Alembic Guitarists... What amp are you playing through?

[pace]

Mavericks shipped w/ one lever~ you're pretty lucky Bill!!! What changes are your levers set up for?!?  
 
My first steel was a Maverick... if you need any help, let me know!!

[kmh364]

Thanx, Mike.
 
Buddy's site is lacking in info (other than a tuning and tab section) and hasn't been updated recently.  
 
FWIW, he must have ten legs to work all the levers and pedals he uses (double-neck twelves!!!)
 
Regardless, Buddy is awesome. During the PLAF show last Nov, Barry Sless did his best on PS to conjure up the ghost of Jerry and mixed-in a healthy dose of Buddy to boot. He nearly brought a tear to my eye...another very underrated player, IMHO.
 
Cheers,
 
Kevin

[lbpesq]

Mike:
 
My mistake - the Maverick has 1 knee lever.  I wrote the above after driving 365 miles yesterday.  Can you say wasted?  Anyway a suggestion of good learning resources would be appreciated.  Also, any suggestions of raising this thing up a little bit?  I'm 6'2 with long legs.  It's a little cramped under there.  
 
Bill, tgo

[pace]

It wouldnt be too difficult to fabircate new legs and pedal rods. The legs are aluminum with no threads, or anything funky (cut them to desired length & drill holes for the pedal bar on two of 'em)... The pedal rods require threads on one side, and a bend on the other. Pretty simple stuff for a machinist to bang out during lunch break.... or if you're feeling lucky, go to a Lowe's and see what they have for  stock ( i forget the diameters on a Maverick).

[bigredbass]

L B P
 
Check Doug's site I mentioned above, he publishes quite a few method books, even a DVD and VHS/book courses (www.digndoug.com).
 
J o e y

[kmh364]

Surprisingly (to me, anyway), there appears to be quite a bit of PS sites out there, and a bunch of instructional vids/lit as well. The PS community appears to be rather close-knit, but they also are willing to share resources which are hard to come by in a very small musical niche. Do a search....it boggled my mind how much info is actually out there.

[pace]

Yeah Kev, When I picked up my first psg I was pleasantly surprised to see so many computer savy rednecks.... who wouldve thunk it?!?!?  j/k  
 
Bill, the hard part about lesson material for you will be the lack of additional changes on the Maverick~ a lot of books out there assume that you have  E>F & E>Eb levers

[7string_thing]

Good news folks, the week of the 17th i will be getting my gee tar shipped to good ole CT! i can finally play it through the new two rock! I just cant wait! anyone else using an old fender, tweed/blackface/silverface versions?

[jerico]

I just got my Further today (!) and I'm running it through a Mesa Lonestar.  I'm sort of bewlidered and lost trying to figure out the settings I like - there's so much variety and tweak (and control sensitivity) between the two. And the Further really cranks the overdrive channel even at low drive levels(MUCH more so than my Strat and my Les Paul).  But it doesn't take too much to get great sounds...
 
Justin

[7string_thing]

yeah the tribute electronics are so involved. its like having a rack unit in your gee tar! i like to keep things simple, one volume, one tone, and pickup select switches! i cant wait for mine, i know ill be trying to wrestle it for that sweet spot although no bad tone comes out! how are them bright switches? I could never have an effects loop and like 8 thousand knobs and switched on a guitar, im too simple minded and lazy! they sound fantastic tho!

[laytonco]

The electronics are amazing. I've had my Tribute for a year now and STILL I am learning new settings. Plus, dumb me, I went and bought another amp; so now, I have have a bazillion options with the Tribute going through a blackface Twin and now another bazillion options going through a Heritage Patriot.
 
[color=808080]moderator's note: resized picture a couple of posts down[/color]
 
(Message edited by mica on April 06, 2006)

[tom_z]

Justin - I completely understand your situation with respect to the Lonestar and an Alembic. Even my Skylark is amazingly versatile so it starts to become a bit of a chemistry experiment. Pat?s right about seeking out the sweet spots - on these guitars you don't just dime all the knobs and step on a bunch of pedals for tone. As far as amps go, I'm still tweaking my Lonestar looking for the sweet spots. I usually run it in the tweed setting at 50 watts for the OD channel - it has very nice sag and a great warm tone with my Skylark using a blend of neck and bridge pickups - filters somewhere in the middle - I use the bright switches for that little extra sparkle. On the clean channel I pretty much only use the neck pickup - it is sooooooo sweet with a little warm reverb. Having spent a little over a year with the Skylark, I think I'll have a bit easier time with the additional versatility of the Further when it arrives.
 
To comment on Pat's question about anyone playing through a Fender - I'll say that I've fired up the Bandmaster (pictured above) a few times and have to say that it's a great little amp. It's refreshingly simple and it's very responsive. It has a noticeably different feel from the Mesa and it's not as versatile but you can't get a bad sound out of it. Now the search for the right cab and speakers begins and I have my eye on a nice reverb unit.
 
Justin have you experimented much with different preamp tubes in your Lonestar? I'm kind of wanting something in the OD channel that is a little less grainy.  
 
Anyway, have fun discovering the tone of your Further.
 
Tom

[lbpesq]

Pat:
 
My main rig is a Boogie Mark III simulclass.  I've been fooling around with a two amp set up.  Among those I've been adding are a mid 60's Blackface Pro Reverb w/ JBLs (old K-120s).  A GREAT amp that I've had for about 25 years.  The JBL's really make a difference. Also an early 80's Riviera designed Princeton Reverb II - also a lovely sounding amp.  My most recent experiment is with a Motion Sound Sidewinder - a 1 x 12  combo with a rotating baffle ala Leslie.  
 
Bill, tgo

[jerico]

Tom - I haven't tried changing the preamp tubes in my LS.  I quite like the way it sounds in general, actually.  I've only had it for a little while, so I  figure I'll change them at some point for a little more variety.  However, at the moment my variety plate is quite full!!
 
What reverb unit are you looking at?  I have an Alesis MidiVerb but I haven't used it since I got the LS... I'm not a big fan of effects in general.
 
Justin

[tom_z]

Yeah - I love the reverb unit in the Mesa - it's spoiled me a bit. I'm looking at a Lexicon unit for the Bandmaster. The Fender has really nice a vibrato channel, but I don't have the RCA switch for it. No matter, I'm with you on the use of effects. The LS is ideal in that way with pretty much everything I need - great clean channel with hella headroom, nice OD, nice reverb. The only other effect I use is a Mu-tron III. I'm looking forward to putting it in the effects loop of the Further.
 
Tom