Cotton's Amp Settings

Snake, James Cotton's harp wrangler and chief cook and bottle washer, showed me Cotton's amp at the Weehawken concert this evening. He said he'd replaced the first pre-amp tubes with a 12AU7 and another with a 12AT7 in order to cut back on the gain and improve the amp's tone and resistance to feedback. (click image to see the knobs better)

 
¶ Wednesday, August 06, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  Sonic Circus Guitar Amplifier Sale of the Century
$200,000 anyone?

Somebody had a serious case of Hoard and Clutter syndrome, Packrat Syndrome, or Compulsive Hoarding Syndrome. Even I don't have this many amps. (but only because I have no more room to put amps).

There are many nice amps in this auction, but very few real finds. Any of these amps could be had on eBay. Some are more valuable than others. I counted (quickly) 664 pictures, but many are front and back pictures so figure 400 amps. Most are valued between $300 and $500. Many are less and there are a few notables valued at more.

There has to be $200,000 worth of amps retail. The eBay price would be about $100k to $150K. I am guessing that the purchase price will be less than $100,000 for the bunch. Possibly well under 75K because there aren't many people who can come up with the cash and have the patience to off that many dogs on eBay.

You could bid $75k or so and then spend the next year posting them on eBay at the rate 10 or 20 a week. You could make a nice living for a year. You'd make about $75k total on the project and only have to work 15 to 20 hours a week listing amps and packing them up for shipment.

Sonic Circus Guitar Amplifier Sale of the Century 
¶ Thursday, July 31, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  Fixed the browser hijack problem
I discovered that the problems that I had with HarpAmps redirecting users to new pages was due to Chitika.com, and advertising group. I used to have a little graphic section where you could buy harmonicas and amps from various stores. I put this way down at the bottom of the page so it wouldn't bother anyone. These ads started going nuts over the weekend.

I turned off most of my Chitika ads today. Their new premium ads were the cause of the browser hijacks. Chitika started their premium program because, they claim, the older per-per-click ads weren't working. They never did more than a dollar a day for me on about 8,000 exposures, but I considered this to be a problem with the fact that I placed them below the fold, near the bottom of a long pages.

Premium is a misnomer for their new product. What they did was resell their ad space to doubleclick and other advertisers. Along the way they were not very careful about who they were selling to, because the ads resulted in the execution of javascript that produced popups and in some cases page redirection to other websites.

Popups suck and I never want them on my page. Browser redirects are unacceptable. I opted out big time. I am now going through and removing Chitika code from websites. I don't need users calling me up about problems for a lousy dollar a day. 
¶ Monday, July 21, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  HarpAmps Hacked
We had some weird things going on here for a while. It appears that some piece of code managed to send a redirect to a malicious site. I think it might have been the Webring code. It appears that it has stopped so I have returned the site back to its original state.

I was taking out a bunch of the scripts that run (google analytics, etc.) trying to figure out where the bad guys were getting in. The website should run a little fast, now, anyway.

If you have a problem, please notify me. Use my other site www.jt30.com to get in touch with me, or check my non-harp blog at www.cthreepo.com/blog.

I am sorry if you had a problem with the site this morning.

Keith 
¶ Sunday, July 20, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  Build aTube Amp - Do It Yourself Tutorial
I came across this tube amp tutorial. I like the absolute thoroughness of the tutorial, Everything is covered from soup to nuts. The schematic is customized, which may be a good or a bad thing. It uses relatively low voltage power tubes, which means it might be good for harp. Lower power means sweeter tone and less feed back.

The article offers a great many good ideas about where to get parts, how to salvage stuff to save money, even how to build a neat cabinet.

Even if you are not going to build this particular amp, it is worth while checking out the process. It may be just as easy to build a deluxe or bassman clone (I suggest looking at a tweed Fender Super Amp). 
¶ Thursday, June 26, 2008 2 Comments Links to this post

  Ultimate Keyboard
This looks very interesting. I combines a PC keyboard and a MIDI keyboard. I want it, but I can't figure a good justification for buying one.

It's only $19.99 with free shipping. It seems sort of dumb not to buy it. It comes with a cover for the music keyboard so you can actually type. I don't suppose that it would go over big here at work, though.

It would be the perfect present for the musician in your life.

The thing hooks to USB. This would work better with a full function sound card, but a standard sound card will have the regular MIDI instruments and the ability to edit and add instruments. Since sound is Creative.com's forte, I am assuming it comes with some nice music composing software.

Prodikeys PC-MIDI - The Ultimate Keyboard for Work and Play 
¶ Tuesday, June 10, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  Cheapest Do It Yourself Amps
I found this site. The prices are pretty good. I am ordering a 5F4 Super chassis. THe Fend 5F4 is one of my favorite harp amps. It has separate tubes for each of the preamp channels so you can put a 12AU7 in one and a 12AX7 in the other and have hot and cool channels to plug into.

