Thundernotes

A Standard or an Explorer Another Rickenbacker Bass (never should have sold my 4003)

Nobody seems to know exactly why he left, so the speculation and FMIC-bashing is really premature.

I'm with Polara - not really my thing, but OK in a homogenized pop rock formula sort of way. Here's the L/R split of two very similar songs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2pXfAK8r1k&NR=1

Glad to help!

This is one of my favorite topics. Over the years, I've made a lot of mental notes, and directly asked a lot of club owners/managers/bartenders what they look for in a band. The results are fairly consistent. I'm good with your 1 and 1a selection - vocals are often the weakest link in any cover band. Know your limitations. If you can't sing it reasonably well, skip it. Ever hear someone do a bad cover of a Journey tune? 2. A killer setlist. Rule # 1 - take all the tired cliche'd classic rock stuff and scratch it off. No Mustang Sally, etc, etc. Sure, some club patrons always ask for it, but playing it will only ensure the staff and management don't see you as any different than the bunch they had in here last weekend. Establish an identity. Figure out if people can dance to it. If they can't or won't dance to it - can it. People under 30 don't seem to dance much these days, but in general, if people aren't on the dance floor, they're not getting thirsty. Oh by the way, this isn't the music business - it's beverage sales. In my experience, playing songs that are recognizable (that means MAINSTREAM RADIO airplay) but not the same stuff every other band is playing. 99% of your audience is not musicians, and therefore unlikely to be impressed with your obscure Pink Floyd tune. They will sit on their asses and be bored. 3. Learn some new songs. Songs that were called classic rock back in '77 when you were in college, are now called "OLDIES". If you just have to play those old songs, consider updating the sound to give them a modern flair. My former band used to do "Last Time" by the Stones as if Green Day were playing it - went over big. 4. Don't worry too much about having "the look" or credibility in your genre, especially if it's just a song or two during the night. If you can sound believable, it will impress even the young people (maybe more than if you have the young punk thing going on). The flip side of this is knowing your limitations. If you're 63, fat and balding, maybe playing Animals by Nickelback is not really your thing. I don't care if you have the sound perfect.... That's just creepy. 5. Make sure everyone is on the same page with schedules and desired gig load for the group. Commitment is very difficult for part-timers who work day jobs and have families, so be prepared to deal with it. Maybe having a backup guy for your members who don't want to gig 6 times a month is a good idea. Or maybe you just get someone else. 6. Know your sound system inside and out. Know how to control feedback and keep the club manager happy with your volume levels. A sound man is not absolutely essential in the average bar-band setting (corner of the restaurant, that is) but you have to control your stage volume. Excessive stage volume is the cause of pissed off management, howling feedback, and can earn you an "amateur garage band" reputation quicker than anything. Maintain the system and keep a good stock of spare cables, strings, drum heads, microphones, and maybe a backup amp or two. 7. Here's a catch-all list of some other do's and don'ts: (Many of these are just my opinion based on my experiences and observations) YMMV Be on time Don't swear on the mic - it makes you look like a douche. Don't tune with your amp on - mute it No wanking between songs - you're supposed to know the stuff before the gig - now is not the time for practice. Don't let random people who ask get up on stage and sit in - it causes more problems than it's worth No band tab - amateurs play for beer. Pay your own bill BEFORE YOU GET PAID AT THE END OF THE NIGHT and tip the waitresses nicely. It pays off. Lose the music stand - it has no place on the stage of a band that really knows it's stuff. Keep consumption to a minimum. It makes you play worse and forget lyrics. Booze will rag-out your voice early in the night. Don't take yourself too seriously - have fun up there.

Played the classic 4 a few weeks ago. Big FAT sound with nice fit and finish.

