Just wanted to post a follow up to Friday's LR and provide the answer to the Trivia Question but first here's a couple pics of something I scored at the swap meet here yesterday -
Judging from the looks of the cosmetic appointments & electronics, its an early 70's (NZ made) Jansen SS combo amp. The model is # 8500 and its says planar solid state - which refers to the printed circuit board...
Anyway, its not tube - nor did I get it for $10 ($2 more) - and as you can see its a bit knackered & missing the 12" spkr. It could use a bit of work electronics-wise but I fired it up and got sound out of it - hooked it up to my Peavey amp's spkr. Sounds surprisingly good for SS (and interestingly responds somewhat like a tube amp to picking dynamics!) - just not as loud as it should be. From what I suss'd online its ~25-30W. The seller told me he powered it on to see if it worked and not having a spkr connected most likely took out one (if not both) of the power transistors.
Still for $12 its a deal & will be a fun project to get up & running. Jansen was a NZ amplifier Co that made very decent knock-offs of Fender amps (as well as guitars) back in the 60's. LIke most companies back then, they switched over to solid state when it was considered an improvement over tubes. Jansen got bought out some time ~ early 80's but I believe have since started up again under new ownership. I've seen several tube models on Trademe but have yet to hear one. From what folks tell me, they sound really good.
I also found this for $1 - which I thought was fitting given the theme of last week -
STP's greatest hits - cool timing -eh?
So.... the answer to Friday's Trivia question was Snoop Dogg which Aussie pretty much surmised.
According to the Guardian, it looks like Snoop aka Mr. Gin & Juice will in fact appear on the show....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/ju ... ion-street
I will leave ya'll with this vid clip + questions which I had planned to include last week but didn't due to space limitations...
[youtube]oU-9Hce-Eks[/youtube]
THis clip is from Homespun Tapes' Amos Garrett's Rock N Roll Rhythm Guitar which I had back in the day on VHS. Highly recommended viewing in case you've never seen it.
At one point in the vid, he talks bout an old studio/recording trick teles players used to do which was to slightly roll back the tone knob just a bit... not very much, just a smidgen...
Mr. G says doing so takes the brittleness/harshness off the of the bridge pu's sound (he demonstrates this in the full length video) and says that many famous tele players utilised this trick back in the day so its heard on many recordings.... interesting.
SInce I swapped out Char's stock MFD's with Mac's(burnt999) Custom made alnico ones, I gave this a go & (to my ears) it does improve the tone.
With Char's stock pu's, I always kept the tone knob wide open as they didnt have any harshness. Perhaps Leo factored this in...
So a few questions - Has ya'll heard of this before and if so, have any of you tried it on tele type guitars?
In general - are there any tone knob users out there? Most folks I know never use em... And for you Legacy owners - how do you set yours?
Lastly, that's a custom ebony neck on Amos' old tele - its distinct sound can really be heard in the video. Surprising he didn't go for a G&L Broadcaster or early ASAT...
Ok -
Happy Monday!
Btw, I still plan to reply to last week's replies when time permits. Found out too that our monthly internet allotment got bumped a bit -
Cheers,
Kf
