When I was around 14 years old I had an old valve radiogram, you know huge bit of furniture that was a medium/long & shortwave radio and a turntable. A monster piece of equipment and had some decent volume to it too.
At that time I was quite heavily into electronics and building stuff etc. I built a clean preamp with a lot of clean gain and wired that into the input of the radiogram valve amp and plugged my guitar into the preamp. There were no measurements or calculations taking place to ensure all impedances matched etc (the almost certainly didn't match at all), but that thing had the most glorious sound ever. Really thick juicy distortion sound that I've been trying to get again for years but have never found anything that could get close to it. It was a combination of all the wrong parts not matching and running a non-guitar speaker too in a lovely highly polished wooden cabinet, but the sound was phenomenal. I did make some recordings of it at the time on an open reel tape machine that we had at home (my dad was into all this stuff too) but sadly the tapes all went missing over the years as did the tape machine. I know I'm not looking back with rose tinted glasses at this as I can still hear this thick juicy sound in my head and the way it reacted to the playing was incredible.
Anyone else have memories of a tone that you had once upon a time and wish you could get again ?
No, Not a tone. We did have one of those old console, long pieces of furniture when I was a kid.
This is about as close to the model as I can find. very close.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptVyFS8T9QI
I do have this memory of this old song. My grandfather would sing it and bounce me on his knee. He died when I was seven. I haven't actually heard this song in over 45 years, though over the years I do find myself singing it.
Yesterday, I was driving over to Orlando for business, and it was raining fucking buckets. You could barely see it was raining so hard. Very intense driving. No radio as not to distract.
I found myself singing this song, rather loudly. LOL. I had to laugh. I know all the words. It's just a silly little limerick type song. It equates to joy. Always has.
I'm going to try to find some info on the song origin.
yeah I miss several of my old amps. I had a black face Fender Bassman 50 watts into a 2-12 cabinet. I bought it in 1964, and used it for several years. I also had a black face Fender Deluxe reverb at the same time. I also once had a Rivera era Fender 30 amp It was the size of a deluxe reverb 1-12 in the cab. It had channel switching controlled by a foot switch (That was my first fender amp with that feature), on board reverb also. I gave that amp and the bassman cabinet to my kiddo when I bought my Mark II Mesa Boogie. I don't know what the kid did with the Fender 30 but I sure miss it.
Now disclaimer; I have the very best tone ever right now 3 feet from where I am typing. I have a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with JJ Tubes, and an Eminence Cannabis Rex Speaker. The secret for the tone (aside from the amp itself which is great even stock) is; 1) the tubes, 2) the speaker, and 3) the volume box I put in the efx loop which acts as a master volume but it is an audio taper pot in a box and it mitigates the highs just like turning the amp up and the volume on the guitar down. It is the absolutely sweetest deepest fattest tone I have ever gotten out of any amp. I also only use the clean channel with distortion stomps in front of the amp input. It works with all of my guitars. Simply awesome.
For two weeks I "rented" (i.e., bought to play at a gig then returned ;)) a Marshall JCM 800 full stack which, when cranked, was just orgasmic to stand in front of. I had the chance to be alone with it before our soundcheck and I just couldn't stop hitting those big chords (A, E, F/D). Still brings a smile to my face. :)
Some of the best sounds I ever got back in the day (late 60's early 70's) was with my old Marshall 100 Watt Plexi on top of a Sunn 6-12 cabinet. All that moving air gave me under and overtones too tasty to ever forget. I am sure my neighbors hated it but I loved it back then. I was playing a 67 SG in front of it and man oh man the sounds I got from that set up could only be duplicated with a Marshall Stack. These days I can't stand all that volume or trebles, but in my memory that is one of the tastiest sounds I ever got. It was a one trick pony but that one trick was awesome. Later on I traded the SG and 300 bucks for my first Les Paul Custom and truth be told it had a fatter sound but the wood was thicker so the sound vibes could not penetrate the wood in the same way, so I could not get those same feedbacks to slide into the upper harmonic over tones. I did trade/buy back the SG once I knew what the Les Paul did.......
One of the neat things about that 100 watt plexi was; I found different places on the floor where I could get different feedback and under/overtones I would mark the floor with tape, and the direction I was standing in front of the amp made a huge difference. To get the best overtones I had to stand 6 feet in front/slight left of the amp with my body at an angle less than parallel to the amp slightly turned towards my left and the opposite was true for the undertones it was a completely different place and angle. Once I saw Steve Vai playing on the tube and he stood on top of a special carpet with graphics all over the carpet. I was pretty sure he used those graphics to get the same thing from his rig.
I can also get a similar effect from the HRD as long as I have the speaker up as high as the guitar is on my body it has to be level with the guitar, and the moving air has to penetrate through my body into the pickups through the wood. It is real tasty. But the volume has to be incredibly loud to make that happen.
When I played out I always had my amp up on a bar stool for a similar effect. But it has never equaled the Plexi, even with the HRD. Pointing the amp up from the floor don't work the same sadly.....