bartelby

It's not really what I'd call simple to use as it isn't the most intuitive drum machine to program. But the pay off is that they're cheap and have a lot of decent drum sounds packed in.

Good call! I'd expand that to the rest of fIREHOSE, Minutemen and, pretty much all, subsequent Watt related output.

Yep, not electrocuted myself yet

I tracked down an old 3 band MEC preamp on here. Controls are: Stacked volume/blend (pull for passive) Stacked bass/treble Mid It's a tight squeeze in the control cavity, but it fits.

Tackhead. Just listen to Tackhead and say all he wants to do it widdle in front of a camera.

They’re really nice strings. I’m tempted to use them on a couple of my other basses.

Its only a tiny amount that they’re lower, but it was just enough for what I needed.

I have my Warwick set up with the strings barely above the board at the nut, the neck is pretty much flat. I have La Bella Superstep rounds on it, as the exposed core at the bridge allowed for a lower action, but I super glued the board. Which is resisting the rounds pretty well.

I had a chance to have another bench session with yesterday evening. Still have the same 3 issues. The trem speed isn't really an issue, more a preference. But the reverb not working is irritating and as the amp gets warmer it starts making rustling noises. I've reflowed all the solder on the valve sockets and any dodgy looking points on the boards. I'm going to order some new power stage valves after Christmas. Researching replacement resistors at the moment. I have 2 more days in work then I have 2 weeks off. 1 week I'm away but then I'll have time to spend more than 90 minutes at a time looking at this amp. My to do list now looks like: Replace capacitors on the bass control as they're also knackered. Replace all the wiring as the insulation has degraded and hardened to the point of it cracking. Decide whether to replace all or just some of the resistors. then some cosmetic stuff. so basically this could end up being a total rebuild. But it'll still work out cheaper than buying a new amp. And I'll have the added bonus of knowing exactly how it works, so maintaining it will be mush easier.

Now there's an idea! Or I could see if I could source 1 knob.

I initiated a return for an item, that was 14 months old, with Amazon. They sent out a replacement the same day.

I've got the cd too, actually to be totally accurate my sister has had my cd for 11 years. I went on the first night and the cd is ok, except there's random bursts of noise on the second CD. As much as I love the new version of PWEI, they're not a patch on the Clint, Graham, Richard, Adam and Fuzz lineup.

For a gig I went to and would love to see again it would be either: Shellac and Fugazi at the Stratford Rex, London in 1999 or Pop Will Eat Itself, reformation gig at what used to be the Hummingbird, Birmingham 2005

There's a brief glimpse of me on the front row on the Maiden England video.

I really like it. 15 mins or so seems about the right length for this. I derrière about with some semi-modular synths recording improvised stuff that regularly hit 20 minutes.

Tricky one. Maybe the Metallica gig I couldn't be bother to go to in Birmingham 1986. A week before Cliff was killed.

It's been a bloody good year for music. Hard to pin down one album. but these two are right at the top of the list. This incredibly mellow and beautiful album by Grails And a somewhat less mellow and beautiful, but equally fantastic album from FRET (Mick Harris. ex Scorn, ex Napalm Death)

All the knobs will be replaced I’m afraid. Once I find some decent vintage style ones that go from 0-10...

Cheers Skank. I found the second one today on an Reverb.com ad for a ga-620 that sold last month. So I’ll be studying that tomorrow too.

My plan for tomorrow is go through everything again. There was a broken wire in the tank that I’ve sorted and I’ve made a new link cable. I haven’t looked into testing the tank itself yet.

So several years ago an older workmate was clearing out his attic and mentioned he'd unearthed an old guitar amp, and asked if I'd like it. He'd bought it new, sometime in the early or mid 60s. He said it wasn't anything special and he didn't want anything for it. So I ummed and arred for a few seconds and said yes. The next day he brought in a Guyatone GA-620, so I went straight on to the web to do some research but couldn't find any info at all on this specific model. I took the amp to a guy in Bristol to give it a once over before I switched it on, he replaced some of the large capacitors that had leaked every where, and cleaned it up a bit. He had fired it up but not looked at anything else. When I tried it you could hear guitar quite loudly but none of the controls had any effect. Wizz on a few years and I took the amp to a professional amp servicing place in Cardiff. After a few days I called them and they said they were just about to look at it. 10 mins later they call to say the amp can't be repaired without spending more than it's worth. So I went and collected it. After a bit of poking about here and there I found that all the paper in oil capacitors were dead. So just to see if I could get it working I bought some modern caps, all the ones I needed came to £19. After some soldering work and some contact cleaner in the pots and valve sockets I'm pleased to say that it's 75% working. The remaining issues are: 1) the volume doesn't go all the way to silent. 2) the minimum tremolo speed is still quite fast, this may just be how it's meant to be. But I want to see if I can slow it down some more. 3, and the biggie) the reverb doesn't work. This could be down to the fact that the link cable between the driver and the tank was shot. The inner insulation had turned in to a sticky tar like mess. There are a coupe of resistors outside of their value tolerances, so I'll replace them soon. But it sounds so nice. It goes from quiet-ish and clean to loud with a lovely crisp crunch.I was thinking of replacing the original speaker, but I don't think I need to.

That is rather tasty!

I went to see Laibach on Thursday in the tiny O2 Islington. I've been a fan of Laibach for nearly 30 years, but only managed to see them twice. Which is a bit gutting...

Met with Bas to sell him my Ibanez Portamento. He suggested meeting at Wunjo's so he could try it through an amp. He also said it might be worth seeing what Wunjo would pay for it, in case I could get more. We had already agreed a price, if he got on with the bass, so all sounded good to me. Bas pretty much handled the negotiations with Wunjo's and the result was selling the bass to Wunjo's for more than the price Bas and I had agreed on. The downside is he might have spent quite a bit more than he'd planned as when I left he was trying out NS Design uprights... Bas is a proper gentleman. Honest, enthusiastic and super friendly. Deal in confidence people.