But the one thing that I do want to do is give a place where potential customers looking to build a custom
So anyhow for those people...here is how you can reach me: Click here
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Such a slacker...email me if you need to...
Sorry oh mighty world of the internet...I've been bad about updating my blog. I guess I just am so busy that my free time at night is taken up by catching up on my TV show episodes. I know, lame excuse, but between my day job, gym, and weekend woodworking job, I ain't got time for prancing about in my blogspot. I would prance very well if I had more time tho...[sigh]
But the one thing that I do want to do is give a place where potential customers looking to build a custom guitar body can reach me. I do most of my business on Ebay and for the most part it's good, except they've tightened the reigns and you can no long embed videos in the auction, or add html links, and the worst is you can't include an email address in a private message. Seriously that's the lamest shit I've ever heard.
So anyhow for those people...here is how you can reach me: Click here
But the one thing that I do want to do is give a place where potential customers looking to build a custom
So anyhow for those people...here is how you can reach me: Click here
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
New Amp day - Part 2: Lonestar and Mofo
Sometimes when it rains it pours...
Chapter 1: The amps of Yesteryear...
Every player is inherently on a quest for tone, or more aptly, a quest for satiation when it comes to guitar tones. I am one of those players. I am also one of those players who's experience has shaped and directed me down a tone-path looking for this satiation.
I remember my first amp - a Squire 15 solid state amp. It was cheap and did what was necessary. It made my first electric guitar (a 24.75" scale Charvel Fusion IV) louder. It was inherently a clean tone amp, but if you flip-floped the gain structure by switching it from a gain low, master high to gain high to master low, you could create distortion. For a kid in high school this was epic. Until I got lazy. I didn't like that if I wanted clean then distortion, I had to fiddle with my amp. I wanted a one-button change--and I knew they made them. So I ended up with a Boss DS1 distortion on the front end. The search for tone started.
Fast forward to my last year of high school...my brother had given up trying to copy me by playing guitar and switched to bass guitar. He had joined the jazz band at his school and met a drummer who really wanted to start a band--a heavy metal band as I understood. I was on my Metallica kick and when my brother approached me to play for them I agreed. But I needed an amp. My brother-in-law, who had just started dating my sister at the time, was a guitarist and he had a gray carpeted Fender M80 half stack. The red knobs and fuzzy exterior stopped me in my tracks in awe. I asked him to help me out and he found me a dark grey fuzzy carpeted Randall RG200ES halfstack in the classifieds. Awesomeness was born and I rocked out in my, unbeknownst to me, death metal band. My metal sound was inspiring to my friends and they wanted my tone. That is, until Boss released the Metal Zone pedal, and my tone went from "awesome" to "wet fart".
I couldn't find an image of the whole amp, but here was the cabinet.
Fast forward to college...I had sold the Randall head (with footswitch which I heard was rare) and purchased a Mesa boogie V twin preamp. I had been doing my homework and seeing what Metallica used and it was the cheapest unit made by Mesa. I paired it with a ridiculously heavy Carvin FET400 poweramp and a Rocktron Replifex which channel siwtched for me via MIDI. With my Ibanez guitars (S420SF and S7540 7 string) my Nu Metal era of tone had arrived. I used this rig thru my college years and only until 2001 I had joined what I considered my first "real" band (ie the band that recorded albums) Ghoulspoon (which changed the name to DividedByZero post my joining) did I feel it was time to upgrade from a parts amp to a real amp. Cocaine might have been a hell of a drug for Rick James, but mine was credit cards. Fortunately at the time my girlfriend was keeping me in check with my purchases, so I didn't go buckwild, but I did end up with a Mesa Boogie 3channel Dual Rectifier, followed by a Dual Rectifier 4x12 cabinet. It was my proudest moment -- my first "real" amp that I bought brand new. I even carted it around in it's box to gigs until I bought an ATA case for it. So started my love affair with the Petaluma based Mesa Engineering company.
Fast forward a few years and I see this ad for a boutique amp company called Dr Z. I never heard of them because Guitar Center only carried the popular stuff (not even Mesa at the time). I can't even remember which guitarist pointed me in that direction, but the lightning bolt "Z" logo had me sold. I remember being in Seattle in 2004 visiting a friend and I found a shop that had them. I played through a Maz 38 with a Blackguard Telecaster clone and heavens made that "ahhhhhhhhhhh" sound. Too bad I didn't live in Seattle or had $1500 to blow. I reluctantly left the store and back to my amps in San Diego.
Somehow around 2006 I picked up a Crate VFX5112 2 channel amp for my home use. Wasn't a bad amp, just noisy. But then again it could have been the electrical grounding (or lack thereof) on my old cottage in Ocean Beach. This started my interest in combo amps again, and less of the multi-part cabinet + head + rack effects set up.
Fast forward past the VH1 behind the music drama, and enter in Vocoder, band#2 -- my side band to Divided By Zero. Tensions in DBZ were growing and my friend Phil told me that his guitarist left the band. I volunteered to help out until they found a replacement, but soon it was obvious to me and the band that I was the replacement and soon I was doing double duty in both bands. But carting gear back and forth was not an option, so with the help of Guitar Center extended my purchasing power on their credit card, I had swooped in and picked up a Mesa Boogie Roadking 2x12 combo for $1600. I had originally wanted to get a Mesa Lonestar, but this amp was something I couldn't pass up. Lonestar...that sounds familiar...
I had burned thru a plethora of Mesa amps and my credit card debt reflected so. I had the V-twin, the Dual rectifier, and the Roadking at this point. The Roadking was probably my most favorite amp as it was the most versatile with the ability to choose between tube types (EL34 and 6L6s), but probably the amp I dreaded as the controls were overkill and the amp was 100lbs dead weight. Paired with two of my Rocktron Patchmate midi switchers and a 8cable mini snake cord I was able to toggle all channels as needed and my effects on/off. But I soon realized my taste in distortion tones had changed and I no longer needed Channel 3 and 4 for the heavy distortion. I was content with an overdrive channel and a tubescreamer boosting it. My channel two was a clone of my clean channel but I had flip flopped the gain stage (as I did with my Squire 15). It was then that I realized I could do without the overbearing controls of the Roadking and began looking for a smaller, lighter, and simpler amp.
