My dad’s gonna build a guitar amp

This is pretty cool. I’ve been playing guitars few a while now and have gotten pretty familiar with the ins ‘n outs of guitars; I have no problem taking ‘em apart, modifying them, putting them back together… and, I’ve even built a couple. However, through all these years I’ve remained blissfully ignorant to amplifier technology; I have no idea how they work, what the internal components do or anything like that… that’s my dad’s world.

My dad’s taken a petty decent interest in my gear. Whenever I get new stuff he’s always checking it out, has done dozens of electronics (pickups etc) mods for me & has taught me how to solder and do some of this stuff myself.

A couple weeks ago I was playing a bit and wasn’t too happy with any of my amps (I have 4 at home). They all left something to be desired. I figured I’d look for something new and started doing some research, checked out prices and read a ton of reviews. After a while I was pretty frustrated, pinged my dad and said “hey, dude, you wanna build me an amp?”. He lit up.

As far as I’m concerned my dad’s an electronics genius. He’s worked on all sorts of electronics for 40+ years & I’ve never heard of him not being able to mod or fix something that has wires. So, I’m pretty stoked.

Right after bringing up the idea my dad started flipping through schematics for various Marshall amps. A few days later he declared he needed a physical amp too. Due to their popularity we decided that we’d use a JCM800 as a reference. But, after reading up on some forums I decided to go with a late 70′s JMP 2204 w/ master volume instead. A couple hours of hunting later I found a sweet ’78 in pretty awesome condition & bought it.

Here’s dad w/ his new toy:

Oh, the irony: I just bought my dad a Marshall for him to take apart and dissect… 15 years ago when I asked for 1/2 stack his reaction was “um, no!”. LoL

This should be pretty sweet. Dad’s been going off and telling me all sorts of stuff he’s learned about Marshalls, expressed some discontent with some of their designs & is flat out stoked to take on this challenge. He’s already been sketching out some ideas & had the JMP opened up minutes after it arrived. LoL.

I’m sure we’ll have a working amp pretty soon. I’ve got a pretty good idea for where I want this project to go & am positive dad can make it happen. It’s gonna be pretty rad.

Rock ‘n Roll

Writing comments in your code is fine and dandy but sometimes its just a fucking waste of time. Here’s an example:

<?php
class UserDataAccessClass
{
    /**
     * Get the number of followers a user has
     *
     * @param string $userID The user id
     *
     * @return int
     */
    public function getNumFollowers($userID)
    {
        return valueFromAServiceCallOrQueryEtc($userID)
    }
}
?>

So, yay – that chunk of code passes PHPCS (using the PEAR standard). All the parameters are documented, there’s a line of text explaining what the function does and the docblock even states the return type… how cute!

But why? Why do I have to type all that crap? The function’s name is self documenting & its sole parameter is obvious. The return type makes sense to me but the rest is bullshit. God forbid your function takes multiple parameters; then you’d have to line up the @param‘s types and descriptions ’cause PHP people have a strange hardon for lining shit up.

The truth is the only reason I do all that stuff is cuz we run PHPCS on our code at work and I don’t wanna be “that guy”. If it wasn’t a “standrad” at work there’s no way in hell id ever bother.

I’d much have the documentation go like this instead:

<?php
class UserDataAccessClass
{
    /**
     * @return int
     */
    public function getNumFollowers(string $userID)
    {
        return valueFromAServiceCallOrQueryEtc($userID)
    }
}
?>

…And to be 100% honest the only reason I’d include the @return is ’cause I’m an Eclipse & it helps PDT’s static analysis (aka autocomplete gets more better).

He shows off a bunch of Gibsons then busts out a few of his Music Man guitars about 2 minutes in. He had great things to say about his MM axes:

They really are the nicest stuff

- Joe Bonamassa