WRGKMC

I have a 65W Sound City (Hiwatt) head that's too loud for gigging. Its got a switch that drops the wattage to around 45W but its still pretty darn loud for most situations.

I have a Music Man 65w too but its got a Master Volume so I can run that at 50% and still get a good sound. My old Blackface Bassman 50w its always been a loud head for gigging. I used to run it with a 4X12 cab and even on 4 it blows chunks. I used to love my V2 head for gigs. It was a 50W head that was pretty ideal for loud rock stuff. The 50W Plexi I used to have was one of my favorites for gigging too. You could crank it to get those 100W Plexi tones at half the wattage. My buddy put a master volume in his and supped up the front end to get a driven tube sound. He could turn it down to match smaller amps. The 100W and 200W Solid state amps I have, you can cut in half for loudness compared to tube amps.

So long as you have a master volume you can at least turn the power amp down. You wont get any output transformer saturation running it that way, but you should still be able to get some decent drive tones using stomp boxes and any preamp drive the head produces. You could get a power soak for the thing and crank it up but that is another piece of gear you have to haul around gigging.

The price is good enough even in this weak economy. You can probably get your money back if it fails to meet your needs. I'd just carry ear plugs for the gigs you can open it up.

My buddy has a Egnater combo that sounded good to me when he performs. He pairs it up with a Bugera which is the better sounding of the two.

That Vengeance is a monster at 120w and even at half power it will likely be too much for any place a musician would normally play. If you need a monster amp, go for it. If you play in some super loud metal band you'll have no problem being the loudest guy in the room. If you aren't playing out and just use it for practice, then its unlikely you'd be able to open the thing up and actually use it without drawing the cops to your doorstep.

There aren't many who post here but I'd say most are cool people. I don't mind that as much as a room full of trolls who have nothing worthwhile to say.

Just play bass, its the same thing.

I can bend the hell out of bass strings, but it will impact my lead guitar playing if I put in too many

hours. I Do allot of recording and may do bass tracks for 4~5 hours.

next day I come back to do lead parts and my hands are all crampy and my fluidity for playing smooth

leads just isnt there. The strings feel too flabby and it takes a major effort to focus on the thinner strings.

I'm cursed because I'll give 100% with any instrument I play. If you want a role model of someone whose

abused his hands over playing, I'm your guy.

Everyones finger sizes are different.

Gauges have nothing to do with manhood as some jackasses suggest.

You simply have to find the right gauges that are right for your hands so you can play well aerobically

for long periods of time and not develop major joint damage trying to push strings for hours on end.

This may not be a concern for players with less than 10~20 years of playing experience, but by the time

you reach 40 and the joints arent so flexable, You'll know exactly what I'm talking about whan your hands

swell up and ache for days after a hard 4 hour gig.

You do have to strengthen the hands of course no matter what you use. You dont want to build them up like

a weight lifter does though. Do it like a long distance runner aerobically.

"Beware" Take the lessons from history from those who thought they could train their hands like machines

and used the weight lifting techniques to strengthen them and wound up destroying their hands ability to play perminantly.

Stick with an aerobic approach if you really love to play and want to still be able to play when you get old.

Weight lifting ruined this great masters hands so he could no longer perform and had to change to composition only.

http://sites.google.com/site/greatmusicleaders/home/robert_schumann

String and fret height is a big issue for bending as well. You can use heavy guages with taller frets and bending is

relatively simple. If you have frets that are worn flat, you'll have more friction, and if the strings are too low you

wont be able get under them to push them sideways. When they are too low, you use too much downward pressure

to keep the strings in contact with the frets bending and thay will tend to pop out from under your fingers more easily.

You should always check relief, height and intonation changing string gauges too. Heavier strings means more

lbs pull on a neck. Even the nut may need to be recut to accomodate the heavier strings. Look across the strings at the

nut and make sure the tops are even. Its common to have the 3rd and 4th ride high in the slots going to heavy gauges.

The strings may bind in the slots too making fro a tuning nightmare. If you tune to pitch with a tuner, bend a note,

and it doesnt immediately come back to pitch, its a sign of string binding and the slote will need to be widened (not deepened)

If you do allot of bending, 11's are about the limit for whole note bends.

If you bend up three frets or do allot of doubble string bends, 11's may not be the best choice

because the elasticity maxes out. This has nothing to do with finger strength either.

You can bend the string up and you can feel the point where the string has no more elasticity.

One of the biggest factors in making a tele sound like a tele is the Tele neck.

I did two builds recently, both had tele necks and the rest of the guitars

were ratically different from a tele. One had an all maple body shaped like a Les Paul,

TOM bridge and Tail piece, and mini humbuckers. The second had a tele shape but was

a hollow body. Top was walnut, sides maple and back rosewood. All the wood was over 100 years old.

It too had a Tom, floating Tailpiece and Mini humbuckers.

Other than the fact my regular Tele has single coils that have allot more bite, the instruments

do sound and play surprisingly simular in getting twang from them. The neck does connect to

one end of the string after all so its going to be responsible for at least half the tone produced.

No, most humbuckers sound nothing like a tele pickup when tapped.

Its got to he a realy hot wound pickup to sound even close to a strat pup,

and a Tele pup is a hotter pup than that. The other factor is a tele pup has a plate in back of the coil that

disperses the mahnetic field in a unique way "and" the steel bridge that surrounds the pickup influences

sound.

Its not to say a humbucker cant sound good too. Custome Teles have HB's specifically designed to have a good Tele tone

with more beed and less hum than a stock tele. I have one tele I installed a new HB route bridge.

I had to try about 8 different humbuckers till I found the exact tone to match that one. I tried Dimarzios, Gibson PAF's Seymour Duncans

and others, and just couldnt get the right tone. I finally stuck a Mighty Mite cream colered HB in there and bang, it nailed the tone that was

needed. I could turn down and get a nice clean bright Tele tone and when I turned up I'd get a clean driven tone without the mud.

