JapanAxe

I don't like PJ basses.

Bits and pieces have been arriving, including parts of the enclosure. Here are the loosely assembled chassis and cover shown next to my Demeter head for scale. There will be plenty of room to work inside the chassis, which is always nice!

18W can be massively loud for a valve guitar amp. I gig a 15W Matchless and it has never been ‘not loud enough’. As has often been discussed here, bass amps generally require a bit more. No you can’t just plug headphones into the speaker output. There are solutions involving a load box but it can become a bit pointless. Yes you can connect one of these heads to a bass cab of the appropriate impedance, and you may be able to optimise the amp for bass by changing some of the components e.g. coupling capacitors. Vyse Amps do a 120W bass amp kit. Both Vyse and Modulus do a Bassman kit.

That's the way to do it! My last build was a tweed Champ/Princeton in the carcass of a dead Line 6 Spider, so the cab and chassis were already sorted.

🤣 On which count!?

Like many people I started with a 5E3 Tweed Deluxe. Mine came from Modulus - this page gives you prices and options. There’s also Ampmaker who does a range of low-power amp kits and apparently gives excellent build support. If you are new to building I recommend starting with one or two pedal kits from Fuzzdog or Jed’s Peds. WARNING 1: Valve amps contain lethal voltages which can remain long after the amp is switched off. Any builder needs to educate themself as to the dangers and how to minimise them. WARNING 2: Amp building is highly addictive and can seriously harm your wallet!

Yeah I enjoyed my PF-50T, particularly the way the sound got ‘furry’ with the wick turned up. I wasn’t keen on the form factor though - I always felt like I had to baby it to avoid damage to the gubbins on the top, and the lack of a handle made it a two-handed carry from case to cab. Iirc disssa of this parish commented on his web page that the PF-20T sounds closer to a B15 than the 50 does, although I have never seen schematics online for either of the modern units to enable a circuit comparison. I think the black-painted Hammond enclosure will give me a fighting chance of producing a good-looking head. If I do pink torpedo things up it would probably be quite costly, but hey, not my first rodeo. Once completed I plan to use the amp with my Barefaced One 10 - that’s got to be a perfect marriage!

That looks pretty monstrous @Passinwind! I've just finished ordering nearly all the parts for my build. There may well be a few more bits of hardware to get later (e.g. bolts for the rubber feet) but I'm pretty much there. I've taken the opportunity to buy in spares along the way, including replenishing my stocks of 600V hookup wire. Even allowing for that, my expenditure has already exceeded what I paid for my PF-50T brand new (admittedly on an end-of-line blowout) but much less than a Trinity TripTop kit would have cost - let alone what you would pay for an actual B15! I've gone for some tested NOS Sylvania 6SL7GT valves in the preamp, and a pair of Shuguang coke bottle 6L6GC for the power amp. I already have a JJ GZ34 rectifier.

Out of the two I think I will go the PowerCon route. I don't normally use odd connectors for gigging kit, as I like to carry spares, but this will be home use only. Thanks, that's uncommonly kind, but I will just get one myself - I rarely pass up the opportunity to acquire a new tool! Thanks for all the other encouraging comments too.

Yes it’s 20-gauge steel. I have a couple of chassis punches but I will get another one to suit the octal sockets. One challenge will be cutting a rectangular hole for the IEC mains inlet. Does anyone know where I can get one that’s designed to fit a circular hole e.g. to replace a Bulgin connector?

Over the last few years I have had reasonable success building a handful of small valve amps. I do miss the Ampeg PF-50T that I sold on to purchase an EBS, so the time is right to start possibly my most ambitious scratch build yet. I previously enquired in this thread as to what version of B15 to go for, and I have settled on something close to a single-channel version of the Heritage model (i.e. switchable between 25W cathode bias and 30W grid bias), working from the Ceriatone 'Aunt Peg' layout. Most of my previous builds have leant heavily on recycling old parts, but this time I am going for quality new parts. I have neither skills nor tools to tackle woodwork, so I am going for a Hammond 'birdcage' style housing. When assembled it is about 12in wide x 10in deep x 7in tall. The transformers (on order from Primary Windings) and valves will all stand up within the mesh cage (proportions not the same as shown here): Wish me luck!

The very same! 😂

But my precious personal SOUND!

I play a theatre venue where the sound guy close-mic’s my Barefaced Super Twin as well as taking a DI from my amp head - because he knows BF and likes the way they sound. I don’t know what the proportion of mic to DI was in the FOH mix though.

Wedding gigs can be a nightmare. You are one of the many contractors responsible for making the day ‘perfect’ for the happy couple, their families, and their friends. Potentially conspiring against you are the inadequate space you’ve been allocated, the bell-end DJ who has already set up in the middle of said space, the traffic light volume monitor, the venue manager’s aversion to anything over 80dB, the access to the playing area via the swimming pool and a window, the tables full of guests that are still in your way 10 minutes before your scheduled start time, the manic wedding planner, no changing room... None of these are fictional btw. You need to have your setup down to a slick routine, a bit like soldiers knowing how to strip down and re-assemble a firearm. If there is a sound guy/gal you don’t want to be surprising them with massive jumps in level. Make their life easy and your gig will go that much better. While we’re on the subject of wedding and function gigs, when it comes to what you wear: If in doubt, go smarter. No-one will ever criticise you for being too well turned out, but there are few less pleasant feelings than being under-dressed. Don’t ask me how I know all this!

Greats stuff - looks like you recorded it in the Dangerous Kitchen!

I love the modulations in that tune!

Sold an amp to buy a different amp - one in and one out on the same day, by way of a road trip between lockdowns last year.

I think for me it would have to be: David Bowie - David Live Iggy Pop - TV Eye - mainly because I’ve owned copies on and off for 40 years.

AC/DC, Sheffield Poly, 1978. They were still unbearably loud in the bar in the next room. Slipknot, Bristol Anson Rooms in about 2001 (first UK tour). I was wearing earplugs but still in pain.

I generally take a MarkBass Nano 300 with me as a backup. On one gig it ended up powering one of the PA speakers.

PM sent.

TLDR: Yes. I initially struggled to motivate myself but started keeping a Bullet Journal which (among other things) helped to make me accountable to my own goals. I have a folder called Bass Challenge where I keep sheet music of songs I want to play properly but have never really cracked. Last night I was working on Master Blaster and New Born, both of which I have gigged at various times but only played messily. I’ve also been working through the James Jamerson transcriptions in Standing in the Shadows of Motown. I have a Trello board for all these numbers and I am steadily moving songs through the categories Challenge > Familiar > Nearly there > Sorted. On guitar I’ve spent time on my country playing and on Beatles and Bowie material, as well as the set of a band I am looking forward to playing with post-pandemic. I’ve also been teaching myself keyboards with the aid of a Udemy course. Then there are the six electronics projects I’ve completed, and daily Spanish using Duolingo. Even so, there are days where I’m just too tired or can’t be bothered, and I no longer beat myself up about that.