Has a "skank filter" on the input that only passes Ska music
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Janky-A Rigs of Doom
- Thread starter S.Harrison
- Start date
Wow! That amp suggests both The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (grillcloth) and the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday...and/or the Daniel Craig era of the James Bond franchise (as seen in the opening of "Spectre").
In my experience, even if you don't like that hard 80s dirt buzz, and don't want to emulate INXS guitar tones, that era of Crate amps can sound pretty good with the clean channel cranked pretty hard and a compressor pedal in front of em.
I have read that a lot of C.C. Deville's Poison guitar tones were a Crate G80XL combo paired with a Mesa Mk. IIc. I think I can hear the Crate in there when I hear those songs, and it does add a unique texture, to my ear.
Lots of shred kids had G-series Crates around here when I was younger, and I've seen one or two miked up at gigs over the years. Not in a long time though.
In my experience, even if you don't like that hard 80s dirt buzz, and don't want to emulate INXS guitar tones, that era of Crate amps can sound pretty good with the clean channel cranked pretty hard and a compressor pedal in front of em.
I have read that a lot of C.C. Deville's Poison guitar tones were a Crate G80XL combo paired with a Mesa Mk. IIc. I think I can hear the Crate in there when I hear those songs, and it does add a unique texture, to my ear.
Lots of shred kids had G-series Crates around here when I was younger, and I've seen one or two miked up at gigs over the years. Not in a long time though.
Not my rig but the one I use every Sunday at rehearsal, what's even more janky is the dead bird that came out of the vent on the SWR cab the first day I used it
View attachment 3491577
Not my rig but the one I use every Sunday at rehearsal, what's even more janky is the dead bird that came out of the vent on the SWR cab the first day I used it
That's a Peavey Mark VI(?) Whatever it is, I played through one for years. Very crisp and a lot of tonal flexibility.
Sorry for the late reply, it is actually a Mark III. The Mark VI looks a bit different, but the Mark III and IV look almost identical (at least to me)
Wherefore be the next janketeers amongst us? Got to keep this thread alive!
I could have sworn seeing a pair of amps done up on basically the same fashion a few years back in a pawn shop. The lumberjacks. They walk among us. It's the handle sticky and does it smell of maple syrup, whisky and cheap cigarettes?
Lately I've not been very janky. My amp is a Bassman 400 210 combo, and it's stellar. I have a wireless unit for my pedal board now too, but most of the time I play through the Mesa 400 and Ampeg fridge at my church (for concerts; for our worship services they have a SWR Workingman's 15, and it is janky).
However, I picked up a janky-looking Dean Edge Q5 recently for a nice price and cleaned it up. It doesn't look janky any more.
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After:
However, I picked up a janky-looking Dean Edge Q5 recently for a nice price and cleaned it up. It doesn't look janky any more.
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Nothing janky about my Schroeder cab, but even a pristine 800RB doesn't look anywhere near as good as it sounds, and mine ain't pristine. I don't have many janky pedals, but I also don't have a pedalboard, so you had really better watch your step if you want to crank the gank on my janky GK. At least the Gallien-Krueger-Schroeder sounds every bit the Teutonic warrior it … sounds like.
Before the arrival of the Gallien-Krueger-Schroeder:
If you envy the larger Peavey pieces and you find yourself anywhere near Monterey Bay, PM me about possibly putting together a Peavey Rig of Jank of your very own. The Mesa, however, shall remain mine F O R E V E R !
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I am looking at the lower photo and wondering if any interconnectedness jank cranking ever occurs between that TKO 80 and that Bandit 65. In my hall of jank there is a slightly later TKO115S with a Special 150 sitting on top of it, but the two don't seem to offer any of what I need when combined. I tried using the TKO's HPF-ed loop send to drive the Special but it was a step in the wrong direction...the TKO is bright and middy enough as it is and who needs twice the power on their hi-freq biamp channel as on their low channel?
The TKO is barely adequate for my bass playing situation, power wise, but it makes a killer guitar amp for the kind of edge-of-dirt twang I like to do on guitar. In most guitarist's eyes that would probably be pretty janky.
The Soecial has a dirt channel optimized for lead playing on Skid Row covers, but it's got a killer loud clean channel and a decent spring reverb and it works well for trying to make my 6-string lap steel sound more like a loud, clean pedal steel.
My bass rig is unchanged from my earlier post, but I included an actual onstage photo of it from when we played a benefit show back in May.
Also one of me actually playing through it, for scale and because I myself am kind of janky.
That is a cool Mesa combo. I had not known about the buster bass before this post. It reminds me of my dad's old mark II. He has had it for as long as I can remember and it still sounds amazing.
I feel the GAS fairing up...
You mean something like this?
(Not my photograph, obviously.)
I lack sufficient sophistication in the art of jank to hook up Peavey pieces quite so intricately as they allow.
