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Janky-A Rigs of Doom

#1,062
mexicanyella said:
There he is!

Swinging this back to general ampjankery, your more recent rig is detailed earlier in this thread, but were you using anything weird/janktacular in the Menfolk days? Got any gear pics from that era?
Click to expand...

Not all that janky, and no unfortunately no gear shots.

I got these 2 concert photos from 2 different gigs of me playing my Aria Pro II Laser Electric Classic bass (which I still own), tuned in drop D, and with the preamp activated and it's active HPF tone control at max :
Menfolk-Gig-Shot-Medium-Size-Sharpen.jpg

Menfolk-666.jpg


Going though my 1968 60W Ampeg B-15S tube amp (which I very much regret being stupid enough to sell) with a 1 X 15" fliptop cab, flat EQ, and the volume knob maxed (amazing how I never once had any issues with it in those about 10 years that I owned it, taking into account that it was made in 1968 and how I abused it).

And surprisingly the 60 tube Watts going through that single 1 X 15" cab was plenty enough to easily cut through a seriously hard hitting drummer, a loud screaming guitarist that played through a 50W Hiwatt tube amp with a 4 X 12 cab, and the other bass player though a 100W Carlsbro tube amp with a 2 X 15" cab, even playing up the small bar sized venues we gigged at the time without any PA support (except for the vocals of course) without any issues (I remember one of them in particular use being so loud it literally caused serious ear pains without earplugs).

Of course a big part of that is explained by the fact that I did drive the amp to it's absolute maximum capacity and that I had that active HPF of my bass's onboard preamp set so high that the amp didn't have to deal with most of the lowest frequencies my bass would otherwise had produced, also preventing our mix from getting muddy with 2 basses.

Other than that I used a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone for distortion parts (my "clean" tone was already naturally overdriven from driving my tube amp to the max), and I also had a cheap Zoom multi effect, which at that time was far from the quality digital Zoom effects are now, though I mostly only used that as a tuner, that is except for the chaotic noise ending part of the song "Who's Loss is This" (the opening track of the EP "Are We Enemies"), where I would rapidly randomly step though all of the patches on it with my Metal Zone engaged in front of it.

To be honest I didn't have much grasp of gear or tone back then, if it had been today I would have done much different, though it did kind of work in the context at the time.
 
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#1,064
NoiseNinja said:
Not all that janky, and no unfortunately no gear shots.

I got these 2 concert photos from 2 different gigs of me playing my Aria Pro II Laser Electric Classic bass (which I still own), tuned in drop D, and with the preamp activated and it's active HPF tone control at max :
View attachment 4372398
View attachment 4372399

Going though my 1968 60W Ampeg B-15S tube amp (which I very much regret being stupid enough to sell) with a 1 X 15" fliptop cab, flat EQ, and the volume knob maxed (amazing how I never once had any issues with it in those about 10 years that I owned it, taking into account that it was made in 1968 and how I abused it).

And surprisingly the 60 tube Watts going through that single 1 X 15" cab was plenty enough to easily cut through a seriously hard hitting drummer, a loud screaming guitarist that played through a 50W Hiwatt tube amp with a 4 X 12 cab, and the other bass player though a 100W Carlsbro tube amp with a 2 X 15" cab, even playing up the small bar sized venues we gigged at the time without any PA support (except for the vocals of course) without any issues (I remember one of them in particular use being so loud it literally caused serious ear pains without earplugs).

Of course a big part of that is explained by the fact that I did drive the amp to it's absolute maximum capacity and that I had that active HPF of my bass's onboard preamp set so high that the amp didn't have to deal with most of the lowest frequencies my bass would otherwise had produced, also preventing our mix from getting muddy with 2 basses.

Other than that I used a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone for distortion parts (my "clean" tone was already naturally overdriven from driving my tube amp to the max), and I also had a cheap Zoom multi effect, which at that time was far from the quality digital Zoom effects are now, though I mostly only used that as a tuner, that is except for the chaotic noise ending part of the song "Who's Loss is This" (the opening track of the EP "Are We Enemies"), where I would rapidly randomly step though all of the patches on it with my Metal Zone engaged in front of it.

To be honest I didn't have much grasp of gear or tone back then, if it had been today I would have done much different, though it did kind of work in the context at the time.
Click to expand...

I have also found watts to go a lot farther when they are mostly amplifying mid frequencies. Seems like most of that phenomenon discussed on TB involves looking at it from the other end: "massive lows need massive watts," but cranking the ass off of a lows-attenuated bass sound through a distorting lower powered amp can be pretty fun in the right context, for sure.

sharkwagon said:
For the edification of the thread I created these suitably janky mspaint depictions of the aforementioned Standel and Holmes/Peavey rigs to help with visualization:
View attachment 4372485 View attachment 4372487
Click to expand...

That Standel (and the couple of guitar Standels I've seen) look more pocket protector/slide rule/horn-rimmed glasses than poltergeist/green mystery flames. Seeing that amp on fire would be kind of surreal.

That Holmes head and PA cab look like a good jank visual update. I kind of want to play around with a PA cab myself, now.
 
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#1,066
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#1,067
I'm torn between saying "cool, getting that piezo out of there will be easy" and "there's room for the damn piezo right between the four speakers! Get a hole saw and get to work, man!"

I really liked the 1st-gen G50-112 I tried with a reissue Duo-Sonic a few years back...even the weird thin fuzzy "distortion" sound. It had a really nice clean tone to my ear. It seemed loud, with headroom for days, and quite heavy. That 100W 4 x 12 version must be a beast.
 
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#1,071
mexicanyella said:
I'm torn between saying "cool, getting that piezo out of there will be easy" and "there's room for the damn piezo right between the four speakers! Get a hole saw and get to work, man!"

I really liked the 1st-gen G50-112 I tried with a reissue Duo-Sonic a few years back...even the weird thin fuzzy "distortion" sound. It had a really nice clean tone to my ear. It seemed loud, with headroom for days, and quite heavy. That 100W 4 x 12 version must be a beast.
Click to expand...

Someone near me has been trying to sell a very, very clean Hundred 412 for a couple years now. They're asking $350. I have a G100-212 II for guitar and that's plenty. Great amp, co-designed by Paul Rivera!
 
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#1,073
mexicanyella said:
No kidding; that must have been a right place at the right time kind of deal.
Click to expand...
The guy wanted $150, but there was a speaker rattle.

Gave him $100 and ran home with it.

Speaker rattle was a BB sized piece of solder rolling around the dust cap.

Small Xacto incision in the dust cap and it rolled right out. Black nail polish to seal it up.

Painted the metal grilles and added some Home Depot wheels and made it my new main rig.
 
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#1,074
Clark Westfield said:
The guy wanted $150, but there was a speaker rattle.

Gave him $100 and ran home with it.

Speaker rattle was a BB sized piece of solder rolling around the dust cap.

Small Xacto incision in the dust cap and it rolled right out. Black nail polish to seal it up.

Painted the metal grilles and added some Home Depot wheels and made it my new main rig.
Click to expand...

Well done on the repair! At first I wondered how solder could get under the dust cap, but then I figured it must have been from when the tinsel lead was soldered to the voicecoil lead. If that's the case, it's been there since the speaker was made...
 
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#1,078
mexicanyella said:
Hey @Clark Westfield , what is that next to your Hartke 8 x 10; is that a Line 6 Vetta combo?
Click to expand...
Not sure what it is, but what I can tell you is that it was broken!

It's my guitarists home and had the 810 cab there.

I never seen that Line 6 work correctly.

Notice there is 2 of them, they both were junk.
 
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#1,079
Clark Westfield said:
Not sure what it is, but what I can tell you is that it was broken!

It's my guitarists home and had the 810 cab there.

I never seen that Line 6 work correctly.

Notice there is 2 of them, they both were junk.
Click to expand...

Ha, yeah, my guitarist's house has quite the fleet of early Line 6 gear too. My favorite piece of it is probably the 300-watt Flextone head, which did a pretty good job as an interim bass head a few times, but now has begun jumping randomly to his saved patches, even when set to "manual" mode.

All his patches sound like exploding concrete water towers. I have doubts about parts support on a unit from that many generations back, and I doubt he will spend any money getting it fixed. Kind of a shame, really...it seemed like a pretty well-conceived product that still had some useful sounds in it.
 
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