Unless a Humbucker is around 10K so you'll have maybe 5K when tapped and maybe have a strong enough single there to sound like something.

I wouldnt bother with tapping though. I've only come across one HB that will do what you want and its a Kramer Quad Blade HB. Its more like two

dual blade singles wrapped together in a HB package and its got enough bright end to sound like a tele pup. I'd try series/parallel in a cooler wound pup

though.

Most 10K HB's will undoubtly make a Tele sound like mud though. The more winds, the more trebble is lost. You need those highs and you cant get

that with most overly hot pups. I'd say a cooler wound HB with maybe 5~6K max should be a goal depending on the manufacturer, magnet strength etc.

That way you can get a good tele tone and a slightly driven tone turned up. You can do the rest with pedals and amp settings.

I'd also suggest putting in a 4 way switch and wire up your single coils so you have the series position added.

You do have to shield the body for hum because the hot wire is much longer, but the result is the singles take on a

humbucker tone when wired in series and may give you some of those tones.

Just refret a neck with super jumbo frets. It has the exact same effect of your fingers not touching the fretboard.

I've refretted maybe 10 of my necks with the largest frets I could buy and they are great for bending notes.

You do need to get used to not relying on the fretboard for finger pressure though.

Two posts, two incorrect spellings of the word Theremin... I shall cease being a pompous ass now.

We'll give you your gold pin for winning the Spelling Bee now.

The keys have the leslie and tape loop trick recording the playback heads to a new track to create the echo on them.

Since a reel to reels only have a few speeds you play to the slap back of the tape heads and the speed of the motor/tape feed.

I havent listened to it in a long time but I believe its a spacial effect you're talking about that was done with tape or with tape in combination with panning.

You arent talking about the Therimin used on that song are you?

Otherwise they used a hammond organ on alot of those old tunes.

Yea responding to a thread thats a year old is a littel late.

Contact the manufacturer. They may or may not want to provide a schematic. They dont have to, or they may charge you for it. manufacturers keep that kind of stuff proprietory and unless you're an authorised repair center, they may tell you to take a hike. Manufactures like to keep their patented designs to themselves and frown upon those modifying their circuits. Even if its a good mod, its still a patent infringement to them.

"Most troubling though, was a tendency for the knobs to "freeze" and "grab". If you didn't move them regularly, the knobs would practically lock up and require quite a bit of force to get them rotating again".

Old Tapcos had the same issue, I got a few of those too I've restored. They used to pack the pots and sliders with conductive grease to give the sliders a plush feel vs using a dry pot/slider. If someone tries to clean those things with alcohol based cleaner it will lock them up like you explained. They used to make stuff called wep that made them work for awhile, but by that time they were usually history. To fix the smooth sliding issue properly you need to re-liquify the grease in there with a light petroleum machine oil or mineral oil. Sometimes it makes it fairly functional again. If not you need to soak them and completely remove all the old grease then repack them with conductive grease. A nasty job with questionable results. If the carbon contacts are worn its useless, replacing all the pots is the only option. (In the case of the tapcos, the pot shafts were plastic and snapped off when trying to remove the knobs, another great product from the 70s that didnt age well) This is why I give cautious advice about buying older stuff. Besides battel damage, some of the parts are difficult to find too. I'm an electronic tech by trade and I'm able to do the repairs myself including taking the pots appart to clean. Some mixers will cost more for the pot replacement these days than the things worth. I would say for new sliders your talking about $5~10 each, and a couple of hundred to replace them all, if they are not PC mounted. If they are PC mounted I wouldnt touch it for at least $400. Its an easy 8 hour job with no short cutting. If you're going to do it, you need to do them all. One may be bad to start but the others are sure to follow.

This is why I say spend $300~500 and get something new. You have much lower noise, and at least 5~10 years troubble free running plus the newer options the old stuff didnt offer.

Maybe try posting in the Live sound forum and see if you can get some more input on them. Alot of those guys have used all kinds of live mixers and can let you to know about them.

Well, I found a few simular consols made by them on Ebay. Most of its worn out live PA mixers. Depending on the quality, you could use it for some kind of recording application I suppose like mixing drums or something, but alot of junk made back then was pretty piss poor for quality. It may harm your stuff more than help. You also have possible issues with worn pots, weak channels, hum from old power supply caps, etc etc.

You could wind up spending money on a piece of junk thet would remain a piece of junk even with a complete service done. For 300 or so you could get a decent 16~24 channel mixer with all kinds of recording busses and channel sends. I'd get something like a new behringer or good used mackie and get 10X the features and adaptability for recording.

There were tons of songs in the 60s that dealt with space directly or indirectly. Future, doubble meanings etc. Any thing went so long as it was well done. When you think of number of song like In the year 2525 done a few year later, Aquarious done on broadway, Rocket in my pocket, Venus, numerous others looking forward at a new world.

I think what he's explaining is he wants to use his laptop as a midi modual for his keyboard.

Phils right about PCI cards as being the fastest for audio recording. Communications speeds are tied into the bus vs traveling through a Firewire or USB interface. But for midi, they make midi specific pci midi cards which achieve very low latency.

Check with Blue2. He answerd a post with a board type he used to use that will do what you want. I cant remember what it was. Maybe find the post from a few weeks ago under recording forum.

Heres a vocal compression reverb trick to liven up vocals.

http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm

Heres one trick to getting a great reverb sound while still being able to hear the words clearly. It was coined the Exciter and has been copied by many Theres a few other cool tricks but the Motown sound is pretty cool and sounds pretty good with even cheaper hard or soft reverbs.

http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm