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Post by jmoose on Jul 23, 2021 13:41:30 GMT -6
Gear pimp..? Possibly you have me confused with someone else..? I make records.
Anywhoo.
As a tone chasing guitar player with new construction the answer is easy. I'd build a small, maybe 6" access panel and home run everything.
Couple of T nuts & threaded bolts. Grab a ratchet and in a few minutes can pop anything through the wall and seal it back up.
Basically, every connection is a potential spot to lose tone and create a problem. Both speaker & guitar cables.
With speaker cables, power tubes and output transformers its always best to home run. Every connection and change in wire gauge adds resistance & stress on the output transformer. Too much stress? Transformer melts and very likely takes a lot of other things like power tubes & screen grid resistors along for the ride. Most people prefer the magic smoke stays in the amp...
Too many times I've had guitarists chuck their amp in a booth, get mics up, get a sound... then they unplug from the direct amp & use the patch panel into the booth and the sound completely changes. So we go to long cables run under the door threshold and wham O get the tone back.
Players who are really, lets call it demanding... they won't use patch panels. Like Warren Haynes was all long cables.
If you do go the panel route, with speaker cable I'd use speakon connectors and 12 gauge cable. That way everyone knows its speaker level and can't fuck things up. Of course you'll need special cables to go from speakon to 1/4" on both sides of the panel but its a small price to pay.
If you were to cheese out and use say, 16 gauge cable because its only a foot or so? Then basically the whole speaker cable run is 16 gauge cable because that's your choke point. And you can run 100 feet of 12 or 14 gauge cable without much of any loss.
With guitar level signals & impedance... I can absolutely hear the difference between a 10 foot cable, a 25 foot and two 18 footers with a pedalboard between them. So again if we cheese out on the cable and/or don't have good buffers in place, even just an amp that's real sensitive to loading the wall plate is a loss point.
Real easy to test. Plug a guitar into a good amp with a 15 foot cable. Then grab another 15 foot cable and a true bypass pedal, leave it off. Sound changes right? Then swap a buffered pedal, like any old Boss and the sound changes again vs plugging right into the amp. Its subtle but its absolutely there.
Sometimes you have to use tie lines & patch panels, there just isn't a choice but I'll through ludicrous amounts of effort to avoid them.
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Post by jmoose on Jul 23, 2021 14:38:57 GMT -6
Honestly, I don't know whether or not use of the standby switch would negate the need for a proper load. Interestingly enough, I was just reading an article the other day that said standby switches are not even really necessary these days, due to the availability of cheaper, better, larger capacitors, but are still used because that's how everyone has done it forever. www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/great-standby-switch-myth/I'd like to get some second opinions on this, as I've only ever heard that standby is necessary (and used it accordingly), but I thought it was interesting. Debated whether or not to touch this... I'm certainly not an amp tech but can comment based on experience. Lets just say the standby switch needs to examined on a case by case or amp by amp basis. No one size fits all answer here. I also don't agree with everything in that sweetwater article. Turning an amp off if it isn't going to be used for 20-30 minutes? The vast majority of times I've had an amp blow up and need repair was after turning it off and back on a short time later. I'm the kinda guy who flips the amps on at the start of the day and leaves 'em running all day. In studio for 8-10 hours? Tubes are hot the entire time. Turning on & off a bunch creates a lot of stress on components. Yes heat is an enemy but another enemy is in-rush current... that initial surge when the amp first powers on. Think of it this way... how many times have you seen a lightbulb burn out while its on? Rarely yes? How many times would a bulb pop when you flip the switch on? Way more common right? Tubes are no different. Even bigger enemy is repeated heating & cooling cycles. As the amp heats & cools it puts a lot of stress on components including the PCB, which... with a lot of modern amps that have PCB mounted tube sockets? Rapid heating & cooling can crack the board, creating a short and letting the magic smoke out. Tube amps always need a load. Some are "ok" without a load in standby. Again case by case basis. Depends on the amp. Tube or solid state rectifier? Health and how much you value the output transformer... would I leave my '61 Bandmaster or a '73 Marshall without a load in standby? Nope!! Boogie that's only a couple three years old? Sure. But take that standby off when you forgot to plug in a cab?! Ehhhh... Another case for leaving amps on all day is that very simply, the sound changes as it warms and comes up to operating temperature. This is probably more noticeable with things like the '61 Bandmaster & old Marshalls then a modern high gain amp like a Friedman or Diezel. So right. I turn the amps on at the start of the day and leave 'em on. Because tone. And because of the light bulb scenario. With 20 odd years notched I can't think of too many times an amp quit in the middle of the day. It happens, but way less often then quitting at power up. Once had a tech explain it to me like this... you can pay for electricity or you can pay for repairs. Either way your gonna pay. |
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Post by jeremygillespie on Jul 23, 2021 15:03:46 GMT -6
I did an entire record for about a month with Warren Haynes - him in the live room playing his electric plugged in through the wall panel, , upstairs into an office That we used for a booth, split into 3 different amps (Super reverb, Carr Mercury, Gibson Falcon) all running at the same time.