Fender amps popped into the mix with a 40w Custom purple Hot Rod Deluxe with an upgraded Celestion vintage 30 speaker adding some flavor. But the cleans were horrible, and I wasn't a fan of the distortion and the sharing tonestacks between channels (the treble/mid/bass was the same for both overdrive and clean channels). I found a guy online who had a 60w Blue Deville 4x10 and he was looking to not be as loud. Strangely he was also looking for a quieter amp with a Vintage 30 in it. We met up and we did an even swap, even though his amp was more ragged and beat up than my amp. If he wasn't such a winey douche over email post-transaction, I would say it was a trade made in heaven. But he was one, complained that I screwed him somehow, and went on and on about it. In the end I told him the trade was final when I left his house and that he traded me a beat up amp with busted input jacks and that I had to spend money to fix it. He could either reimburse me on top of trading back for it, or he could sell the purple Deluxe and get something else. I never heard back from him. I had also started getting into smaller amps (under 30w) and modding them, and had picked up a Blues Junior amp as well. I hot rodded it with a new Eminence Texas Heat speaker and a few Bill M mods on the volume pot and input jack to upgrade it. If I remember correctly the Blue Junior arrived after I sold the Crate..... I think...
Fast forward to better paying job, some credit cards paid off, etc...So at this point I had the Blues Deville, the smaller Blues Junior, and had burned thru the Mesa and Fender amps. I had sniped a Mesa Stiletto head from ebay for a ridiculous $600, and found a tube switching Mesa Blue Angel 4x10 in Los Angeles as well. I thought it would replace the Fender Deville but they were about the same tone wise. When I found that the Blues Deville wouldn't fetch that much, I later sold the Blue Angel instead.
After Vocoder parted ways with their singer, I had picked up a gig with Brodeeva as their bass player, so I purchased a few Mesa bass rigs in the process too, starting with a Basis M2000 and later a Mesa Big Block 750. I was still playing with the remnants of Vocoder and our new singer (ex DividedByZero singer Zach Goode) in the newly dubbed band, the Secret Seven, so my guitar rig was still ever growing. At one point I had a wall of Mesa Amps: Mesa 4x10 bass cab, Mesa Big Block 750, Mesa Stiletto, Mesa 4x12 cab, Mesa Roadking 2x12. This was awesome, but short lived. With Secret Seven playing indie rock distortion, the Stiletto and Roadking were out of place and under used. The 4x12 cab was a pain to move to gigs, and way too loud and big for what we were doing. In the end, all were sold off, with the exception of the Mesa 4x10 bass cab which does it's job, but may or may not stick around.
My quest continued. After I sold the stiletto I had about $900 burning a hole in my pocket. Sometime in 2010 I was perusing Craigslist in Los Angeles and saw an ad for a Dr Z Maz 38 used for $800. Was this fate? Only 6 years prior sitting in a Seattle guitar store was I wishing I could afford one. Bam...sold! I contacted the guy and drove up to get the amp. The guy said I was lucky. This amp was owned by some jazz artist who was endorsed by Dr Z and this was an early prototype, and he was on the way to Vegas to bring it to Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick to use as a secondary amp as he was interested in it. But I bought it (hook line and sinker) and he had to tell Rick that he didn't have it anymore.
The Dr Z was a dream, just as I had played it in Seattle 6 years prior. But there was something odd about it. It was a blonde tolex, but it had a pink hue to it. It also had a Jensen speaker in it. I emailed Dr Z directly and told them the story of the jazz guy, Cheap Trick, the weird color etc. and they had said they didn't know about this guy, the speaker was not stock, and the pink hue was due to glue bleeding through. Egh, so what...I still had a kickass amp. They did however feel the "hue" was technically a defect and they agreed to retolex it for me if I paid shipping to their guy who does them. Sold! I had seen this sweet looking two-tone Stangray in black and red and wanted to mimic it. Within a month the cabinet was off and back to me. And there she was, my first boutique amp, in a custom color. The only sad thing was that the grill cloth, chassis, and knobs were a brown/tan combo. Oh well. No big thing. I suppose I could always fix this later on...
Fast forward to late 2011. I had sold off all my Mesa amps, and switched to bass guitar for an Americana/rock band, April Ventura & the Magnolias. Since I really wasn't playing guitar, the Dr Z was great for low wattage at home clean tones. I still had the Blues Deville and Blues Junior, but between the three amps I wasn't finding the distortion I wanted from the pedals I put in front of them. I had the Fulltone OCD, Xotic BB Preamp, HBE Powerscreamer, etc. So I started perusing Ebay for a two channel amp. I was looking to get the Lonestar again, but I wanted a specific model --the updated 100w/50w/10w black tolex 2x12 version. Finding that was difficult and I started looking into the older Mesa models. The Mesa Maverick caught my eye and my guitarist from AV&M said he liked the clean of the Lonestar, but the gain of the Maverick (of which the Lonestar was birthed from). My focus then went to the vintage Mesa Maverick until I spotted a deal on a near mint 100w/60w Mesa Heartbreaker. One of my guitar heroes, Prince (yes he played guitar), had used this amp and I wanted to check it out. The amp was two single channel amps in one -- with the ability to flip flop the gain structure. There was a master volume, effects loop, and many switches much like my Roadking. I thought I had found the amp I so longed for in Secret Seven (which was a moot point since I had left the band). The only problem was April Ventura had also parted ways and I didn't have a band that required a 100w/60w amp. I sold the amp and began looking for better preamps/pedals for the Dz Z. In the meantime I had found a Dr Z 2x10 extension cabinet on Craigslist and grabbed that up quickly. Sadly again the grill cloth was the salt a pepper look, so the Dr Z stack was a bit color-un-coordinated.
