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The Acoustic Club

#6,601
This popped up on the local CL:
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JacklegBass said:
Ha! Don't get me started...

That's my favorite living bass player, Kenny Aaronson, journeyman veteran of many many bands - Dust, Stories, Billy Idol, Billy Squier, Brian Setzer, Derringer, Bob Dylan, Leslie West, etc., and most recently the Yardbirds.

Coincidently Stories was the first band I saw him with. Brother Louie was his first #1 hit. In that clip he's still using the Acoustic 360/361 from Dust, by the time I saw Stories he was using a Furman PQ-3 parametric EQ preamp into a power amplifier (BGW maybe?) into a pair of Cerwin-Vega B-48-MF folded horn cabinets, the same rig he used up through at least Derringer.
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Love me some Dust:



And another user of Acoustic in the same vein:



 
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#6,604
D.M.N. said:
Love me some Dust
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Yes indeed. I actually remember buying what I think was the first Dust LP album at the nearby W. T. Grant department store when it came out. So glad that Kenny and Mark Bell (Marky Ramone) remastered the first two albums about 10 years ago, I guess it's time to pull it out again, it's been a few months LOL.

Truth be told, when I saw Stories opening for ELO on their first US tour for a "crowd" of about 200 people, I had no idea the bass player was Kenny Aaronson. It wasn't until later that I put it together. I did know he kicked ass that night and those folded horn Cerwin-Vegas blew me away.

D.M.N. said:
And another user of Acoustic in the same vein:
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Ahh yes, I was also a fan of the Gurvitz brothers starting with Gun and going through Three Man Army and the Baker Gurvitz Army. Hasn't been long since I listened to those too. Hadn't seen a video so never realized the Acoustic connection.

Ahhh, memories!!!
 
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#6,605
20231109_152420_HDR.jpg


Picked this up, a 406.
Should have a 140 amp here in a week or so to keep it company
 
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#6,612
JacklegBass said:
It's been posted elsewhere before that Devo used the cool Acoustic Reverbrato oil-can delay in their early days and used it on some of their demos. In a newly published interview with Mark Mothersbaugh he mentioned it again. The whole interview is excellent, but if you don't have time to wade through it here's the snippet about the Reverbrato if it's of any interest to you Acoustic fans:

We kind of backed off a little bit when we went to Warner Brothers and Virgin for our first album. We kind of thought we might be freaking people out a little too much. There were too many things for people to handle in all of one bite, so we pulled back on some of that. When I heard that music again, I remember calling up my brother Jim. Back in 1970 or something, he bought this thing that had just come out in 1969, it was called Acoustic Reverbrato. It was this thing like an oil can that was like a tremolo echo unit. That’s the sound you hear on “Gut Feeling” on the electric piano, like an underwater wobbly sound. And I couldn’t get it with any other effect, we never made another sound like that. But I told Jim I found it, and he said oh, the jelly bomb thing. He made a homemade set of electronic drums back in like 1971 and he ran them through the Reverbrato. It was all rubbery and you hear a little hint of it in the “Jocko Homo/Secret Agent Man” film, but not like we used to do in rehearsals. But it was impossible to do that live because you’d have to spend like five minutes between songs trying to set each song up and we wanted to fly through them.

Mark Mothersbaugh : The Aquarium Drunkard Interview : Aquarium Drunkard​

If you're curious about what it sounded like here's a youtube link to the Gut Feeling song that Mark mentioned where it's used on his electric piano:


​
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Amazing! That’s my favorite Devo song and that effect on the electric piano is a major reason why. Had no idea it was a piece of vintage Acoustic gear. Very cool.
 
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#6,614
So hum is present on the 140, regardless if anything is plugged in or not. Volume does not increase it, or any other control.

I'll eventually start trouble shooting, anything specific for these amps to look for?
I'm assuming a amp of this age is not shielded either.
 
#6,615
Auer said:
So hum is present on the 140, regardless if anything is plugged in or not. Volume does not increase it, or any other control.

I'll eventually start trouble shooting, anything specific for these amps to look for?
I'm assuming an amp of this age is not shielded either.
Click to expand...
Could be it needs to be biased, which isn’t a big problem. I’d have it gone through by a tech experienced with vintage solid state amps if you know one you trust.
 
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#6,616
Auer said:
Got a head, pretty loud if needed but really nice sounding amp.
A bit of a hum/buzz, independent of volume but nothing I can't live with, probably some grounding issue.
This is a fun setup.

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Just wanted to say it really sounds great.
Big, rich tones and begs to be cranked up.

I have the house to myself often enough due to my work schedule and this thing makes me smile :)
 
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#6,617
Auer said:
Just wanted to say it really sounds great.
Big, rich tones and begs to be cranked up.

I have the house to myself often enough due to my work schedule and this thing makes me smile :)
Click to expand...
Thats great that you have that great looking and sounding rig.
I have a 220, two 120s and a 370.
Nothing, in my opinion, compares other than an Ampeg SVT.
If you like vintage tones, try a set of flat wounds. These amps sound great with flats! Gets you that Muscle Shoals David Hood tone in spades.
Enjoy, and welcome to the club!:)
 
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