Gasalcoholics anonymous? whoever said this was a help group?

[gila_crisis]

Luckily enough you can built a DIY version of the Great Destroyer. It's quite a simple circuit.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Yeah I built one from an official PCB years ago, obviously aided by the PCB/kit but I remember it was a mega simple circuit. Definitely a fun pedal

[dubkitty]

bad news. the T-120 is fucked up somehow. when i plugged the boards together it started emitting timed blasts of totally deteriorated white noise echo that couldn't be stopped by turning the knobs all the way off or by unplugging the power. so i got to spend all day yesterday not noodling and getting to know the new stuff but rather pulling things apart trying to find a cause for this in the main board (there wasn't any). i'm emailing with Steve Demedash and it'll probably be going back to Canada on a journey through the past (h/t Neil Young) shortly. i'm extremely bummed both because i really like the T-120 and because i was almost fucking done before this happened. be glad you don't live with me, because i'm not nice today.

on the other hand, the Ampeg B2R bass head arrived and i finally plugged it in to test it. it sounds pretty good through the 12" Weber D120 clone guitar cube. the 15" Univox bass cabinet is supposed to arrive today and i'll give things a good going-over once it arrives. but nothing's going to make me feel any better about the T-120 problem. i want to throw it out the fucking window, but i can't afford to eat $260. i don't love the fact that the B2R has a cooling fan so loud that you couldn't record music with a mic in the room. i don't even know if it'd work with a mic right up on the cabinet. i specifically didn't buy a Hartke head because people complained about their uber-loud fans, and now i'm stuck with a loud fan anyway. not only are things not working, the problems are becoming more insoluble. maybe i should give up on trying to do something creative and just take my D+, envelope filter, and reverb and go play Jerry Garcia in someone's 3d-rate copy band.

[dubkitty]

the T-120's going home for a visit tomorrow. after i explained the truly bizarre behavior of the box he agreed that there's a manufacturing defect and will fix it and upgrade it to v2 for free. his hypothesis is that there's some fault in the grounding of the chassis to the circuit board, which makes sense because it would hum less loudly when i handled it. so notional god willing, that will come home to me. who knows? it might even beat the SHSL here.

the search for dark-sounding roundwound bass strings is now happening, though perhaps i should go with flats on the Mustang because Jack Casady uses a stash of old Framus-branded Maximas he's been hoarding for years. more research. i remember when research used to be fun.

[TheTransient]

the T-120's going home for a visit tomorrow. after i explained the truly bizarre behavior of the box he agreed that there's a manufacturing defect and will fix it and upgrade it to v2 for free. his hypothesis is that there's some fault in the grounding of the chassis to the circuit board, which makes sense because it would hum less loudly when i handled it.

That's a good news. Cool of Demedash to offer the upgrade too

I feel your pain though, historically I have had terrible luck when it comes to receiving faulty gear. I've only been dabbling in guitar gear again for a short time and I've already had to return a Boss RV-3 that was cosmetically great but smelled strongly of mildew and had a huge volume drop when engaged...




In other news, I was happily using my Catalinbread Soft Focus for reverb, but for some reason I decided that I wanted to revisit the Neunaber Wet sound as that was the first reverb pedal that I really loved. Went kinda crazy and bought the Illumine, but for several reasons (some of which is probably just OCD tbh), I don't know if I'm that keen on it. Figured I'd maybe just prefer the simpler Wet V5 since I mainly just want that sound anyways, so I ordered that. Then this morning I played the Illumine against the Soft Focus, and I actually might just prefer the Soft Focus as it has more character and it's still plenty versatile enough for me despite it's simple control options. So now I get to wait for the Wet V5 to arrive, then I can work on deciding if I am going to keep the Illumine or the Wet V5, or both, or neither. At the very least I know the Soft Focus is staying put. Such a stupid position to put myself in though...



In better news, I very much impulsively bought a Holy Island Audio Tides V2 and that thing is pretty great. Noisy as fuck (as Belton brick reverbs can often be - much like my 1776 Rub-a-Dub Deluxe build is) and not at all transparent as far as your clean tone goes, but a really cool dirty reverb pedal with a solid set of options. It does seem like it wants to be in front of an amp that is at least on the edge of breakup though. Not quite as good into a fully clean amp. It was clearly designed with heavier styles of music in mind, so that makes sense really.

