R.I.P. Pete Traynor

[micque]

R.I.P Mister Traynor, first played with a traynor bass amp in the early 70s, solid equipment.

 

[10cc]

Buy it. I have one in my basement and every guitar player who has played through it thinks it is awesome! Traynor made some great stuff.
Sad news that he has passed on.

Right? Me and a guitar player were saying this same thing last night.

 

[jmlee]

The cab was a 6x10

Ah... I expect I was earlier in on this. In the early 70's I had a Traynor BassMaster II: 90 watts of underpowered dirt with a muddy, heavy as all-get-out 215 cab. Still, it had a delicious sort of grunt that made me love playing bass. Another guy in town had a YBA-3 Custom Special and an 810 cab that was really loud and knocked my socks off. In those days in Canada, Traynor was it. We could afford the gear, and somehow it all just sounded like fun. I kind of feel like I owe Pete Traynor some of the joy of being young and playing loud.

 

[10cc]

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[kraigo]

Had a little early 70s bassmate last year. Was a great amp for the home. I shouldn't have sold it.

I like the Bassmate head, but the cab is a 15" speaker in way too small a cabinet. It is _WAY_ boomy at around 100 Hz. I have replaced the baffle in mine. Right now it has a Eminence S2010 speaker in it, but I have two more baffle blanks. I'm going to try it with a BP102-4 + top end, but ultimately I think it's going to get the guts from an Ampeg PB110H. The cab on that rattled (voids in the plies) and I haven't built a cab to replace it.

The S2010 sounds as good as an S2010 sounds, but I think the Portabass 1x10 system will be better in the combo. I really liked that little Ampeg cab.

KO

 

[bebass]

Seems that Traynor/Yorkville products never sold well down here much past the eastern border states - I heard that the marketing and support never really extended past them?

Well, support for Traynor / Yorkville was and still is as good as it gets. I can make one phone call and speak to an engineer. Few companies where one can do that. But, yeah, their marketing is nonexistent. I have been a personal fan of Traynor for a long time but honestly it just doesn't sell well here in the states, and this is in a large part due to the marketing.

 

[J.D. Detroit]

Some of my favorite guitar amps that I've owned had been Traynor.
Thanks for all the memories - RIP Mr. Traynor

 

[Atshen]

There's a memorial on the Traynor site: Traynor Amps

 

[Bassometer]

Pete Traynor co-founder of the Long & McQuade empire and namesake to a line of tube amps that are still one of the industries best kept secrets passed away earlier this week.
God Speed and Thank You.

I am sorry to hear this, my first "real" amp was a Traynor YBA-1 Bassmaster into a Studiolab 15" cast frame driver housed in a home made enclose. I was 16 or 17 at the time and I did a lot of barn gigs with this set up. I still remember pushing those 45 healthy watts as the night got louder, it was built like a tank. Traynor designed their equipment with the rental market in mind, it was and still is tough. That old YBA brings back memories. Thanks for posting this and keeping us informed.

 

[Fishheadjoe]

i was just talking to a bud on mine who worked with Pete at L&M, he had not heard the news. He described Pete as brilliant and a little crazy. He talked about how Yorkville would pay Pete to stay home, in the later years of their relationship... "too crazy for us to get any work done! We never knew what Pete was going to do!"
RIP Mr. Traynor...
Fishheadjoe

 

[B-string]

My utmost respect to Mr Traynor. Like too few people/companies he placed quality at an average musicians price above short term profits. An unfortunate dying breed. I hope his legacy lives on, it hurts us all to lose people of his caliber.

 

[Roxbororob]

My utmost respect to Mr Traynor. Like too few people/companies he placed quality at an average musicians price above short term profits. An unfortunate dying breed. I hope his legacy lives on, it hurts us all to lose people of his caliber.

Well said B-String.

I have been thinking about him, what he has accomplished and the observations (not unkind or necessarily wrong) that the one thing lacking in his company was marketing prowess. Im not so sure that it is so. I mean if his brand had become a household name he might have lost control of his vision (or at least what I think it was): quality, affordability, sustainable local employment. With those goals in mind he did very well.

 

[Edword]

My first (borrowed) cabinet was a Traynor 15. I didn't want to give it back.

I was just thinking a couple of days ago about how good the old Traynor gear was and how little attention it got here in the states. Odd.

R.I.P., Pete. You did good work.

My sentiments exactly. RIP.

 

[Bassmec]

Traynor had some awesome quality old school transistor amp designs even in their cheaper smaller combos.
They used ultra high quality parts like, tropical fish caps and Darlington pair transistors in their early designs.
The signal to noise ratio for a economically priced small combo was actually beyond extremely good.
Yes I know there wasn't a hell of a lot of bells and whistles in the pre amp but the results I have had, occasionally using these simple TS series combo's in studio over the last 30 odd years have been very pleasing indeed.
For instance. If you want a clean reggae guitar chop, the TS 25 combo delivers in spades. probably helped along by the lowish power handling and thus extremely agile little eminence speaker they fitted.
Now if only they had come from a little further south and had a more suitable USA boutique marketing name, like Smoky barbequed pulled pork or something.X
PS now the founder is sadly RIP. perhaps we could all get our heads together to suggest a catchy name change to freshen the marketing up a little.

 

[Jeff Scott]

My first amp was a traynor. Played for hours

The first bass amp I owned was a YBA-3, great amp. I also had a YSR-1 and a three cabinets, all '60s era, a YT-15 and two YS-15s.

R.I.P. Pete.

 

[jmlee]

I was playing a gig last night with a guitar player who is a retired school teacher from the Truro area here in Nova Scotia. He told me that in later years Pete Traynor had lived in that area and would come over to his school from time to time and regale the students in his music class with stories from the early days of rock and roll. He gave gear to the school and, when they desperately needed an electric bass for the school jazz band, he brought over an old P-bass of his and gave it to the band. He remembered Pete as a bit odd and a lovely guy.

 

[deathness]

Lots of cool Traynor gear, but if nothing his name gave us the Shellac/Jesus Lizard bass sound. That's legendary enough right there. Rock In Peace.

 

[FunkHead]

So sorry to hear this. RIP Pete. Thanks so much for the best Amp I have ever owned(YBA-300). I love this baby.

 

[jmlee]

So sorry to hear this. RIP Pete. Thanks so much for the best Amp I have ever owned(YBA-300). I love this baby.

I'm afraid that amp hasn't anything to do with Pete Traynor--other than the revived brand name.

 

[NoBlackTShirts]

“He was a brilliant guy in some ways,” Long says. “He had an uncanny ability to tell what kind of equipment people would need five years in the future, and to build it. Sometimes we could take advantage of its popularity, sometimes not; we were just a small outfit.”

Like, for instance, the SVT. Traynor's was 130 watts and six tens but there was nothing like that before.