Saturday, I went to Tokyo's "Akihabara Electric Town." This is a actually an 'electronics' district where engineers, repairmen, hobbyists would go to get parts, kits, computer hardware as well as high-end or discounted home electronics and appliances. As the electronics industry evolves, so has the district expanded to cater to the needs of its clientele with shops for toy collectors, audiophiles, musicians, gamers, and anime/manga otaku. Thanks to the latter socially-challenged demographic, it's now more famous for maid-cafes than electronics. A result of this phenomenon is that Akihabara (aka "Akiba") has become extremely popular with foreign tourists, which could explain the appearance of the shop below:
For me, an afternoon in Akihabara isn't complete without a kebab from one of the various stands that have also proliferated in its back streets over the last five years. However three blocks away from Doner Kebab, I spotted the shop below, and actually felt a bit of regret snacking in between meals (but NOT guilt.) Over the last year, hotdogs/sausages have become one of my favourite foods. I think homesickness has a little do to with it, but cost-cutting, convenience and naturally the inevitable changing tastes we all experience over the course of our lives are factor. Today, I'll have to make due with Costco's massive Kirlkland brand hotdogs for lunch, until I can get back to Akiba.
Ok, enough about handheld mystery meat delivery devices. Let's talk about our favourite devices: guitars & amps. My primary objective in Akihabara was sourcing high-voltage capacitors for my Ibanez Valbee's power supply. Same as most electric guitarist, I've have volume issues with families and neighbours, and have spent hundreds of dollars on various solutions like smaller amps and modelling devices to get "the tone" with out the complaints.
The Valbee is one of those solutions. Over the last year, I also acquired a Smokey Amp, a Little Lanilei and a Vox VT20+. Without going into details, the hybrid Vox killed the "all-tube" Valbee and Little Lanilei as practice amps. When I say "kill" I mean it met my domestic needs far better than the other two. Unfortunately, I had to get rid of it as a cost cutting measure. Fortunately, these amps are so popular that I was able to sell it for nearly the same price new in less than a week.
On the other hand, I need to make sure that the other two are even functioning properly before auctioning them off. The Valbee has more hum that I think is acceptable. It's audible in all stages even when the guitar is not connected. Connecting a three-prong power cable into properly grounded mains doesn't solve the problem. So my electronic-engineer friend and repair guy both recommended replacing all the caps in the power supply. After months of procrastinating, I finally did that, primarily motivated by the loss of the VT20. Testing it with headphones, my efforts seemed to have no effect. So I poked around the insides with a pencil, and noticed two things:
First, some of the large caps were not soldered properly on the board. Nudging them with a pencil seemed to fix this...for now. Second, closing the the chassis had an effect on the level of noise, too. Fully reassembled, the noise seems significantly less than before, but still the amp is not as quiet as the handmade Little Lanilei (though I can feel a vibration like…er, a vibrator when I touch this one.) It also gets a lot noisier when I plug in my G&L now. So there's still room for improvement in the Valbee, and I think I will be keeping this as my main practice amp. I like the way it sounds a low volumes, especially after various other mods I've made to it, and might even get another one someday for comparison and playing in stereo!
However, I'd rather have spent all that time struggling to make this amp sound right playing my G&L. After spending all day soldering, I wanted to spend all night rocking, but still couldn't do this. My experience with these three little amps has pretty much solidified my position on the tube vs non-tube debate. Tubes are more unpredictable and therefore more fun, but in no way are they sonically superior to other technologies. Last week, I used a Roland JC-120 in a rehearsal studio, and the cleans killed the Little Lanilei, naturally. It was designed to stay clean, just like the Little Lanilei was designed to overdrive and distort. So in that respect, they killed or rather complimented[/i ]each other. However, I always know what to expect from a Roland, yet never know what to expect from tubes.
The conventional conclusion many will draw from this comparison is that tubes are good for distortion and solid-state is good for cleans, but that's not the point I want to make because the best clean sound for me is still a Fender Twin, while the best distortion always seems to come from solid-state fuzz or overdrive. Even my Ibanez Valbee and Little Lanilei aren't really "all-tube." Both use op-amps for some…er, operation, and sound great. Plus recently, I'm discovering a lot of classic players who sounded great without tubes, like Eric Bell of Thin Lizzy and Frank Marino. My point is that tube amps are a pain in the the posterior.
What's your experience been with non-tube tech? Have you every played a great solid-state or modelling amp? Can you think of any other dirty players who get their tone that way? Or are tubes still the only tone that will do for you?
Prior to the Valbee "cap job," I put the Keystone pickups back in my Legacy, but couldn't get the Fender TBX pot to work for some reason. So I took it out, and decided to go with standard tone controls. It's hard to imagine my Legacy without a bass-cut control, but the Keystones aren't very bassy pickups (nor the 6" speakers in my practice amps) so it doesn't really have as much effect anyway. So for today's G&L topic:
G&L PTB vs Fender TBX circuits. How do they compare with each other and different pickups?
