Actually a bass guitar amp is a lot closer to a hi fi amp. Bass players need to get a lot of clean power. Might be one in the future, if I get inspired?
Meantime lots of fun stuff has been happening. The controls are now the brake, which is more or less the master volume (other volume control is at the guitar); feedback, which inserts a 50K variable resistor into the feedback loop to lessen or remove the feedback for greater distortion and gain; and the third control is now a variable resistor in series with the output tube cathode bypass cap. There is a small cap bypassing this that preserves the high treble. Rolling this pot on gives about a 15dB max scoop that curves from about 200Hz to maybe 4kHz. Then you can roll off the top end with the tone control on your guitar if you wish.
Another way big improvement that happened Sunday was that I changed to the Jensen Mod8 speaker. Very nice speaker, much better bass in this box and a wee bit of mid scoop that helps to give a better balanced sound from a twee little speaker. The Weber I started with is nice too, but this Jensen happens to work better in this app. In fact it now sounds pretty close tonally to the 12" Eminence Legend I have been comparing to. The Weber may end up in an Electar 10 I bought when I started to investigate what's out there in inexpensive tube combo amps. The stock speaker in that Electar is mud!
Along with all this the little Mini Strat I bought is getting turned into a real guitar. I bought some Alnico V, slightly overwound Strat pickups on ebay. The seller sells the set for a ridiculously cheap $32, figured I couldn't lose trying them. Completely transformed the little axe, really Stratty now with a twangy bridge, quacking 2nd position and a nice big toned neck sound. Some Thomastik Blues Sliders in a custom even tension 11-48 set I put together are on there, a nice old .022 oil cap I had went into the tone control, a Yamaha 5 way switch replaced the 3 way it came with. Have a bone nut and some steel saddles coming along with some string thru bushings. I think that for about $150 I'm going to end up with a really neat little guitar that's fairly easy for me little fingers to stretch on. This whole new rig has me inspired and I've been practicing about 1/2 an hour to an hour every night. Maybe I'll be able to make it through a whole song some day after all! Think I'll try the 335 on the amp tonite. With a couple of guitars I really dig playing around with, might be it's time to sell my Teles...
