good. And all those deadlines can't fool around. I. I have them in a way because I feel terrible when stuff's not done. But not quite as much of a deadline as you have. But still on that front, I've got a lot apologize for slow shipping. I've got a lot of stuff done, but the shipping has been a little slow. A. I hate doing it. I hate packing. Be my. My UPS guy regular guy was on vacation, so I didn't have quite the regular pickups that I. That I normally have. But I'm getting there. Everyone be patient. And if we had done the podcast at 9, I wouldn't have seen that email from the guy with the west amp. I just looked at that. Yeah, yeah, we're going to get to the literate. A pretty literate one too. So yes, that's a neat looking thing. Hand wired. And I I don't really remember what I told him about the Dynaco transformers, but obviously it does have one. The the amp that's known to have those are sun amps. S U N N but I guess the west as well. That's an obscure one.
- [05:54]
Jason
Well, let's just read the I'm just going to read this question because you've already teased it and and then we'll get to our sponsors and a bail Be above a cliffhanger. This is from listener Bruce who says I still love Tava, but I'm anxious to clear the dark cloud of doubt Skip cast over my comment regarding Dinoco parts in west amps in episode 100.
- [06:14]
Skip
What did I say?
- [06:16]
Jason
It left me feeling much like Rodney Dangerfield and Skip. I'm used to being in charge and getting my way. My head has been hung low. Sad trombones. I've moped around like Tom Dooley. Good reference. For some weeks before I could find the time and energy to take the enclosed pictures of my west amp. It's still heavy and I'm still wondering what do I do with this. Then he says, behold image 4612. I'm going to share this in our Instagram and patreon page. The Dynaco 454216 power transformer used in the Dynaco Mark 3amp. I also believe the Gold output transformer is Dinoco with the label pulled off presumably by Mr. West himself and stamped west on the other side. He included images of those. It seems that I read somewhere that the holy Grail of Dynaco output transformers is the gold one, but I dare not risk further rebuff. Maybe Brian Sowers or one of your listeners might know. So I leave you with a joyous fanfare recipe and my head held high once again Recipe. No muss, no fuss. Three Minute Breakfast Greases a quality paper plate with a little pam. Greasing a paper plate with a pam. Just want to make that clear. Place two pieces of white bread on the plate, then press the middle of each piece down with a clean thumb. Crack an egg into the depression on each piece of bread and pierce the top of the yolks with a toothpick. Four or five piercings is best. Microwave on high for about a minute and a half, maybe less. Roll the eggs up in the bread and eat. Clean your teeth with the toothpick then throw the plate away, move on to the next thing. This is Bruce in Nashville. So the recipe, I mean, that's a mic drop moment in and of itself. But basically this guy's got a West amp, a West Mini 2R guitar amp, and inside of it are two transformers, one of which says Dinoco and the other one which is beautifully gold and he thinks is a Dinoco amp as well or a Dinoco Transformer as well.
- [08:29]
Skip
So for one thing, the only west amps I've ever seen were really monster heads. Like they're known for a, I think 150 watt one. And this one is not that big. Looks cool. Looks really cool. And it's very well made. I think keggers would like to see the guts of that thing. And then of course, with our crazed audience, we'll probably hear from, you know, the great, the grand, the great nephew of the guy who made. Or somebody, you know, somebody out there is New York City, I think definitely East Coast. Someone out there is going to know a little bit more about it. And then the recipe.
- [09:13]
Jason
Yes.
- [09:14]
Skip
So remember in Blues Brothers goes and gets Jake out of prison and brings him to this little room right next to the train tracks where the subway goes. And he has like some sort of rig because he only eats. Elwood only eats toast. Right. So I could see Jake and Elwood, 20, 25 would be making that two pieces of white bread and a microwaved egg on a paper plate in that little apartment. Right? That's, that's just, that is quick. So.
- [09:49]
Jason
So the pam on the paper plate is just so the bread doesn't stick to it. I guess I can't. I don't know.
- [09:54]
Skip
Dude, you're out on the, you're out on the frontier here. I, I don't know. I would have. Good thing we. That. I don't think I ever would have thought about that. Thought of that, yeah.
- [10:02]
Jason
This is like a prison recipe.
- [10:05]
Skip
I could see a fried egg on some toast. But this is, this is, this is taking the convenience. Did we ask if he was single? Probably. If. But that's a good one. Yeah, definitely. And then eat it in the car on your way to work. Right? Spill some coffee on your shirt.
- [10:23]
Jason
I. Yeah, I guess so, yeah.
- [10:26]
Skip
Oh, boy. All right. Well, I was going to say we can't do it without the sponsors. We could, but we probably wouldn't have for this long. We couldn't do it without the listeners or the people that write in the questions because I run out of gas pretty quick. I don't know what anybody wants to talk about. But let's thank those sponsors.
- [10:45]
Jason
Yeah. So we've got. Our friends at Amplified Parts are once again sponsoring the podcast. Pretty much everything you would ever want on the new side of things to work on amps is available to Amplified Parts. They have also pedal kits, they've got amp kits. If anybody's been listening to this podcast, I know there's thousands of you who've never actually touched an amp, but keep listening to this thing every week. Go get a kit, try, try it out. Tell them the truth about vintage amp sent you and and then report back.
- [11:18]
Skip
Absolutely.
- [11:19]
Jason
I think you'll have fun. And then our course, we're. We're brought to you by our friend Barry over at Grez Guitars who was just at the Wood wire and Volt show. And we'll be at the Fretboard Summit. Barry has offered to do a little talk at the Fretboard Summit and now I think he's regretting that he offered to talk, but I think I'm going to put him on the spot and make him do a talk at the Fretboard Summit. And you should come see Barry and if you can't go follow his Instagram, go see what he's doing with reclaimed redwood. It's truly cool. If anyone's ever in Seattle, I got a grand tour right here. You could try out at the Fretboard Journal hq. And then speaking of Seattle, our friends at Emerald City Guitars sponsoring the podcast once again. Their YouTube channel is so much fun. If anybody hasn't tuned in, go follow them on YouTube. They just did a little two day long guitar safari where they hung out with Joe Bonamassa and posted about it. I'm surprised they haven't stopped in Loma Rica yet. I think it's on Trevor's agenda and I was just over there, I don't know, three days ago. And the, the amp selection, including some of these Benson's that we just had, Chris Benson on the show. The, the new and old amps they have is just unparalleled, mind boggling. Seen anywhere that has quite the selection. They do. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Room after room. So go, go to Emerald City Guitars, everybody, or go to their website. Yeah, we've also got a Patreon for this show and that's how you get to the front of the line. We have a lot of Patreon questions this week and I don't know, Skip, what are you. You just had the visitor. You just had the fishing professor. The fishing professor. What? What Else is on your. What else is on your workbench? What have you been working on?
- [12:59]
Skip
Well, he brought a 50 Princeton and a Fender amp called the White that was named for Forrest White. It's basically a tweed Princeton, but in a different livery, shall we say? They look different. Really cool looking. And he brought a Tweed deluxe and a Vibrilux.
- [13:18]
Jason
Doing well for himself. He must be on tenure.
