Tag: concept

Categories
Amps DIY

Hey, Gang! Let’s Design a DIY Amp!

Let’s not just talk about one-knob gear — let’s design some! Any interest in conspiring to create a minimalist DIY amp?

Frankly, the intensity of the reaction to my recent One Knob Manifesto startled me. I had a general sense there was a growing interest in minimalist gear, but I was no idea the sentiment was so intense. (Though I’d hesitate to draw too many conclusions based on a focus group of the obsessive geeks who hang out here.)

Now, don't get your hopes up — we probably won't create anything QUITE this awesome.
Now, don’t get your hopes up — we probably won’t create anything QUITE this awesome.

Since posting that piece, folks have been sending me info on relevant new products, like Henretta’s no-knob stompboxes and the Mill Hill Love amplifier, reportedly being used by Jonny Lang.

The limited edition Love amp fascinates me. Not its ornate furnishings, but the minimal controls: no tone stack, not even a volume control. It’s pretty much exactly what I was talking about when I expressed an interest in an amp with nothing but an on/off switch. That desire became even more focused last week when I reviewed a fabulous amp from a new Colorado Springs company called Toneville. (I’ll link to the Premier Guitar review when it goes live in a couple of weeks.) The Toneville Beale Street model I reviewed features a full compliment of blackface-style controls, but the tone controls are voiced so that the tone stack can largely be removed from the circuit, and there’s also a pot to remove the negative feedback loop for a more tactile/primitive response. As with some other ultra-high-end amps I’ve written about recently (like the Little Walter 50/22 covered here), the tone controls sound great wide-open, and it matters surprisingly little where you set the volume — you just drive it hard enough to warm things up, and then shape the tone from the guitar. With a nicely voiced and biased amp, you need far fewer controls than you might think. And the more crap you omit, more livelier the reponse and the more immediate the tone

The no-controls Mill Hill Love amp.
The no-controls Mill Hill Love amp.

So why don’t we collectively create something in this vein? A simple but great-sounding tube amp with nothing but an on/off switch? I’ve never designed anything such thing and have little relevant expertise beyond the knowledge that, unlike 9v stompboxes, AC-powered amps can kill you. But I’ve built enough kit amps to know that a one-knob head can be easy, potentially inexpensive (though you could invest in ultra-premium tranformers, vintage tubes, NOS parts, and so on), and it should sound stunning. If we come up with a plan, we can source the parts, create step-by-step instructions, and probably get a vendor to put together a kit for us. (I’m thinking out loud here, so bear with me.)

I’m not firm on many details other than these:

  • head-only design (at least initially)
  • low-wattage for home/studio use — something you can crank without self-evicting
  • should sound big and bad-ass (not a cheap, practice-amp sensibility)

Any interest, folks? And more important, any ideas? And more important, any ideas? What would make this fun, useful, and bitchin’?

Categories
Bass guitar Music Technique

What’s Your “Basic Concept?”

"Mad? MAD? No, I'm a HAPPY scientist!"
“They call me mad, but I’m actually a HAPPY scientist!”

There’s an interesting thread over on the Forum, started by reader Double D, who asked:

“Do you have a central core concept or inspiration that drives your playing? Are you squirrelled away with obscure harmony texts, or practising modes till your fingers bleed? Do you have go-to chord substitutions that define your sound? Do you have a creamy harmonic centre?”

Like most great questions, it’s really hard to answer (though some folks managed to reply in extremely articulate and compelling ways). I’ve been pondering it myself for the last few days, and the best answer I can come up with is something along the lines of what I hinted at in this recent post on chromaticism, namely a liquid sense of modality based on the notion that most of us Westerners really only perceive two modes — major and minor — but that there’s a vast amount if “wiggle room” when it comes to placing individual scale degrees.

To put it another way, most of what I play is based on simple tonic triads, major or minor, but the placement of all the other scale degrees is highly negotiable. For me, the advantage of viewing scales this way is that they remain grounded in harmony, and vice-versa. As opposed to the way many of us were taught modes: as purely mathematical sets of intervals divorced from their chordal implications — or just a bunch of diatonic scales that start on the “wrong” notes.

Hey, why is everyone nodding off, staring out the window, or checking their phones? Wake up and talk about the methods of your madness!

:cuckoo:

Categories
Music Technique

Does a Guitar Ever Play You?

The other day I posted a demo for a high-gain pickup, and I’m usually a lower-gain guy. Zyon said in comments that it sounded like Santana. (It sort of did, if you can imagine a clumsy, out-of-tune Santana with a really short attention span.)

But I assure you, Carlos was far from my conscious mind. (Or at least 20 miles away at his place across the bridge.) It’s just that the pickup’s unaccustomed searing attack and saturated tone made me hork up those emotive, minor-key melodies.

Which makes me pose this question:

Isn’t it a rather pathetic rationale for having one of the main reasons for having a bunch of guitars? Not just the sounds they make, but sounds they force you to make?

It’s not just me, is it?