#valve amp

[wow-and-flutter]

[bluntinstrumentamps]

Emulation or Not? Blunt Answers

Emulation or Not? Blunt Answers #music #amplifiers #guitar amps #guitarists

Recently we were asked why we did not put more controls or emulation on our tube amplifiers as some other well known manufacturers do, one assumes, in order to make an ‘All Singing, All dancing‘ amplifier, a Jack of all trades but perhaps master of none. Here is the answer from Mike Blunt:

“Having played in several bands in my younger days, it was often necessary to alter the amps settings…

[darkbutterflyrc]

Was asked by a member of an audio forum for more pictures of my valve amp, these are from my archive.

[darnitallband-blog]

 IT NEVER ENDS!!! The Abbreviated Story of my Beloved Amp!

As many of you already know, I never wanted to be a guitar player...(yeah, yeah, poor me, boohoo). When I moved on from playing classical and marching music as a child and exploded into the death/black metal fanatic I became as a tween, I immediately understood that I wanted to the bass player in a legendary death metal band. It was the rock instrument that was calling me at the time.

Alright, never mind all that, I'm not getting into that part of the story right now, it will take too long and I have too much to do today, and you will find out why in a few minutes.

The point is, although all guitarists are known to be persnickety about their "tone", I believe myself to be an extreme case since I started playing guitar reluctantly. Well, I don't want to say reluctantly, let us just say, it wasn't the first choice on my list.

When we started this, Tara knew that she wanted to play bass, and at the time, she wasn't comfortable standing onstage as a two-piece (with me on drums). She felt that as a new musician, she would feel too exposed without a guitarist to hide behind. Again, a story for another post. Btw, I make no apologies for my style of writing...

So where was I? Ah, yes...the amp. So after realizing that there was no way we could make Darn It All work as a 3-piece, we knew that one of us had to play drums. Learning yet another instrument was not something Tara wanted to do, however, gun-to-the-head, she said, there was no f@#king way she was going to play guitar. So, seeing how I fancy myself as "Mr. Adaptable", I picked up the "axe" and made a go of it. Before we started Darn It All, I only had a casual relationship with the guitar as a songwriter, yet never in my life did I think it would become "my instrument".

If I had to play guitar, then I needed a sound and feel that I could get behind. To call me a snob would be too polite. I absolutely hated the sound of most guitar tones that I encountered in real life. I also didn't like the way the majority of guitars looked on my body or felt in my hands. Much like Tara, guitar would be the last rock instrument I would choose to pursue. Nothing against guitarists in general, the instrument just never seemed to resonate with me. Whatever, why am I making disclaimers?

Years ago, I had played in a band with a guitarist that had a Rivera 5512. A little combo valve amp with a big open sound and rich saturation. So I decided to get one of those. It literally caught fire after only a few plays. It took me months of scouring the "used gear" classifieds and trying out amp after amp until I was on verge ready to try and build my own.

Almost as a joke, I went to check out this old Peavey Heritage VTX amp. At the time, I didn't know that Peavey wasn't simply manufacturing cheap beginner amps but also made some seriously powerful high end amps with low sticker prices. The guy selling it had an acoustic guitar plugged into it and said he had to get rid of it because it was too loud. "Interesting..." I thought to myself..."It doesn't look very big". I had brought my own guitar with me and plugged it in.

It took me about 1.5 seconds until I said, "I'll take it"! I was quite a bit short on the price he was asking but the guy just let me take it home regardless and told me to pay him whenever I got the rest of the money. Amazing! Really swell guy. So I payed him the remainder a month later.

During that month, it was becoming more and more obvious that we needed to become a two-piece instead of a trio and we had already started experimenting a little with Tara on drums, but nothing was "gelling" as they say.

At the time, I also had started breaking a lot strings on the Fender Strat I had gotten quite inexpensively at a pawn shop in Mexico, so I thought I needed a backup guitar. So I dug up my late father's old hybrid guitar that he had assembled from a pile of orphan guitar parts. It was set up in B-standard from the old metal days and I was dreading having to do new set up for D-standard (the tuning we used in the 3-piece version of Darn It All).

Farsically, I plugged my father's old guitar in to the Peavey Heritage and the entire of my being was melted by the tone. The combination of the pickups, tuning and saturation on that tube amp was everything I ever wanted in a guitar tone. I didn't know it until I heard it and felt it. Maybe some of it was because I had played in B-standard most of my life and it just felt like home, or maybe it was feeling my father's guitar in my hands, but whatever it was, I instantly knew what Darn It All as a two-piece was going to sound like. It all hit me so abruptly in a flash of jagged inspiration. No effects, no pedals, just one great saturated tone and lots of creativity and heavy goofiness.

