Adventures in thermionic home brewed guitar tone
Live Gabtone Shop Cam
Short one here folks, to announce that the live Gabtone TV Shop Cam will resume in work days afternoons (usually at around 4:00 pm CST) for those of you curious on tube guitar amp building.
I don’t promise it will be a two way communication (as I need to concentrate at what I’m building) but I’ll read the chat from time to time just in case you have questions about what in the world I am doing!
Guitar pedal board routing
This past weekend I had the honor of meeting, hang out with Vernon Reid and witness the best show I ever saw in my life with LIVING COLOUR at the Double Door in Chicago. Also introduced him to my Gabriel V33 1×12″ Combo he absolutely LOVED! He is a master of high gain amps but very interested in alternatives for guitar tones and found the V33 a versatile guitar amp.
A new (or maybe old?) project that’s been simmering on my back burner was the building of a Telecaster given the fact that I’ve had these two beautiful planks of exotic African Koruna wood for a while now from my good friend Mark Boehm (thanks Mark!).
I’ve been asked numerous times about when will I make those Gabriel Ts available again. The task was always on my list but never got to it.
So finally here it is! The Gabriel Amps Clothing Line, a fashionable, wide variety of apparel in various styles, colors and sizes! Take your pick!
Gabriel T
From T-Shirts to coffee mugs and beyond am working on a couple more Gabriel products so check back regularly because I will be making these available as I finish them.
Show off that you are an owner (or a fan) of one of the finest hand-wired guitar amps on the market!
I couldn’t control myself. After seeing these cool demos of the Magick Eye tube, (a tube commonly used as a tuning indicator in old radios) I had to try them out in my amps. So I plopped together a quick video to see the dramatic and cool visual effect. I will probably tweak some values but overall I am very happy with the visual effect.
The circuit is nothing complicated. All you need is one of the many Magick Eye tubes existent out there, with many different beam patterns, that might need a slightly different pin-out connection, but all of them work in a main common way – it taps in the path of the signal level of roughly 10 to 25 Volts (depends on the type of tube used), and a high DC voltage of something between 200 to 250 (B+).
I used a Russian EM80/6BR5 I scored off Ebay. The EM80 tube has a “U” shaped fluorescent target and two rods connected to the anode, producing two angled shadows on the edge triggered by the control voltage (input signal).
The schematic I used is the one below, posted by Michael on the 18watt site.
I tapped the control voltage (signal) off one of the plates of the EL 84 tubes, and got the high voltage of about 250v off one of the filter caps.
Check this video out of how cool this can be!
The greatest space-eater on guitar pedal boards are the connection jacks.
Just take a look at your pedal board and imagine how much space you can free up if you can neatly align them next to each other as close as possible.
That’s exactly what I did with my guitar pedal board specially after purchasing the Pedaltrain Junior frame that’s quite small, so I had to rethink what pedal I REALLY need and need not. I like to travel light.
A dramatic amp mod as well as the simplest in the Epiphone Valve Junior Head Tube Guitar Amplifier is known as the “JP1 Mod”. The name derived from the jumper labeled JP1 on the board.
It basically morphs the tone of the guitar amp from one with no definition, dark, to an instant edgy and more present tone. To my ears things came to life using the Fender Telecaster compared to the raw un-modded amp I had.
Paul Riario, did an exceptional video demonstration of the Gabriel V33 guitar amp, that was coupled with the print review that appeared in the Guitar World magazine a while ago (by Terry Buddingh). Paul explains in very easy terms the V33’s features as well as the footswitch functions. Sit back relax and enjoy the video!
It’s worth watching.
The patient is in the house. Before taking the scalpel and start the surgery, I thought of shooting a quick reference video for the newly receive out of the box Epiphone Valve Junior head. We will use this to compare the tone for each mod as we go along in our face lift journey.
I was particularly stunned on how dark this guitar amp sounds! In the video I have a Fender Telecaster (Mexican) that sounds crystal clear through my Gabriel V18 or V33 guitar amps. Bright, beautiful upper mids, etc. The overdrive was nevertheless EL-84-ish but without any definition or character or identity. i guess that’s what should be expected from a $150.00 (shipped) head, right?
The speaker cabinet has an AlNiCo Blue Celestion speaker , and has an open back. But even with this speaker the amp is simply too dark.
But the amp has potential. And we’ll discover that as we will start modding it. Stay tuned!
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