I wasn't sure why the umbilical cord could not be cut from Mesa, but I decided I wouldn't fight it. I had invested into a TC Electronics G system and the unit had a designated Preamp loop. The pedal could also be split between the pedal and brain, which was rackmountable. So since I had pedals in the other loops strewn about, I thought it'd be wise to go back to the rack set up. The BB was the main preamp, but soon that gain wasn't enough and I perused, found, and bought a Mesa Dual Rectifier Recording preamp. This was a bit overkill for the Dr Z so I used the Blue Deville with this set up instead.
I'm so finicky. The whole point about getting the TC Electronics pedal was to pull the loops to the floor, otherwise my Rocktron setup worked fine. So decided no more rack mount gear! (haha...right) and sold the preamp. I also sold the Mesa Big Block 750 as I didn't need it any more and honestly wanted a lighter amp. Between my guitar body sales, the side projects I picked up, and the sale of these two rackmount amps, I had close to $2k in my Paypal account. It burned in my pocket as it always did. That's when I took the leap of faith and bought the Ceriatone HRM amp (see other blog entry).
Within weeks of selling the Heartbreaker and Recto Preamp a buddy of mine mentioned a heavy project he wanted to do. With my amps at the time, I was not ready for that venture, and regretted selling the Heartbreaker. The Blues Deluxe could have worked but I didn't have a heavy enough distortion for the gig. The Ceriatone, as far as I knew, wouldn't fit the bill either, nor would it be ready to use until September. What? Was that ebay calling again? Yes, and the call came through.
Enter in the Mesa Lonestar 100/50/10 2x12 combo. There were two identical models on ebay at the time. One starting at $1000 which came with an ATA case, and another that was currently at $500 in the bidding process. Some of the older models were selling for around $800-$900 which was a steal! What a few months makes--when I looked during the Heartbreaker purchase, I couldn't find one under $1200. I knew the auction one could have been the better route, but since there were no bids, and the ATA case interested me, I sniped the near mint amp at it's opening bid of $1000. The other amp sold for almost $1100, with no case. Score! That was until I saw how behemoth the ATA case was. Oh well--makes for a good amp stand. And there went my Paypal balance just like that..
Oh, so you think the story ends there? No. The Ceriatone was being made, the Lonestar was being shipped. I was filling in on a gig for my brother in law's cover band, playing bass (using my brother's rig), and the guitarist, Steve, and I got chatting about gear. He was just like me--tone searcher. Gearhead. Except he was married and had a kid, which in guitar terms means you get to own a bare minimum rig. He had talked about all the gear he had and the one that got away was a Zinky amp--he recalls it having the best tone ever fr his style of music. The designer had originally worked for the Fender custom shop and branched off and started building his own amps. Turns out he bought the rights to the Supro amp name, and also designed and made the Lil' Smokey amps. But he was in Arizona, no one carried his stuff around town, and this amp was $1699. This conversation took place on a Saturday. The next day an acquaintance who I met through APV&M was clearing out his gear and was selling his Zinky Mofo 60w combo for $800 via Facebook. What? Who's that at the door? Oh that's just opportunity knocking...
We started chatting and turns out the Zinky was overkill for his style as he ran pedals instead of using the second channel. We talked trades and he was still in the need for an amp, but needed spending money for a recording. I didn't have $800 but I had a Blues Deville that was slowly taking the back seat due to the Maz 38, the anticipated HRM, and the recently purchased Lonestar. He reluctantly did the swap plus $300 only because the cash was a higher need and he knew he could sell the amp. Turns out the amp was what he was looking for and within a day of having it, was raving on Facebook about how he loved his new rig. Right on! The Blues Deville was awesome, and if I had more room, and played more often I would have kept it. It had some awesome mojo with the ragged dirty tweed and classic look. The Zinky was a high gain amp, relatively portable and was the "other amp" I could use. It was also boutique and a hard to find version with an effects loop. These one-off gems are what I love best. I wasn't sure if I'd like the Mesa Lonestar so this was my back up plan to that rig in case it didn't work and I needed to sell it.
So the Zinky Mofo I had just picked up Thursday August 2nd prior to my vacation week. The Lonestar arrived Wednesday August 8th with me chasing it around town til the 9th, and the Ceriatone arrived the next day on Friday the 10th. With the arrival of three new pedals in the mix (Wampler Triple Wreck to replace the Mesa preamp, VFE Pale horse to replace my Ibanez tubescreamer, and the EH POG for weird sounds) I was in sonic ADD mode. Sadly I haven't had any time to tinker with them as of late due to work and wood working. But mainly the reason is because there is a horrifically bad hot and humid weather pattern making my bedroom unbearable to stay in for more than 10min at a time. Soon fall will be here and I'll be rocking out with my new toys.
August 2012 rig (Ceriatone HRM not shown). The Lonestar sits on the other side of the room with the TC electronics pedal. The plan however is to revert the Gsystem back to the pedal form, and reinstate the Rocktron rig with the Lonestar (the blue All Access is visible behind the Lonestar). Turns out the Gsystem is a bit out of whack and the channel switching function is broken. This is an unwanted $300 repair hovering over my head. With the Dr Z in full pedal mode, the Lonestar with the All Access/Patchmate setup and the HRM with it's proprietary footswitch, the Gsystem may find itself rotated out and replaced with a nicer delay pedal (the TC Electronics Nova delay looks like a winner).
So there you are. Chapter 1. Or maybe we're on chapter 10, I dunno. But the rigs are there from big to small--100w/50w/10w Lonestar, 60w Mofo, 50w HRM, 38w Maz Senior 38, and 15w Blues Junior. Whether or not each will satiate my need of tone is TBD. In the meantime I'll just keep swapping out gear. But at least this point I have found a few amps that hopefully have made the cut and won't leave my collection...although I thought about selling the Dr Z combo only to get a Maz 38 head plus a Dr Z 1x12 for versatility between the Ceriatone and the Dr Z 2x10 cabinet.We'll see how the credit card debt treats me...