[dubkitty]

i'm getting to like the Soft Focus. the trick for me is dialing it in so there's almost too much of everything (i.e. around 50%) and then backing the Mod and Symph down till it sounds good.

the bass cabinet arrived yesterday, but the speaker is fucked. when i started playing through it i was like "why am i getting fuzz tone?" given that the cab was only $120--less than a new ported 15" cube on eBay--and returning it would be a oversized 40-pound pain in the ass, i decided i bought a cabinet that happened to come with a bonus blown speaker. i bought a known good JBL D140F with the aluminum cap dust off eBay so i'm off to Lesh Land once it arrives. if the cap makes it too toppy i can just roll off the amp's graphic EQ at 4000 Hz which apparently is its resonant frequency. i need to put jacks in the cabinet so i can run 2 cabs in series because the D140 is 8 ohms and the head wants 4 or 2 ohms for best results, but i think it'll be OK for biamping loops and probably for casual jamming.

Musitronics is now offering its smallest envelope filter yet, the Mini Mu, at $129 on Reverb. that's so cheap it's really hard to pass up. i like my EMMA Discumbobulator just fine, but it's a bit tricky to dial in. the Mini Mu has the MuTron optocoupler so it's extremely tempting, but without a demo it looks like it doesn't have any more adjustability than the Emma and possibly less. i keep telling myself "we have envelope filter at home." i still have other priorities that come before upgrading something that works well just because something else might be better.

good news on the amp front: the AC15 wasn't producing sound because V1, which hides under one of those annoying aluminum covers, wasn't working at all. in order to see this i had to unscrew 16 fucking screws to get the back panel off, which i did to check for blown fuses. so it's nice to have something resolved with just a few minutes of twiddling. i'm pretty sure the tubes i took out of the Laney had been installed shortly before it croaked, so the AC15 should be happy though it eats EL84s like chips. i literally have to replace them every 18-24 months. now it's back to Talking Heads mode: "still waiting...still waiting..."

[gila_crisis]

The other day I stumbled upon these guys based in Australia: Gehirn Enterprises!
https://gehirnenterprises.com
They do some cool noise/fuzz pedals and some modular synth stuff and accessories.

I've ordered their NoisWasp fuzz (which is a 4MS NoiseWash clone, in a very compact form-factor).
Will report when this will materialize in my mailbox.

They have also a clone of the Great Destroyer under the mighty name of "Zwergwirken Apparat Monströs ZERSTÖRER".
Prices are super fair on the cheap side and shipping to Europe was 18usd. And they still have a 10% happy new discount on all products going on!!!

[Paul_C]

No need for any more pedals, amps or Telecasters, but nevertheless I have just ordered a Thorpy Warthog V2.

[Warpsmasher]

Been on my radar for a while, found one super cheap. The talk/vocal mode is the main curiosity/interest, don't know of any other envelope filters that have it outside of Modfactor/Eventide. I have a Cock Fight + that does vocal wah, but I hate the short sweep treadle and would rather use the box version with my Dunlop XL mighty sweep.

[Blackened Soul]

Ok before I start.



Right then, have comming 2 basses, the first is a musicman usa sub5.. this dude had a listing on reverb (still has it up on ebay)… stock picture.. not the same color as the bass listed says.. so I think the bass will be blue.. anyway.. I was in a mood so I made an offer for under half the asking price and they accepted.. waited to the time limit on shipping to contact me about shipping it.. asked if I was ok with them taking the neck off the ship.. I was fine with that.. then they needed little more $ (still kept it less than half the listing price) because the shipping pice they had on the original listed was less then they could get it shipped for…. I said ok.. and the bass is making its way to me.. slowly… so we will have to see what shape it actual in... what color it will be… and if it is a real musicman…

2nd one…. Last February I put in a preorder for a shecter dug 12 string bass.. they kept pushing out the date so in June I cancelled my order and found a builder that had made a couple of 12s to make a neck for me instead, the neck took 3+ times the time estimate and when it got to me the neck was not the dimensions we agreed on.. the heel was the same as a 4 string.. they are not sure how it happened… so the neck is on its way back and they are refunding me.. and right after I packed it and labeled the neck a Galveston 12 string showed on on reverb… FOR THE SAME PRICE AS I PAYED FOR THAT NECK! So I got that comming, more than likely I will have to make it a new body for balance reasons but still I see this as best outcome..

