Variable Amplified Thoughts

Lately I’ve been extremely busy, as well as having to work through some very personal issues in my life (thank you Lord!) so I haven’t even considered posting anything here until today. It’s a quick thought, but one I think is worth mentioning.

In an email I was offered a trade - a new Granger M50 Plexi combo, for a stock, original, 1966 Fender Super Reverb. Although I had to decline the offer, *sigh* it is very flattering that someone would equate one of my amps in value to this legendary amplifier. I am truly thankful for the offer… and boy do I wish I could accommodate, but I’ve got plenty of amps in my collection, and trades don’t pay the bills.

And quickly, on another note, a continued thanks for everyone who leaves the very flattering comments on the YouTube videos. Very much appreciated!

God bless!
Curt

Lately I’ve been reminding myself to periodically write something here. Today I was thinking about all the things that can cause an amp to malfunction, and ways to prevent them from happening. One of the easiest things a gigging or touring guitarist can do, which doesn’t cost anything, is to make sure the transportation of their amp doesn’t not inflict excessive vibration. Vibration is the #1 enemy to tube amps. I know several guitarists that routinely haul their amps to their gigs in the back of their equipment trailer. For me this is a big NO-NO. Have you ever driven alongside a trailer as it’s being pulled at 70mph and observed it vibrating or even bouncing? Now picture your amp doing the same thing. One or more of the tubes in that $140 tube set is being slowly destroyed if not in one single jolt from a pothole. Along with solder joints, and possibly even the insulation on the transformer windings. Nuts and bolts can also become loose.

Be your amp’s best friend and always carry it with you in your personal vehicle if possible. Or at the bare minimum, pad your amp with pillows or similar items (a heavy duty flight case is optimal) if you have to put it in the trailer.

Of course if you choose not to heed this advice, that’s fine with me and other techs who also repair amps.

Hello all out there in tone nirvana land! I just finished up a brand new M50 Plexi build (Marshall-ish ‘72 era JMP50 w/ a master volume), fired it up on the current limiter (light bulb in series with AC mains), checked and recorded voltages, and biased at 36mA, both E34Ls within 1mA. Trouble-free build right? I start playing, and as I get progressively louder all is fine… then, a drop in volume, followed by a popped B+ fuse. Also notice V4’s plate is red as hell.

Remove the chassis, discharge caps, replace the fuse, replace V4 (and V5 so they’d be matched), and this time monitored cathode current on both tubes as I ran a 1KHz tone into the input and progressively got “louder” (with an 8 ohm dummy load attached). V5 steadily climbed to about 90mA, while V4 jumped to 180mA!

Removed the JJ ECC83S (12AX7) and popped in another new one. Problem solved.

So, for anyone that experiences red plating on one of the two output tubes on your 50 watt amp, try replacing the phase inverter tube, preferably with a matched one (matched triodes). A severely imbalanced PI tube can cause red plating, and its an easy cure before you spend half an evening chopsticking and poking around in your amp.

Holy cow, finally a few moments to write - only because it is July 4th and I’m taking half a day off.

First, important news. As of July 11 2009, Granger Amplification will be a full-time endeavor! After 15 years with Bellsouth, and now AT&T, I am leaving the corporate world to focus entirely on Granger Amplification, as well as continuing my musical interests with my band, Citizen Jayne, and time permitting, more of my own solo music. I feel extremely blessed to have this opportunity. It will allow me much more time to develop new products, take on more repair work, as well as spend time with my family, and *gasp* actually have a little spare time.

On the forefront, I have several new amp designs in the works, The remainder of the year should see at least one new model offered. I’m also going to work on the website, updating the products page to show combo models. I’ve already added an FAQ page, to address some of the many questions that I receive via email.

To all my customers and supporters, a word of deep thanks. You all ROCK. Ok, done for now. Time to fire up the grill and bar-b-q! Open me a beer please.

I’m in the (slow) process of changing all my posted video clips so that I have to approve comments before they become public. You’re thinking, “What’s the matter, can’t take negative criticism?” Actually I can take it very well, have been for years (in my music career), and I understand that I can learn from it. That statement would read better if it said “intelligent negative criticism.” If you’ve spent at least 15 minutes on YouTube reading various user comments, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Some bozo who thinks he has the definitive answer on everything will post something that is actually so misinformed, so irrelevant, so closed-minded, or so utterly stupid, that they repeatedly expose themselves as either (a) assholes, (b) idiots, or (c) both.

So, if you post something on one of my clips and it doesn’t get approved, then thank me for not allowing the rest of the world to see what a moron you are.

Here’s a few of the statements that I did not approve (edited for brevity):

“Tuning half step down hides the true tone of the amp.” This poor fellow went on the explain how Jimi Hendrix tuned to half step because he didn’t know any better and nobody back then cared about tuning, and Eddie Van Halen did it to “try and be like Hendrix.” Excuse me sir, but doesn’t the NAME of the clip indicate why I tuned down half step for the demo? (Van Halen recorded a lot of his early tracks tuned half step down)

“There’s no way Eddie could get his tone just from the amp. A 100 watt Marshall is still clean (no distortion) at full volume. He must have used a distortion pedal” And this pertains to my amp clip how? This is the kind of guy I’d like to put in front of my Superlead and a stack, crank the amp to 10, play a few AC/DC riffs, and scream “Does it still sound clean now?”

Next time someone asks me if my amps “will do the Van Halen tone” I’ll simply say “Yes, but only if Eddie is playing it!” and save myself a bunch of hassle.

In conclusion, arguing about Eddie Van Halen’s tone on the internet is like running a race in the special olympics. Even if you win, you’re still retarded.