Chapter 1: The amps of Yesteryear...
Every player is inherently on a quest for tone, or more aptly, a quest for satiation when it comes to guitar tones. I am one of those players. I am also one of those players who's experience has shaped and directed me down a tone-path looking for this satiation.
I remember my first amp - a Squire 15 solid state amp. It was cheap and did what was necessary. It made my first electric guitar (a 24.75" scale Charvel Fusion IV) louder. It was inherently a clean tone amp, but if you flip-floped the gain structure by switching it from a gain low, master high to gain high to master low, you could create distortion. For a kid in high school this was epic. Until I got lazy. I didn't like that if I wanted clean then distortion, I had to fiddle with my amp. I wanted a one-button change--and I knew they made them. So I ended up with a Boss DS1 distortion on the front end. The search for tone started.
Fast forward to my last year of high school...my brother had given up trying to copy me by playing guitar and switched to bass guitar. He had joined the jazz band at his school and met a drummer who really wanted to start a band--a heavy metal band as I understood. I was on my Metallica kick and when my brother approached me to play for them I agreed. But I needed an amp. My brother-in-law, who had just started dating my sister at the time, was a guitarist and he had a gray carpeted Fender M80 half stack. The red knobs and fuzzy exterior stopped me in my tracks in awe. I asked him to help me out and he found me a dark grey fuzzy carpeted Randall RG200ES halfstack in the classifieds. Awesomeness was born and I rocked out in my, unbeknownst to me, death metal band. My metal sound was inspiring to my friends and they wanted my tone. That is, until Boss released the Metal Zone pedal, and my tone went from "awesome" to "wet fart".
Fast forward to college...I had sold the Randall head (with footswitch which I heard was rare) and purchased a Mesa boogie V twin preamp. I had been doing my homework and seeing what Metallica used and it was the cheapest unit made by Mesa. I paired it with a ridiculously heavy Carvin FET400 poweramp and a Rocktron Replifex which channel siwtched for me via MIDI. With my Ibanez guitars (S420SF and S7540 7 string) my Nu Metal era of tone had arrived. I used this rig thru my college years and only until 2001 I had joined what I considered my first "real" band (ie the band that recorded albums) Ghoulspoon (which changed the name to DividedByZero post my joining) did I feel it was time to upgrade from a parts amp to a real amp. Cocaine might have been a hell of a drug for Rick James, but mine was credit cards. Fortunately at the time my girlfriend was keeping me in check with my purchases, so I didn't go buckwild, but I did end up with a Mesa Boogie 3channel Dual Rectifier, followed by a Dual Rectifier 4x12 cabinet. It was my proudest moment -- my first "real" amp that I bought brand new. I even carted it around in it's box to gigs until I bought an ATA case for it. So started my love affair with the Petaluma based Mesa Engineering company.
Fast forward a few years and I see this ad for a boutique amp company called Dr Z. I never heard of them because Guitar Center only carried the popular stuff (not even Mesa at the time). I can't even remember which guitarist pointed me in that direction, but the lightning bolt "Z" logo had me sold. I remember being in Seattle in 2004 visiting a friend and I found a shop that had them. I played through a Maz 38 with a Blackguard Telecaster clone and heavens made that "ahhhhhhhhhhh" sound. Too bad I didn't live in Seattle or had $1500 to blow. I reluctantly left the store and back to my amps in San Diego.
Somehow around 2006 I picked up a Crate VFX5112 2 channel amp for my home use. Wasn't a bad amp, just noisy. But then again it could have been the electrical grounding (or lack thereof) on my old cottage in Ocean Beach. This started my interest in combo amps again, and less of the multi-part cabinet + head + rack effects set up.
Fast forward past the VH1 behind the music drama, and enter in Vocoder, band#2 -- my side band to Divided By Zero. Tensions in DBZ were growing and my friend Phil told me that his guitarist left the band. I volunteered to help out until they found a replacement, but soon it was obvious to me and the band that I was the replacement and soon I was doing double duty in both bands. But carting gear back and forth was not an option, so with the help of Guitar Center extended my purchasing power on their credit card, I had swooped in and picked up a Mesa Boogie Roadking 2x12 combo for $1600. I had originally wanted to get a Mesa Lonestar, but this amp was something I couldn't pass up. Lonestar...that sounds familiar...
I had burned thru a plethora of Mesa amps and my credit card debt reflected so. I had the V-twin, the Dual rectifier, and the Roadking at this point. The Roadking was probably my most favorite amp as it was the most versatile with the ability to choose between tube types (EL34 and 6L6s), but probably the amp I dreaded as the controls were overkill and the amp was 100lbs dead weight. Paired with two of my Rocktron Patchmate midi switchers and a 8cable mini snake cord I was able to toggle all channels as needed and my effects on/off. But I soon realized my taste in distortion tones had changed and I no longer needed Channel 3 and 4 for the heavy distortion. I was content with an overdrive channel and a tubescreamer boosting it. My channel two was a clone of my clean channel but I had flip flopped the gain stage (as I did with my Squire 15). It was then that I realized I could do without the overbearing controls of the Roadking and began looking for a smaller, lighter, and simpler amp.
