Sound Garage Tales

Because the EF86 pentode is such a finicky tube but sounds so wicked (once you find the right one), I thought it might be worth showing the pain I’m going through (besides replacing Fallon with Leno), to keep things quiet:

This week’s video tip is about soldering the leads to the turret board to have a strong connection. The wire I am using is PVC insulated topcoat stranded wire (20 AWG).

Where I show how I am attaching the EM80 Magic Eye tube to the inside of the Gabriel 1×12″ Stinger Combo. The hole I drill has a 1-3/8″ diameter using a Forstner bit. Then I am using a transparent plexi and a metallic shield screwed on the front valance.
The electrical connections are made via an octal tube socket connection on the side of the chassis. The electrical layout of the Magic Eye can be found here.

The weekly tip on how to mount (solder) the copper buss wire to the front controls (potentiometers), and a jig. The buss wire can be found at any hardware shop and the one I’m using here is 14 AWG.

Some of you might know that the whole Gabriel Sound Garage venture was spun into space by a little college physics project by my brother in law Tim, called The Champ.

This small little beast intrigued me enough with its splendid sound despite the 8 inch speaker to pursue building my First Born 10 years ago and from there as they say it’s history:

Finally I got a Solder Fume Extractor after years of soldering. It’s about time. The fumes can be nasty for your health:

I can’t believe it! I still remember the day(s) when I first stumbled over the 18watt forum over on yahoogroups and getting to know the extraordinary people and friends there in early 2002, getting all fired up about building, starting gathering parts for the 1×12″ 18watt combo, building the actual cabinet, tolexing (I hated that!) chassis and everything, including the goosebumps I got when I first hit the STANDBY on switch! So yes, today that First Born amp is 10 years old!

the First Born Gabriel 18 watt amplifier

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20 AWG wire USA Flag

I always have heap of precious scrap wire from my amps that goes in the trash, so I decided to give it a better use this time by making a festive USA flag. It is made out of 20 AWG 600V PVC insulated stranded wire. Enjoy and have a safe 4th!

If you ever tripped over certain still pictures on the Internets that creeped you out seeing that the model in them actually blinked or their hair is moving ever so slightly in the wind, giving an eerie feel about them, well, you were introduced to what they call cinemagraphs.

Cinemagraphs are still images with only a small looped movement in them. The cinemagraph concept as a photography style is attributed to Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck from New York City, who introduced the first set on From Me To You blog. In their words, the cinemagraph is “more than a photo, but not quite a video”. I have to mention that the animated gif has been around since the ’90s but the actual twist on it as a cinemagraph is not. Here’s my first try at it. What do you think?

I thought this particular build (a Gabriel Stinger 7w Head with an Celestion AlNiCo Blue open back bottom) was worth of recording a video demo to keep for the records. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the way the Blue interacted with the Stinger. It is as if they were from the same movie.  The 100 dbs sensibility of the Blue helps making this Stinger rig pretty loud for it’s humble 7w power rating. Obviously what you hear is NOT what it sounds in reality since you really need to be in the room to get the full emotional vibe of the tone but you can get an idea. Sit back and enjoy! And of course please leave a comment!!