The little YBA-2A awoke from its' slumber painlessly. The cabinet was a no-name and unrated for power capacity, but pulling the jack-plate off (infinite baffle deal) revealed a very large ceramic magnet, and based on the size I was figuring the driver for a 2" voice coil, so this little jewel was good for 75-100 watts.
The good news was I would never blow this cabinet with my weenie 18-20 watts. The bad news was I would never get the speaker to contribute to the tone.
None-the-less, I played. The little amp was smooth and sultry up to about 4-5 on the dime dial, and thereafter crunch set in.
With single coils, by the time you hit 8 on this little monster it was howling like a two year old with a lolly-pop 5" out of reach.
This little guy would peel paint, especially if you were packing the front-end with a tube screamer.
But of course, I:
a. Now have a family and a mortgage
b. have neighbors
I used to laugh at 18 watts, but I was playing bass in a hyper-db. band at the time (just this side of a jet aircraft taking off). I am here to now say 18 watts is LOUD.
Like most tube amps, it doesn't walk the walk until you dime it. So I was still sort of looking for a tone machine solution.
Enter amp-modeling options, stage left.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
...been a while
Holidays and work pressed (work continues to) but I've still been the voice of one wailing in the wilderness.
... So here are my current disjunct thoughts.
Various frustrations with the old Prince-towns' reverb circuit finally led me to dissect the thing and have another looksee.
Turns out in one of my soldering swarays I had melted the binding-post for one of the reverb drive-coils off the bobbin, and it subsiquently broke the (28 gauge?) wire attached.
no connection - no signal.
So while I lamented no 'verb, and dreaded the amp's dry sound (fenders are all about 'verb), I broke the traded-into Traynor YBA-2A "Bassmate" out of the closet.
Years back, I was playing bass in church, and all the equipment I had was way overkill.
Not inconsequentially, the guy leading worship had this amp (piggy0back deal) with a little 115 Traynor reflex cabinet.
I had some 112 monitors I wasn't using, so we struck hands and made a deal.
I found out early on the amp wasn't long on headroom for bass (has a pair of EL-84's in the output, so it 'may" throw 20 watts on a good day). I also found out, however, that sonic qualities when driven to distortion with a guitar, were much like an 18 watt Plexi Marshall.
A few recent drive-bys on the pawn-shops and I found a generic single 12" PA cab (no tweeter) or $30, and I had a mini stack with my little freebee plex-clone out of storage and getting hot again.
More on Trayning wheels later.
... So here are my current disjunct thoughts.
Various frustrations with the old Prince-towns' reverb circuit finally led me to dissect the thing and have another looksee.
Turns out in one of my soldering swarays I had melted the binding-post for one of the reverb drive-coils off the bobbin, and it subsiquently broke the (28 gauge?) wire attached.
no connection - no signal.
So while I lamented no 'verb, and dreaded the amp's dry sound (fenders are all about 'verb), I broke the traded-into Traynor YBA-2A "Bassmate" out of the closet.
Years back, I was playing bass in church, and all the equipment I had was way overkill.
Not inconsequentially, the guy leading worship had this amp (piggy0back deal) with a little 115 Traynor reflex cabinet.
I had some 112 monitors I wasn't using, so we struck hands and made a deal.
I found out early on the amp wasn't long on headroom for bass (has a pair of EL-84's in the output, so it 'may" throw 20 watts on a good day). I also found out, however, that sonic qualities when driven to distortion with a guitar, were much like an 18 watt Plexi Marshall.
A few recent drive-bys on the pawn-shops and I found a generic single 12" PA cab (no tweeter) or $30, and I had a mini stack with my little freebee plex-clone out of storage and getting hot again.
More on Trayning wheels later.
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