Fender amps popped into the mix with a 40w Custom purple Hot Rod Deluxe with an upgraded Celestion vintage 30 speaker adding some flavor. But the cleans were horrible, and I wasn't a fan of the distortion and the sharing tonestacks between channels (the treble/mid/bass was the same for both overdrive and clean channels). I found a guy online who had a 60w Blue Deville 4x10 and he was looking to not be as loud. Strangely he was also looking for a quieter amp with a Vintage 30 in it. We met up and we did an even swap, even though his amp was more ragged and beat up than my amp. If he wasn't such a winey douche over email post-transaction, I would say it was a trade made in heaven. But he was one, complained that I screwed him somehow, and went on and on about it. In the end I told him the trade was final when I left his house and that he traded me a beat up amp with busted input jacks and that I had to spend money to fix it. He could either reimburse me on top of trading back for it, or he could sell the purple Deluxe and get something else. I never heard back from him. I had also started getting into smaller amps (under 30w) and modding them, and had picked up a Blues Junior amp as well. I hot rodded it with a new Eminence Texas Heat speaker and a few Bill M mods on the volume pot and input jack to upgrade it. If I remember correctly the Blue Junior arrived after I sold the Crate..... I think...
Fast forward to better paying job, some credit cards paid off, etc...So at this point I had the Blues Deville, the smaller Blues Junior, and had burned thru the Mesa and Fender amps. I had sniped a Mesa Stiletto head from ebay for a ridiculous $600, and found a tube switching Mesa Blue Angel 4x10 in Los Angeles as well. I thought it would replace the Fender Deville but they were about the same tone wise. When I found that the Blues Deville wouldn't fetch that much, I later sold the Blue Angel instead.
After Vocoder parted ways with their singer, I had picked up a gig with Brodeeva as their bass player, so I purchased a few Mesa bass rigs in the process too, starting with a Basis M2000 and later a Mesa Big Block 750. I was still playing with the remnants of Vocoder and our new singer (ex DividedByZero singer Zach Goode) in the newly dubbed band, the Secret Seven, so my guitar rig was still ever growing. At one point I had a wall of Mesa Amps: Mesa 4x10 bass cab, Mesa Big Block 750, Mesa Stiletto, Mesa 4x12 cab, Mesa Roadking 2x12. This was awesome, but short lived. With Secret Seven playing indie rock distortion, the Stiletto and Roadking were out of place and under used. The 4x12 cab was a pain to move to gigs, and way too loud and big for what we were doing. In the end, all were sold off, with the exception of the Mesa 4x10 bass cab which does it's job, but may or may not stick around.
My quest continued. After I sold the stiletto I had about $900 burning a hole in my pocket. Sometime in 2010 I was perusing Craigslist in Los Angeles and saw an ad for a Dr Z Maz 38 used for $800. Was this fate? Only 6 years prior sitting in a Seattle guitar store was I wishing I could afford one. Bam...sold! I contacted the guy and drove up to get the amp. The guy said I was lucky. This amp was owned by some jazz artist who was endorsed by Dr Z and this was an early prototype, and he was on the way to Vegas to bring it to Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick to use as a secondary amp as he was interested in it. But I bought it (hook line and sinker) and he had to tell Rick that he didn't have it anymore.
The Dr Z was a dream, just as I had played it in Seattle 6 years prior. But there was something odd about it. It was a blonde tolex, but it had a pink hue to it. It also had a Jensen speaker in it. I emailed Dr Z directly and told them the story of the jazz guy, Cheap Trick, the weird color etc. and they had said they didn't know about this guy, the speaker was not stock, and the pink hue was due to glue bleeding through. Egh, so what...I still had a kickass amp. They did however feel the "hue" was technically a defect and they agreed to retolex it for me if I paid shipping to their guy who does them. Sold! I had seen this sweet looking two-tone Stangray in black and red and wanted to mimic it. Within a month the cabinet was off and back to me. And there she was, my first boutique amp, in a custom color. The only sad thing was that the grill cloth, chassis, and knobs were a brown/tan combo. Oh well. No big thing. I suppose I could always fix this later on...
Fast forward to late 2011. I had sold off all my Mesa amps, and switched to bass guitar for an Americana/rock band, April Ventura & the Magnolias. Since I really wasn't playing guitar, the Dr Z was great for low wattage at home clean tones. I still had the Blues Deville and Blues Junior, but between the three amps I wasn't finding the distortion I wanted from the pedals I put in front of them. I had the Fulltone OCD, Xotic BB Preamp, HBE Powerscreamer, etc. So I started perusing Ebay for a two channel amp. I was looking to get the Lonestar again, but I wanted a specific model --the updated 100w/50w/10w black tolex 2x12 version. Finding that was difficult and I started looking into the older Mesa models. The Mesa Maverick caught my eye and my guitarist from AV&M said he liked the clean of the Lonestar, but the gain of the Maverick (of which the Lonestar was birthed from). My focus then went to the vintage Mesa Maverick until I spotted a deal on a near mint 100w/60w Mesa Heartbreaker. One of my guitar heroes, Prince (yes he played guitar), had used this amp and I wanted to check it out. The amp was two single channel amps in one -- with the ability to flip flop the gain structure. There was a master volume, effects loop, and many switches much like my Roadking. I thought I had found the amp I so longed for in Secret Seven (which was a moot point since I had left the band). The only problem was April Ventura had also parted ways and I didn't have a band that required a 100w/60w amp. I sold the amp and began looking for better preamps/pedals for the Dz Z. In the meantime I had found a Dr Z 2x10 extension cabinet on Craigslist and grabbed that up quickly. Sadly again the grill cloth was the salt a pepper look, so the Dr Z stack was a bit color-un-coordinated.
I wasn't sure why the umbilical cord could not be cut from Mesa, but I decided I wouldn't fight it. I had invested into a TC Electronics G system and the unit had a designated Preamp loop. The pedal could also be split between the pedal and brain, which was rackmountable. So since I had pedals in the other loops strewn about, I thought it'd be wise to go back to the rack set up. The BB was the main preamp, but soon that gain wasn't enough and I perused, found, and bought a Mesa Dual Rectifier Recording preamp. This was a bit overkill for the Dr Z so I used the Blue Deville with this set up instead.
