Category: Amps

Back in Business

Last week I finally had the energy to debug the Beamer. It turned out there was a cap on the the Treble control that was only conected at one end. Doh!

So now I’m making noise again, and ready for some tuning. The first order of business is to try a little negative feedback from the output transformer. As the master volume goes up the low end gets a litttle too rough for what I want from the Nice channel. I might also need to reduce the output from the preamp as I suspect it gets too hot for the phase splitter at high Preamp volumes.

Next I plan to experiment with R19 on the preamp schematic, which sets the knee frequencies for the Treble and Bass controls.

THEN I’ll start playing with the Nasty channel, with the goal of getting usable tone over the full range of the Drive and Tone controls.

Back to work…

Where have I been?

My amp building has been on hold for the last 9 years in deference to mentally exhausting day gig work (and the loss of a good space for electric playing, and back trouble, and . . . ), so I’ve been playing instead of building.

I’m lucky to have a circle of musician friends that get together in various acoustic groupings about twice a month, but about half of them only ever play 6-string guitar. The music starts to get crowded when more than 4-5 players show up, so some of us have picked up alternate instruments.

Brer Stevo has always had the mandolin & banjo covered, and he and Spock are both better bass players than I am, so I’ve mostly settled on 8-string squareneck reso (in G6) and melodica. I recently picked up a baritone acoustic guitar that I’m also trying to work into the mix.

Alone at home, I’ve been playing with SONAR and some soft synths to feed my electronic music and recording interest. I also have both tenor and soprano saxes, but they get the least use of all these days (too loud for acoustic jams!).

So I’ve been busy enough, but not in any focused way.

I don’t expect to get very focused until I can finally get off the full time work treadmill (some time in the next two years), but I’m looking forward to getting serious about songwriting/composition when I do. I should also have plenty of time to work on my ideal studio amp, too.