Category: Guitar

What Kind of Tubes Do My Amps Use?

I have four tube amps. The 16 year old version of me would shit himself with envy if he knew that.

With the possible tube amp shortage coming I wanted to write down the types of tubes those four amps use. Here’s the list, after a quick Google search:

  • Fender Deluxe Reverb
    • Two 6v6 in the power section
    • Four 12AX7 in the preamp and the tremolo
    • Two 12AT7 for the reverb and the phase inverter
    • One 5AR4 for the rectifier
  • Fender Bassbreaker 18/30
    • One 12AX7 in the preamp
    • Four EL84 in the power section
    • One ECC83 in the phrase inverter
  • Fender Bassbreaker 15
    • Three 12AX7 in the preamp
    • Two EL84 in the power section
  • Vox AC15
    • Three 12AX7 in the preamp
    • Two EL84 in the power section
  • Vox MV50
    • One NuTube in the preamp

NuTubes… the future might be bright for those cute little buggers.

I Need to Practice

I haven’t touched a guitar in 20 days. I need to carve out some time this weekend. I have been thinking about bringing my Vox AC15 amplifier to the next Lizardfish practice, whenever that is, and I need to see how loud I can get it before the tone breaks up. I know my other 15 watt amp, the Fender Bassbreaker 15, can’t get terribly loud before it distorts. I think the AC15 handles it better, but if I can’t get it loud enough to compete with a drummer while still staying clean, then I can’t use it at practice. Really, I just want to bring my Fender Deluxe Reverb home again.

Speaking of Lizardfish, Mike the Bass Player is in Cleveland today. He sent us a bunch of pictures from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. To quote Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Alex Lifeson, blah blah blah. Mike sent me a picture of the BB King display. It’s awesome. Thanks, Mike!

At our last discussion, Mike said he’d be away for a couple of weeks. After that we can try to set up a rehearsal date. I really want to play. I really want to play. I’m still scared shitless of getting sick, but I really want to play.

It’s going to be a couple of weeks before the kitchen updates are finished. Once that’s all done I am going to start looking for a guitar tech to hire to work on my stuff. I’ll go with the ES-335 first. Check the frets, check the neck joint, rewire the whole friggin’ thing. Four new pots, a new jack, maybe a new pickup switch, and all new wiring. Don’t touch the pickups, they are gold and need to live forever. Everything else that lives under the covers, replace.

I’m worried about the neck joint. It’s clearly pulling away from the body, but it’s been doing that at a glacial pace for at least 22 years. I’m worried, but I’m not that worried. I am really worried about the frets. I’ve never had a guitar refretted. If they need to be replaced, is it still going to feel the same way it did before? No, clearly, but will it be so different that I will fall out of love with one of my two favorite musical instruments on Earth*? I hope not. Especially given that the frets on my other favorite musical instrument, my Les Paul Custom, are in worse shape. We’ll find out.

Right. Lunch break over. Time to read that huge email a coworker just sent me. I’ve got some back story to get filled in on.

*Technically I should say it’s one of my three favorite musical instruments. My ’78 Les Paul, my ’79 ES-335, and the Selmer Mark VII tenor saxophone I played in high school. I haven’t seen that instrument since 1989. That sucker was in bad shape when it came to me, but it was glorious. Epically glorious. I loved that horn. It was brass magic.

Alex Lifeson to Auction His Guitar Collection

Oh to be fabulously wealthy. I missed out on Clapton’s ES-335 and Gilmour’s gold top Les Paul, and now I am going to miss out on Alex Lifeson’s custom made 1976 ES-355TD. Sweet Christmas, he’s going to auction off his guitar collection to raise money for charity. Read this article.

As with all guitar god auctions, the first thing I look for is random 1959 Les Pauls. The article only mentions one Les Paul, and it’s the 1970 he bought on the 1974 tour and used on 2112. I would imagine Al has collected a few more Les Pauls than that, especially since he played a bunch of them over the last few Rush tours and he actually has a signature model. The question though… are there bursts?

More important than that, He’s Selling The 355!

It’s not actually this ES-355…

#rush #r40bos #r40live #r40

It’s the one that guitar was copied from. It’s this one…

He’s also selling the Hentor. The guitar he used the shit out of in the early 80’s. It started out as a Fender Strat but he modded the holy hell out of it and turned it into something else.

He’s also selling the Howard Roberts Fusion. Off the top of my head, I don’t know anyone else who played one of those, but he used it all over Moving Pictures and it’s a hollow body legend.

If I were disgustingly wealthy I would buy them all. Seriously. I would have bought all of Clapton and Gilmour’s guitars too, but this is Lerxst’s collection! Epic!