[TheTransient]

In other news, I was happily using my Catalinbread Soft Focus for reverb, but for some reason I decided that I wanted to revisit the Neunaber Wet sound as that was the first reverb pedal that I really loved. Went kinda crazy and bought the Illumine, but for several reasons (some of which is probably just OCD tbh), I don't know if I'm that keen on it. Figured I'd maybe just prefer the simpler Wet V5 since I mainly just want that sound anyways, so I ordered that. Then this morning I played the Illumine against the Soft Focus, and I actually might just prefer the Soft Focus as it has more character and it's still plenty versatile enough for me despite it's simple control options. So now I get to wait for the Wet V5 to arrive, then I can work on deciding if I am going to keep the Illumine or the Wet V5, or both, or neither. At the very least I know the Soft Focus is staying put. Such a stupid position to put myself in though... .

Just a little update to this. The Wet V5 turned up and it was very disappointing. Gonna return it. Main issue is the way the mix knob is setup. You start losing dry signal before the wet signal comes up to match it, and theres no overall volume knob to compensate like there is with the Soft Focus. So yeah somehow it just feels weak and uninspiring.

The Illumine on the other hand, while its got two of the same algorithms as the Wet V5, it does have the unaffected dry so you can boost up the reverb mix super high and not lose any dry signal at all. Huge improvement in my opinion. Can sound so much bigger than the V5, really allows the reverb algorithms to shine more. Also the flexibility with all the modes and tweakability makes it more useful as a general tool to keep around. The Soft Focus is great, but obviously there's a lot of sounds it just cannot do. So will be holding onto the Illumine for the moment at least.

Okay. Now that I've got that sorted, no more reverb quest for a bit....

[dubkitty]

i'm in trouble. lately i've been getting tired of EL84 amps and their inherent compression and crunch/coloration and have been jonesing for a clean Fender sound like the Twin Reverb i had in the 70s. even at its cleanest the AC15 still isn't really clean. obviously an 85-pound amp is Not On, so i've been looking into alternatives and it looks like the current Pro Reverb reissue is the thing. clean as fuck and 35 pounds. i went to Richmond last night and tested amps at Guitar Center. i don't like post-tweed Deluxes at all and the newest model is no exception, and though i love a Princeton they really aren't meant to be clean amps. problem is, the Pro Reverb reissue hasn't been around long enough to show up in quantity in the used market and i don't want to pay north of $1200 for a new one. not to mention that i really don't have budget room for that without selling a bunch of stuff, and the only things i have that i want to sell are effects. maybe i'd sell the Lead II, but i may just be saying that because i haven't played it for awhile. old Twins are like $700, but i can't even see carrying around a Twin head in a cabinet and by the time i got done converting one to a head i'd wind up spending almost as much as for a PR and be stuck with a combo cabinet and speakers i don't want, probably couldn't sell, and don't have space to store.

[TheTransient]

You tried a Quilter Tone Block 202? It's what I have at the moment. Loud and clean as you want. Very flexible EQ options. Light as a feather. Alternatively theres always the Grateful Dead approach, Twin/Dual Showman-style preamp into a power amp. Some good info around that on the rukind forum.

Coincidentally I've been having itches lately to get an Orange TH30, which has EL84s

[dubkitty]

i'm extremely familiar with Garcia's setup, but it's way too much firepower for what i do. plaster would fall from the ceiling of the apartment downstairs, and there's little likelihood i'll play in a place big enough for a rig like that again before i die. i also don't have Steve Parish to move all that shit around. and i don't really want to do that close of a Jerry-copy thing...i burned out on doing that back in the 80s though i occasionally whip it out when provoked. it would be extremely easy for me to buy a Wolf replica and have a Dead cover band, but i don't need that kind of attention. i learned with my band in the early 80s--a sort of early adopter of the jamband concept that played to acidheads in Eugene, Oregon--that Jerry had a really shitty job, and why he had to do heroin. i just want the cleans. my speakers are Dead, though. i have a 12" Weber California (a JBL D120 clone) that i play guitar through and a real JBL D140F coming tomorrow for my bass setup. i also like Greenbacks which are in the AC15 and the Laney VC30 that probably needs a new power transformer, but not as much.

i've been all EL84s since the late 2000s except the Electar Tube 10 which has one 6L6. i wanted to get away from the sound i'd been using for the preceding 35 years. but now i'm tired of clean tones that aren't really very clean.

at some point i also want to try a smaller Roland Jazz Chorus amp for the painfully clean approach. that might be a good option for looping where i don't want very much coloration of the sound. or a Quilter might be a thing for that application, but probably not as my general-purpose amp. i'm hoping the Pro Reverb will be clean enough for looping and still have the Fender amp character i like when playing without the loopers.

[Blackened Soul]

the jamband concept that played to acidheads in Eugene, Oregon--that Jerry had a really shitty job, and why he had to do heroin.

Quoted because this makes too much since