- [13:21]
Skip
So it sounds to me like he made a connection with, with, with somebody that had tons and tons and tons of junk and was ready to, to sell. And so he got some good deals. Recently I had a sub brand called an Electro Muse. It's a pretty cool name, an Electro Muse. And this thing is from the 40s, but circuit geeks. It has a knob that says quality. And what the knob does is it varies the inverse feedback. Now this is something that new tweakers are really interested in, but once again, nothing new under the sun. Here's some old 40s amp where they vary the inverse feedback to make it. To change the sound of the amp. I've never seen that on anything that old ever. But I sure have seen a lot of things that are supposedly, you know, new. Like, I don't know, Mesa Boogie, Simulclass or something like that. That's actually, see, well, actually old as the hills. Old as the hills. In fact, should we go ahead now? We gotta, we gotta, we gotta stop once. How about the Lonesome Captain movie with the puppet? Is that pretty far out or what? Did you post that to the kegger?
- [14:48]
Jason
I posted it to the Facebook group. Yeah. So Lonesome Cat. I mean, I don't. There's no way I can post it to our Instagram.
- [14:54]
Skip
That was funny.
- [14:55]
Jason
But. Yeah. Well, this was a music video by the quote unquote, Lonesome Captain. It's on YouTube. And it was, it wasn't stop motion. It was just like.
- [15:05]
Skip
Yeah, but it's a really cool marionette that, that they made to look like him. And that guy's a wild man. You know, he has like this super career. He lives in Venice, California, and he, you know, he's there every day. He plays. Oftentimes out on the street, he wants to do a thing like, like the typewriter, like the typists do. You know, you, you come and give him 10 bucks or whatever, and right on the spot he'll write a song about you and then you light it, and then you light up your phone and he'll play it. Oh, you know, so you can have it. But I think he was a high roller in Some sort of finances or tv, radio. But then a few years ago he just decided to start doing this crazy lonesome. Steve Packingham is his real name, but he started doing this crazy lonesome captain Persona of just sort of a crazy hillbilly. And some of his songs are pretty wild and musicianship is pretty good. And he's, he's a cool guy. He's been a customer for a long time, but he's getting more and more into playing out. Of course it helps if you live two blocks comm. Living there. I couldn't live there for five minutes. But you know, he's from there. He says, he says, oh no, I need to be within like a minute of a. Of a yogurt shop at all times. Like urban and proud of it. So new stuff.
- [16:33]
Jason
The. The video, the video is called Pretty Good at Feeling Bad Lonesome Captain. It's on YouTube. There's a typewriter and a PA in the frame. And yeah, we need to just have at the next fretboard summit, like a roast of all the Tava regulars. All of your people roast.
- [16:54]
Skip
I just, I could think of some questions to ask Barry from Grez, but that wouldn't be a roast. It would be more like. Well, kind of like the questions I would ask you about getting started. What made you think you could do a guitar magazine? Or what made you think you could make some new guitars that anyone would give a crap about when there's so many of them already out there? So. But. But a roast would be good. Like on the office, you know, they get the symbol. Symbol crash. You don't have any friends and you don't have any land. Yeah, that's what, that's what Dwight said about Michael Scott. Oh boy. Let's see. Webster, Chicago, 166. This weird little thing was really like a powered monitor for a tape recorder from the 50s. That thing, okay, has a post phase inverter tone control. So all you circuit geeks check that thing out. It also has the plate to plate filter between the plates of the power tubes as utilized by Dr. Z. And I'm trying to think how I could explain this. So it's a push pull amp with two 6v6s and normally the cathodes of the 6v6s, well always they would have a big resistor to ground with a bypass cap because it's a cathode biased little amp. Kind of like a tweed deluxe or something like that, right? But this thing has. You're not even going to understand this, Jason, but some people Will each cathode of each 6v6 goes to the secondary of the output transformer. So basically one cathode goes to like the common lead of the output transformer where you hook your speaker. And the other cathode goes to like the 8ohm tap where you'd hook your speaker. And that resistor that all of these amps have is on the center tap of the secondary of the output transformer. There's two wires that go to the speaker. When you follow them into the amp, they go to the power tubes to pin 8, not the. Not the output transformer directly. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. But there's a Sam's photo fact on it. And if you're interested in obscurity, check that thing out because it gave me quite a start. And it works good and it sounds good. I believe it's basically a form of inverse feedback to try to make the amp cleaner sounding. Which we touched on that 1950 Princeton I worked on a while back where I said the cathode bypass cap doesn't go to ground, it goes to a different spot above ground. And all I'm saying is just when you think you've seen it, you starting to get a grip on it. You see something that's so different that you go, this can't be right. But you know, it is right because most commercial products did work and things that we think are something really new. Like I know people have taken their Silver face champs and put in variable inverse feedback in there. Yeah, just like that thing from the 40s. Right. So there's definitely some if, if you can learn to read simple schematics, you can sit around and really learn a lot just by looking at them and keep you off your phone. And I do a lot of that these days. If you go to your jackdaw, we'll turn to 236 in your hymnal. Everyone you can see, say for instance, one of my circuits that I think is really underutilized is the Valco National Gretsch Supro airline. At times 16v6 with reverb and tremolo. That's really rare. You know there. There really aren't very many 166s amps with reverb and tremolo. So it's like a 4 watt amp, but still has reverb and tremolo. Well, Jack Dar has, I don't know, maybe eight different ones, even though they're all sort of the same. And you'll see some are labeled Airline, and some are labeled Supro and some are labeled Valco. That circuit is really underutilized. I don't know why more people aren't trying to make that. You could. And as you look through Jack, you can see, well, no wonder these are the same. They were just labeled differently. And when you get into Valco Airline Silver Tone, it really helps to know who the manufacturer is. Dan Electro amps, no matter what they say on them, have an aluminum chassis. Valco amps have a metal chrome chassis. And as you look through there, you can see all the classic Dan Electro circuits and all the classic Valco circuits. And you'll see they called them all sorts of different things. So my point is, the airline version of this cool little amp might be 600 bucks, but the little Supro ones and the Gretsch ones, they're probably 1500 bucks, but the amp's the same. So let the good times roll basically just a little bit. Well, like, if you learn to read, you can read stuff that you like. And if you learn to read schematics, even just simple ones, you can learn a lot about circuitry. Just sitting on the couch looking out the window, what was the.
- [22:34]
Jason
I mean, the web going back to the Webster Chicago amp, like, there was clearly an easier way to do what they did, right?
- [22:44]
Skip
Yes, but they must have done it for some reason. And I'm not saying we should all convert our amps to this, but believe me, when this comes out, somebody right now is going to be going, wait a minute. The cathodes of the power tubes are hooked up to the secondary of the output transformer, and the center tap of that secondary has a big resistor to ground. It's like they're including the secondary of the output transformer in the cathode circuit. Now, a much more complicated version of that same sort of thing is the classic Macintosh circuit. If you look at a Macintosh 30, that's the classic one, you'll see that the cathodes of the power tubes don't go to a big resistor to ground, they go to the output transformer. Of course, that's a really specially made, really expensive amp. Whereas this little Webster is just, you know, very Sears. You know, it's just mid level quality. But the designers at Webster decided it would sound better if they did it this way. And that's the way they did it. And it sounds great. Oh, by the way, if you have an amp like that, you can't put a quarter inch jack on the chassis because both speaker leads have to be free. From the chassis. They're not grounded. They can't be. Whereas normal amps, the speaker jack is grounded to the chassis. But in this setup, you couldn't do that or else you'd be grounding out. It would blow it up. So. So if you were gonna. If you had this amp and you wanted to put a speaker jack and plug on it, you'd have to mount the jack on the chassis with insulating washers so that it wasn't actually touching the metal because it has to float. It's crazy. Yeah, that's Chicatano Pizza King. That's the. That's the battle you have to have between him and the other guy who had pizza tips. Right? Just had the battle of the pizza. Battle of the pizza giants.