Stalling

I have nothing to write about tonight but I’m sitting here typing this drivel because I still have about 10 minutes of exercise to do and I just don’t want to.

I am watching Star Trek Discovery. Season three. Season four just ended so I am way behind. I’ll get caught up. We cancelled our Paramount+ account last year but I had to re-up in order to watch Star Trek Picard. Now I’m taking advantage of it to get caught up on everything else, Trekkie speaking.

I also started watching Dead Like Me again. I am not sure why. It just seemed like the right thing to do. It’s been 20 years since that show premiered. Back then I was in a long stretch of total ambivalence toward television. Then one night I was awake in the wee hours of the morning, just flipping through the channels, wishing there was a baseball game or a hockey game (I forget what time of year it was) to watch even though it was probably 3am. I don’t know why I stopped on Showtime, but I did and an hour or so later I was hooked on a TV show for the first time in ages. It’s all been down hill since then.

Speaking of hockey… I could go for a Bruins game. I have to wait until tomorrow. Fortunately I won’t have to wait much longer than that for baseball. The Red Sox have a spring training game on Thursday. I’ll take that over a lock out any day.

I haven’t played guitar in 16 days. What is wrong with me?

Okay. Time to exercise. Crud.

Tube Amps are in Trouble

Didn’t I write something about this recently?

We’ve been saying that the days of the tube amp were numbered for decades, but now the end might be in sight. Well, if not the end of the tubes then maybe the end of reasonably affordable amps. Reasonably being a subjective term as most good tube amps are already seriously expensive.

There are only two factories on Earth that still manufacture vacuum tubes and one of them, the one in Russia, is no longer shipping to the United States.

Here’s hoping the tubes in my amps last for another 50 years or so. Also, I was thinking of trading in that Fender Bassbreaker 18/30… now? No way in hell.

It’s worth it, politically speaking. It’s also worth it environmentally speaking. It’s also been inevitable for ages and it’s been a long time coming.

So the question is, solid state transistor amps or digital modeling amps? Those Fender Tone Master things are supposed to be pretty good. Maybe we can talk them into making a tweed Bassman version?

PAF Journey

I spent some time with the Google and the Reddit and the Social Medias today looking for ideas for new pickups for my Les Paul Custom. I want to get as close to the original Gibson PAF’s as I can and I don’t care how snooty and snobby I have to get.

I learned a couple of things. First, it seems most of the people I encountered did not live in the United States, and most of the suggestions would require some form of international shipping. Also, most of the people I encountered have a ton more money than I do. I was hoping for something in the $200-250 range. I saw one suggestion that goes for $1300 and another that goes for $1500.

There were a couple of good ideas in my price range. Something will come of this. Weirdly, the one big company I looked at was actually more expensive than some of the small businesses. I didn’t expect that, but what can you do, right?

First we get through the kitchen, then we can get to the guitars. Also the cellar. All the stuffs.

Saturday

I have been on vacation for the past week. A staycation in fact. I spent the entire week off thinking that each day was Saturday. I would look at the Bruins game schedule and be surprised that they weren’t playing Arizona (because they are scheduled to play Arizona on Saturday, get it?). I would spend each day reminding myself to not miss The Walking Dead tomorrow, (because The Walking Dead airs on Sunday and I thought it was Saturday, get it?)

It’s finally Saturday. Well, finally is the wrong word because that implies I was impatient for it to get here and that, by extension, implies that I was impatient for my week off of work to end. I most definitely was not. I just mean that after spending the week thinking it was Saturday, it actually is Saturday. The Walking Dead airs tomorrow. The Bruins play the Coyotes tonight. Also, I woke up 100% convinced it was Sunday. My internal calendar is a dick.

Anyway, no issues with the CPAP machine last night. More circumstantial (is that the right word here?) evidence that when masks start having problems staying sealed it’s time to get a new mask. Duly noted.

I just had my protein shake and my first dose of vitamins. I didn’t miss a dose yesterday, which is good, though I did forget to take them around dinner time and ended up taking the last dose at nearly 9:00pm. I hope that’s not a bad thing. It’s just vitamins, right? It’s not like I am taking a narcotic or something. I’ll check with the dietician the next time I talk to her.

I have two things on my to-do list for today. There are a bunch of boxes in the dining room that need to be chopped up and removed. Also, the Kia needs an oil change. We’re taking my step son Harry back to school tomorrow so the car is going to get around seven hours of road time and I just want it to be in tip top oil shape, you know?

