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The Combo Club

Got $150 (Bloomington, IN) to relive your past?

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Uh, ... well, ... mmm, thanks, beanie, but I've still got a similar but much newer, more powerful, one owner (me) 250 watt 15" 7ender Bassman combo that can play that role in my mind's TV movie. I appreciate you looking out for me, though! ;)

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Uh, ... well, ... mmm, thanks, beanie, but I've still got a similar but much newer, more powerful, one owner (me) 250 watt 15" 7ender Bassman combo that can play that role in my mind's TV movie. I appreciate you looking out for me, though! ;)


BRAVO G-DOG!
 
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I just love combos, never had a "fridge" actually. 20 years ago my first combo was an old (old back then already) 200W tube Fender combo, quite heavy, but in one package and on wheels-a monster that was, let it go then as speaker started to buzz and the combo needed a full refurb, regret I sold it...This photo is from my office yesterday. Lunchtime. Colleagues gone in one of nearby restaurants for at least half an hour - great opportunity to play a bit. That P on the chair and the small 10W Ibanez right below (heritage of my long gone Grandpa) stays in the office all the time so I can practice at work - or calm myself down by playing if regularly occuring more or less meaningless tasks drive me mad real bad. Had a band rehearsal nearby office just after the shift yesterday so I took Wal and Hartke KB 12 with me. That combo is an absolute beast, enough to play pub and smaller club gigs with volume set below the half and with DI output is always ready to be easilly connected to more powerful soundsystems always present at bigger/outdoor gigs. Plus the weight - carrying it in one hand to the third floor is easy as pie. Like it a lot!
 
A lot of stories swirl around the song. Some say Jimmy Page played on it. Their producer Shel Talmy tells the story here. It’s interesting that they plugged the output of the elpico into a vox ac30, using the elpico to overdrive the input stage of the vox. Pedals later were introduced to do just that.




Another player that fed one amp into another to gain distortion was Randy Bachman of the Guess Who. Doing this is not safe, he kept blowing his pre-preamp. When he described what he was doing to his repairman, a new device was designed to solve the problem. He basically took a Fender Champ and added a dummy load to protect the tube amp, this safer output was fed into the input of another amp. The result was called the Herzog. You can hear it on many songs by different players, including the creamy overdriven sound on American Woman.


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Tech21 took a stab recreating it, the pedal is called the American Woman.

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A number of companies have similar products today.


I first saw the guitar player for Rock Mountain in Atlanta do that, feeding the output of a 5W Kalamazoo Model 1 into his Marshall stack. It sounded amazing! I used to run my M1’s output into other amps. Never blew anything up.
 
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I first saw the guitar player for Rock Mountain in Atlanta do that, feeding the output of a 5W Kalamazoo Model 1 into his Marshall stack. It sounded amazing! I used to run my M1’s output into other amps. Never blew anything up.

You were very lucky. Feeding the output of a tube amp into another amp causes an impedance mismatch that can blow the first amp. The power level can also blow the input of the second amp.

I have an old box made by Groove Tubes called a speaker emulator. Basically the amp sees a real speaker, it has an instrument level output to feed into another amp or recording equipment. It allows me to connect amps in this way. These days, Weber makes something similar, as does Two Notes, and others.

Yes it does sound amazing when you overdrive another amp that way.
 
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I just love combos, never had a "fridge" actually. 20 years ago my first combo was an old (old back then already) 200W tube Fender combo, quite heavy, but in one package and on wheels-a monster that was, let it go then as speaker started to buzz and the combo needed a full refurb, regret I sold it...This photo is from my office yesterday. Lunchtime. Colleagues gone in one of nearby restaurants for at least half an hour - great opportunity to play a bit. That P on the chair and the small 10W Ibanez right below (heritage of my long gone Grandpa) stays in the office all the time so I can practice at work - or calm myself down by playing if regularly occuring more or less meaningless tasks drive me mad real bad. Had a band rehearsal nearby office just after the shift yesterday so I took Wal and Hartke KB 12 with me. That combo is an absolute beast, enough to play pub and smaller club gigs with volume set below the half and with DI output is always ready to be easilly connected to more powerful soundsystems always present at bigger/outdoor gigs. Plus the weight - carrying it in one hand to the third floor is easy as pie. Like it a lot!

Fall in, FalloutNo1! After the fascinating (as well as informative) tour of epicurean delights and Beatles recollections, I see we have a possible new recruit waiting to be made an offer, and here it is.

FN1, if you’d like a membership number for your Hartke combo, just give me an affirmative and I’ll take care of the task. You already posted a super pic, so let’s put a number on it. Just let me know and you’ll be part of our club. Thanks!
 
You were very lucky. Feeding the output of a tube amp into another amp causes an impedance mismatch that can blow the first amp. The power level can also blow the input of the second amp.

With the speaker still in place, the first amp basically sees its usual load in parallel with a much higher load, which reduces mathematically to the stock speaker load for all practical purposes. And that means most of the power is going through the speaker, not into the preamp of the second amp. That's how I did it.

Disconnecting the speaker will result in the doomsday scenario you referenced, as can higher power on the first amp (as you noted). I went to see the Dixie Grit's farewell (IIRC) concert at Augusta College Fine Arts auditorium in the early 70s. A little bit before the concert was to start, we heard a loud hum/explosive noise, then some yelling from backstage. A little while later, this was repeated, this time with louder cursing. Someone came out and said there were technical difficulties, and please be patient. Somewhere between a half hour and an hour later, the concert started.

