Welcome to the new "General Discussion" forum for guitar amps!

[tboy]

Anything about guitar amps that doesn't seem to fit into one of the several sub-forums should be posted here.

[Don Symes]

Did I miss the homebrew debug section, or would those threads land under Maint & Repair?

[tboy]

ehh... I sort of forgot to put it in when creating the other sub-forums, but it's there now.

[d95err]

I like the new forum style in general. However, there are simply too many subforums. It's impossible to get an overview of things and it is difficult to know where to post things.

One of the best features with the new style is that it is possible to scan a large number of topics at a glance. (This was impossible with the old style, so subforums were necessary). The huge number of subforums makes it impossible to take advantage of this new style.

Please combine the subforums into two or three.

[Enzo]

I am on a number of folrums, so this commercial software is not so big a deal as I might make it sound. But one thing I still find disconcerting is to have the group of threads at the bottom of a main section in addition to the sub-fora listings.

In other words, when I dig into Guitar AMps, ther are a selection of sub sections - OK so far - but then there are also the posts on the index page. Frankly I would just as soon have those as simply one more sub section. The same as in the old forum we had "general discussion" as one sub section.

I don't care for threads in the index pages. I would prefer the same organization as the old forum within the new format.

[MBSetzer]

Well, for my first message on the new board, might as well be the time I went to the Balinese in Galveston this weekend, where I had a buddy performing on a rig that I had carefully selected all the tubes and done numerous hours of soldering and stuff like that.

Main *channel* is an early JCM800 with a footswitchable extra 12AX7 hacked in by a previous technician. This Marshall was made before they started adding the extra 12AX7 standard from the factory. Sounds great now through the single vintage 4x12 slant-top with greenbacks. Its a 100watter so 2 tubes are pulled reducing its output to 50W for the single cabinet. Still has more bass than other 50watters because of the larger transformer size.

The clean channel is the slightly modified Twin Reverb, nothing earth-shattering running on only two 6L6WGB's, but its only using the two built-in speakers and we don't want those to be shattered either.

An excellent combination, these are selected using an A/B/Y switch, and that way each amp can have a separate pedal (or pedal chain) too, in-between the A/B/Y and the amps.

The Balinese was where ZZTop used to be frequently playing before they became recognized nationwide. That was before I came to Texas, by the time I got here I already knew who ZZTop was. This old facility was closed by then and remained closed as long as I can remember until recently. It is a club at the end of a pier in the Gulf of Mexico which decades ago was once a private speakeasy gambling casino, before, during, and after being known as a stopoff for Hollywood entertainers when in this area. As you walk out the pier toward the club, there is a little exhibit with a mannequin Billy Gibbons holding a Texas-shaped guitar.

Then you pass a display where they have the original spotlight they were shining on the likes of Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra.

But when you get into the club, they don't have any spotlight at all, and less-than marginal lighting besides, and the PA was quite inadequate. So I guess the place has seen better days. We could have brought a nice PA if anyone would have known.

Regardless, there was some good guitar playing and I captured a little of it on my laptop, once the tracks have been gone over some of it will be posted.

And then I wake up this morning to see a tropical storm on the news which had formed in the Gulf overnight, I just hope the Balinese doesn't get in the path of that thing. I want to go back, Tracy Conover is playing this weekend, billed as the female SRV I don't see much similarity other than she plays a Stratocaster with outstanding tone. More jaws drop I guess.

[kg]

Originally Posted by MBSetzer

I want to go back, Tracy Conover is playing this weekend, billed as the female SRV I don't see much similarity other than she plays a Stratocaster with outstanding tone. More jaws drop I guess.

... well, she's a bit prettier than steve.