Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: lbpesq on May 06, 2022, 09:11:58 PM
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I just sold a Blackface Pro Reverb today. I’d had it for about 40 years. It was loaded with JBL D-120s. It was my only amp for 20 years, but I hadn’t played it much since the turn of the century (that’s fun to say). We recently moved to a place with less storage and I’m trying to thin the herd a bit and make some room. I plugged it in and played it some before the buyer arrived. WOW! does this amp sound sweet! I started having second thoughts about selling it but, given that it probably weighs at least 75 lbs., probably more, I realized I would never actually use it again.
But the universe often works in unexpected ways. It turned out the buyer is a Deadhead and a really good player. We wound up jamming for awhile and will be playing together again, so I’ll still get to hear the amp! But it sure was tough to let it go.
Bill, tgo
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I sold my blackface vibrolux reverb and a cream tremololux with Altec Lansing speakers back in the mid-80s. Both were pretty amazing sounding amps especially the Tremolux which had one really clean channel and one that was fat and dirtier. Back then it was easy to buy these amps for under $300 and I figured I could replace them with other Fenders easily. I always regretted not keeping them as I watched prices on used Fenders surge over the years but at this point don't have storage space anyway. I replaced the Fenders with a Mesa Boogie Studio 22 which I like and still have but it doesn't sound like a Fender;
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I’m heading that way. I have a mid 90’s 100w fender twin amp ‘The Evil Twin’. I bought it new and it was my only guitar amp and used it regularly till about 2010. Since then i have used it sporadically on the occasional gig but mainly used my jc120. Anyway i have been thinking of selling both as i hardly do guitar gigs these days. Moving forward, in the past few weeks i have done a couple of dep gigs and used the JC120 on the first gig and last weekend the twin amp. It is a glorious sound, painfully heavy and i know i will regret selling it because of the sound. I will sell the roland first then maybe the twin when i find a lighter fender valve amp.
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I had a Peavy Deuce that I bought in 78 or 79, great sounding amp. I sold it three years ago, it was just too heavy for me now. I now have a light weight power amp/F2-B set up with modular Tone Tubby 112 cubes, loving the sound and light weight :)
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Jazzy, my guitar player has the new Fender TwinTone Master. At around
26# it sounds amazing. Worth checking out.
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The Tone Master is a SS amp. If anyone is interested in a good SS amp with excellent Fender voicings, I strongly suggest checking out the new Quilter Aviator Mach 3. Three different Fender voices: 1957, 1961, and 1965, as well as Marshall, Vox Top Boost, and Dumble on each of two independent channels, dialable 0-200 watts, and only 21 lbs.!
I also have an “Evil Twin” I have up for sale, as well as a ‘66 Bandmaster. My days of lugging around big heavy amps are over. I also have a set-up similar to Rob’s: F-2B > Carvin DCM200L (1 rack space stereo power amp) > two 1x12 cabs loaded with JBL K-120s. Between that and my Quilters, I think I’m good for the foreseeable future. But boy did that Pro Reverb sound great! If only picking it up wasn’t like pulling the sword out of the stone.
Bill, tgo
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I too am getting smaller and smaller setups. For bass I usually use my SWR Workingman's 10 combo (I also have the 12). I just put a Mesa 25 combo on layaway that I am looking forward to gigging with on guitar. Back in the day I used to haul a Sunn Coliseum Lead head with a Acoustic 2X15 cab and horn around for bas, when I was young and strong as a ox. Regarding vintage gear; it's certainly gone up in value!
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I'm never attached to things like that. 40 years with the same anything (except maybe chicken-fried steak and my wife) is too long. Amps have moved on quite a bit and I'm sure there's all kinds of Good Stuff you could replace it with if need be.
I always wanted to sound like me on everything, I never wanted to have to have this or that or I was screwed wihout it. Nope.
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I am sure this applied to most people - you couldn't afford to keep amps back in the day as you needed to sell one to buy the next. As such, my first amp. was a Fender Bassman and cab in 1966 but it went to make way for HH then that for Acoustic then Trace Elliott etc., etc. I do have two now - Genz Benz and Genzler for main gigs and smaller ones for little sessions including the rather amazing Blackstar Bass Fly + cab. Gosh, how things have got lighter!!
Glynn
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I play with two different band guitarists who both have the Fender Tonemaster Deluxe Reverb which is incredible and half the price and weight of the valve one.
Glynn
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As I have said before, I have always considered the definition of "guitar amp" to be "all tube, with spring reverb & a 'Fender' badge on the front".
But I will confess that Bill's Quilters & Blackstar Fly have me considering apostasy.
Peter
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I got into Gibson transistor amps for a while like L5's and such cause BB King liked them. They were pretty close to a tube amp. But to really get his tone you had to dial them up to 10, which is very loud. They also were heavy. I have an old Polytone 100 watt guitar amp that sounds good for jazz, especially after I converted it into an open cabinet style by sectioning out part of the back. I use a Catlinbread Topanga reverb pedal which is way better than the onboard one with it. I played a Quilter last month and was impressed with the tone and weight and small size.
I am not sure I can even carry the 4X10 SWR bass cab I still have!
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The solution:
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Metal guys are not the only genre to stack amps on stage that have no speakers in them...
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Many years ago, some friends and I rented the big room in a local rehearsal studio for a NYE party. Part of the deal was that we had to move the equipment that was onstage. The band Testament had been using the big stage for rehearsal and it contained a huge wall of Marshall 4x12 cabs, as I recall about 6-8 across and at least three cabs high! I wasn't looking forward to the work, but we soon discovered that all but 3 or 4 cabs were unloaded dummies!
Bill, tgo
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A bandmate had (still has) a Roland JC-120 that he backed his car over it. Scuffed the edges a bit but did no serious damage.
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Every time I start entertaining thoughts on thinning out the gear collection, I start thinking about the consequences. It took me a long time to build this Library of Available Sounds, and I kinda' hate the thought of dismantling pieces of it.
Lately I've been thinking maybe... I should at this point, start refining it.
See... I had a Princeton Reverb. '65 Reissue. It was a Sweetwater special I got secondhand. Looked like a Tweed but sounded like a Blackface. That was my gateway to better amps. It was Coz' fault. Said something about tubes and Fender badges. Anyways, I wandered into the warm, wet world of vacuum tubes and went crazy trying to figure out what that damn 'ringy-warbley' noise was. Bad power tube. David and Jimmy J., take a bow. So I fixed it. Blissful sounds come forth from the Princeton - life is good, neighbors wished I would spontaneously catch on fire. So one day I'm scanning the local Craigslist and lo, I spy another Princeton Reverb, a '68 Reissue on-da-cheep. Guy's tired of trying to get rid of its weird noises. Another set of tubes and some screw tightnin', and now I have another basically new Fender amp. But... it doesn't sound anything like my '65. Not better. Not worse. Just... it's totally different. So I had to keep them both. Oh, and then I got an ABY pedal. Hey- they sound really cool together!
Y'all see the problem here? Now, you want me to detail why there's five Les Pauls here? Wait... is it five... six? Technically, one is a mutt, but I still love it. I'd be fine with just the Goldtop Standard and the Cough Syrup Red Special. But that modded Tribute, and the piano black Custom are so sweet. The '56 Pro with the coil-tapped mini-humbuckers... don't play it much... I'd never replace that one though.
Maybe I should scrap out the Fender stash instead?
It's no use.
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Metal guys are not the only genre to stack amps on stage that have no speakers in them...
If memory serves - and it usually does - in that era the Dead were running Fender preamps in MacIntosh amps into Alembic/Hard Truckers cabs.
Peter
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The solution:
The main lead player in the three guitar front Southern rock band I was in a number of years ago used a Fender Super Champ but didn't bother with the dummy cabinet. Since he was on my side of the stage we would stick it on my bass rig and mic it.
While it isn't a guitar amp I've come to like the Markbass Marcus Miller Micro 60. It is light and easy to carry. For the music I play these days if placed at ear height it would have enough volume for a stage monitor and then use the DI to send a signal to the PA. For situations without PA support for the bass I think a small extension cabinet would do it.
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I used to own a real Super Champ back in the day. What a great little amp and I wish I still had it.
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I used to own a real Super Champ back in the day. What a great little amp and I wish I still had it.
As I said here at least once before - in my opinion, the finest low-watt guitar amp ever made.
Peter
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Every time I start entertaining thoughts on thinning out the gear collection, I start thinking about the consequences. It took me a long time to build this Library of Available Sounds, and I kinda' hate the thought of dismantling pieces of it.
i go through this every time i have to part with a piece of beloved gear and i've learned that ya gotta tear the rearview mirror off and not look back or you'll make yourself crazy. works for relationships, too btw. just went from 5 instruments down to 4 and i found that it didn't hurt my chops any so i guess it's all good. think i'm gonna hold the line there, though. but ya never know around my house - some surprise always seems to be lurking around the corner.
been thinking of gigging again at my advanced age (saw ron carter the other day - he's in his mid 80's and still kickin' it so why not me, i say?) and the thought of lugging my beloved awkward 50-lb wedge amp around makes my back hurt already, so it may have to go by the wayside for something lighter, smaller, more powerful and modernistical.
if i kept all of the the gear (basses and amps) that has passed through my hands over the years i'd need an addition to the house built.