Tom- I copied this from the Blue Guitar website ( http://www.blueguitar.org ) Wed Apr 7 06:59 Dave Stork dstork@ibm.net A friend stopped by and asked for a simple, reversible mod to juice up the preamp in his Blues Jr. and increase the reverb depth slightly. He's an apartment dweller and he wants to be able to get a hotter crunch tone at low volume without ruining the amp's ability to produce a good clean tone. Here's what I came up with on short notice: Change R3, R10, R30 and R39 to 150K. Change R5 and R44 to 220K. Add 22uF/25V across R38. After the mod, the preamp produced a nice bluesy crunch even with single coils. The dynamic character is good... it cleans up nicely as you let up on the pick or turn down the guitar volume. The increase in reverb depth is subtle, but I didn't want to increase R44 beyond 220K let the reverb driver be driven into clipping. Blues Jr. owners who are looking to try something different might want to give this mod a try. It's easy to do (if you're used to working with PC boards) and is easily reversed if you don't like it. When posting critiques, please bear in mind that this mod was requested, designed, installed and tested in the space of one hour :-) Dave: If it's okay with you I'd like to add your mods to a blues_jr.txt file to go with the schematic on my site. (I may dig through the archives here to add other suggestions, too.) BTW I think you were going to post some mods you had done to a Pro Jr awhile back. Maybe you can post them to a new thread when you get time to dig them up... Thanks! Steve Ahola P.S. I just noticed that the Blues Jr has an extra triode (V2A)- could probably have a lot of fun experimenting with that! Like adding a cathode follower before the tone stack, or an extra gain stage like a Boogie Mark I... For the benefit of others looking for these resistors in the schematic... R3 - Rp for V1B (100k to 150k) R10 - Rp for V1A (100k to 150k) R30 - Series resistor on Treble wiper (10k to 150k) R39 - Rp for V2B (100k to 150k) R5 - Resistor to ground from Volume wiper (130k to 220k) R44 - Resistor to ground on input of reverb IC (120k to 220k) R38 - Rk for V2B (add 22uF/25V Ck cap) Quick'n'dirty ain't bad! Thanks again! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * And here are some Blues Jr. tips from Randy of Tone Lizard Amplifiers: 1)Of course increasing R4 might send the reverb driver into clipping.Do you want more reverb depth? Increase R50. Try 390K or 470K. 2)Put in a 250K master (use the part # for the treble control). You can debate about removing R40. 3)Jumper R18. Debate about the value of R17. The phase inverter looks like a spot for a few other ideas: 4)Reduce R13 to 10K 5)Reduce R16 to 100 ohms 6)R26 is the presence control as it were. Play with the value or! short it out for full effect. I guarantee these will work, and better. Please, this is no battle of the techs, just a tip from someone who has 'been there, done that!' * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

2Tek Cruise 5 They have asymmetrical necks that are very comfortable to play. Tone is out of this world, even though it was quite heavy. I was having some neck and shoulder problems at the time, so it had to go.

I have something in a box at home - think it's a Behringer - could make you a good deal. Let me find out what it is tonight.

I built my own for my solo "acoustic" show. Used a mixer case and mounted plywood on aluminum rails. Most of the wiring goes underneath. The big footswitch operates my vocal harmonizer, and that's a kick-drum microphone to the right.

'79 Sunburst bought in '82, Kahlered at the Arlington Heights factory around '85/'86. Still have it.

Welcome to another New Englander!

My Carvins get sneers from the corksniffers occasionally, but they sound good and I use them (a guitar and a bass) regularly. I'd use anything from the mid-90's on from them. Here's my main solo-gig axe: Carvin Bolt with the Graph-Tech Ghost piezo pickup system. One of these days, I'll put the Ghost system on my Artist and use that, but this has served me well for a year now.

Nah

As luck would have it, there was a memorial jam for the Brad Delp Foundation tonight at a local club here in NH. I passed along the HFC's kind words to Barry Goudreau. Hard to believe those albums are 30 years old. He was playing this "modified" SG with one humbucker and a Kahler. My 5000th post!

Live-feed webcam?

I had a set of Fralin humbuckers that I got from Stike a couple years ago and never used, so I popped them in here. Sounds awesome. I also changed out the tuner buttons for the pearloid Schaller style you can get from StewMac (yes, they fit on Grover tuners too) and it balances very nicely.

I've had a few Hamers that were very good, but never a Cali. A local music store has a used snakeskin Jackson that's REALLY nice though I'd have to try them side by side.

I would, were it not for the location of the hole. I get a feeling that further tearing would be hard to stop.

slip with the screwdriver did ya? No, I'm rebuilding a Kendrick that a friend was using for parts to keep his other amps going. ( ) When he slapped this nice greenframe speaker into it, he squished one of the loose reverb cables against the baffle and caused the hole.

Never had to do one before - I have a speaker that has a small hole maybe 1/8" (3mm) across right on the part where the cone meets the surround. Will something flexible like rubber cement hold up?

Got this from RoyB last year: Battle-scarred, but plays very nice.

It depends - what is it?

A certain white Standard now residing in Lithuania.....

FYI: http://www.hamerfanclub.com/forums/index.p...=31510&st=0