I'm so finicky. The whole point about getting the TC Electronics pedal was to pull the loops to the floor, otherwise my Rocktron setup worked fine. So decided no more rack mount gear! (haha...right) and sold the preamp. I also sold the Mesa Big Block 750 as I didn't need it any more and honestly wanted a lighter amp. Between my guitar body sales, the side projects I picked up, and the sale of these two rackmount amps, I had close to $2k in my Paypal account. It burned in my pocket as it always did. That's when I took the leap of faith and bought the Ceriatone HRM amp (see other blog entry).
Within weeks of selling the Heartbreaker and Recto Preamp a buddy of mine mentioned a heavy project he wanted to do. With my amps at the time, I was not ready for that venture, and regretted selling the Heartbreaker. The Blues Deluxe could have worked but I didn't have a heavy enough distortion for the gig. The Ceriatone, as far as I knew, wouldn't fit the bill either, nor would it be ready to use until September. What? Was that ebay calling again? Yes, and the call came through.
Enter in the Mesa Lonestar 100/50/10 2x12 combo. There were two identical models on ebay at the time. One starting at $1000 which came with an ATA case, and another that was currently at $500 in the bidding process. Some of the older models were selling for around $800-$900 which was a steal! What a few months makes--when I looked during the Heartbreaker purchase, I couldn't find one under $1200. I knew the auction one could have been the better route, but since there were no bids, and the ATA case interested me, I sniped the near mint amp at it's opening bid of $1000. The other amp sold for almost $1100, with no case. Score! That was until I saw how behemoth the ATA case was. Oh well--makes for a good amp stand. And there went my Paypal balance just like that..
Oh, so you think the story ends there? No. The Ceriatone was being made, the Lonestar was being shipped. I was filling in on a gig for my brother in law's cover band, playing bass (using my brother's rig), and the guitarist, Steve, and I got chatting about gear. He was just like me--tone searcher. Gearhead. Except he was married and had a kid, which in guitar terms means you get to own a bare minimum rig. He had talked about all the gear he had and the one that got away was a Zinky amp--he recalls it having the best tone ever fr his style of music. The designer had originally worked for the Fender custom shop and branched off and started building his own amps. Turns out he bought the rights to the Supro amp name, and also designed and made the Lil' Smokey amps. But he was in Arizona, no one carried his stuff around town, and this amp was $1699. This conversation took place on a Saturday. The next day an acquaintance who I met through APV&M was clearing out his gear and was selling his Zinky Mofo 60w combo for $800 via Facebook. What? Who's that at the door? Oh that's just opportunity knocking...
We started chatting and turns out the Zinky was overkill for his style as he ran pedals instead of using the second channel. We talked trades and he was still in the need for an amp, but needed spending money for a recording. I didn't have $800 but I had a Blues Deville that was slowly taking the back seat due to the Maz 38, the anticipated HRM, and the recently purchased Lonestar. He reluctantly did the swap plus $300 only because the cash was a higher need and he knew he could sell the amp. Turns out the amp was what he was looking for and within a day of having it, was raving on Facebook about how he loved his new rig. Right on! The Blues Deville was awesome, and if I had more room, and played more often I would have kept it. It had some awesome mojo with the ragged dirty tweed and classic look. The Zinky was a high gain amp, relatively portable and was the "other amp" I could use. It was also boutique and a hard to find version with an effects loop. These one-off gems are what I love best. I wasn't sure if I'd like the Mesa Lonestar so this was my back up plan to that rig in case it didn't work and I needed to sell it.
So the Zinky Mofo I had just picked up Thursday August 2nd prior to my vacation week. The Lonestar arrived Wednesday August 8th with me chasing it around town til the 9th, and the Ceriatone arrived the next day on Friday the 10th. With the arrival of three new pedals in the mix (Wampler Triple Wreck to replace the Mesa preamp, VFE Pale horse to replace my Ibanez tubescreamer, and the EH POG for weird sounds) I was in sonic ADD mode. Sadly I haven't had any time to tinker with them as of late due to work and wood working. But mainly the reason is because there is a horrifically bad hot and humid weather pattern making my bedroom unbearable to stay in for more than 10min at a time. Soon fall will be here and I'll be rocking out with my new toys.
August 2012 rig (Ceriatone HRM not shown). The Lonestar sits on the other side of the room with the TC electronics pedal. The plan however is to revert the Gsystem back to the pedal form, and reinstate the Rocktron rig with the Lonestar (the blue All Access is visible behind the Lonestar). Turns out the Gsystem is a bit out of whack and the channel switching function is broken. This is an unwanted $300 repair hovering over my head. With the Dr Z in full pedal mode, the Lonestar with the All Access/Patchmate setup and the HRM with it's proprietary footswitch, the Gsystem may find itself rotated out and replaced with a nicer delay pedal (the TC Electronics Nova delay looks like a winner).
So there you are. Chapter 1. Or maybe we're on chapter 10, I dunno. But the rigs are there from big to small--100w/50w/10w Lonestar, 60w Mofo, 50w HRM, 38w Maz Senior 38, and 15w Blues Junior. Whether or not each will satiate my need of tone is TBD. In the meantime I'll just keep swapping out gear. But at least this point I have found a few amps that hopefully have made the cut and won't leave my collection...although I thought about selling the Dr Z combo only to get a Maz 38 head plus a Dr Z 1x12 for versatility between the Ceriatone and the Dr Z 2x10 cabinet.We'll see how the credit card debt treats me...
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
New Amp Day! Dumble clone - Ceriatone HRM with mods
So at some point I had sold enough amps, and guitar bodies that my Paypal account was ridiculously large. It was burning a hole in my pocket and I wanted to splurge. So since I had a plethora of guitars I decided I'd get me a nice amp---but, most amp companies of any worth run $1000 and up to $5000. But I didn't have the top end cash-fundage, and I already had comparable amps that would handle the low end range. So what I needed was a high end amp for a low cost, or in other words a clone (or a smokin' good deal on a used one). One of the clone companies I had read about was Ceriatone amps and I was always hesitant to jump feet first in because the company was based out of Malaysia. There weren't any shops nearby that had these amps so quality and reliability were just word of mouth. But I was feeling adventurous so I perused their website...