CeriaTone.Com - DIY Guitar Tube Amp 
¶ Thursday, May 29, 2008 3 Comments Links to this post

  10 Steps to Becoming a Harmonica Super Star
I've been fooling around with creating web pages on Squidoo. This one is called How to Become a Harmonica Super Star. It is a list of the steps that you need to follow to really learn how to play harp.

10 Steps to Becoming a Harmonica Super Star on Squidoo

Squidoo allows you to make a nice web page that's good for a short lesson or an interesting article. It is good for a band to make a nice profile page and any number of things. The advantage is that Squidoo pays you to create a page by giving you a good chunk of the advertising revenue. It does not have the kiddie type features of MySpace or other social networking sites. It is more business oriented, concentrating on pages the are useful. If you interested in trying this yourself, click on the link above, and sign up. 
¶ Friday, May 09, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  The Gear used by Jimi Hendrix
My friend Bobby from Yonkers (we call him Video Bobby because he video tapes our jam sessions) has two Marshall Speaker cabinets that he bought from an estate sale. They have the JHE (Jimi Hendrix Experience) logo on them and are marked serial number #2 and #4. He's been offered $500,000 for the pair, but Bobby lives the music of Hendrix and has every note the Jimi ever played down to perfection. He isn't selling. Another friend has a guitar that he bought at a flea market that can be traced by serial number to Jimi. When they Jam at a local home, they sound pretty damn good.

The link above is to Gibson article on the gear that Jimi Hendrix used. Fascinating stuff, although no harp content. 
¶ Wednesday, May 07, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  Build your own effects clone.
I know there are a bunch of you out there that want to build their own effects pedals. I am ordering the Ping Pong delay kit from BuildYourOwnClone.com. At $100 it is more expensive than the cheap delays coming out of China, but more advanced than some of the more expensive delays available at your corner music store.

Check out the YouTube of their tremolo kit. Tremolo is something that works for surf and early rock, but never seems to fit with blues. I love the demo, though.

 
¶ Wednesday, May 07, 2008 1 Comments Links to this post

  Summmer Jam at Renegades Bar & Grill
Dave Lampert writes that the Jam at Renegades Bar & Grill, Burnsville, MN is now on every Wed all summer long. It begins at 8:00 and goes until the last dog is hung (usually between 12 and 1).

Savage Audio,maker of Savage Amplifiers, Tim Ellis of Ellis's Drum shop, and LaVonne's music have teamed up to sponsor the Wednesday Night Jam at Renegade's by providing a new Glas 30, a new drum kit built for the jam, and two brand spanking new Fender Highway One guitars...a Strat and a Tele for all to use and enjoy...Come on down and check 'em out.

Dave writes:

In other news we have just received word that we are On the lineup at the Omaha Blues and Jazz Festival on July 5th of this year and will be at another club on the 6th in the area. We will announce the club soon. There are several and we are trying to get the best fit...You can monitor this and all dates at the calendar on the website through the link below.

We will be in LaCrosse again this weekend at Nighthawks Taproom and look forward to seeing our friends in the area both Friday and Saturday.

 
¶ Monday, May 05, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  One of the First Premier Amps?
This showed up on eBay. It is a very early (1946-1948) Premier amp. I am guessing the date from the fact that it uses 7C5 tubes instead of the 6V6. The 7C5 is a locking tube designed for use in things like car radios and other applications where the tubes might shake loose.

Premier used these "loctal" tubes on their Model "O" and the very early Model 50s. Since these are all 1948 or earlier amps, I guess that this unknown model Premier is from the same time frame. The Field Coil speaker also dates it very early. After around 1950 Alnico magnets were easy enough to get for speakers so Field Coils speakers were not used. The grill clothe is similar to the mid 1940s Model "O", as well.

By the way, it is usually a no-brainer to replace the Field Coil speaker with a better sounding modern speaker. All you have to do is put a resistor across the speaker power lead to keep the transformer happy. (Don't throw out the vintage speaker in case some day you want to restore the amp to its original configuration.)

OK, here you have a VERY old Premier harp amp. I'm guessing early 50s. It's not working, but I think all it needs is some new filter caps which I am including, as well as two complete sets of NOS tubes. It runs on 2 x 7C5 (locatal version of 6V6) power tubes, a 5Y4 rectifier and 7N7 and 6SJ7 pre-amp tubes. It has a 10 inch Emerson field coil speaker that looks like it needs a recone to me (Ted Weber & co. will do that fairly inexpensively). It also has a 'clicker' tone knob and a regular volume control. I also have a schematic for this somewhere which I'll throw in. I snagged this as a project for our harp player, but before I could get anyone to help me restore it he got a Gibson harp amp he loves. Anyway, this would probably be a real sweet harp mp with just a quick cap job and $60 speaker recone. It's all original except i did change the power cord and clip the 'death' cap. And the handle was missing when i got it.

 
¶ Tuesday, April 22, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post