NAD: 1974 Fender Bassman 100

[MrShake]

This is so cool Mikey! Love it, and your noise deserves it

You're a class act, Matt, thanks! With your new JCM800 and this here, maybe we should find an Icelandic drummer, turn up to 9, and truly be a "transatlantic" band. I'm pretty sure we could hear each other based on my initial tests!

Spoke with a fantastic local tech today who's done great work for me in the past - I'm taking it in at the end of the month. The wait will be brutal, but worth it in the end!

[BoringPostcards]

This is so cool Mikey! Love it, and your noise deserves it

You're a class act, Matt, thanks! With your new JCM800 and this here, maybe we should find an Icelandic drummer, turn up to 9, and truly be a "transatlantic" band. I'm pretty sure we could hear each other based on my initial tests!

Spoke with a fantastic local tech today who's done great work for me in the past - I'm taking it in at the end of the month. The wait will be brutal, but worth it in the end!

I was in a band once called Transatlantic Zodiac Band. We played grungy Gypsy jazz rock, a style of our own making. We also did the occasional Tom Waits cover.
I played a Bassman back then. I don’t own it anymore. I’ve had three over the years. One being a Bassman 60, which is a Bassman in name only. It was a solid state POS.

[MrShake]

Just for a little closure on this thread...

Able to get the new monster into the shop and got it back late last week. Sounds great, idles quiet as can be, and volume knob gets thunderously loud. The potential for destruction inside this amp is frightening.

The tech pulled the rest of the small electrolytics, and confirmed that the filter caps had been previously changed along with the bias cap. Had it converted to the traditional bias setup while he was in there, tubes checked out good, and I'm ready for an ironclad gigging amp.

The tech gave me a real laugh while I was there. I explained that part of my reasoning in getting this thing was the peace of mind knowing I'd never need more volume or headroom again.

He suggested that if I ran into any future volume problems, to just feed the PA through the amp, and I'll have all the volume I need.



Now I've just gotta book us a gig soon so I can air it out.

[i love sharin foo]

I’m glad it all worked out just as you had hoped. That is always a great feeling!

[MrShake]

I’m glad it all worked out just as you had hoped. That is always a great feeling!

Thanks! Sadly, I may have spoken just a BIT prematurely. After getting it back, it's still exhibiting a mysterious buzz that I can't quite diagnose. It's going back to the shop today. They were really nice and apologetic, and hey, things happen. My only impatience is wanting to spend hours playing this thing.

Here's some issues, maybe someone can help focus in:

Sometimes as soon as I flip it on, sometimes after 5-20 min of playing, signal goes out and a big loud buzz happens. Sounds kind of like a thumb across an open guitar cable. Buzz is loud enough to be startling and vibrate the floor a bit at 3.

Buzz totally controlled by master volume knob, EQ knobs seem to do nothing, and Channel Volumes change the tonality of the buzz, but even zeroed out it doesn't go away or turn down. Deep/Bright switches don't do anything.

Happens even when nothing plugged into inputs. Tried roughly swapping between inputs and it didn't solve it. But ONE TIME, switching from Normal 1 to Normal 2 fixed it, but it didn't last.

Konking it moderately and jiggling knobs didn't resolve it.

Sometimes a 20-second power down reset fixes it, sometimes it doesn't.

I know that I don't know enough to properly diagnose whatever this is. But is FEELS like something is shorting/grounding early on, since the master controls it. I was hoping I could ID it as a bad switching jack, which it could be, but I'm not sure. I AM pretty confident however that my tech will likely catch it in a second pass.

I'm also glad I wasn't running this the way I usually would, with the Master wide open and using Channel Vol as the volume control. I'd have knocked the building down.

But when it sounds good (i.e. isn't making me jump out of my skin as it starts buzzing), it sounds GREAT.

So... BIG.

[MrShake]

Update: got back from the shop. I was actually quite happy that the buzzing fired up right away when we tested it there.

Less than an hour later it was narrowed down to a bad preamp tube. Apparently tested fine on its first visit, something funky inside not working (apparently old enough to have been original, and the crappy packing job from GC may have played a factor), and for the cost of a 12AX7, I was out the door. Will report back on this thread if any more trouble shows up, but I don't expect it.

Back home, let it warm up, played for a bit after lunch and now I cannot WAIT for my first chance to let it rip live. (EDIT: not even two hours after I initially posted this, a friend reached out and asked if we'd join a FANTASTIC bill at the end of the month. Serendipity.)

And the new heavier-duty speaker cable and cab wiring reinforcement I did can only be good things for live durability in the long run.

All's well that eventually ends well!

[MrShake]

Feeling self-indulgent after a good weekend, leaving this here as part of the story to see how I feel when I read this back in 5 years.

Played the first show, first time I was able to crank this thing up. Master on full and Channel on 5 was plenty to match my cleans to my barbarian drummer and had all the headroom I needed once I stomped on the Foxx or Big Muff.

While I trusted my tech's work, that preamp tube thing had me gunshy through the first 2 songs. I got over that quick, it sounded beastly.

I think I need more square inches of speaker cone long-term. Maybe ultimately a 2×10 (which I would need) and a 1×15 (which I have), but I have a 2×12 cab I need to load up and I think that will probably do the trick.

Microphonic new pickups need to be sorted out, almost ruined the first song, but once I pulled guitar volume back it was okay, just need to take care of that ASAP, we ended up networking a few more shows. Great time, good people, KILLER bands.




So what cabs are you playing through in 2029, Future Mikey?