Magic smoke?
 

I don't know if this is the right place, but I've seen the "magic smoke" joke thrown around, and I just wanted to verify the meaning before I make myself look like an idiot...

The joke is the implication that the "magic smoke" is ALWAYS in the amp and is what makes it work, but when the amps smokes (you "let the magic smoke out"), the amp doesn't work because the magic smoke was let out of the amp, right?

Right.

You betcha.

When electronic circuits burn out, they release an acrid-smelling smoke. It's a literal thing. The "magic" part is what makes it funny, because to most users, electronics work by magic, and anything good about them (like tone) is magic.

Funny! I'm a 40 year old electronics student who has played bass for a couple decades+. I just TODAY asked one of my instructors where I can get some "magic smoke". Turns out he's a guitar player and I didn't know it. He answer? "I can't tell you that until next year when you have enough knowledge base to use it without hurting yourself." He never even cracked a smile.

Thanks! I figured that was the joke (at least I hoped, or I was laughing for no reason)... I just wanted to make sure. The idea of a group of adults referring to a burning amp as "releasing the magic smoke" just cracks me up.

A Treatise on the Importance of Smoke
by Joseph Lucas



(for all you fans of british engineered, well, anything.)

We're not adults. We're bass players. And I'll thank you kindly to never confuse the two again.

The important bit is once the magic smoke gets out it escapes forever and can only be replaced at the expense of many magic beans.

Hence the rueful tone of magic smoke escape stories. For most of us the magic beans are very hard to find.

LMAO :D

HAHAHAHA!

This is truth. I speak from experience.

Pish posh.
I have liberated the smoke from many amps.
It is not magic, that's what it wants you to think!
It can usually be replaced by plain old rosin based smoke, applied with a heated implement.

Aye, 'tis true, magic beans are the currency of the grand wizards who set up magic smoke replacement lairs in back streets. Sadly many are charlatans, requiring you to seek out out only veritable wizards on internet forums or learn for oneself the divine skills of identifying smoke release affected components, and those which caused the release, and the skills of the heated implement.

"Positive ground depends on proper circuit functioning, which is the transmission of negative ions by retention of the visible spectral manifestation known as "smoke". Smoke is the thing that makes electrical circuits work. We know this to be true because every time one lets the smoke out of an electrical circuit, it stops working. This can be verified repeatedly through empirical testing. For example, if one places a copper bar across the terminals of a battery, prodigious quantities of smoke are liberated and the battery shortly ceases to function. In addition, if one observes smoke escaping from an electrical component such as a Lucas voltage regulator, it will also be observed that the component no longer functions. The logic is elementary and inescapable!"

Oh man. That's priceless.

I thought magic smoke came from a tall green plant that they just legalized in Colorado??

I always called it the 'blue smoke'. When it leaks out of anything that uses electricity, the thing is dead. I've seen it leak out of computers, routers and amps. They all died on the spot, so I know it's true!

I should have kept that partial barrel of "magic smoke" from the old days. They would not let me bring it over the state line though anyway :D

So what's the best smoke for metal?

Ganja :D