He sounded like Warren honestly haha. Any tunes that had a slide solo he tracked standing in the booth with the amp. That was his Homestead that was sort of being tweaked day to day by the amp tech.
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Post by jeremygillespie on Jul 23, 2021 15:06:18 GMT -6
Hey if anybody is into podcasts, check out The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons and Jason Verlinde from the Fretboard Journal. Probably the most entertaining and knowledgeable pod I’ve ever listened to.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jul 23, 2021 15:10:27 GMT -6
Gear pimp..? Possibly you have me confused with someone else..? Didn't you work at mercenary back in the day? Anyway, both posts are solid. I keep my amps on for the duration of the session as well. If we finish guitars and move to vocals, I'll shut em down, but otherwise, they're cooking. I do use the standby though. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2021 18:16:41 GMT -6
Gear pimp..? Possibly you have me confused with someone else..? I make records. Anywhoo. As a tone chasing guitar player with new construction the answer is easy. I'd build a small, maybe 6" access panel and home run everything. Couple of T nuts & threaded bolts. Grab a ratchet and in a few minutes can pop anything through the wall and seal it back up. Basically, every connection is a potential spot to lose tone and create a problem. Both speaker & guitar cables. With speaker cables, power tubes and output transformers its always best to home run. Every connection and change in wire gauge adds resistance & stress on the output transformer. Too much stress? Transformer melts and very likely takes a lot of other things like power tubes & screen grid resistors along for the ride. Most people prefer the magic smoke stays in the amp... Too many times I've had guitarists chuck their amp in a booth, get mics up, get a sound... then they unplug from the direct amp & use the patch panel into the booth and the sound completely changes. So we go to long cables run under the door threshold and wham O get the tone back. Players who are really, lets call it demanding... they won't use patch panels. Like Warren Haynes was all long cables. If you do go the panel route, with speaker cable I'd use speakon connectors and 12 gauge cable. That way everyone knows its speaker level and can't fuck things up. Of course you'll need special cables to go from speakon to 1/4" on both sides of the panel but its a small price to pay. If you were to cheese out and use say, 16 gauge cable because its only a foot or so? Then basically the whole speaker cable run is 16 gauge cable because that's your choke point. And you can run 100 feet of 12 or 14 gauge cable without much of any loss. With guitar level signals & impedance... I can absolutely hear the difference between a 10 foot cable, a 25 foot and two 18 footers with a pedalboard between them. So again if we cheese out on the cable and/or don't have good buffers in place, even just an amp that's real sensitive to loading the wall plate is a loss point. Real easy to test. Plug a guitar into a good amp with a 15 foot cable. Then grab another 15 foot cable and a true bypass pedal, leave it off. Sound changes right? Then swap a buffered pedal, like any old Boss and the sound changes again vs plugging right into the amp. Its subtle but its absolutely there. Sometimes you have to use tie lines & patch panels, there just isn't a choice but I'll through ludicrous amounts of effort to avoid them. Okay, J, you basically said everything that I was originally thinking I would want to do. I like your sealable, through-the-wall hole/port concept. I would do this regardless of if I also made a few panel connections available, which since it's all new, I might as well. There will be tie lines to the bathroom, entryway and a storage space, so those will necessarily be connectorized (and I'd likely go the balanced, buffered SDI route for those anyhow), but the good news is I can make a little port below the CR glass (which is on the side, not in front of the seated position) and happily home run just to the other side, which is never gonna be long enough to get anyone uppity about cable lengths. We're talking 10-15 feet from guitar to amp, and you could get it down to 4-5 feet if the guitar player sat in the likely spot. Anything farther is still totally within bounds. It's a small live room. Thanks, man. |
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Post by jmoose on Jul 23, 2021 18:41:22 GMT -6
Gear pimp..? Possibly you have me confused with someone else..? Didn't you work at mercenary back in the day? Anyway, both posts are solid. I keep my amps on for the duration of the session as well. If we finish guitars and move to vocals, I'll shut em down, but otherwise, they're cooking. I do use the standby though. I did for a short bit but didn't wind up at a desk selling gear. That was supposed to be the plan but instead I ended up swinging a hammer and resurrecting the design & build division. Also ran most of the in house sessions while I was there. Kind of made the mistake of telling Fletcher I knew how to sling drywall... Honestly spent more time at the lumber yard then on the phone & came home covered in saw dust everyday. |
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Post by jmoose on Jul 23, 2021 18:49:18 GMT -6