- [24:37]
Jason
Oh, we've got lots of food tips. Let's have a cookout at the Fretboard Summit. I don't know. Get a lonesome cat. All these people, all these characters. You. You all can be a character on this show. Folks, everybody listening to this, just email us. Send us a Voice Memo podcast, fretboardjournal.com I say it every time we do this episode. We're always welcoming new people. If you've been listening, if you've been lurking, send us your amp questions. We're here to offer relationship advice. Whatever you need, we're here for you. And obviously, if you send in almost any recipe, we'll undoubtedly share it.
- [25:12]
Skip
Are there more people that. I mean, do you even. Can you even tell if there's more people? It always seems to me that, you know, first year, we got our. Our hundred people, and we still have them. We still have them, but I'm assuming that they're still some newer people that are getting into it. How about that letter from the. From the mom who said, yeah, that was a good one.
- [25:37]
Jason
We're going to get to that.
- [25:38]
Skip
All right. Yeah, I'll shut up.
- [25:40]
Jason
So. So to answer your question, I think podcasts in general, you know, hit a high point during the pandemic when everybody was locked at home and couldn't do anything, and all they could do is make sourdough bread and listen to podcasts, but we've kept most of those people. Thank you, everybody who's tuned in. For some strange reason, even though I barely post on our Instagram, the algorithm keeps adding people, and so we are almost at 10,000 followers on the Vintage Amps Instagram page. I need or not energy into that. And. Yeah. Or not. But yeah, the questions keep coming. But, you know, usually the questions are from people who are repeat submitters. But yeah, we got a letter. I'm not going to name this person because that would be embarrassing. I know teenagers are very self conscious about nobody wants to be doxxed or anything. Got a great letter from a mom whose child is applying to a high school that requires some sort of admission process and essays and probably some testing or whatever, probably a fancy high school. And the person wrote this beautiful letter about something that has had an impact on their life and they mentioned our podcast. So to whoever's out there trying to be a freshman at this high school that we won't name, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for being curious and, and, and listening to this po.
- [26:59]
Skip
And. Well, can't you read a little bit of it? Because it talks about doing stuff with his dad and some, something that they kind of dug like, like to do together, which is, that's pretty solid. So, so basically the letter was from the mom saying that the dad and the kid liked the podcast, but also included was this like little two paragraph thing about that the kid wrote about how he and his dad like to drive around, listen to the podcast. Pretty much. No, that's.
- [27:31]
Jason
Yeah, it was really sweet.
- [27:32]
Skip
The English teacher said we were good teachers this morning. I said, I don't know, you know, but I guess, see and don't forget.
- [27:40]
Jason
That's great.
- [27:40]
Skip
It wasn't that long ago where I would have said, you want to know how to fix amps, you bring it to me and you bring me some money. Right? But now it's part of my thing to try to encourage people to have fun with it and I'm hope and hopefully encouraging some people to do some decent repairs and, and fix this stuff up. Right. Oh, there's, there's an amp. What the heck was that? Silvertone 1472 with the knobs that go up the side. 112 2.6v6s. They used to be really cheap and they're, they're great sounding. So a guy sent me this chassis, like every single part in it was pretty nicely replaced. Good, good quality, you know, workmanship, not shoddy like I usually see. However, those amps have terminal strips inside that mount all the parts and they're like long Bakelite strips with all these little points to solder on that are insulated and they're held to the chassis with rivets or nuts and bolts. And that nut and bolt that holds the terminal strip to the chassis is a key ground almost always because they're grounding parts on that terminal strip. Too well. Two of the terminal strips didn't even have nuts and bolts. They were just sitting there with just holes. So you could. Yes, the amp worked, but if you just bumped it a tiny little bit, because two major connections in the amp that should have had the rivets or nuts and bolts didn't have anything. And this guy bought this thing and thought it was great, but of course it was very inconsistent sounding and so what does it need? All new tubes? A recap? No, it needed two little nuts and bolts. Get this thing the hell out of my sight and pay attention to, you know, to what you're doing. It's great that you did a nice job soldering. I applaud that. But how could you overlook that? Good, good, good. I know a lot about. No, I know a little about a lot of stuff when it comes to the amps, you know, and don't. Don't focus so much on one thing that you're missing the boat on another thing was that. I think it was Yan sent a tweed Princeton that somebody who had that found in Sacramento, like the barn. Find one that I got a while back and there was pictures of it. The guy is playing it and he's thinking about getting a new output transformer for it. And I look at the picture of the amp and it has the ancient wax capacitors in it. Like if it was made by Leo and no one was going to play it, we might leave them like on the Woody Princeton. But otherwise you're thinking about getting high performance suspension parts for your cool old Miata. But you got like a pound of air in your tires. Like, start with the basics, people. Please start with the basics.
- [30:51]
Jason
It's great advice. We. We do have a question for me and actually. Or a comment. Jan pointed out that you mentioned the two filter cap Princeton. I think on the last episode he sent a link to the Telecaster forum from a few years ago and it might be the very same amp that you were talking about. 1949 Tweed Princeton.
- [31:11]
Skip
No, mine's a Woody. But it did come from a barn. And it wasn't a couple years ago. It was just a month or so ago. Okay, but it was just very similar. To what? To that one. And that one that he sent does look like the one where the cathode bypass cap for the power tubes is not grounded but goes to the speaker lead, which is sort of like that Webster Chicago thing. You know, they're using the output transformer as a part of feedback and just. Interesting. And I think. I don't think it's something that we all need to do, but it's just something to realize is out there. Yeah, just more things to look at.
- [31:52]
Jason
Yeah, more things. All right. Like I said, be a part of the show. Send us a question or record a voice memo on your smart phone to and then forward it to podcastritboardjournal.com and here's here's one of those from listener Andrew.