Mike West (the bass player's brother) told me the next day that someone's friend, a fanboy, had really wanted to play roadie. Steve Morse let him help set up his rig. I'm not sure what the goal was with two Twin Reverbs[1] (I suspect daisy chaining the input), but the fanboy ran speaker out into a channel input (first noise). Steve borrowed a second amp someone had there. The fan boy, nearly in tears, was allowed to amend his mistake. Instead, he repeated it (second noise). The long wait was while the band frantically called friends until they found an amp to borrow, which one of them had to go get. Steve hooked the amps up this time, put on his game face, and the band played a great set (what I saw of it, I had to leave before it was over).

I have an old box made by Groove Tubes called a speaker emulator. Basically the amp sees a real speaker, it has an instrument level output to feed into another amp or recording equipment. It allows me to connect amps in this way. These days, Weber makes something similar, as does Two Notes, and others.

That's the ticket with the bigger amps. With smaller ones like a Kalamazoo Model 1, I just leave the speaker in circuit and don't sweat it. Of course, I don't typically run it full throttle, either.

[11] 85 honking watts
 
Fall in, FalloutNo1! After the fascinating (as well as informative) tour of epicurean delights and Beatles recollections, I see we have a possible new recruit waiting to be made an offer, and here it is.

FN1, if you’d like a membership number for your Hartke combo, just give me an affirmative and I’ll take care of the task. You already posted a super pic, so let’s put a number on it. Just let me know and you’ll be part of our club. Thanks!

Hello Sir, thank you for your invitation, that's nice! Sure, count me in! It is always good to have an opportunity to share insights, experience, recommendations, ideas about basses, gear etc. directly, not just being lost amongst the result amongst google search algorythm :))) Should I provided some useful details as a club member, just let me know.
Have a nice day!
 
With the speaker still in place, the first amp basically sees its usual load in parallel with a much higher load, which reduces mathematically to the stock speaker load for all practical purposes. And that means most of the power is going through the speaker, not into the preamp of the second amp. That's how I did it.

Disconnecting the speaker will result in the doomsday scenario you referenced, as can higher power on the first amp (as you noted). I went to see the Dixie Grit's farewell (IIRC) concert at Augusta College Fine Arts auditorium in the early 70s. A little bit before the concert was to start, we heard a loud hum/explosive noise, then some yelling from backstage. A little while later, this was repeated, this time with louder cursing. Someone came out and said there were technical difficulties, and please be patient. Somewhere between a half hour and an hour later, the concert started.

Mike West (the bass player's brother) told me the next day that someone's friend, a fanboy, had really wanted to play roadie. Steve Morse let him help set up his rig. I'm not sure what the goal was with two Twin Reverbs[1] (I suspect daisy chaining the input), but the fanboy ran speaker out into a channel input (first noise). Steve borrowed a second amp someone had there. The fan boy, nearly in tears, was allowed to amend his mistake. Instead, he repeated it (second noise). The long wait was while the band frantically called friends until they found an amp to borrow, which one of them had to go get. Steve hooked the amps up this time, put on his game face, and the band played a great set (what I saw of it, I had to leave before it was over).



That's the ticket with the bigger amps. With smaller ones like a Kalamazoo Model 1, I just leave the speaker in circuit and don't sweat it. Of course, I don't typically run it full throttle, either.

[11] 85 honking watts

Steve must have a lot of patients.

Yes leaving the speaker connected like you did makes a difference in protecting the amp.

Some amps have a built in load resistor across the speaker output that acts to protect the amp if it is turned on without a speaker in place. A large resistor in parallel with a small resistance, such as a speaker impedance, is about equal to the small resistance. For example, an 8 ohm speaker in parallel with a 250 ohm safety resistor is about 8 ohms. So it doesn’t affect the performance of the amp. It’s important to properly select the wattage of this resistor to match the power of the amp.

DI’s that allow you to connect in parallel to the speaker output do the same thing. Their resistor might be 10K in size. They tap the output of the amp across this resistor for the DI signal.
 
Paul McCartney can join this club. Here is his Elpico amp which he got at a young age and still has it.

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Here is a close up of another AC55 Elpico.

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Did I say that Dave Davies recorded You Really Got Me with the same make and model. He sliced the speaker cone with a razor to get a more distorted sound.
Hey @iagtrplyr can we bestow an honorary Combo Club membership to Sir Paul!? The number given would have to be special. Like Number 9. Or 1963. Or something like that. He meets the criteria of owning a combo!
 
Hey @iagtrplyr can we bestow an honorary Combo Club membership to Sir Paul!? The number given would have to be special. Like Number 9. Or 1963. Or something like that. He meets the criteria of owning a combo!
While I agree with this idea. It becomes problematic. Who else is worthy of an honorary membership? Bill Wyman? Les Claypool? If Sir Paul get wishes he can get a TB account and ask for himself.
 
Hey @iagtrplyr can we bestow an honorary Combo Club membership to Sir Paul!? The number given would have to be special. Like Number 9. Or 1963. Or something like that. He meets the criteria of owning a combo!


I'll second that motion!

But, I'm afraid, Michael, that our Fearless Leader has a policy of inviting members and not inducting them unless they accept, as you can see above. I'm not gonna hold my breath for Sir Paul to do that here, including getting a TB account, but I'd certainly like to see it if he does! :woot:

There is precedence for honorary celebrity members in other clubs without this policy, even by a quite likely looking number issuer(!). There was also another number issuer who inducted his favorite celeb bassist without nomination. :cool:
.
 
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While I agree with this idea. It becomes problematic. Who else is worthy of an honorary membership? Bill Wyman? Les Claypool? If Sir Paul get wishes he can get a TB account and ask for himself.
I'm with you. If Sir Paul would like to join, I'd love to see him commenting on the thread. If he does not, I think he has plenty of honorary titles and acclaim.
;)