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Every time I start entertaining thoughts on thinning out the gear collection, I start thinking about the consequences. It took me a long time to build this Library of Available Sounds, and I kinda' hate the thought of dismantling pieces of it.
That's nothing. I have just been told that, now that the market has recovered enough that we have at least our noses out of the drink, mortgage-wise, we need to off-load our beautiful Victorian, plus the overwhelming majority of the cool stuff we just spent 4 decades accumulating, and move into (I cringe to type it) a small apartment near some of the grandkids.
I'd rather the grandkids move close to us, frankly; I could keep all my tools & books, and have them mow the lawn I no longer can.......)
Peter
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Every time I start entertaining thoughts on thinning out the gear collection, I start thinking about the consequences. It took me a long time to build this Library of Available Sounds, and I kinda' hate the thought of dismantling pieces of it.
That's nothing. I have just been told that, now that the market has recovered enough that we have at least our noses out of the drink, mortgage-wise, we need to off-load our beautiful Victorian, plus the overwhelming majority of the cool stuff we just spent 4 decades accumulating, and move into (I cringe to type it) a small apartment near some of the grandkids.
I'd rather the grandkids move close to us, frankly; I could keep all my tools & books, and have them mow the lawn I no longer can.......)
Peter
We haven't been in the same house for 40 years but have that many years of marriage accumulation. Our kids aren't and won't be as spread out as yours but we have decided once younger daughter is back on her feat we will start looking at moving into something smaller than we have now (smaller house more property). It is also becoming quite urbanized around us and we really don't want to have to deal with the traffic daily as we get older. To that end we have already started organizing and thinning out the years of accumulation. That thinning out also means I will be selling off most of my bass gear and PA system among other things before long. The only musical equipment I intend to keep are my basses, guitars and a small light weight bass rig.
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My main amp is a 1974 Silverface Pro Reverb that was one of the last ones made before they upped the wattage to 70 watts and added the master volume knob. I've looked into performing a black face mod, but the general consensus is that the worst of the CBS modifications were pretty quickly phased out in the late '60's and that the resulting circuit is close enough to black face specs that it's not worth the trouble. I bought mine in '96 for $450 and if I could go back in time and buy two more I would do so. They're really great amps that have plenty of clean room, but can break up at volumes that won't deafen the neighbors. But Bill's right - they are heavy. Easily 75 pounds, so I often use a ZT solid state amp when I gig out and run it to the house mains.
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Every time I start entertaining thoughts on thinning out the gear collection, I start thinking about the consequences. It took me a long time to build this Library of Available Sounds, and I kinda' hate the thought of dismantling pieces of it.
That's nothing. I have just been told that, now that the market has recovered enough that we have at least our noses out of the drink, mortgage-wise, we need to off-load our beautiful Victorian, plus the overwhelming majority of the cool stuff we just spent 4 decades accumulating, and move into (I cringe to type it) a small apartment near some of the grandkids.
I'd rather the grandkids move close to us, frankly; I could keep all my tools & books, and have them mow the lawn I no longer can.......)
Peter
We haven't been in the same house for 40 years but have that many years of marriage accumulation. Our kids aren't and won't be as spread out as yours but we have decided once younger daughter is back on her feat we will start looking at moving into something smaller than we have now (smaller house more property). It is also becoming quite urbanized around us and we really don't want to have to deal with the traffic daily as we get older. To that end we have already started organizing and thinning out the years of accumulation. That thinning out also means I will be selling off most of my bass gear and PA system among other things before long. The only musical equipment I intend to keep are my basses, guitars and a small light weight bass rig.
Relationship (and thus accumulation), 39 years. This house, 16 (as long as the one I mostly grew up in, twice as long as the runner-up).
Most of my tools & books will, alas, be going - but all the instruments, amps, and instrument tools stay with me, dadgum it!
Peter
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I'm struggling with the idea of selling. I haven't touched my instruments since I moved a year ago and haven't done anything with the band in almost that long (schedules, trying to get the three of us in a room at the same time has been near impossible) so I'm not playing any guitar or bass lately, but I'm stuck on what to sell or not. I did sell a few amps when I moved, knowing I would never use them here, but there's all these pedals and guitars I've been collecting...what to sell, what to keep? Tony.
