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

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

I’ve had the Joan Jett Signature Melody Maker for about 5 days… so, obviously, it’s time to start modifying & upgradng the lil bastards.

First up the Burstbucker 3 pickup has to go. Out with you devil! Actually, it’s not a horrible pickup but I don’t quite like it. With some overdrive and gain it sounds decent but after a certain point all note clarity goes away. With a touch of OD open chords sounds pretty nice; they ring and you can make out each note but palm muted, power chords are lifeless. Add a touch more gain and we’ve got nice palm muted chunk but the open chords lose a lot; you can’t hear the separate notes too well and they just all jumbled together.

Also – I haven’t opened her up yet to check out the wiring but I hate the tone knob’s response. It gets pretty useless when then tone is cut all the way (ya, i know that’s an extreme setting) & the taper doesn’t feel/sound right to me. There seems to be a dramatic dip when you inch past somewhere around “5″ on the tone. I gotta have my dad listen to it to see what he thinks of the capacitor in there but I’m sure it’s junk.

With all that said I just (11pm-ish on June 25) ordered an “Unbucker” from Lindy Fralin. “What the fuck is an unbucker?” you ask. Here’s what Lindy’s gotta say about it:

In our Unbucker, we wind the screw coil stronger than the slug coil. This makes the pickup sound a little more single coil, but the best reason to do this is for coil tapping. When tapped the stronger coil is active as opposed to half a pickup.

from Fralin’s site

The jist is the pickup’s built for splitting in mind and makes sure that, when split, it doesn’t lose 1/2 the output (like when you normally coil-split by, essentially, cutting a humbucker in half). Of the 2 coils in the pickup one is the “stronger” coil and is the one that remains active when the pickup is split, matching (or getting close to) the output of a single coil.

“That cool but he said it ‘sound(s) a little more single coil’.” Great – that gets us to the P90ish realm???… maybe? probably not quite, but closer than any other standard humbucker. Given my current LP Junior fetish this sounds good (at least in theory).

The Jett’s gota kill switch on it: flip the switch and there’s no output from the guitar. This is a nice feature if you’re a super hot front woman and need the guitar to shut up while you sing some stuff – but to me it’s worthless. So, I’ll use the switch to do the coil splitting on the Fralin.

The final piece that led me to choose this pickup is a snip from a PAF pickup shootout I read. In this shootout the Unbucker came in 2^nd, beating out other high quality pups like Lollars, Fralin PAFs, 57 Classics, Burstbucker. The only pickup that it didn’t “beat” was a Tom Holmes PAF. Here’s what they said about the Unbucker:

Lindy Fralin – Unbuckers Running a close Second, Very Smooooth, Great Jimmy Page Bridge Sound, Great Harmonic’s Clean up nicely, Killer Overall Tone.
We were all very Surprised by the sound of this Pickup. Considering the Fralin PAF did not test so well.

So theoretically this pickup’s gonna be great for what I want: It’s a hair closer to a single coil, (hopefully) P90-ish tone & when split the pickup’s output doesn’t dip as much as splitting a standard bucker.

Up next will be the tuners. This thing’s not too good at staying in tune; not as bad as some POS guitars but it’s nowhere near the tuning stability I’ve grown accustomed to on my MM guitars. The guitar comes with mini Grovers so I’ll find some mini, locking Grovers and slap those fuckers on pretty soon.

Should be fun.

Yup I have a lot of guitars & basses. Why? ‘Cause I like ‘em. People ask me pretty frequently how many I have and what they are so I thought I’d make a list. The guitars and basses aren’t listed in any particular order but they’re numbered to make counting easy

So, here they are:

Guitars

1. Music Man Luke BFR
2. Music Man Albert Lee BFR
3. Music Man Silhouette
4. Music Man 20^th Anniversary Silhouette
5. Music Man 25^th Anniversary Guitar
6. Music Man Axis Sport HSS
7. Music Man Rosewood Axis Super Sport
8. Homemade Telecaster w/ TV Jones Magnatron pickups
9. Modified Made in Mexico Telecaster (not even a tele anymore)
10. My first guitar (some cheap Ibanez – doesn’t work at all)
11. Broken Epiphone LP Junior (I broke the neck off – will eventually fix it)
12. Guild Acoustic
13. Gibson Les Paul Studio Gothic
14. Gibson Les Paul Standard
15. Gibson Joan Jett Signature Melody Maker

Basses

1. Music Man Sterling H
2. Music Man Sterling HS
3. Music Man Sterling HH
4. Music Man Sterling BFR H
5. Sadowsky Metro Hybrid (PJ)
6. My first basses modified to hell and back (still kinda sucks)
7. Homemade P Bass
8. Homemade Jazz Bass
9. Squire Vintage Vibe P Bass

The next most common question is “which one’s your favorite?”. That’s a hard question to answer. “Favorite” is cyclical; usually if I’ve got anything kinda/sorta new it’s my “favorite” at that moment in time… but, when the “new” wears off so does the favoritism. So, I’ll split the question up a few ways so that it’s not so loaded:

Which one are you playing the most right now?

Guitar-wise I’m playing my Joan Jett the most right now because I just got it. It’s definitely not of the greatest quality or my best sounding guitar… it’s just new and is really fun to play. It’s a great beater. Before the Jett my 25^th Music Man was getting all my attention.

As far as basses go I’m playing my HS Sterling the most. With basses I usually play the bass with the newest strings the most. Once those strings wear out I’ll put a new set on something else, rinse and repeat. With the “new string” fetish aside this bass has consistently been my go to bass ever since I got it. It feels and sounds great, she’s blonde and her name is Kristen.

Which one do you think sounds the best?

My best sounding guitar is… fuck, I can’t pick. The contenders are the Luke, the Music Man 25^th Anniversary Guitar & the Music Man 20^th Anniversary Silhouette. They’re pretty fucking amazing. I’d probably give the edge to the 25^th. An honorable mention goes out to my Mexican Tele – but it kinda cheated; It’s got a Duncan JB in the bridge position so its not so much the guitar (the body is a POS) as it’s the pickup. Anyone can get that tone for $65

My best sounding bass, hands down, is the BFR Sterling. No questions asked. It’s that good. Yup – sounds better than the non-BFR Sterling: same strings, whatever – doesn’t matter. The mahogany tone block on the BFR gives the tone some extra body… really makes it nice and rich. No contest here… at all.

Which one’s got the best build quality?

Any of the Music Man guitars and basses are excellent. The Sadowsky is also top note.

Which one’s play the best?

This is a bleh question… all guitars and basses need some maintenance & a periodic setup. So, to me, this ends up being a design issue. Rephrased: “assuming a proper setup, which body and neck design best suits you?”. For guitars the Axis Sport is beyond comfortable. It’s kindof a magical little animal. The 25^th Anniversary also feels amazing. Really dig the body on that one. As far as the basses go – my HS Sterling feels most comfortable to me. Also, an honorable mention to the Luke for it’s fucking awesome neck.

If you could only have one….?

If I could only pick one guitar & one bass which one I select? The 25^th Anniversary Music Man and the HS Sterling.

The 25^th is, in my opinion, the perfect guitar. I’m more of an HH guy than a strat-style guy so the HH config with the upsized, chambered, Axis-inspired body is perfect for me. You can’t forget the genius mahogany tone block… and the series parallel switch. This thing really is the shit! I don’t think I’d change anything on it. Obviously it sounds and feels great too. All ’round – it’s fucking great.

My one bass? The HS Sterling. Why not the BFR if it sounds better? ‘Cause I had to pick one. The BFR is a single H. Though live that’s all I need, at home it’s fun to have the neck pickup’s versatility. Also, I’ve played this damn thing so much that i’ve broken her in. If I only played live I’d pick the BFR… but noodling around at home is way more common than a gig so the HS gets the nod.

There you have it… my absurd list of guitars & basses. Yup, I’ll buy more and more and more… I like playing. Playing & fucking with guitars is one of the few things on this planet that I actually like & I’m gonna keep at it ’till I can’t.