Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

[quote="badnomad"]I don't know if you 'Suth'n' boys have ever heard of Traynor amps, but if you want a tube amp with all the best of the old Marshall's, Fender's, and other poular tube amps of the '50's & '60's, you should lay your hands on either a Traynor ....

Can't speak for the Southern folk, but back in the rockin' Northeast Pennsylvania (Poconos) of the 60's, The great jazz baritone sax player "Jay Cameron" opened up an awesome music store called "Mainline Music". He had a Traynor franchise and sold a lot of them. (Tube amps were the norm in those days and you could test and buy replacement tubes in any department store.) Great amps! Made in Canada. I believe the company is now called "Yorkville Sound".


Distortion was used only occasional,in those days, and was usually achieved with the use of transistorized stomp boxes such as the "Maestro fuzz tone"

One of the best guitar players that we had in our town (and there were a lot of them) was my ol' classmate "Smitty" (aka G.E.Smith)
Round about 68, I believe he was the first in our neck of the woods to start the hot-rod amp craze of taken' a tiny tube amp, (like a Harmony 2 watter), and perching it on top of the "Traynor","Sunn", Fender-Bandmaster, ect., and usen' the little bastard as a PRE-PREAMP!!
DiiiiiiiiissssssssTOOOOOoooooorshun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!zzzzzzzzzsssssss...,
GOODGAWD!..what a sound,....still got it ringin' in my ears.

RockOn, Fire-valve brothers!
Howlin'

I saw G.E.Smith on a video hawkin his signature strat. Same Guy?

Yep

Best rock band leader in the world in my oppinion. (many would agree)

His ax is a telly.

not a bad guitar player neither.

Besides "The Rubber Chicken", he played with Dan Hartman, Hall&Oats, Tina Turner and Mick Jagger at the live AIDS Concert, David Bowie, toured a few years with Bob Dylan in the capacity of guitarist, AND bandleader, Bandleader for the Saturday Nite Live Band for many years were he jammed with virtually ever one else in the world, currently playing with MoonAlice (real rock & rollers just can't quit), and ,with the help of the good people at Fender, put together the G.E.Smith thick necked Telecaster, the hottest off the shelf Telly' the world has ever known. If I was a serious gitfiddler, I'd have me one!

Most every George's I've ever known seemed to be good guys.

Howlin,

I don't know if you 'Suth'n' boys have ever heard of Traynor amps, but if you want a tube amp with all the best of the old Marshall's, Fender's, and other poular tube amps of the '50's & '60's, you should lay your hands on either a Traynor ....

Can't speak for the Southern folk, but back in the rockin' Northeast Pennsylvania (Poconos) of the 60's, The great jazz baritone sax player "Jay Cameron" opened up an awesome music store called "Mainline Music". He had a Traynor franchise and sold a lot of them. (Tube amps were the norm in those days and you could test and buy replacement tubes in any department store.) Great amps! Made in Canada. I believe the company is now called "Yorkville Sound".


Distortion was used only occasional,in those days, and was usually achieved with the use of transistorized stomp boxes such as the "Maestro fuzz tone"

One of the best guitar players that we had in our town (and there were a lot of them) was my ol' classmate "Smitty" (aka G.E.Smith)
Round about 68, I believe he was the first in our neck of the woods to start the hot-rod amp craze of taken' a tiny tube amp, (like a Harmony 2 watter), and perching it on top of the "Traynor","Sunn", Fender-Bandmaster, ect., and usen' the little bastard as a PRE-PREAMP!!
DiiiiiiiiissssssssTOOOOOoooooorshun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!zzzzzzzzzsssssss...,
GOODGAWD!..what a sound,....still got it ringin' in my ears.

RockOn, Fire-valve brothers!
Howlin'

Yeah, Traynor was originally in Toronto, and now also has a factory Rochester. It was always Yorkville Sound, but since all their amps back then bore the Traynor name, they came to be known as Traynor. Yorkville recently reconnected with Pete Traynor, and have re-introduced a line of Traynor guitar amps. If you can find a '60's or early '70's head, they are a real treasure.....I actually found mine in a pawn shop in Washington DC....the owner had no clue as to what it was really worth so I got it for a song.

I just wanted to post this on here for anyone who may be interested.

http://www.audiotubes.com/12ax7.htm

There's a nice quick tutorial on the different nuances of 12ax7's.
I personally haven't bought any tubes here. But the tutorial can be helpful if you aren't familiar.

