JapanAxe
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Everything posted by JapanAxe
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Stood in with a blues band for a 45-minute support slot at a blues club. I don’t normally get nervous about performing but I was conscious this would be a more discerning audience than the usual gaggle of pub punters, plus the headlining band would probably be listening from the wings. As it was, I felt I acquitted myself pretty well, and we got good feedback from the audience. It was quite amusing when one of the sound techs offered me a hand onto the stage with my Barefaced cab, and I lifted it with one finger! I was surprised how many women there were in the audience. I expected a blues club audience to consist of 98% gentlemen of a certain age, but most of them seemed to have brought along their significant others.
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@Sean that band sound like proper gaslighters!
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Ooh I forgot to mention - when I was making my final mods I added another filter cap in the bias supply and the 100Hz hum disappeared.
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Tonight I'm standing in with Last Train Smokin' at Long Street Blues Club, Devizes. We're supporting the Ian Parker Band.
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Well it didn’t happen overnight! I got interested in electronics when I spotted Hobby Electronics magazine in the newsagent that I did a paper round for, built my first overdrive pedal in my gap year, and have enjoyed building and modding music-related stuff ever since. I did my first valve amp build from a kit in maybe 2017 and caught the bug.
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It's actually quie manageable with the top handle but I think I'm going to have to spring for a decent cover.
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Thanks everyone for your patience. The amp is now finished and working, and it sounds bloody great. The Bright switch on the normal channel didn't do much with a 120pF cap so I put in a 3-way switch to choose between off, 250pF, and 500pF. All the legends are on and I have made a fairly quick-release rear grille. I measured the output and with a 1kHz sine wave it is just starting to break up at 100W. I am kind of tempted to gig the amp tonight (45 min support slot at a blues club) but I should really give it a more extended test at a rehearsal before I take any chances. Following the Imgur debacle I have gathered together most of my build pics here:
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Price reduction to £1,150 - because it's payday!
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New pics taken - it's payday folks! -
Finally got round to taking new photos for the first post, so here's a handy payday bump. I am of course open to sensible offers! -
I assumed an iPad would have Core Audio already and wouldn’t need a specific driver.
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Apple stuff is pretty good at seeing audio sources but if you’re not using an (overpriced) Apple cable then there’s a good chance it just won’t play.
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Bought a DI pedal from Nick. He was off to the Post Office like a shot, and it arrived in double-quick time!
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I don't think anybody's going to be moving this around when I'm not there, so I can't see two side handles giving an advantage over one top handle. Plus I can carry something else in the other hand. It doesn't feel any heavier than my Fender TB600 head (although I haven't weighed it).
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Well that was fun! It is in fact a working amp, with a huge range of tones on tap. As ever when I'm trying out my builds at volume, I get a lot of buzzes and rattles in the room that make it difficult to hear whether there is distortion from the amp, so a blast in a hall or something would be an advantage. Background noise is acceptable with just a little 100Hz hum. I can hear no effect from the bright switch on the normal channel because I have the channel volume up a fair way, so I might turn that into a channel selector instead. There's now way too much negative voltage available on the bias circuit so I'll experiment with component values and maybe add another filter cap in there - who knows, that might reduce that hum a little. For now I think I'll work out the best place to fit the top handle and get it installed, although I think it may be a challenging one-handed lift!
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It lives! Last night I was trying to work out which HT node the excess curent was coming from. The various components up to the third node (C+) all tested ok but I was measuring 121k from C+ to ground where it should have been open circuit. Before I turned in for the night it occurred to me that I should look for leakage in the coupling caps. While I was falling asleep (in the hypnagogic state, no less) I kept thinking that there were resistors where there should be capacitors, but when I woke up I realised that was just daft. This afternoon I checked over the circuit diagram and worked out there are just two 100nF capacitors which, if leaky, could allow positive voltage onto the control grids of the 6L6s, thus messing up their negative bias. I found them on the layout, but when I looked on my eyelet board, there was a 100k resistor fitted in each spot! I had written '100n' (for 100nF) on my layout but misread it as 100k (100kΩ). Consequently there was a straight resistive path from the anodes of the phase inverter to the control grids of the 6L6s, with no capacitors to block DC. I took out the resistors, fitted the correct caps, and was able to bias the amp to a healthy place. I gave it a quick test through the guitar speaker cab that I keep in my music room, and all the controls seem to work as they should. Tomorrow I'll give it a try through my BF Super Twin while Mrs Axe is at work
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Here we see @Sean demoing (1) the new pickups in his Precision, and (2) what an all-valve 22.5W amp sounds like when driven to the max!
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Definitely the busiest bash I've been to! Always nice to meet other players, many of them coming from very different places in terms of the music they pay and/or the kit they favour. Of particular note - @Wolverinebass and his amazing John Entwistle-style bass; @MichaelDean and the passive tone mod on his Dingwall NG2 - why didn't I think of that! Can I also add my thanks to @scrumpymike and all those who assisted in making the day such a great experience.
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Hope it's ok to mention this here... The self-built all-valve B15-inspired head that I brought along last year will be with me again, this time with a FOR SALE sign on it! I mention this because, while I am really trying to slim down my kit (honest), I am also not completely averse to a trade, and you might want to bring something with that in mind. If the head sells/trades at tomorrow's bash I will donate 5% of the net proceeds towards the Bash running costs. Of course you are welcome to try it with your own bass and/or cab without obligation of any kind - that is part of the fun of a Bass Bash!
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Yeah I can do that.
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I've made sure the documentation reflects what's in the actual amp, ready for Sunday's SW Bash
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Any interest in having your valves tested? If so I’ll bring my Orange Valve Tester. It tests most types of preamp and power amp valves commonly used in guitar and bass amps, but not rectifiers.
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I did actually (and I occasionally do so) but I seem to recall members being encouraged to host their images elsewhere. I understood there was a fairly low limit on how much each member could upload - every so often a member would complain of being unable to upload, and it was usually because they’d reached their personal limit. Also I want some of the photos to be visible on other sites e.g. in for-sale threads. I could just directly upload here and then link from other sites, but it didn’t seem quite right to me. Maybe I’ve massively overthought it and I should just crack on!
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Will likely do that then!
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Yes I’m well aware of this. I’m probably going to self-host using Dropbox but it all takes time!