There were a ton of amp clones on their page with different levels of package deals (just the parts, assembled parts, assembled parts with tubes, or assembled parts with tubes and cabinet). I figured I'd use my wood working skills to build me a cabinet for it, but my soldering skills needed much more work. I opted for the chassis prebuilt, no tubes as that would make it the easiest and the most cost effective. But which amp?
I already had Fenders and I was not impressed by Marshalls. The site had Hiwatt clones, Matchless clones, Dumble clones, Trainwreck clones, and the hot rodded Marhsall style clones (Soldano, etc). If this was going to be my only purchase from this site I wanted to get a hard to find amp. So what is the hardest amp to find? Well as of recent the Ken Fischer Trainwrecks have jumped up in popularity, but my eye was on the Stevie Ray Vaughn amp...the Dumble Over Drive Special (ODS), or as they called it the Overtone Special. Robben Ford used it and one of my guitar heroes John Mayer started using one (the Steel String Singer model). There were boutique amp companies cloning it (Rivera, Carol Ann, Quinnamps, Bludotone, etc.) but they were out of my price range. The Ceriatone was within my range - just under $1k for the prebuilt chassis (plus shipping) - so I figured I'd go for it, and get one of their clones.
Simple choice right? Wrong. Not only were there both 50w and 100w versions, but there were eight different Overtone Specials (so 16 total). Five were mods of the original ODS (ODS, S&M, 183, FM, Modern Eagle) and three were hot rodded versions referred to as "His Royal Majesty (HRM)" (HRM, Bluesmaster, MK2). I did my research on the bunch and wanted aspects of each, but couldn't decide which to get. It took an email to the owner Nik Azam to lead me to the HRM version with a few mods - a third switch for the midrange, a tonestack switch (stock, low bypass, and almost fully bypassed--the ODS sound), half power switch, and a treble bleed switch. Nik was great in his emails, responding same day if not the next (there is a slight timezone difference). His honesty was obvious in the emails and he had gained the trust needed to overcome the hesitation of buying from an overseas dealer.
Overtone HRM 50W - Package 3 - $975; HRM bypass switch mod = $20; 3 way mid boost mod = $15; 6 way treble bleed mod = $20; 1/2 power switch mod = $15
Total cost: $1,189, plus I had to write out a check for $23.40 to UPS when it arrived for customs/duties.
The website said 6 weeks for the amp, and I ordered it July 12th, 2012. I expected it August 27th. I was lucky I planned my vacation the week of Aug 6th as it arrived Friday August 10th -- two weeks ahead of schedule.
Ceriatone's pack-job was the cream of the crop. My UPS guy was pretty nice in handling it, and the box looked unharmed. I cracked it open like a little kid on Christmas day. A very hot and humid Christmas day in August...
The chassis looked awesome. New toy! Now I just needed some tubes...
Looking at the amp itself, it's no wonder they said you could spend weeks on this amp trying to dial in your tone. First there is an input gain volume (and bright switch). This affects both channels so in the meantime I have only used it in the "2" position. The deep adds bass, the rock/jazz either tighten the low end (aka drop the low end) for jazz, or keeps it full for rock. The midboost is usually an on-off switch, but I had them create a third setting. The 3way switch between the mid and bass is the OTS/bypass/HRM tonestack setting which is only engaged with the dirty channel. By bypassing the Treb/Mid/Bass your signal goes from the input to the output in one shot. The switch between the preamp tube sockets is a local negative feedback switch. I haven't tried it just yet.
The overdrive channel has the most controls. The input gain affects the front end, while the Master controls the volume and the gain controls the distortion amount. On the back there is an "OD Trim" which I feel is best described as the saturation level. Between the three knobs, you'll be fiddling for a while trying to find your optimum gain. Add in the the tonestack switch on the front panel, and you have given yourself a new set of variables. The last mod I did was a six way bright switch. This knob sits between "His" and "Royal" on the faceplate and is a rotary six way switch.
On the back there is a half switch, on switch, standby switch, OD trim, Output jacks, speaker impedance switch, effects loop and the channel switching section.
So that's the new toy. I still need to bias it and do a sound clip of it. And its a chassis only and currently sitting upside down as I don't have a cabinet. My buddy Phil (former band member and former cabinet maker colleague) recently built a speaker cabinet with some direction from me. He liked his build and was on a roll so he agreed to build me a head cabinet. Now I gotta get a handle, rubber feet, and amp corners.
You can see his work on his blog here: feinline.blogspot.com
For the concerned builder or avid gear head, here are the gut shots:
For David Ruiz...the footswitch:
So I'm not exactly sure where you can get the 5-pin, but if you do find one, let me know, cuz if mine goes missing, I'm gonna be stuck in the same boat...
The cable enters the footswitch here. Apparently it's a 6 wire cable (there's a red one tucked in there that wasn't used) and the wires are (L to R) Green, Brown, Black, Yellow, Orange. The colored wires are soldered in that order to the base of this 5 station solder terminal connector. Honestly they could go straight to the switches, but it looks prettier and probably minimizes the effect of the cable getting pulled. So each of the terminals has a grey wire coming off the terminal lug to the switches. For reference I'll call the grey wires the color of where it's connected to at the terminal connector.
On the opposite end is the plug, and the pins make an arc in the same wire order above. So when looking directly into the end of the plug, the L to R smiley face is Green, Brown, Black, Yellow, Orange.
Hopefully you can make out the diagram I drew. I'm not sure which lug (anode/diode) of the LED is which (although I think the negative side goes to the black connection), but I think that's the least of your concerns. Note on the bottom switch the top two sets of lugs are joined (in red on my diagram) and that the orange wire goes to the led, not the switch. The green image is the orange caps.The green and Brown control one toggle, and the orange and yellow control the other. The black is the common.