(not directed at anyone in particular, just a good read.)

There are also tutorials on pretty much any tube type on this site.


Howlin, you know what I love about you dude. You don't play guitar, but you love tube tone as much as any guitar player does. It's just not something I see a lot.

Howlin, you know what I love about you dude. You don't play guitar, but you love tube tone as much as any guitar player does. It's just not something I see a lot.[/quote]

Shreddin'Teddy,

I have had a great many great, good, and good enough guitar players crackin' the air past my left ear over the years, and I have come to recognise good tone when I hear it.

I am presently recuperating from surgery and have a bit of down time on my hands so I've been listening to all you people on the forum . (as well as doing a bit of yakking).
"Burn" has been getting an inordinate amount of "play" around my house of late, and all I can say is that when that fat guitar sound comes out of these little speakers, I have a smile on my face.

Keep the fire pulsin' in those tubes, and the air your pushin' will drive your music home like a steam hammer.
Howlin'

I stand corrected: The G.E. Smith signature was a Telecaster and it made me want to try one out. And Mr Shredd6 you can direct any info you like dead at me, I'm like a dry sponge to all this musical info. And once I get my amp in ya'll probably wont see me for a while, The weather down here is pure spring, be spending a lot more time down in my shop/studio.

I guess I was born last night! In a moment of weakness I ordered a Carvin Nomad 50 watt tube amp. I hope it arives while my wife is at work.
Had a guy in a gun shop once tell me it was easier to beg forgiveness that to ask permission. Jez I hope he was right. I got a feeling that when I crank her up the first time everyone in the area is gonna know.
Wish me luck ye ol fellow tube heads.

George I dont think you will be dissatisfied. The one cool thing about tube amps and Shredd has made this clear is that with a couple of little preamp changes you can customize your amp. 50 watts is going to shake some walls dude. When you get it turn the master to 5-6 and then slowly bring up the preamp, dont try to make it sound metally by turning the preamp to 10 and then turning your master to 1-2. These amps dont work well like that. If you dial it in right you can have one sound that will go from clean to heavy with the twist of your guitar volume knob. Have fun and kind of think in terms of classic guitar tones while you are figuring out your amp. Sometimes weird eq adjustments can yield great sounds. What I mean is turn the treble al the way off, turn it halfway and then all the way up and see what works. Guitar lives and dies in the mid and treble controls. My old amp sings with all the tone controls just a little over 0 and the master and pre all the way up. Just play with the thing and dont settle on the first sound you get.

Thanks for the advice John, Its going to be quite different than anything I've played through before. Been doing a lot of reading up on tone control through the guiter controls and different attacks , harmonics etc. I am almost giddy in anticipation. Hell of a learning curve though so hold on tight!

I just wanted to post this on here for anyone who may be interested.

http://www.audiotubes.com/12ax7.htm

There's a nice quick tutorial on the different nuances of 12ax7's.
I personally haven't bought any tubes here. But the tutorial can be helpful if you aren't familiar.

(not directed at anyone in particular, just a good read.)

There are also tutorials on pretty much any tube type on this site.


Howlin, you know what I love about you dude. You don't play guitar, but you love tube tone as much as any guitar player does. It's just not something I see a lot.

I have to admit, that though I have preferred the general sounds of tube amps since the '60's, I have never taken a real close look at any of the differences between tubes. (other than the general consensus that the Chinese stuff is crap, even compared to the Russian-made stuff). Well, I recently bought a pair of 12AX7A based mic preamps to add more 'warmth' to my mic sounds.......they accomplished that alright, to a reasonable degree. So today I pulled the Chinese tubes out and replaced one with a 40+ yr. old Sylvania, and the other with a 40+ yr. old Emerson.....well the difference, to say the least was amazing. The fullness of the sound was noticeably greater, the gain was better, as was the warmth of tone. The older tubes also ran noticeably cooler, as the case is designed to act as a heatsink. I also found that the supposedly newly manufactured Chinese tubes had a fair amount of corrosion on the pins.

Keep it up tube heads, I'm takin notes! Great thread.

My ol' Farfisa Combo Compact organ was a marvel of 60's solid state technology, and hand craftsmanship. I'd wager that there's enough arsenic and cadmium in those components to take out Godzilla.

Still, its designers saw fit to incorporate a couple of 12 ax7s in the preamp circuit.
It turns out that the tubes were primarily necessary to drive the onboard spring reverb, but the economics of design mandated that the tubes drive the preamp as well, even though they could (and did on cheaper models with no reverb) have just used transistors.

