Ok, I think I know what I want out of a new amp

Congrats! Hope it works for you.

Thanks! I'm just hoping it's gotten serviced sometime in the past 40 years. I fully expect to need a new speaker, and plan on an Eminence Lil Texas. But I'd really like to not need new tubes or a cap job.
 
Thanks! I'm just hoping it's gotten serviced sometime in the past 40 years. I fully expect to need a new speaker, and plan on an Eminence Lil Texas. But I'd really like to not need new tubes or a cap job.

Ahh, tubes aren't bad, 2 6v6s and I think one 12ax7.
 
Well so, yeah. I got all excited and bought a Musicmaster Bass amp on Reverb. I think the listing was up for all of an hour. 12 watts, volume, tone. Looks to be all original, except for the 3 prong plug. I figure it'll need a cap job and a new speaker. But I'd rather mod a Musicmaster than a Pro Jr, if only due to build quality.
:annoyed:
 
I mean, since like, 1992.
Nah, the problems started in 1986...

Admittedly, though, my very first concert was Van Hagar on the Balance tour in 1994. It took me a long time to realize that Spammy was the weakest link there.

Does this amp get a nice brown sound?
 
Nah, the problems started in 1986...

Admittedly, though, my very first concert was Van Hagar on the Balance tour in 1994. It took me a long time to realize that Spammy was the weakest link there.

Does this amp get a nice brown sound?

I gave them fleeting chances. Hard to argue with like half of FUCK. But that's about it.

This amp is your typical Silverface Fender, without the bells and whistles. Think of it as a Princeton with a 12" speaker, and only volume and tone knobs.
 
For those of you keeping score, I brought my Musicmaster Bass amp to Barnstorm this weekend. It sounded great, but struggled once there were drums. It had a great crunch on 7, with the tone control (which is a high pass filter) on about 4. But, as you would expect with a 12 watt amp, maxing the volume or boosting it didn't give any more volume. It just ran out of headroom. This would be ok if the amp were mic'd, but it made me think about how many small clubs I've played where the amps are just hot off the stage. As it happens, Heel had an Eminence Tonkerlite he wasn't using and a trade was made. Jello was kind enough to install the speaker while we were at Atomic Music.

Now I'm not sure how exactly a speaker that's supposed to sound like a Neo V30 lines up in its frequency response with the original speaker. To my ears, it's really close. The amp is at least twice as loud now. It still breaks up in exactly the same spots on the volume knob, but the amp can now compete in a full band. And in the few minutes I had with it at home, it still sounded great at low volumes.

The reason for a lot of people to buy a small amp, though, is that breakup. And as I tried out the amp in the barn, I thought about the quality of the gain and how I could achieve that at lower volumes. The DOD Boneshaker, which many people dislike for a variety of reasons, once again proved its worth to me. IMO, the Boneshaker kills on bass, but I had difficulty finding the sweet spot on guitar. It was designed to put a dirty amp into stoner/doom territory. But it also excels when you roll off the volume knob. Even with the distortion all the way off, it has a decent amount of gain. And as it turns out, the quality of that gain is very close to the Musicmaster with the stock speaker. And the semi-parametric EQ, which nearly gave Chad an aneurysm, was key to dialing it in just right.

So I'm really happy now. It may be the perfect NYC amp.
 
For those of you keeping score, I brought my Musicmaster Bass amp to Barnstorm this weekend. It sounded great, but struggled once there were drums. It had a great crunch on 7, with the tone control (which is a high pass filter) on about 4. But, as you would expect with a 12 watt amp, maxing the volume or boosting it didn't give any more volume. It just ran out of headroom. This would be ok if the amp were mic'd, but it made me think about how many small clubs I've played where the amps are just hot off the stage. As it happens, Heel had an Eminence Tonkerlite he wasn't using and a trade was made. Jello was kind enough to install the speaker while we were at Atomic Music.

Now I'm not sure how exactly a speaker that's supposed to sound like a Neo V30 lines up in its frequency response with the original speaker. To my ears, it's really close. The amp is at least twice as loud now. It still breaks up in exactly the same spots on the volume knob, but the amp can now compete in a full band. And in the few minutes I had with it at home, it still sounded great at low volumes.

The reason for a lot of people to buy a small amp, though, is that breakup. And as I tried out the amp in the barn, I thought about the quality of the gain and how I could achieve that at lower volumes. The DOD Boneshaker, which many people dislike for a variety of reasons, once again proved its worth to me. IMO, the Boneshaker kills on bass, but I had difficulty finding the sweet spot on guitar. It was designed to put a dirty amp into stoner/doom territory. But it also excels when you roll off the volume knob. Even with the distortion all the way off, it has a decent amount of gain. And as it turns out, the quality of that gain is very close to the Musicmaster with the stock speaker. And the semi-parametric EQ, which nearly gave Chad an aneurysm, was key to dialing it in just right.

So I'm really happy now. It may be the perfect NYC amp.

If I could hire you to be my effect setter upper, I would have kept the Boneshaker. I found some good sounds out of it, but it had way too many knobs for me to keep.
 
If I could hire you to be my effect setter upper, I would have kept the Boneshaker. I found some good sounds out of it, but it had way too many knobs for me to keep.

The Boneshaker is one of those pedals that takes time to get right. I didn't really get it on guitar until this weekend.
 
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