- [32:11]
Andrew
Greetings Skip and Jason. It's Andrew on beautiful northern Vancouver island. And what's on my bench you ask? A Garnet. Of course one of the local bush pilots up here who's also a pedal steel player brought in a Garnet session man with he said as long as he's owned it, the reverb howls. He likes to play loud and and whenever he used any reverb at all it would feed back. I thought maybe it was a lead dress problem, which you do occasionally see in a Garnet. And then maybe that the tank was microphonic. It's one of those folded line made by beautiful girls in Wisconsin tanks that Garnet liked to use, but it seemed like it just had way too much gain on the on the reverb recovery 2 12ax7 triodes. So I found a different Garnet reverb recovery circuit. They used half a 12 au 7 and half a 12ax 7 and since there was an unused half of a 12 au 7 right in the vicinity of the reverb, I switched it over to that. A little heavy handed. I probably could have tried a 5751 or a 12A Y7 or something. But anyway, it sounded great and our pilot was happy with the result. And yeah boy, that thing hadn't been touched since it left the factory. And aside from I gave put in a new set of power tubes because the the old mullards in there unfortunately were quite microphonic. But otherwise the thing was good to go. Question I picked up a masco me 27 a couple weeks ago. Real chicken coop find. Literally looked like it came out of a chicken coop or something. It's all rusty and had feathers stuck to it. Anyway, I cleaned it up. I'm probably gonna fix it first, as I'm sure Skip would say. And then I was thinking about altering it a little bit and it may be going more like a Masco MU17 and changing the first 6sc7 to a 6sl7 so I could have one input with cathode bias and one input grid leak bias. And then I was thinking about using the 6SJ7 pentode instead of an additional gain stage as a pentode input. So I could have three flavors just going straight into the phase inverter there. But I'm curious what would skip do? Is that is that too heavy handed on the old Masco? It's definitely not a collector piece but yeah, I'm kind of weighing options there. I don't have any recipes, but I did have a tip here that people might find handy and relevant to some of what comes up on the podcast. I'm a child of the 80s. I in addition to tube amps I'm into synths. I have some a little collection there and I was kind of redoing installing a new mixer in my to use with the synthesizers I used to build large format recording studios down in Vancouver in a previous life. So I was aware of these rain notes and some useful information in there because I was having trouble with some balanced unbalanced connections and that kind of thing. In addition, I picked up an Ampex powered speaker a few months ago and I wanted to make the cable skips suggested a few times, you know stereo mono for that but build it properly so why not Y W Y E will tell you how to build that stereo to mono cable and the resistor values if you really want to be, you know, specific about it. Another one for the balanced unbalanced and just examples of all the proper cables you could make in various situations. It's called Sound system Interconnection. And then if you really need a hobby you could go on a deep dive and read Grounding and Shielding Audio Devices and Pin one revisited. Anyway, that's it. I'll try and think of a recipe next time. Thanks for the great podcast and we'll talk to you again soon.
- [36:06]
Jason
Wow.
- [36:07]
Skip
I need the notes on that one first. That background music.
- [36:12]
Jason
Yeah, the folks we we appreciate the ASMR is background music but sometimes then we lose.
- [36:19]
Skip
Fortunately he had deep and resonant clear voice. No problem. Yeah, and of course nothing says Tava like a bush pilot who plays steel guitar. Well of course you know. Oh yeah. Quite a few of our listeners are bush pilots that play steel guitar.
- [36:41]
Jason
Fly on over to Chicago. Let's hang out at the summit August 20th.
- [36:45]
Skip
Exactly. Of course you should have the Garnett book. I should have it, but someone who shall remain unnamed August Graybosch borrowed it and won't send it back. But the the Garnett book is is really cool and freaky. All sorts of strange stuff in there. I kind of doubt that the original circuit couldn't work. I mean, it's cool that he modded it and got it to work, but I would say that the original one probably still had some sort of problem if it was hyper microphonic for whatever reason. But that's okay. I mean, it may be that he made a lot of stuff and not all of it works great. And not very many Garnet amps are super highly regarded and expensive today. But that doesn't mean that they don't work. They definitely do. So do whatever you want with the me27. All those ideas sound great. Just remember that's a classic of the amps were made for someone to talk into a microphone from six inches away, which is really a low level. And you plug a guitar into that same amplifier and man, you just barely turn it up and it starts getting really loud really fast. So that's one of the ones sometimes where you don't have a gain problem in that you need more. You got a gain problem where you got too too much and you might have to back it off. But all of his, all your ideas sounded great, so that's cool. Next time the bush pilot flies in steel guitar. He doesn't do both at the same time though, does he? It'd be hard, I would think.
- [38:28]
Jason
It's a lot of levers. It's a lot of things to keep your eye on.
- [38:32]
Skip
All right. Did we cover all of that?
- [38:34]
Jason
We covered most of it. I'll include notes to Rain Notes, all this stuff about the Ampex powered speaker cable and all that good stuff. I'll just mention all that in the show notes.
- [38:43]
Skip
Ampex powered speaker. That's probably the 8 inch little JBL or Stevens in a like. Looks like a little suitcase, like a sewing machine. And there's a 2,6v6amp in there that's great sounding but hard to work on. They didn't really make it easy to access that thing. But those are cool. They've gotten a lot more expensive. And I know some people who do recording and engineering who. Who use those to monitor with because they always sound the same and very tube and flat. As opposed to somebody who's going to go do some production at some studio and you're listening back to it on, you know, a kind of harsh, gritty, solid state type of playback system. So if you ever do see any of those, snap them up. They used to be a hundred bucks, but I think they're more like 2 or 300 bucks now. You can make a good hi fi out of one of those too. If you were rolled that way. Let's see. I'm checking out my notes here.
- [39:45]
Jason
I think you covered it all.
- [39:47]
Skip
Next.
- [39:48]
Jason
Okay. Mikasia down in Los Angeles wanted to give us a little report on the Wood Wire and Volt show and the Babylon, the Benson Babylon amplifier that we had a couple episodes ago. So Skip and Jason, here's my show report. Went to Wood Wire and Volt show in Anaheim. This was the same weekend as the NAMM Show. And there it was, the Beast Babylon itself. 880 watts. They ended up upgrading it to 880 watts. I think when we talked to Chris Benson he thought it was around 700 and 300 pounds of pure tube goodness and its six pack of necessary speaker cabs. I've attached picks which I'll share. Also had an opportunity to talk to Chris Benson and he walked me through the components. Brian Sours of Sour Sound was there as well and we talked about the circuits that they assumed was going to be 700 watts but was so efficient in design that they achieved the 880 watt number. Chris and Brian had obviously been talking all day at NAMM and then at Wood Wire and Volts but they graciously spent the time with me talking about the Babylon and other subjects related to tube amps. They are both very down to earth tube lovers and very approachable. Interesting side note, David Royer of Royer Ribbon Mic fame was there and working at the Austin ribbon mic stand. I didn't recognize David at first. We struck up a conversation standing next to the Babylon amp and we're trying to figure out what the 1 6L6 tube was for. He had some ideas but said he'd like to talk to the designer. I introduced myself to David and he told me his name and then it hit me who he was. I said I enjoyed hearing and using his mics and he said and I thought I was hiding my anonymity. You never know who you're going to run into at these shows. Also lusted after a Gres Mendocino on display and talked to Barry about turnaround times. Now I just need to sell a few amps. Met Yaniv Lauria of Bunting Guitars and fell in love with one of his guitars called Alice. A short scale junior style telly. He came all the way from Israel to be there in Anaheim and to find some dealers. A nice event. Satellite Amps was the go to room for demoing the abundant amount of custom built guitars. Only disappointment was I expected a lot more amp builders at the event. Thought the Babylon made up for the Volts part of the event, though. Anyway, a great afternoon well spent. That's Mikasia, who's down somewhere in la. And I do have pics that Mikasia sent, so I will share those.
- [42:08]
Skip
The Anti Nam did you go to that?
- [42:10]
Jason
I did not. This is the first year in two decades I've not gone to the NAMM show.
- [42:16]
Skip
Did you go, Ben? You didn't go to the Wood Wire.
- [42:18]
Jason
And I didn't even go to California. I stayed home. It felt great.
- [42:24]
Skip
Perfect.
- [42:27]
Jason
Yeah.
- [42:27]
Skip
I'm glad that Chris Benson and Sour Sound, two total wackadoos, found each other. I don't know if the podcast had anything to do with that in Portland, but that's good. I mean, a guy who's so into iron meeting up with the person who's into tube amps and therefore transformers and their spouses probably, you know, wish they hadn't met because they're all, I'm going over to his house. I'm going over to his house. They got a lot to talk about. Right. But that's good. That's a collaboration. That's definitely pushing the envelope. I guess. I'd kind of like to hear the Somebody played the amp. As long as I was back away from it a little bit.
