Variable Amplified Thoughts

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.

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.

I haven’t put up any new clips in a while so I figured I’d cut a new one, and since several viewers and callers have requested some Van Halen riffs (”Hey do your amps do the Van Halen sound?”) I figured I’d appease them. So here it is, in all my fat-fingered, trying my best to remember, one take glory.

This is my M50 Plexi amp, based on the early 70’s era JMP50. Details on YouTube.

One day I’m going to sit down and practice all the riffs before I hit record. I’m also going to adjust the tripod so my head’s not chopped off.

Check out the 1969 Marshall Super Tremolo that I rebuilt. The client asked me to build it to 1968 era SuperLead specs. It’s basically now very similar to Eddie Van Halen’s famous Marshall that was used on all the early VH records. It definitely sounds like it too. My client was over yesterday and ran it with an EchoPlex in front of it, and there was the VH1 sound. I would love to have the amp in my collection, it sounded that good. A big part of that was the original Dagnall transformers, and all vintage type components such as Phillips mustard caps, carbon comp resistors, and early SuperLead type filtering.

Check out the photos: These are on MySpace - PHOTO GALLERY. These are on my server - PHOTO GALLERY

Hey all. This is were I was supposed to include all the details and information about my latest build, the Granger H50. By now I’ve got 3 video clips up on YouTube, and a few photos in the gallery. Sorry for being a little late with it.

Anyway, I have a new channel on YouTube! I’ve posted the clips and a 4th is uploading. The issue is I need to find a converter to compress the video clips, since the output of my camera is avi, and the files end up very large - and even with a great DSL connection, take a long time to upload. So any help or ideas there are appreciated! I downloaded and installed Blaze Video, but it ended up wrecking playback of avi files, and I obviously don’t have time to sit all day and download different apps to try. As soon as that’s solved I hope to start posting a lot more clips, both demos of the amps, and maybe some of my observations about the actual building and testing phases.

All that being said, I am VERY VERY excited about this amp! I’m going to play it tonight at Citizen Jayne’s gig, and many more I hope.

The amp is based on the Hiwatt DR504 circuit. Most of the parts are from Weber. I’ve grown quite fond of them over the last couple of months. They have great customer service, always pack the shipments extremely well, and always try to accommodate my requests, such as custom faceplates. The best thing is, they have great prices, so it allows me to pass the savings onto my customers. I’m of the belief that a great sounding handwired tube amp shouldn’t cost $3 grand, which most guys (and gals) can’t afford or don’t want to pay. No offense to Hiwatt, Marshall, et al intended.

My thoughts on the amp - superb tone, extremely loud, very clear, bell-like at cleaner settings, very interactive controls. Really nice clean tone that is really responsive, great crunchy tone at higher settings w/ the master up and pre backed down. The bright channel is my favorite, but the normal channel does the best clean tone. Sound great with both a Tele and a Les Paul. With the pre control up and the master about half way the amp kills! Moderately high gain, plenty of sustain and feedback available.

So, check it out the clips on YouTube, and the photo gallery.

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who’s been supportive of Granger Amplification and is helping spread the word! Whether family, friends, or satisfied clients, you all are helping me grow this business and for that I am very thankful. I have really been blessed, and I hope to be building amps for a long time to come (as well as playing some golf every now and then).

First up - I recorded some more soundclips for the D18 DragonFly amp, this time using a Strat, and various levels of gain. I think I’m doing the amp justice in representing it’s sound. They are posted on the D18 product page. I also played it at two Citizen Jayne shows this past weekend, and it sounded great. That sucker is loud for an 18 watt amp too. I had to run my Weber Mass100 attenuator to keep the volume in check.

I did a photo shoot Sunday for some of my amps. I have a Nikon D80 camera, but have been using a low cost (but great little camera!) Canon, and wanted to get some better photos for the website. I had also planned on doing some photos for advertising that featured the “pretty woman standing next to amp” but my model “no showed” on me so I had to nix that idea. I did offer my 14-year old daughter Stacey the opportunity to model (albeit with a much different intended demographic), so she dressed up, fixed her hair, donned my Elvis sunglasses, and struck some of the coolest poses you’ve ever seen a 14-year-old-rock-star-or-model-in-the-making do. I haven’t had much time to edit them, but I did post a couple on MySpace. I also paid Stacey for her time, for which she was very grateful. Hey, if it worked for Dave Thomas and Wendy’s, why not try it?

I modded a Blackheart BH5H amp for a client and really liked the way it turned out. I replaced the output transformer (stock 5 watt) with a Hammond 125ESE (15 watt), the chinese 12AX7 with JJ 12AT7, the chinese EL84 with a JJ EL84, one resistor and a couple of capacitors. I recorded some clips. The blues track was fun - I just pretended I was Eric Clapton playing with John Mayall.

Clips:

(Full song)
F12 Blackheart Blues (Telecaster, bridge pickup, treble rolled off ala “Woman Tone”)

(Just guitar)
Stock Blackheart (before mod) w/ Telecaster

Modified Blackheart w/ Telecaster

Modified Blackheat w/ Telecaster (middle position, clean)

That’s about it for now. I have some other thoughts floating around, but I’ll save them for another day. Keep those emails coming, and add us as a friend on MySpace if you get the chance!