I did an entire record for about a month with Warren Haynes - him in the live room playing his electric plugged in through the wall panel, , upstairs into an office That we used for a booth, split into 3 different amps (Super reverb, Carr Mercury, Gibson Falcon) all running at the same time. He sounded like Warren honestly haha. Any tunes that had a slide solo he tracked standing in the booth with the amp. That was his Homestead that was sort of being tweaked day to day by the amp tech. The Railroad Earth album? Yeah... if the booth is upstairs probably can't avoid tie lines! Worked with him on a different thing & he was all about the SLO & Diaz with speaker cables under the door. Still meaning to reach out to you btw! Things have been nutty in my world, not enough time in the days. |
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Post by Quint on Jul 23, 2021 20:12:37 GMT -6
Didn't you work at mercenary back in the day? Anyway, both posts are solid. I keep my amps on for the duration of the session as well. If we finish guitars and move to vocals, I'll shut em down, but otherwise, they're cooking. I do use the standby though. I did for a short bit but didn't wind up at a desk selling gear. That was supposed to be the plan but instead I ended up swinging a hammer and resurrecting the design & build division. Also ran most of the in house sessions while I was there. Kind of made the mistake of telling Fletcher I knew how to sling drywall... Honestly spent more time at the lumber yard then on the phone & came home covered in saw dust everyday. Was that you that recorded an all-ribbon mic song? Maybe with a Crowley & Tripp, or El Diablo or something, but I might have the make wrong? I remember seeing a video of that song posted over on GS years ago. I believe it was hosted on YouTube but, again, it's been a while. Anyway, I remember thinking it was a really cool song but, when that song popped back up in my memory a couple months ago, I couldn't find it. |
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Post by jeremygillespie on Jul 23, 2021 20:33:33 GMT -6
I did an entire record for about a month with Warren Haynes - him in the live room playing his electric plugged in through the wall panel, , upstairs into an office That we used for a booth, split into 3 different amps (Super reverb, Carr Mercury, Gibson Falcon) all running at the same time. He sounded like Warren honestly haha. Any tunes that had a slide solo he tracked standing in the booth with the amp. That was his Homestead that was sort of being tweaked day to day by the amp tech. The Railroad Earth album? Yeah... if the booth is upstairs probably can't avoid tie lines! Worked with him on a different thing & he was all about the SLO & Diaz with speaker cables under the door. Still meaning to reach out to you btw! Things have been nutty in my world, not enough time in the days. Yup! There are 3 booths but I had drums in one, bass amp in another, fiddle in the third, needed someplace else to put his amps. He had the Diaz with him (along with a truck load of other amps) but Only used it to track something for a Robben Ford record one night. And yeah man let’s grab a brew at some point. I’m slammed with work and also in house remodeling hell, but we should carve some time! |
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Post by jmoose on Jul 24, 2021 16:03:53 GMT -6
Was that you that recorded an all-ribbon mic song? Maybe with a Crowley & Tripp, or El Diablo or something, but I might have the make wrong? I remember seeing a video of that song posted over on GS years ago. I believe it was hosted on YouTube but, again, it's been a while. Anyway, I remember thinking it was a really cool song but, when that song popped back up in my memory a couple months ago, I couldn't find it. Negative. That was after my time. Probably Eldon..? I was there when the Crowley & Tripp guys came in with their very first prototypes and asked us to try 'em out. Were no great sessions of note in my time frame. I did however drive pretty much every nail & screw in the "meth lab" control room... have pictures, plans, all that stuff in my archives. |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jul 24, 2021 17:22:42 GMT -6
Was that you that recorded an all-ribbon mic song? Maybe with a Crowley & Tripp, or El Diablo or something, but I might have the make wrong? I remember seeing a video of that song posted over on GS years ago. I believe it was hosted on YouTube but, again, it's been a while. Anyway, I remember thinking it was a really cool song but, when that song popped back up in my memory a couple months ago, I couldn't find it. Negative. That was after my time. Probably Eldon..? I was there when the Crowley & Tripp guys came in with their very first prototypes and asked us to try 'em out. Were no great sessions of note in my time frame. I did however drive pretty much every nail & screw in the "meth lab" control room... have pictures, plans, all that stuff in my archives. What happened to that place? |
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Post by Quint on Jul 24, 2021 18:34:56 GMT -6
Was that you that recorded an all-ribbon mic song? Maybe with a Crowley & Tripp, or El Diablo or something, but I might have the make wrong? I remember seeing a video of that song posted over on GS years ago. I believe it was hosted on YouTube but, again, it's been a while. Anyway, I remember thinking it was a really cool song but, when that song popped back up in my memory a couple months ago, I couldn't find it. Negative. That was after my time. Probably Eldon..? I was there when the Crowley & Tripp guys came in with their very first prototypes and asked us to try 'em out. Were no great sessions of note in my time frame. I did however drive pretty much every nail & screw in the "meth lab" control room... have pictures, plans, all that stuff in my archives. Sean Eldon. That's what I needed. That was enough for me to find the video. Here it is: |
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Post by Bat Lanyard on Jul 24, 2021 19:49:41 GMT -6
Negative. That was after my time. Probably Eldon..? I was there when the Crowley & Tripp guys came in with their very first prototypes and asked us to try 'em out. Were no great sessions of note in my time frame. I did however drive pretty much every nail & screw in the "meth lab" control room... have pictures, plans, all that stuff in my archives. Sean Eldon. That's what I needed. That was enough for me to find the video. Here it is: Holy fucking acid bomb. That was amazing! Wow. |
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Post by jmoose on Jul 25, 2021 15:10:19 GMT -6
What happened to that place? What do you mean? I think the fate of Mercenary was pretty well documented..? Or was there something else? Fletcher is completely retired from any sort of audio work these days and owns a bar & grill. |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jul 25, 2021 15:14:08 GMT -6
What happened to that place? What do you mean? I think the fate of Mercenary was pretty well documented..? Or was there something else? Fletcher is completely retired from any sort of audio work these days and owns a bar & grill. I mean the actual room itself. |
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Post by jmoose on Jul 25, 2021 15:32:26 GMT -6
I haven't the slightest idea. For all I know that space is still available and intact... or someone else took it over and gutted it?
For people who never stepped foot in there... the Mercenary offices/studio complex was in a turn of the centaury brick warehouse that was also occupied by several other companies. There was a gym upstairs, above the main Mercenary "live room" / warehouse. By 6pm everyday the aerobics class was in full swing and there was no way to do any sort of recording lol. Mandatory break time!
If you watch the video its the space with the drums. The control room was built in an alcove under the "Fletcher Construction" banner which IIRC he nabbed on a trip to Australia..? The front part of the control room extended out a couple feet & was painted black.
The doors for the room, with the round portholes came from Synchro Sound which was the Cars studio. Got them from Bob Alach of Alatronics fame. He had them in his barn at home lol
If they ever pop up the hinge cutouts say "Syncho Sound" with the carpenters names penciled in... I added my name as well. They're solid oak and seriously heavy.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2021 23:37:32 GMT -6
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Post by jmoose on Jul 26, 2021 12:45:02 GMT -6
Interesting. Explains a couple of things... but I kinda doubt anything would happen in Foxboro. That ship sailed and sank. He'll christen a new vessel.
Ran into Fletcher at the last AES show. Actually he stopped me because I was wearing my staff hoodie... Said it was his first time at the show in about a decade. And that the only piece of audio gear he'd really used in the last decade was a Behringer mixer for karaoke at the bar.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2021 14:58:46 GMT -6
Interesting. Explains a couple of things... but I kinda doubt anything would happen in Foxboro. That ship sailed and sank. He'll christen a new vessel. Ran into Fletcher at the last AES show. Actually he stopped me because I was wearing my staff hoodie... Said it was his first time at the show in about a decade. And that the only piece of audio gear he'd really used in the last decade was a Behringer mixer for karaoke at the bar. Talk about Shit on a Stick ! (I'm aging myself with that reference) |
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Post by notneeson on Aug 13, 2021 14:46:22 GMT -6
That is an awesome setup. How does this work with the amp heads all being on at once though? I would assume they're all on at once, otherwise you wouldn't be able to do the quick compare and contrast if you had to individually turn on each head and wait for it to warm up? Conventional wisdom dictates that a tube amp must be connected to a load (speaker cab), otherwise you might burn it up. Does this give you any trouble? Assuming they're all on at once, it seems like at least 10 of those amp heads would not be connected to any load at any given time. Is there some sort of resistive load on each 1/4" jack that disconnects/deactivates when a cable is plugged in to the jack? How is this with noise? Do you notice that you pick up any noise running long cable runs to the speaker cabs in the basement? Do you use the same model mic on each of the four cabs or do you kind of have a "here's what generally works best on this particular cab" setup going? I'm just wondering about making apples to apples comparisons. I'm building a large shed (standalone) out behind my studio in the next six months or so. I may have to run underground conduit between the two buildings and use the shed for a similar kind of setup. Hence, all of my questions. Am I wrong in thinking you could have any head in standby and that wouldn't require a load? I thought that was partly what "standby" mode was. Here's where I get found out for supreme ignorance! Something to do with high voltage from the tubes... but that might've been for the benefit of the power supply. Jeez, I can solder but no more than that. My amp tech says: “Yeah…so u don’t need a load if the amp is on standby. The power switch will just turn on the tube filament and any low voltage. The standby switch turns on the plate voltage to the tubes this turning them on and needing a load. “ |
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