What else? I haven’t played my guitar once during the whole week off. That makes me sad, but I was legitimately wrapped up in other stuff. We really hadn’t planned on any of the things we did this week, but we ended up being seriously busy the whole time. It was good. I am very happy with this particular staycation. I just should have played the guitar some.

I am starting to get back into thinking about bringing my two 1970’s guitars to a tech for some work. They both need their frets checked out and possibly (hopefully not) replaced. I don’t want to do that, but I will if I have to. Those two gitters need to live forever. I want to have the wiring and the pots replaced on both of them as well. I want to go with 50’s style wiring (that has something to do with how the volume and tone pots are wired together. I think it’s the output from the volume connects to the input of the tone? Something like that?) That changes the way the two knobs interact, and it eliminates the drop in high frequency response when you lower the volume knob. I guess it also means it’s possible to increase the volume with the tone knob, which is weird, but I’ll get used to it quick. I also want to put new pickups into the Les Paul Custom (not the ES-335, those pickups will stay in forever). I just don’t know what to get. I want to go boutique and cork sniffy and I want to get as close to late 1950’s Gibson PAFs (patent applied for) pickups as I can. I also don’t know where to go for any of this. I have one shop in mind, in Andover, MA, but I haven’t decided. Someday soon I’ll start this ball rolling. After the kitchen fun is over with.

Okay, gotta go tear up some boxes and get an oil change. Your humble blog narrator will talk to you later, oh my readers and only friends.

Lerxst Amps Interview

I was feeling curious about the amplifier line Alex Lifeson released 2-3 years ago. They are way too powerful for my use (though I now know they can step down from 50 to 25 watts which makes them more interesting) so I didn’t look very close when they were first released.

Today I decided to poke around and I found this interview. Speaking as both a Rush fanatic and a gear nerd, this video is literally Gold.

He talks about stage volume and monitor mix preferences! Oh my god the gear dirt he shares! Can you believe it? Wow!

Uncover the Secrets of the Scoop

Yesterday I wrote about the existential crisis I faced when trying to mix up my first protein shake. I had been lead to believe, by my own eyes, that the huge bucket of protein shake powder did not come with a scoop. Today, day two of the new shake world order, I took a tablespoon and tried to dig out about 32 grams of powder. While digging in the huge bucket I found the scoop buried inside.

Now, knowing what the shake tastes like with the exact correct milk to powder ration, how’d it taste? Okay. I promise I won’t be drinking it for fun, but I also won’t be turning my nose up at it. I’ll put it into the weight loss surgery win column.

What else is going on today, no the first business day of vacation? I tried to watch The Walking Dead on my iPad while sitting in the living room with Jen and Harry last night, but they were watching Rick and Morty and I had to join them. I mean… Mr Nimbus, right? I am watching the new episode on AMC’s website and the stream during the commercial breaks is screwing up left and right. I’m not very optimistic that it’s going to let me get through the whole episode, but amazingly I just heard one of the new bad guys use the phrase, “mother puss bucket” in what can only be thought of as a verbal tip of the hat to Ghostbusters but given that I use that phrase as a verbal tip of the hat to Ghostbusters I am feeling seen and acknowledged right now.

So what’s the music plan for my vacation week? I mentioned doing an album in a day, but I am not going to go through with it. Instead I will just try to come up with a couple of song ideas for Record Every Month. I was also thinking of hitting up Guitar Center and trying to trade in my Strat. Instead I might get back into the idea of finding someone to overhaul my Les Paul Custom. Like everything else, it all depends on money.

What about non-musical plans for the vacation week? Well, I’m glad you asked. We are thinking about getting back to figuring out the ways and means of upgrading out kitchen. We’re going to do some research tonight. You know, do some interviews. Ask some questions. Rattle some trees and see what shakes out. We’ll let you know.

Okay, this morning’s zombie watch is now past the point where I stopped last night. I’m going to pay more attention now. Talk to ya’ll later.

Mutha Puss Bucket.

50’s Wiring

I am still planning on getting my old Les Paul, the 1978 Custom, some work. As in possibly a complete makeover.

When I do, I am absolutely doing this:

Add in a couple of 50’s PAF clones for pickups and some new frets (if necessary) and it’s going to be a brand new baby. After that I get the new Les Paul done in the same way and I end up with two spanky guitars. Oh yeah, then there’s the ES-335 and the SG to consider too.

Sorry… nerding out in a major way right now. I’ve been watching all sorts of Les Paul videos on YouTube while I try to finish my exercise for the day. I’m almost done. Maybe one more video. Let’s go.

The YouTube file wouldn’t embed on my first try. I tried a second time, but if it still doesn’t work you can click here to see what all the fuss is about.