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Strange twist of coincidental irony...
It was on this very day, 5/10/1999, I was served blessed with a Final Decree of Divorce. I mean... who the happy-face remembers that?! Well... I remember numbers, dates... and sometimes I can't un-remember things.
Anyway, at the end of those proceedings, I had left; a 1950 Martin D-18 graciously gifted to me by a mentor, my upright bass (which I still have) and a Crate CA-125 amplifier. (also still have) Every last other instrument I had was sold to square debts. I have never seen my Martin D-16 again. I look almost every day. Remorseful wasn't a big enough word. I think the whole miserable experience may have contributed to my obsession with rebuilding the library of sounds.
In retrospect, it might have been cheaper to find someone else who didn't really like me back, and buy them a house, then just disappear. Happy Annivorcery. Live and learn.
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. In retrospect, it might have been cheaper to find someone else who didn't really like me back, and buy them a house, then just disappear.
+1 🤯
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We’ve all sold stuff we regret selling. Me, it was a Gibson LG-0, my first decent guitar; my hard-tail Strat, which I traded for a tele; my Les Paul custom, which I traded for the hard-tail Strat; my Hagstrom red plastic bass with a gold grill that I bought for 30 bucks and traded for a Hofner Verithin; the Ace Tone amp I sold at a pawnshop (along with my skateboard) to take my girl to lunch; and I am sure there were others. Fortunately I’ve kept more than I’ve let go. I think that makes me, as the saying goes, bucks up.
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I miss my 1971 Telecaster that I bought new for $283 bucks. Not because it was a great guitar (it wasn't) but because today I could sell it for $3,000 bucks!
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I miss my 1971 Telecaster that I bought new for $283 bucks. Not because it was a great guitar (it wasn't) but because today I could sell it for $3,000 bucks!
As I may have mentioned here before, I learned my first chords & the pentatonic scale (in '79) on a '66 Tele - which was a great guitar - that the guy teaching me had bought from a mutual friend* 2 years before for $300.
A few years later, he was married and the bills were piling up, so he sold it for $600. To this day he tells me what a bad idea that was: "Man, the next month the bills were there again, but the Tele is gone for good."
'66 Teles are going for about $15,000 last time I looked (but I've never heard him bemoan the loss of the monetary value; just the loss of a great guitar).
*Who had discovered that being a college student was even less remunerative than being a folkie multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter. After that he had to make do with his 1917 Gibson A-15 mando, 1953 Les Paul, and 1953 D-28...........
Peter
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I just sold a Blackface Pro Reverb today. I’d had it for about 40 years. It was loaded with JBL D-120s. It was my only amp for 20 years, but I hadn’t played it much since the turn of the century (that’s fun to say). We recently moved to a place with less storage and I’m trying to thin the herd a bit and make some room. I plugged it in and played it some before the buyer arrived. WOW! does this amp sound sweet! I started having second thoughts about selling it but, given that it probably weighs at least 75 lbs., probably more, I realized I would never actually use it again.
But the universe often works in unexpected ways. It turned out the buyer is a Deadhead and a really good player. We wound up jamming for awhile and will be playing together again, so I’ll still get to hear the amp! But it sure was tough to let it go.
Bill, tgo
I ran into the guy who bought it on a FB GD group! By his description, I knew it was you that he bought it from.
But I'm still gigging this:
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Yea, I put in a request to join. Still awaiting a response. And he’s coming over to jam. Here’s my “big rig”, though I usually stack it vertically.
Bill, tgo
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I ran into the guy who bought it on a FB GD group! By his description, I knew it was you that he bought it from.
But I'm still gigging this:
Nice tie-dye! Does look a little a tad heavier than the fEARful rig, though.........
Bi-Sonics or Dark Stars on the EB-3?
Peter
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I've lost enough things over my life I really prefer to enjoy things while they're around. After a while, the relationship is fulfilled for both of us, and it's time to go our separate ways. In that time, I know what it takes for me to sound like me, so I just don't stay up nights about the one that got away, or even worse to me, having to have this, this, and that, without which I'm really floundering. Ain't gonna happen.
No argument, I sounded like a best me on the Alembics, but I sound like me on most anything else, and that's what I'm after. They're all wonderful tools I'm careful with and enjoy, but I quit being attached to them a long time ago emotionally. I have the memories of what they all taught me which are huge, but I don't miss them or regret moving them on, I got broke from that the hard way.