I do have a shot of this rig somewhere, but won't get to it tonight. Stay tuned.
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Janky-A Rigs of Doom
- Thread starter S.Harrison
- Start date
"Faux Jank"—now added to bass vernacular
seeing the ol chöadhammer again, it occurs to me that my Special 150 is looking much the same, minus the waffle grille and pendaflex folder speaker cone patches. One of my dogs got bored one night and started chewing on the upper rear edge, shredding the tolex and some of the cabinet radius. Hmmmm...future Janky-A thread update, maybe...
Man, I haven't been keeping up with the Jank Files!!
The Chöadhammer reprise reminded me of when we were teenagers playing in the garage and we had drums, 2 guitars & guitar amps and a bass but no bass amp. We were always trying to find something to play the bass through without blowing up a guitar amp. I borrowed my dad's 12" subwoofer (speaker already had a torn surround) and we hooked it up to a stereo for the bass amp. It sounded like...complete @ss. But got us through a few jams until we got some bass amp that I can't remember but was probably a Peavey. Janky memories!
The Chöadhammer reprise reminded me of when we were teenagers playing in the garage and we had drums, 2 guitars & guitar amps and a bass but no bass amp. We were always trying to find something to play the bass through without blowing up a guitar amp. I borrowed my dad's 12" subwoofer (speaker already had a torn surround) and we hooked it up to a stereo for the bass amp. It sounded like...complete @ss. But got us through a few jams until we got some bass amp that I can't remember but was probably a Peavey. Janky memories!
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I've posted this before, but to get back to the janky. A Vox amp I put together myself. It is my main amp and cost about $500 CAD altogether.
Reminds me of the generations of televisions stacked upon each other in the houses I frequented as a youth.
The triangular hole port was a Peavey thing for awhile. I think the 'hammer probably dates to the early-to-mid 80s.
By the early 90s, the TNT and lower powered TKO combos went to tube ports, in about the same location, as well as graphic EQs flanked by high and low shelving EQ knobs.
Man, I want to hear more about the signal flow in this rig. Is that a Pathfinder 15 under the MV50 Clean? How are they connected? Are you driving that bottom cab with the MV50 and letting the Pathfinder run through its internal speaker, sort of a parallel/faux bi-amp setup, or what?
The Pathfinder acts as a preamp onto the MV50CL. The MV50CL then goes into the cab. The cab was an old Kensington bass combo. I bought it empty and put in a 4 ohm Celestion 15". I love the tone!
Probably OEM straight from Meridian, MS. Peavey did stuff like that as it was likely the most cost effective manner to do it.
Cool—so does the Pathfinder add saturation/grit, or is the benefit from extra EQ control over the 2-band setup on the MV50?
Or was it one of those "what happens if I do this" deals where you just ended up with some unquantifiable improvement?
No grit. I like my tone mostly clear.
It all came about via experimentation. I generally have tried to do things cheaply, as I am just a hobbiest. So I had a Peavy combo that didn't sound too good. So I bought the Pathfinder as a preamp for the Peavey. It was cheaper than any preamp pedal, and I play Hofners, so I thought it would be cool. It ended up sounding great. I bought the MV50CL for some other stupid idea I had. I then combined the two and got the best tone I've ever had. After that I got a bit obsessed with trying to create an all Vox rig.
We may have discussed this before but the CHOADHAMMER is the prefect amp for the MOTHMAN. A marriage forged in Hell.
I thought they were mortal enemies - the CHÖAD HAMMER is the only thing that can possibly defeat the Mothman.
Cool; thank you for explaining. I've only tried a Pathfinder briefly, and with guitar, but was impressed with how nice it sounded—warm and clear and lively. I could see that translating to a nice bass tone through an appropriate cabinet and speaker.
Jank files update, with Vox content:
I was having a blast with a borrowed Vox DA5 guitar amp, and it occurred to me—I should try it as a bass preamp, slaving it though a power amp and bass cab.
Whoah. Turns out I accidentally cut my homemade rack case the right size for this! And what's more, Duke from AudioKinesis cut the Birdhaus 48 cab's side speaker holes in the right place too:
The little Vox's one-knob EQ is a limiting factor, but the Fender blackface and Vox AC15 models actually sound pretty good and with a little post-Vox EQ help I might really have something good sounding here. The Crown MicroTech 600 drives the AK cab with authority, odd-looking though it may be.
Need to pick up a couple of right-angle cables so I can turn the Vox around and clean up the cable spaghetti a little.
I think I can smell stale urine just looking at the picture