When it became time for tube replacement, the total sound output of that lil' red demon was rejuvenated markedly. (sort of like when ya put new points and plugs in your Corvette!

Howlin'

I have to admit, that though I have preferred the general sounds of tube amps since the '60's, I have never taken a real close look at any of the differences between tubes. (other than the general consensus that the Chinese stuff is crap, even compared to the Russian-made stuff). Well, I recently bought a pair of 12AX7A based mic preamps to add more 'warmth' to my mic sounds.......they accomplished that alright, to a reasonable degree. So today I pulled the Chinese tubes out and replaced one with a 40+ yr. old Sylvania, and the other with a 40+ yr. old Emerson.....well the difference, to say the least was amazing. The fullness of the sound was noticeably greater, the gain was better, as was the warmth of tone. The older tubes also ran noticeably cooler, as the case is designed to act as a heatsink. I also found that the supposedly newly manufactured Chinese tubes had a fair amount of corrosion on the pins.

Most guitarists never do take a close look at the differences. I was guilty of that for a long time as well.. But I got sick of going to Guitar Center and having some guy just hand me some GT and say, "these should be just fine." Then I would still have the sonic problems that Dual Recs are notorious for.

Mesa's are really rich in Bass tones, and there are a lot of guitarists who don't like that. If you're a soloist, it's tough to get a Mesa to cut through, you have to manipulate the amp. (And you have to choose the right pickup along with it.) And in order to do that, you need the right variety of tubes to choose from.


Not all Russian tubes are bad. Even though I hated the modern Tung Sol. The Sovtek lps was decent enough for me to be able to use if I had to. And the Mesa really was good enough as well. I don't know what the selection and screening process for Mesa is, but they obviously take a little more pride in what they put their name on. All things considered, I'm trying to manipulate an amp to tailor it to MY sound. Those tubes could very well be fine for someone else's setup.

It just begs to question. Why won't the modern tube companies build tubes as good as the NOS era??

Whatever the reason, It seems to me that the expense of tone that the users have to sacrifice isn't very high on their concern level.

You wanna see what my RCA sounds like in my Mesa?



Now that's a nice tube amp!!



Modeling amp:





True Solid State:




I want some FAT Beef Ribs cooked on my BBQ, not a Pork Chop cooked on a Forman Grill that's supposed to have me believe that the food tastes just as good.

I want a good old fashioned RCA, and a side of G.E. with some Mullard sauce. Smoked, seasoned, shlopped, and Fire Grilled!!

Picking and choosing from the NOS stockpile can give you a good variety of ingredients to work with. Much better than the ingredients we're being sold nowadays. And it just kinda seems to be a way to ease the amplifier world into a more modeling amp era. And the tradition of firing up your BBQ will be left to the purists who will have to start stockpiling their own NOS ingredients for the future if they still want their amp to cook up a sound like this:




Damn it.. I just made myself hungry again.

Sanhouheil.. You got a FAT BBQ comin'. Cook up some tasty stuff!! And whatever you do, don't buy any tubes from this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtPf7Ft4 ... re=related

Peace.

And Howlin. I meant to ask you whether you've ever had a fat tube organ. I played one down at the Salvation Army. Killer tone dude.

Fat tube organ? ...me? ...NAAAAAAAA (But my wife Cin HAS!)

By the way Ted, I Have a seasoned ol' boy coming over to play guitar next Friday so I may soon be back to frontin' a full four piece rockin' band!

He'll be packin' a Fender 410 Hotrod . If things work out, how would you feel about us covering "Burn". I woudn't consider playin' it unless it sounded three quarters as good as One Day Broken's version. That would still make it an awesome song. (If you harbor any reservations, that's cool. We currently have a list of 50 songs to bone up on.)

My understanding is that the 410 is sorta like a modern 40 watt Super Reverb.
I'd be interested to hear your opinion of them if you have any.

I'm starting to get a bit hungary myself. Make mine medium rare.

Keep those cathodes and anodes cookin' too!
Howlin'

Yes medium rare, warm bloody centers ahhh yeaa, Dark BEEER LOUD ROCK YEA BABY YEA !! Oh excuse me I thought I was alone.
Uh yea tubes I'll be callin on ya when its time for new or different tubes.
As for now ohboy I cant wait YEA BABY YEA!!!
PS the boys said I did good on the blues improve tonight. Even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes.