All You Need Is A Rocket Experience
Douglas as Society
Oct|7|2009
Latest drum tracking
Douglas as Recording
Sep|28|2009
Seven songs on a Sunday. New gobos worked great. Dining room table as diffuser was pretty cool too.
New Circuit Board and Chassis
Douglas as Guitars and Amps
Sep|28|2009
I began work on a new amp last month and it is almost to the first power-up. Here are some shots of it taking shape. It is a refinement of the Ga40 circuit I build last summer. I changed the preamp only using the tremolo channel this time and removing the RC filter to give it a less anemic tone. The power section is new with a larger OT and 7591 power tubes for that Ampeg/Stones sound. So this amp is very American sounding but not very Fender. I started by drilling the circuit board, and punching the chassis. This was very time consuming, partially because I redid the layout so there were not capacitors on the underside of the board like the Ga40. This was my first totally original layout and I think it will work well. I am using a capcan on this amp and had to make a trip to Harbor Freight to get a cheap chassis punch that was big enough. Now I know why their chassis punch sets are so cheap. Because they ARE so cheap. Cheaply made that is.
Fixing a V21 driver
Douglas as Electronics
Sep|28|2009
My August projects are finally making it to this blog. I did a gig in May with my Leslie that caused the distortion that had always been there to worsen. As I tried to move the diaphram, the sound stopped and I heard no more until I replace it with a new reproduction diaphram. A signal generator is a biggie for this type of repair. Now the Leslie sounds great but it was slow going for most of the summer.
Leslie repair
Douglas as Electronics
Sep|27|2009
Working on two leslies at the same time. Both had upper driver issues. Both are working great now. Also did the filter cap can on the 147 amp seen here. Touched up the finish with Howard’s. The church just celebrated it’s 111th anniversary. Congratulations!
Wattage Testing
Douglas as Guitars and Amps
Aug|1|2009
So I was getting used to my new audio generator today by test the output power of my various amp builds. The generator is much nicer than hooking up a laptop and balancing it on top of one’s scope.
I used a 1k sine wave and a 100 watt 8 ohm dummy load with a true RMS multimeter across the load. I also measured the resistance of the dummy load while it was warm after the test. The heat causes the resistance to rise slightly
Here are my findings.
Spitfire build – 12 watts (P/P EL-84, cathode bias, EZ81 recto)
B-18 build – 40 watts (P/P 7027, fixed bias, 5AR4 recto)
Micro AA764 – 2 watts (SE 6AQ5, cathode bias, SS recto)
Now my numbers are pretty conservative because I was looking for the clean output. I didn’t allow the crossover notch to appear in the sine wave when I did my test.
Maximum output was,
Spitfire – 21 watts
B-18 – 105 watts?!
AA764 – 3.5 watts
This was the point where things were horribly distorted and the scope had a grotesque looking square wave. Interestingly, the AA764 produced a beautiful square wave with the right input signal. It really is a high gain amp for your bedroom if you like the smooth overdrive of a 6V6-family tube.
Negative Feedback
Douglas as Guitars and Amps
Jun|22|2009
I added a negative feedback wire to the chocolate champ to increase the headroom. I never took a picture of the insides so there you go. I tidy layout and pretty blue tag board. Some of my best work.
The Piano Mover (And other silly titles for novels)
Douglas as Books
May|12|2009
When I go browsing for books, I often see the latest bestsellers stacked up at the front of the bookstore. Their fancy cover art adorning nice hardback editions. I can’t help but wonder though, why the authors keep romantisizing musicians in their titles.
I compiled a list by release date:
2000 – The trend really began here with Katharine Weber’s The Music Lesson, and Wladyslaw Szpilman’s The Pianist. Read the rest of this entry »
Drum Samples
Douglas as Recording
May|12|2009
I spent some time last night going through various drum tracks I’ve recorded as well as some LP’s where I was pulling an individual hit. I loaded all these up into the EXS24 to compare them. Some observations:
- There are many different snare sounds out there.
- Your overall drum sound will only be as good as your raw tracks.
- Rimshots sound trashy in the studio.
- Sometimes trashy sounds good.
- Piccolo snares tend to sound thin. (I’ll probably use ONLY piccolo snares in ten years now that I’ve said this)
- It is cool to line up different sessions on the sampler and play the different kits.
- Be really careful not to overcompress going in. I found a track or two like that.
- At the end of the day. No one can tell a $100 dollar drum from a $1000 if it tuned right. Too many other factors at play.
- I’ve gotten better at recording drums.
White Album Thoughts
Douglas as Music
Apr|7|2009
So I was listening to the White Album last night, and as I’m apt to do, I was thinking about a one album version like Mojo magazine did in their Aug. 08 issue. I gave it way to much thought, and came up with the following list:
Side 1
Back in the USSR (2:43)
Dear Prudence (3:56)
Glass Onion (2:18)
While My Guitar Gently (4:45)
Happiness is a Warm Gun (2:44)
Martha My Dear (2:29)
I Will (1:46)
Julia (2:54)
Side 2
Birthday (2:43)
Yer Blues (4:01)
Blackbird (2:18)
Me and my Monkey (2:25)
Sexy Sadie (3:15)
Helter Skelter (4:30)
Cry Baby Cry (3:10)
Savoy Truffle (2:55)
My reason for even thinking about this is that the White Album turns some people off because of it’s lack of cohesion. Some people love the diversity of the tracks. I find myself wanting to skip songs that haven’t aged well, or seem like genuine filler. Revolution 9 is the top of that list, followed by Good Night (I wish Ringo had a stronger track on this album. He did quit the band for two weeks during the making?) Wild Honey Pie, Piggies, and I’m so tired. I’m so tired sounds like it should have come off Rubber Soul.
Now the big omissions are Ob-La-Di, and Revolution 1. In my mind, should be singles and not included on the album. I also kept the considerations for vinyl so the louder tracks are toward the beginning of each side and the side are well balanced. That meant that Blackbird had to go to side 2 too prevent a pileup of ballads on side 1. Other than that, the track order stayed much the same. Lots of lists I’ve seen try different openers, second-guessing the bands preference to begin with Back in the U.S.S.R. and Birthday.
Try setting this up in your ipod and see what you think.