That Bandit 65 is easily the jankiest amp I have ever owned. The reverb tank was missing in action when my local shop took it in, so they had a deal where they would throw in a cheap reverb pedal with it, but having recently spent twice their asking price for the amp on a reverb pedal (on reverb), I just took that blue-knobbed, aluminum-stripped, pointy-logoed beauty home with me as I found it.
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Jank Peavey storage, top to bottom: '83-ish Audition 20 (had since new); '87 Special 150 (traded a pedal I didn't like much for it, needed a wood epoxy repair to a couple of chunked-out speaker mounting holes in the MDF baffle board); early '90s TKO 115S.
I use all these pretty often at home. This is not a photo of them being punished, sidelined or neglected.
Your Bandit 65 is one to hang onto. Bandits can get it done. My Special 150 is a Bandit 75 Solo Series with twice the output watts but the same cab, speaker, preamp and control layout. Yours is a few years older; in those years there was a Special 130 that was your amp with twice the watts.
Lots of guys over on the TDPRI (Telecaster-oriented forum) are really pro-Bandit and Special because they are cheap, rugged, repairable and have headroom for days (in TDPRI-speak, "they're a great clean pedal platform
.")
I think they don't need no pedals' help to sound good, if you're into loud not-quite-clean sounds. They can also drive bass cabs in a pinch; I've done that with the 150 and it worked pretty well at band practice.
I use all these pretty often at home. This is not a photo of them being punished, sidelined or neglected.
Your Bandit 65 is one to hang onto. Bandits can get it done. My Special 150 is a Bandit 75 Solo Series with twice the output watts but the same cab, speaker, preamp and control layout. Yours is a few years older; in those years there was a Special 130 that was your amp with twice the watts.
Lots of guys over on the TDPRI (Telecaster-oriented forum) are really pro-Bandit and Special because they are cheap, rugged, repairable and have headroom for days (in TDPRI-speak, "they're a great clean pedal platform
.")
I think they don't need no pedals' help to sound good, if you're into loud not-quite-clean sounds. They can also drive bass cabs in a pinch; I've done that with the 150 and it worked pretty well at band practice.
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If you find one, pounce! They came as 1x15+horn (like mine), 2x10 wedge, or head-only. My least-janky amp is a dark red Mesa DC-2. Nothing janky here, so thumbnail only, haha.
Hey, wait. Tell me about
1) that red-Tolexed Century head, and
2) that Electra Phoenix bass! I have a 2-humbucker guitar with that same blacked-out neck and headstock and logo. Originally it had an onboard 18-volt boost/EQ circuit. I made it passive...and then the real weird period of mods began. It's in parts guitar limbo now, but I got a lot of use out of it...always durable and stable tuning.
1) that red-Tolexed Century head, and
2) that Electra Phoenix bass! I have a 2-humbucker guitar with that same blacked-out neck and headstock and logo. Originally it had an onboard 18-volt boost/EQ circuit. I made it passive...and then the real weird period of mods began. It's in parts guitar limbo now, but I got a lot of use out of it...always durable and stable tuning.
1) I saw a red head on reverb and had to have it. The SWR red head came and went while I wasn't really paying much attention to new gear, but it wasn't that red, anyway. I have always loved redheads, and married this one a few years after taking this photograph of her faking it with my since-departed Thunderbird.
The guy who sold me the red Peavey Century head kept it as a backup for years but didn't know much about it, so how it came to get its distinctive look is now lost to the sands of time. The red tolex job is good, not great; sufficiently janky for this thread. I don't find myself playing it much, though; I get my janky Peavey jollies from that TKO, which even gets the odd gig.
2) Ironically, that Electra is what turned me into a P bass guy, because for all its pointiness and '80s-ness and MIJ-ness, that's all it is: a dark-sounding P bass. I love the neck on that thing, and the shape is nearly as practical as it is fun (lean it up against a wall without worry like a vee, but you can play it sitting down [though it will mess with your right shoulder after a while]). It's also the bass that spawned the hot-rodded cheapo thread. I think I will have to swap out the Aluma-P, though, as this one would benefit from a brighter pickup (either the fire-breathing stock pickup or the '80s DiMarzio Model P a buddy just sent me or the Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound that might come out of my Fender). It's one of a few janky instruments I have mostly de-janked since I really got back into playing not quite two years ago.
Thanks for the info! My Electra guitar has a heavy maple body and has always sounded kind of dark and ho-hum, but back when a ProCo Rat 2 was a major part of my signal path, a dark guitar was not an issue.
I have read a few TB threads mentioning how great those old Century heads sound when you crank them. I'd like to try one someday.
I have read a few TB threads mentioning how great those old Century heads sound when you crank them. I'd like to try one someday.
This little heap of jankyness dropped into my life yesterday. Worth every bit of the $20 I paid.
Great find and thread revival!
Not sure what the style of EQ these amps used is called, but anytime I see a Peavey from this generation I jump on 'em!