But Tara couldn't play drums yet, so I had to write a song that could teach her some of the basics on drums...so I wrote "Trixie Taught Me How To Be A Man" with my new guitar tone. Oddly enough, when I wrote the drum parts, I tried to put as much of Tara's personality into the drum parts as possible while making them easy to learn. Of course, I put some of my personality in their too, how could I not...alright, I gotta reel it in, I'm getting off track.

The point is this. Although the pins on foot switch cable for the Peavey Heritage stopped functioning the day I brought it home, the Peavey served us well all summer and autumn, however when we started to record, it self-destructed.

So we recorded with guitar simulators like I explained in the last blog post. Well, now people are offering us shows and we have some coming up that are booked and we needed an amp. Since the equipment and parts I would need to trouble shoot the amp and fix it (or send it to a tech if I wanted to take that route instead) would cost more than to find another used Heritage, I ordered another Heritage online with a 2 year warranty.

Now since we've been recording and haven't play any shows or rehearsed in nearly two-months, we are extremely rusty and anxious to rehearse again.

Yesterday, we received the amp...and lo and behold...it's a veritable pile of junk. Now remember, the seller said it was in "Good condition, fully functional with only minor surface wear and tear". What that translates to in reality is the following...

* The amp is so grimy and covered in filth and grease that I shutter to touch it.

* The power tubes do not match and are dead.

* There are major dents all over its face and the knobs do not turn properly

* The amp isn't getting any power and DOES NOT EVEN TURN ON!!!

So instead of jamming out today, we get to spend more time figuring out how to return this or get it in some sort of working condition with the warranty.

That's okay, our fans don't like us because we are well-rehearsed, shit, we can barely play our instruments to begin with. Although I could be wrong, it seems like you guys like us because we turn our tragedies into some sort of satirical entertainment, and turn our lack of "tightness" into comedy-fodder.

Thanks for checking in!

- Spickler

[bluecollectioncreation-blog]

Jedistar

Small valve amps

http://jedistar.com/low-watt-valve-guitar-amps-a-c/

[turned-up-to-eleven]

Been testing out the new Roost 2x12 cab and it sounds pretty sweet with my Peavey Bandit head (converted from a combo by Roost). It gives a really crisp and clear clean tone with a surprising amount of low end for a 2x12. The Roost drivers also handle heavy distorted tones very well and sounded amazing with the valve heads I tried (Marshall 2266, Peavey 6505).

Roostamp.com

[mandamnamps-blog]

Baffle built and grill cloth installed. Turned out well I think.

[deebeeus]

1968 Fender Vibro Champ.  Silver Face.  Drip Edge.  Very nice.

[guitarspedalsetc]

Quick pre amp valve swap in the rockerverb 50, managed to net an old stock 5751 for the first tube slot. Sounds mint, really warmed up the tone whilst making a more rounded distortion with slightly less gain. So ideal really, if I had the cash I'd replace most of the valves with these, they're great.

[darkbutterflyrc]

Not flying related, I wanted to share something I’ve been working on whilst it’s been windy to fly.

I built it 10 years ago, had a few house moves since and it spent a year in storage and 5 years doing nothing on my chest of drawers, it didn’t look like this, the case it was in before was long, both modules sat side by side, it was too big.

However this year I decided to rebuild it, one of the boards had an issue relating to the bias circuit, while I was fixing that, I decided to re-make the case and mount the modules so the case can be smaller, it worked to a point and looks great in my opinion.

The boards are Velleman K8011 mono valve amps, don’t ask me where to get them, because they are now discontinued, which is shame because they don’t sound half bad.

[soundfanatics-blog]

tubes glow.

[mcpinski]

Grainger danger - If Link Wray joined the Who, this is what it would sound like: gutted Hi Watt cab with this cool valve head.

[axestasy]

amazing close up of the Blackstar HT-5 Metal panel.. (which is totally in my wish list!)

by Pingouino on Flickr.

[righteousharmony]

New custom made RAT HRVS hand wired recording amp and MONACOR analog delay unit, both sounding pretty awesome. Should probably start writing some new THESE MONSTERS tunes. 

[twentyfourstar]

[roberteke]