Sorry my camera's macro was being stupid and now my media card is freezing. Looks like these'll be the only photos I get off that one.
There were a ton of amp clones on their page with different levels of package deals (just the parts, assembled parts, assembled parts with tubes, or assembled parts with tubes and cabinet). I figured I'd use my wood working skills to build me a cabinet for it, but my soldering skills needed much more work. I opted for the chassis prebuilt, no tubes as that would make it the easiest and the most cost effective. But which amp?
I already had Fenders and I was not impressed by Marshalls. The site had Hiwatt clones, Matchless clones, Dumble clones, Trainwreck clones, and the hot rodded Marhsall style clones (Soldano, etc). If this was going to be my only purchase from this site I wanted to get a hard to find amp. So what is the hardest amp to find? Well as of recent the Ken Fischer Trainwrecks have jumped up in popularity, but my eye was on the Stevie Ray Vaughn amp...the Dumble Over Drive Special (ODS), or as they called it the Overtone Special. Robben Ford used it and one of my guitar heroes John Mayer started using one (the Steel String Singer model). There were boutique amp companies cloning it (Rivera, Carol Ann, Quinnamps, Bludotone, etc.) but they were out of my price range. The Ceriatone was within my range - just under $1k for the prebuilt chassis (plus shipping) - so I figured I'd go for it, and get one of their clones.
Simple choice right? Wrong. Not only were there both 50w and 100w versions, but there were eight different Overtone Specials (so 16 total). Five were mods of the original ODS (ODS, S&M, 183, FM, Modern Eagle) and three were hot rodded versions referred to as "His Royal Majesty (HRM)" (HRM, Bluesmaster, MK2). I did my research on the bunch and wanted aspects of each, but couldn't decide which to get. It took an email to the owner Nik Azam to lead me to the HRM version with a few mods - a third switch for the midrange, a tonestack switch (stock, low bypass, and almost fully bypassed--the ODS sound), half power switch, and a treble bleed switch. Nik was great in his emails, responding same day if not the next (there is a slight timezone difference). His honesty was obvious in the emails and he had gained the trust needed to overcome the hesitation of buying from an overseas dealer.
Overtone HRM 50W - Package 3 - $975; HRM bypass switch mod = $20; 3 way mid boost mod = $15; 6 way treble bleed mod = $20; 1/2 power switch mod = $15
Total cost: $1,189, plus I had to write out a check for $23.40 to UPS when it arrived for customs/duties.
The website said 6 weeks for the amp, and I ordered it July 12th, 2012. I expected it August 27th. I was lucky I planned my vacation the week of Aug 6th as it arrived Friday August 10th -- two weeks ahead of schedule.
Ceriatone's pack-job was the cream of the crop. My UPS guy was pretty nice in handling it, and the box looked unharmed. I cracked it open like a little kid on Christmas day. A very hot and humid Christmas day in August...
The chassis looked awesome. New toy! Now I just needed some tubes...
Looking at the amp itself, it's no wonder they said you could spend weeks on this amp trying to dial in your tone. First there is an input gain volume (and bright switch). This affects both channels so in the meantime I have only used it in the "2" position. The deep adds bass, the rock/jazz either tighten the low end (aka drop the low end) for jazz, or keeps it full for rock. The midboost is usually an on-off switch, but I had them create a third setting. The 3way switch between the mid and bass is the OTS/bypass/HRM tonestack setting which is only engaged with the dirty channel. By bypassing the Treb/Mid/Bass your signal goes from the input to the output in one shot. The switch between the preamp tube sockets is a local negative feedback switch. I haven't tried it just yet.
The overdrive channel has the most controls. The input gain affects the front end, while the Master controls the volume and the gain controls the distortion amount. On the back there is an "OD Trim" which I feel is best described as the saturation level. Between the three knobs, you'll be fiddling for a while trying to find your optimum gain. Add in the the tonestack switch on the front panel, and you have given yourself a new set of variables. The last mod I did was a six way bright switch. This knob sits between "His" and "Royal" on the faceplate and is a rotary six way switch.
On the back there is a half switch, on switch, standby switch, OD trim, Output jacks, speaker impedance switch, effects loop and the channel switching section.
So that's the new toy. I still need to bias it and do a sound clip of it. And its a chassis only and currently sitting upside down as I don't have a cabinet. My buddy Phil (former band member and former cabinet maker colleague) recently built a speaker cabinet with some direction from me. He liked his build and was on a roll so he agreed to build me a head cabinet. Now I gotta get a handle, rubber feet, and amp corners.
For the concerned builder or avid gear head, here are the gut shots:
So I'm not exactly sure where you can get the 5-pin, but if you do find one, let me know, cuz if mine goes missing, I'm gonna be stuck in the same boat...
The cable enters the footswitch here. Apparently it's a 6 wire cable (there's a red one tucked in there that wasn't used) and the wires are (L to R) Green, Brown, Black, Yellow, Orange. The colored wires are soldered in that order to the base of this 5 station solder terminal connector. Honestly they could go straight to the switches, but it looks prettier and probably minimizes the effect of the cable getting pulled. So each of the terminals has a grey wire coming off the terminal lug to the switches. For reference I'll call the grey wires the color of where it's connected to at the terminal connector.
On the opposite end is the plug, and the pins make an arc in the same wire order above. So when looking directly into the end of the plug, the L to R smiley face is Green, Brown, Black, Yellow, Orange.
Hopefully you can make out the diagram I drew. I'm not sure which lug (anode/diode) of the LED is which (although I think the negative side goes to the black connection), but I think that's the least of your concerns. Note on the bottom switch the top two sets of lugs are joined (in red on my diagram) and that the orange wire goes to the led, not the switch. The green image is the orange caps.The green and Brown control one toggle, and the orange and yellow control the other. The black is the common.
Sorry my camera's macro was being stupid and now my media card is freezing. Looks like these'll be the only photos I get off that one.
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