JapanAxe

I can’t remember whether I’ve weighed in on this thread before but in general I love gigging, it’s what I get out of bed for. Having said that, there are gigs that I avoid - not necessarily awful places, but some that just aren’t worth it e.g. a pub that isn’t too far away but takes me 3 hours to get to on a Friday night.

This project has been parked for a while. I had last week off and finally got round to measuring the output power - bang on 25W! Hmm... not quite the 50W amp I was hoping for (and yes I know about watts and decibels). I woke up in the middle of the night and thought of some things to check. Thinking about it, the Modulus OT is rated at 30W so I shouldn't be surprised. I'm still puzzled though - how does the Ampeg PF-50T get 50W out of its much smaller transformers?

What’s that c-shaped gubbins on the floor?

Once again, rock’n’roll in a Bristol pub - this time a food pub that had just received a cancellation from a large party. The band playing area was crammed between one of the front doors and the door to the gents’, next to which was a games machine. In the break two blokes came into the playing area to use it, and one managed to trip over the guitarist’s Kemper floor board. I was glad of my tiny but unfeasibly loud BF One 10. The pub closed the gents’ and declared the ladies’ a unisex toilet for the evening. They said they would lock the front door (a fire door) but never did. The occasional gust of cold air at my shoulder told me when a punter was coming in… We started off playing to one (1) person, rising to a maximum of 6. This excluded the dining party in the adjacent room. They kept the door open so they can’t have found us too objectionable. During the last number a few more people came in and, predictably, begged us to carry on. We treated them to one more number before the strict 11pm curfew brought the evening to a welcome end.

I've never sung from a lyric sheet, I learn the words off by heart so that I can look out into the audience. OK I sometimes forget them, in which case I fill in with another verse, sometimes random words, or make a joke of it. If I have a sight-reading gig I prefer to have the dots on my iPad. On one gig I do I also use Qu-You to adjust the monitor mix for my IEMs.

That will be the secondary for the heater filaments, connected in series. That’s where the ‘12’ in 12AX7 comes from. There should be more than enough there to run 3 preamp valves. I can’t read the label well enough to work out the spec for the HT secondary, and so far I’ve got nowhere Googling bits of the text printed on it.

Yeah, just about any transformer of the right spec would fit in that space. I wonder if the tech felt he had to stick with a toroidal rather than go drilling holes to accommodate a conventional one. Although toroidals can be less noisy, that is predicated on pointing the cable exit/entry holes away from sensitive circuitry.

There should be plenty of transformers that will do the job as long as the chassis layout doesn’t dictate a particular form factor. Any chance you can unscrew the top or bottom panel and post some gut shots?

The transformer for the valves will have two secondaries: A few mA at say 200-300V DC for the HT; About 1A at 6.3V AC or 0.5A at 12.6V AC for the heaters. It sounds like there is a fault whereby one of the secondaries is seeing a near-short. A tech should be able to detect this without burning out the transformer, by slowly raising the supply voltage via a variac and a dim bulb tester. I hope you get this fixed but if not, don’t bin it without letting me make an offer on a spares-or-repair basis.

After a massive increase in gigs post-lockdowns I now find myself a tad under-employed. I am looking for a band doing reasonably well paid gigs within an hour from home (Swindon). I am happy to play in most styles - maybe not metal though. I can also sing harmony BVs. My website: https://guitarist4hire.wixsite.com/graeme-scott

After a massive increase in gigs post-lockdowns I now find myself a tad under-employed. I am looking for a band doing reasonably well paid gigs within an hour from home (Swindon). I am happy to play in most styles - maybe not metal though. I can read dots if required, play guitar too, and sing harmony BVs. My website: https://guitarist4hire.wixsite.com/graeme-scott

Coincidentally, I just ordered a phaser pedal kit from Musikding and then informed Mrs Axe that she had bought me a birthday present. Both of us are happy with this arrangement.

Bullet Journal - helps me keep track of what I need to practice and by when, mainly based on when the gigs are. I also have things I work on longer-term e.g. the Motown James Jamerson book, and my own 'bass challenge' folder of songs I have not yet nailed.

Maybes an answer along the lines of ‘That’s not my bag, man’ would have annoyed them less. On the slap thing, I slap and/or pop in only 3 songs in my entire extensive repertoire, and in my 22 years of bass playing I have only missed out on one gig opportunity through not being a proficient slapper. I kind of wish I could do it, but mainly I can’t be bothered. Plus I’m jealous obviously.

That’s no way to speak about the missus!

Lugging my bass rig is not a problem to me as I take one BF cab and usually a Class D head. I have started to prepare for the inevitable day when I get a ‘silent stage’ gig, in that I have an Origin Effects ‘64 pedal. On skinny-string I still take one of two all-valve 1x12 combos. They sound glorious, and it would take a lot to convince me to use a modelling gadget into the PA.

Swindon has a lot of pub gigs going on. Whether the scene is healthy is another matter. There are a growing number of solo acts with backing tracks - boring, boring, boring.

Well put. We’re all about Bowie’s music and we play the Reality Tour versions of a lot of the songs in our repertoire - they are outstanding arrangements.