- [43:13]
Jason
Yeah, it ended up think reverb.com owns it. So it ended up in Chicago or it's on route to Chicago now. But yeah, there are, there are Internet clips, but you're only going to hear it at whatever volume your laptop speakers are at.
- [43:28]
Skip
Yeah, it's pretty hard to, I, I, I have told quite a few people over the years who said, well, I've been listening to some samples on the computer. I'm going, that's just not, that's just not going to help those little tiny speakers on your computer. I mean, you can hear differences of between things, but you're not really going to hear if something is for you. That's why guitar shows, big guitar shops, you know, there's, there's a place for that. And if you professionally produced some recording of someone playing an amp and you're playing back on a decent hi Fi, you could get an idea of what it sounds like. All right, next.
- [44:17]
Jason
All right, Phil, who I think you must know again, one of these regulars. This is Phil from Long Island, New York, longtime listener, Patreon member. I'm what Skip calls a Falconista, a proud owner of a 1965 Gibson Falcon that Skip made sing in 2022. Do you know who I'm talking about?
- [44:35]
Skip
Yes, I believe I do.
- [44:39]
Jason
Okay, my question Today is one that I haven't heard come up yet about speakers. I'm restoring an early 50s Dan Electro special model. It has three 6 SJ7s. Didn't we just hear about that with the Masco? I think we did. Two 6v6 GTs one 6x5 GT rectifier tremolo. A single 12 inch speaker, four ohms. I believe it puts out 12 to 15 watts. I have heard in other episodes that you can match the ohms and even go double what the amp puts out. Correct me if I'm wrong on this. So my question, does it matter sonically if the speaker is the right ohms, but the watts rating is higher than the amp by a lot. In other words, for this amp, if I was to install a 4ohm JBL rated for 100 watts or more, would that work? And then. Well, let's answer that. And then there's a recipe of course. So yeah.
- [45:37]
Skip
In general we know from experience, fenders, most PAs, most quality tube stuff can handle a 100 mismatch between the impedance of the amp and the impedance of the speaker or the speaker cabinet. Dan Electros are junk. And I wouldn't great junk. But I try to be a little bit. I wouldn't be quite so bold as we don't want to blow that thing up. Right. It probably was made for a 4ohm speaker.
- [46:10]
Jason
That's what he said. He's trying to just put a hundred watt speaker. Rated speaker. Yes, on the 12 watt.
- [46:16]
Skip
Well, it won't hurt it, but it might not sound that great. And I'd say 10 watts because that 6x5 rectifier, it can't put out enough current to get you up into the 15 or 20 watt range. It's probably only 10. And then the wattage rating of a speaker is just one thing to consider. What really the most more important is the efficiency of the speaker. There's 100 watt speakers that you could hook up to this Dan Electro amp and they wouldn't sound like anything because that particular speaker needs more power to really get it going. On the other hand, I use an old eminence speaker that was I think rated at 80 watts as my test speaker, which I've played with amps all the way down to like 2 or 3 watts. And it sounds great because it's nice and efficient. I think putting a big heavy speaker in a Dan Electro is also a bad idea because the cabinets are made out of cardboard. So I think he's sending me the chassis of this. This might be an opportunity to put a speaker jack and a plug on it because of course all the budget amps just have wires coming out of the amp that you solder to the speaker. If it had a plug in a jack, you could experiment a little bit. Normally I would say you'd want a 4 ohm reissue. Jensen. It could be Al Nico, it could be ceramic. I like inexpensive. You know, that's my favorite. I think 40 or 50 bucks instead of 250 bucks is a good call. You can do something else with the rest of the money.
- [47:53]
Jason
That's great. This is not one but two Spanish rice emails that we've gotten. This is from the same guy. This is still from Phil who wrote in Just the question about the Dan Electro. He writes Good recipe for yellow Spanish rice, not spicy. Saute quarter cup of chopped onions and green peppers that you have chopped small and some good olive oil in a pot you have a lid for at medium to high heat. When they are soft, add about a half a cup of Trader Joe's roasted corn or comparable make unless you have the time to make some yourself. Fire roasted corn kernels, which I did not. Add 1 cup of white rice that I throw in a strainer and wash under cold water in the sink. Add the rice to the pot and saute a little and then add 2 cups of water. 2 to 1 water to rice ratio. If feeding more than 2, do the math. Add one envelope of Saison Goya seasoning packet. Get the one which contains coriander and annatto and mix well. Salt to taste and if you want to add spice, add powdered chili pepper to taste or replace the green pepper with jalapeno. Turn the heat up and bring the mixture to a fast boil, stirring every now and then until the water starts boiling down and you see tiny craters appear on the surface of the rice and you can't see the liquid turn down as low as the burner will go. Cover and set the timer for 20 minutes without lifting the lid. After 20, take off the stove and fluff with a fork. Serve with whatever your protein of choice is. Now would be a good time to crack open an ice cold Modelo Dark Enjoy. That's from Phil.
- [49:30]
Skip
Good one. That Goya stuff, that is good.
- [49:33]
Jason
That's a little different than the El Pado recipe we hear about all the time.
- [49:38]
Skip
It can get pretty hot with El Pado and so this, this sounds, this sounds mellow. And Dave Trout, Dave, the guy that went trout fishing, he brought Goya pasta that looks almost like Spaghetti, but it's small pieces. And he says you. You cook it like that. You brown it in oil like you did with Spanish rice, and then put stock in it. I haven't made it yet, but I'm planning to, so that sounds good. You can't go wrong with that. And even if you like meat, a little meat with a dish like that and you're good, you're good. Yeah, definitely.
- [50:17]
Jason
Yeah, whatever you got. John. Suggestions for an unused triode in a gel oso. That is a sentence I never thought I would utter ever in my life. I restored a Geloso G226A amp last year. 2 12, 212 SL7s, 1 6s, N7, 26 L6s, and a 5V4. The only modification I made was to remove the input capacitor and replace it with a Fender style resistor input. But everything else I restored and kept stock. And I absolutely love it as a guitar amp. However, I am left with one unused triode, a half of a 12 SL7, as well as two 500k pots, which were originally for the second mic and phono inputs. Does Skip have any suggestions for any fun things to do with these that won't take anything away from how the amp sounds? The amp doesn't really need any more gain. That is from John.
- [51:15]
Skip
I thought that was some sort of like fancy Italian ice cream.
- [51:23]
Jason
Isn'T it? Is that accordion amp, right? Or what is it?
- [51:26]
Skip
What's the ice cream? That's Joe. Thank you.
- [51:30]
Jason
Gelato.
- [51:30]
Skip
No, geloso is a European. Is it Italian? It's PA amp that I would run screaming from. And I'm impressed that the guy slugged his way through that. Very cool. Now, some people just can't stand an unused triode, right? It can't sleep. They got to do something with it. But there was a cool key sentence. What can I do with this? That wouldn't affect the good parts of the amp already, right? And when I heard that, I thought putting something in an amp that it didn't have before is tricky. I mean, it might work perfect the very first time you tried, but it might not because it's all. It's all one. Like Dr. Bronner's. You know, you. You put something else in an amp like that and it could definitely change the way the thing works if. If you're not careful. So. Oh, Tremolo would be a thought. You can do bias modulating. Tremolo with half a 12 SL7 doesn't need any more gain. I think that's the only Thing I could come up with that might be fun and that'd be challenging, but this guy obviously loves a challenge. So I would suggest you find a simple tremolo circuit, say from a Fender tremolox where it's modulating the bias of the power tubes. And that type of tremolo only uses one triode. A lot of times tremolo circuits need both tryouts, but that type usually only needs half a triode and got a couple pots speed and intensity. Hey, it could work. I would, I would copy the vibrato circuit exactly from another amp and fit it into this amp. And you shouldn't have to do much except set up the power tube so that they don't just have a resistor to ground on the grids, but they get that signal from the tremolo which modulates the bias. Boy, that, that guy's bold. Euro stuff, you know. There's some English amps of course, Marshall high watt hi fi stuff like Leak L E A K. Beautifully made, but most European stuff looks cool on the outside and it's just like a radio on the inside, like those big grundy consoles and stuff like that. Telefunking radios, you know, with a huge dial that get the Vatican and all that stuff. But when you open it up and look inside of it, it's really not. It's a nightmare to work on and it isn't really pro quality inside. So that was. Fixing up that jalosa was a challenge. High five for that one tremolo. Let's see if you can get that. See if you can get that going.
- [54:33]
Jason
Our friend Marcus in Nashville often on this podcast, says in episode 35, now we're going way, way back. Bill Kernard's first appearance at 31 minutes and 58 seconds. He says next time he will talk about some Fender mods. Good, bad, the ones he likes, etc. Marcus would like Bill Kernard to be back on the show. Also, he wanted us to know that Dr. Z recently released a new amp called the Ph.D. which is a single ended amp with a KT 66. He would be a good guest as well. And apparently I've always wanted him.
- [55:07]
Skip
He's. He's nice.
- [55:09]
Jason
Okay.
- [55:09]
Skip
Single. My Mega Champ can use any power tube. 6L6, KT66EL34, 6550, whatever you got. So one okay. What happened was the baby de Armans and the PA heads happened at about the same time where people went, this little thing has one 6v6 and it's just blowing the doors down because it had this huge output transformer, right? And I brought a single 6L 6PA head like a Masco to that guitar show. And the guy who, who made the univalve thd that company, he was there. And a year later, and about a year later there were. I'm not saying it had any influence, but people realized that we could put one big tube instead of one little tube and we could have maybe 8 watts and still have it be single ended. And those were cutting edge. Those were cutting edge types. There was a Bay Area guy named Emory who started building apps maybe 30 years ago and one of his bits was, hey, you can use any power tube you want in my app. And the reality is if you make the amp right, a lot of amps are like that, but it's something that nobody thought of. And this is one of those lines which you could play your tube collection, which I'm down to that, right. Any opportunity you get to, you know, to use all the stuff that you have. So big output transformer and a 6V6. That's the baby de Armand. And then a big output transformer and a single ended amp that goes all the way back into the 40s with Masco. And now Dr. Z is giving us a new take on it. That's cool.
- [57:04]
Jason
Yeah, we'll get him on the show if he wants to be. Okay, Be a part of the show too, everybody. Podcastritborjournal.com don't make me plead. This next voice memo is from listener Tim.
- [57:18]
Tim
Hi, it's Kip and Jason. My name's Tim. I live in just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. And it'd be really easy to let this message, this voice message ramble on for an unreasonable amount of time. So I took your suggestion and wrote and edited it to keep it relatively succinct. First speakers about 25 years ago, on a whim, I ran the speaker out on my silver face champ into a 4 ohm 212 carven speaker cabinet and it was glorious. It sounded so great that I took it to my next gig where my five piece band played rock and roll for a wedding reception in an old ballro room. I dimed the champ and controlled my volume using the controls on my set. 1973 Gretch Country Squire I was actually too loud a few times I actually had to turn down. I've never had such a good time playing guitar. Of course, being a young or at least younger fool, I sold both guitar and amp and moved to Alaska six months later. I lasted three months up there, but anyway, around that same time I also acquired a 1970s trainer ygm3 guitar mate. Kind of their amp in the deluxe reverb slot, two EL84s into a single 12 inch speaker with an open back cabinet has reverb and tremolo, etc. It's a really nice amp, but it had the stock Canadian made Marsland speaker and it sounded a little nasal. You might remember back around 2000 when celestian dumped a whole bunch of G12H 80s on the market after a large order from line 6 was canceled. It's apparently a very clean neutral speaker. Anyway, I. I got one for something like 40 bucks and I put it in the trainer again.
- [58:58]
Andrew
Wow.
- [58:59]
Tim
It was a completely different amp. I'm glad to say I still have that one. Okay, change the subject. I've been living in the south for quite a while and for much of the last 50 years bar bands around here have used PV gear. PV, PA systems, bass amps, guitar amps, a lot of solid state stuff, but a lot of tube amps too. I'm wondering if you run into them out there and what do you think about them? Anyway, finally a food tip. I have one of those little water pan smokers that look like R2D2 from Star wars and I like to smoke pork tenderloins that I first rub with a mixture of equal parts salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika and ground coffee. Four hours in the smoker and they come out so good. Anyway, I'm a truck driver during the week and I've been listening to you guys as I drive and I'm having a blast. Keep up the great work.
- [59:46]
Skip
That's beautiful. I've heard of the coffee on involved in barbecue and smoking and stuff. I'll be over, I'll be over for some of that. And every combo amp is ahead in a cabinet. Even if it's just a little tweed champ, it's still a head and a cabinet. And if you have an amp and you only heard it through the one cabinet, you gotta hook it up to something else. It might not be better, but it might be better. And it can completely change what you think about the amp. The little silver face champs that I make, how come I still have the same two that I built for the guitar show? And since I didn't go to the guitar show, I still have those. Why hasn't someone come to buy one of those yet? But that little thing through an 8 inch speaker in the tiny box is one thing, but you take that Same exact amp. And you put it in a nicer 112 bigger box or a 212 box and you'll just go, what the heck? Seriously. That's why I put the jack on the back of the Mega Champ. When you plug into it, it turns off the internal speaker completely. So the concept was more like it's an amp with a practice speaker built in. Because when you really want to use the amp, you're not going to use that dinky little 8 inch speaker. You're going to plug it into something bigger. Then that makes a humongous difference. Humongous. The third thing. Food.
- [61:15]
Jason
Trainer. YGM3 trainers are great PV gear.
- [61:18]
Skip
Super high quality, really undervalued, very well made. Guitar mates are kind of big physically. I thought they were all closed back. I didn't know open back. Well, the, the right speaker transformed that thing for that guy, right? And now PV stuff. PV stuff from the 70s and 80s is fantastic. I don't know how to work on it, but their stuff was very, very sturdy. That's why you still see so much of it. If I had to start playing bass again, I'd have no problem with a 70s solid state PV bass amp, right? Say for instance, for a guitar. Most people aren't going to quite get the sound they're looking for unless. Unless they want a really super clean sound. And all the pv's I'm talking about are kind of. Before they got into making rock amps that have a whole bunch of different types of distortion and stuff. Most of their early stuff and the PA gear and the bass amps open it up and look at might be printed circuit boards, but there's no stuff you're going to break on it. I've seen a PV that was solid state from the 70s once and it looked like a Fender inside. It was just very, very sturdy and, and very well made. I would have liked to have known him, Harley Peavey. He was a, he was an interesting guy. And their stuff of course is really uncool. Like when I was in bands in the 80s, I would have never had any PV stuff, right? But now that I'm older and wiser, in fact, the test cabinet, the test Cabinet was a PV112amp, like a, you know, deuce or something like that. And they made really quality stuff. So I'm sure it's real affordable. Some of them have that phaser which you hear on all that. Come on, Waylon Jennings, where they're playing down. Wow, wow, wow. A lot of those hits from the 70s and 80s have this little like Leslie sound to the guitar and that's a built in phaser that that Peeves had which sounds really pretty cool. So if you're an amp junkie and you see something pe, especially if it's really inexpensive, don't just turn your nose up at it.
- [63:34]
Jason
Love it. Our buddy Bob Speaking of Leslie speakers, I love it when we can just segue leapfrog from question to question. Bob here in Washington state. Here's my adventure. Building a Leslie speaker cab for my pedal steel Years ago I obtained an OEM Leslie unit. The same guts as in a 70s Fender Vibratone. No cabinet, no wiring harness or audio crossover circuitry. Just the motorized spinning styrofoam baffle with two AC powered motors for fast and slow speeds. I built a minimum size enclosure about half the size of a vibratone and without the cylinder block ballast weight. I swapped the lame generic 8 inch speaker with a new JBL K110 10 inch speaker for better sound and power handling. I made a foot switch with two SPDT switches. One switch routes the audio out from the amp to either the regular cabinet speaker or to the speaker in the Leslie. The other switch switches 110ac to the motors for speed control. I used relays to do the switching so as not to have long wires back and forth to the foot switch for audio signal and AC power. My baby Leslie unit works great full range audio not just the highs into a robust JBL speaker and with a speed control for old fashioned ramp up slow down Leslie effect. Just one problem. Switching the AC power on and off to the motors made a click sound in the amp which would go through the reverb. Not loud enough to be bothersome playing live, but annoying when recording. How to fix this? It wasn't until I got ahold of a vibratone schematic and I found the solution. Fender had included a 600 volt 0.1 microfarad capacitor across the contacts on the AC power relay contacts. These filtered out the EMI from the AC contacts making and breaking in the relay. Ah, quiet question for Skip. Has he ever had to replace or add caps to filter out EMI in AMSR effects? I had the schematic for my application, but is there a rule of thumb for determining the caps value? Keep up the great podcast. Been a listener since day one and a fan of Jason's efforts since issue one of the FJ and the Ukulele Occasional. That's from Bob Knetzger here in Washington State over in Kirkland.
- [66:00]
Skip
Cool. Well, a real. Lastly, you know, if you're standing right in front of it, it can't be duplicated because it's a physical thing. And yes, you can get a stomp box that sounds good enough with your band, maybe even better. But as far as really hearing it, there's just no. About halfway through that, I was going, wish that guy lived closer. I'd send him some people that are interested in learning how to make Leslie's, because I don't know know jack about that stuff. However, if you look at any schematics for Hammonds, like look at a B3 or any of that stuff, you'll see that whenever there's any sort of speed change or switching going on, they put capacitors to ground. When he was. When he said that, it all worked great, except that when the speed control made noise, I would have said, oh, well, go look at some Leslie and Hammond schematics and you'll see they put big old orange drops like.05s and 0.1s to ground to stop that noise. So that's the right way to do it. And I don't normally run into any problems like that because I don't work on Leslie's, but it is kind of like the death cap. It does do something. I don't put them in every amp, but a capacitor from wall voltage to ground is a very common thing to eliminate noise in lots of amps. And as long as that capacitor is good quality and hasn't been hit by lightning or broken down somehow, you won't die. Unlike if you eat the death caps that were growing here in my yard a month ago. There he did he. He stumbled on the answer. Big Hammonds have, like a couple of different outlets for. Always have those capacitors on them. And if you took it out when you did the speed change, it would make a big click. Yeah, there's a little Hammond at your thrift store right now. And in it is a little tiny Leslie in. If you're bold enough to get it and part it out and saw the thing pretty hard, you got to have a bearing that, you know, allows electricity to pass through it. A lot of the time, something that spins. It's not easy, but again, it's a physical sound that is. It's pretty amazing. And how about the fact that Lawrence Hammond, who invented the 3D glasses that you wear to see a 3D movie, you couldn't even say the name Leslie to him. They didn't sell. Leslie said, Hammond, you Know, you went to go to buy a Hammond organization, you would have no idea that a Leslie even existed. But yet when Don Leslie invented the thing, he took it to Hammond and said, check out my vibrato. And they went, yeah, get him out of here. Right. Every time Leslie would come out with a new little adapter for the latest B3, Hammond would change it so that it wouldn't work, because Hammond said that a Hammond organ should have one of those big old gigantic Hammond tone cabinets. They sound cool with that, but those tone cabinets are worth a couple hundred bucks, whereas a Leslie is worth a lot more than that. And just being so out of touch to not realize that this other. That someone had made a product that complements your product so well, and then just to pretend it doesn't even exist. Like, if it wasn't for the Leslie, the Hammonds would all be in churches where they sound awesome, you know, compared to, like a big old pipe organ that costs a million dollars, which was the whole point. But without the Leslie, there wouldn't have been any, you know, Jimmy Smith and the blues and the R B and all of it, you know. So that. That Hammond guy, he was. He was trippy, man. He was a. He was a millionaire. He owned estates all. He had like a. He had like a palatial mansion in Venezuela and all sorts of weird stuff like that. Nope, never heard of a Leslie. Can't buy one here. Don't know what you're talking about. Crazy, huh? Next.
- [70:35]
Jason
It is crazy.
- [70:36]
Skip
It is.
- [70:36]
Jason
All right, we're going to do one more. This is from listener Dave, and Dave's been on the show before, and you can be too again. Podcastritboardjournal.com is how you can be on the show. Send us an email. Send us a voice memo. Huge thanks to amplified parts, Emerald City guitars, and Grez, of course. And here's Dave's question.
- [70:59]
Andrew
Hi, Jason.
- [71:00]
Skip
Hi, Skip.
- [71:00]
Andrew
Dave Siegel from Sacramento.
- [71:02]
Skip
I got two quick questions today, both.
- [71:04]
Andrew
Of them not so much about amplifiers, but about the combo cabinets that they come in.
- [71:09]
Skip
Skip, at some point in the past.
- [71:10]
Andrew
You talked about one of the Good.
- [71:11]
Skip
Goo segments having found some kind of.
- [71:15]
Andrew
A paint stripper that wouldn't cause damage to old Fender grill cloths. And I was wondering if you would walk us through what your approach might be to getting spray paint off of a grill cloth.
- [71:26]
Jason
And the second question has to do with the.
- [71:28]
Andrew
The speaker studs that go through a Fender baffle board, old particle board one.
- [71:36]
Skip
I have a 64 Deluxe reverb where the threads that. That hold the studs to the baffle.
- [71:42]
Andrew
Board are stripped out on three of the four.
- [71:44]
Jason
And I'm wondering if you had any.
- [71:46]
Andrew
Suggestions as to how to get those.
- [71:49]
Skip
Reattached without pulling the grill cloth off.
- [71:51]
Andrew
Or doing any further damage to the amplifier. No recommendations this time around.
- [71:55]
Skip
Just two quick questions.
- [71:56]
Jason
Thank you both for everything you do.
- [71:57]
Skip
That guy, he's coming today because he has a reverb unit that has a curse. He bought it from a really great local blues man who passed away many years ago named Steve Samuels. NorCal. Blues guys would remember him. And it's a Fender outboard reverb unit. And it may be that it's on its third power transformer. He brought it to me years ago with a blown power transformer. And I put a new one in it and it blew up. And he called a few days ago and that thing doesn't. I'm hoping it's just like something else, like the on off switch is broken or something. And he can really plug I. And he also has the people skills. He runs a jam at one of the bigger blues type clubs in Sacramento, the Torch Club on. You know, like the afternoon jam. And he's a schoolteacher and is always cheerful. He would. He's. You know, some people, when their aunt blows up for the third time, can be pretty morose, you know, or like, hey, man, don't you know what the hell you're doing? But he's always very chipper and upbeat and he's cool guy. Dave Siegel. So Fender amp, you put the speaker in, you tighten up the little nuts. And you realize that the screws that the speaker is mounted with are turning. And that's what he's talking about. And you can't take the screws out because the grill cloth is in the way. I would. I think I'd work some super glue in from the speaker side to try to get the screws to stay in place. The real ones actually have machine threads for the nut. But right next to the head they have reverse wood thread. So when the grill cloth was off, they stuffed it. When you tighten the screws up or the nuts up on your speaker, those wood threads tighten and keep it in place. But particle board and time, sometimes those things get loose and they're kind of hard to get out. If you can. If you can get them out, you could replace them with something else. But I think I probably just try to get in there with a little bit of epoxy or a little bit of superglue and get those screws Rigid again, unless you're willing to take the grill cloth off and, and do it right. And that was another grill cloth question. There are slow motion paint removers now that take longer but don't just eat everything up. And the one one I used to use a lot made by 3M and it's called Safest Stripper. Like it's the safest one. And I did a tweed basement that had been painted and I took the baffle out of the cabinet and I put the Safest stripper on the grill cloth, both sides, I think covered it all up in plastic wrap, which you can't do with the old JASCO because it would have melted the plastic. Right. That keeps it wet for a really long time. And I think I gave it a couple of hours and then I got a hose and sprayed it all off with a hose and it took all the paint off, no problem. And then you just got to get that thing dry and back in the cabinet as soon as possible because you really don't want the wood part of the baffle to get wet. And this was a tweed amp, whereas plywood, if you had a particle board baffle, you'd have to be careful not to get too much water, you know, soaking into that particle board. But the bottom line is that those modern strippers work slower but they don't hurt anything. And you can same as the rust remover. Like that rust rescue rust. The rust stuff that we've mentioned on the good goo rust. It doesn't just like eat the rust off in a split second, but on the other hand you can leave it on there for a really long time and it's not going to like take the chrome off or lettering off or something like that. So that's the stuff. Water based paint remover is the key.
- [76:12]
Jason
Love it. We have lots of questions we'll get to next time around. So David, Jack, who else? Greg here. We'll get to your questions in a couple of weeks. Here, Keep the questions coming. Podcast@fritboard journal.com thanks again to our sponsors. Thank you, Skip. Hopefully you're having. I mean it feels like it's spring here. I don't know if it's spring down there.
- [76:36]
Skip
Hopefully it's a little, a lot of mosquitoes. But I'm a little overwhelmed with work at it. Kind of slowed down for a little while and then all of a sudden just whoa. And I have a million amps that I have to ship and let's see, here we go. Here's something I want to give someone I'm looking in this box of ancient stuff and here's a globe shaped tube which is from the 20s. Not Coke bottle, but like this. It looks like a balloon, like an old fashioned balloon with a guy sitting underneath it. You know, the kind that fly around. So It's a Cunningham CX322 and it's a 20s tube. When I picked it up, the base of the tube, this is a tube with only four pins on the base from the 20s. Well, the base just fell off. It just came right off. And so it gives you a chance to see how a tube like this is constructed. And six L6s are this way. If you smashed the base off of there, you'd see it's just a glass thing with little tiny wires coming out right through the glass. One of the most important developments in vacuum tubes was the technology to seal the glass around metal. Because inside the. The glass is a serious vacuum that cannot leak at all. You know, we're talking like beyond airtight. So you can see this beautiful globe shaped tube. I think it's a pentode, but I forgot to look it up. The regular manuals wouldn't have that. You'd have to go back into the 20s and 30s manuals to find that CX322. But it got me to thinking, how would you tell which of those wires are what? You know, you got like a filament and a cathode and a plate and all this different stuff. The only way we know which one is which is because they soldered it to this base with the four pins. Right? So these wires are coming out and going. I think I could figure out how to tell which are the filaments because there'd be conductivity. You'd be able to measure ohms between them. But the other ones, not exactly sure how you could tell. But if somebody wants that tube, I'd be glad to give it to them. It's really cool looking. It's an engraved base. Cunningham 322. And you could figure out which wires are which. And I've got the base and put the base back on. Basically the wires just go through those chrome pins and out these little holes. And then they soldered it right at the end. So if you're bold and you need that tube and you can figure out what all the different wires are and tell us you what about it? I'd be happy to send that thing along. And one more.
- [79:17]
Jason
But if you got it wrong, you could hurt yourself.
- [79:20]
Skip
And yeah, you'd have to know what you were doing. But it's interesting and it points out that if you have some crazy asshole tube, you can make something out of it. I don't see why you couldn't make a little preamp or something using an ancient tube like that. Wouldn't that look cool, right? I mean, this thing is big, like just super antique, very Tesla looking. And finally, because I was stupefied, I remember a while back I got to work on a real early alembic stereo preamp. Their first product, which is basically a Fender showman without the amp. And the great Kevin from Ohio found another one a little bit later, printed a little printed circuit board. Not quite as cool as the older one that I got to work work on, but basically a Fender showman head without the power, just the preamp. And they do sound awesome. When you take the output of one preamp and feed it into the other, you can get all this crazy distortion. That's really quite cool. But what blew me away was this. When I tested this preamp out, I had a tweed amp sitting there, Tweed deluxe, and I hooked my guitar up to the preamp and I took the preamp and I put it into the Tweed Deluxe. Turned the Tweed deluxe up a little bit. That preamp made the tweed sound like a black panel amp. You think that if you're playing a tweet amp, no matter what kind of like preamp thing you have in front of it, you're still going to be able to say, well, yeah, that big fat mid range tweet amp sound. No, if you had this preamp and you plugged it into a tweet amp and you didn't have your eyes open, you would think that you were playing it into a, you know, 60s or 70s Princeton with the treble middle bass and everything. You know, the preamps affect the sound a lot more than I ever thought they would. You know, the little preamps that I make will make a modern amp kind of sound a lot like a tweed amp. I just didn't really realize that you could alter the real sound of the thing so much. Makes me see why people can get so much into pedals. You know, you really can have something between the guitar and the amp that affects the sound in a way that I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have thought, you know, that it would. I. I figured that rig would still kind of sound like a tweed amp. Just that it would have treble middle and bass. But no, it just had that crystal clean Sultan's, a swing classic Fender type tone. You know, from a later 60s or 70s amp. Stupefying. And if you see one of those, they're pretty darn neat. If you ever saw one for cheap, I'd be jumping on it. So, yeah, preamp changes everything. Kind of. Surprised.
- [82:10]
Jason
Well, thanks, Skip.
- [82:12]
Skip
All right, last couple. That was just a couple kickers there. And now the devilish reverb unit will probably be showing up that keeps blowing up power transformers. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.