It’s the 116th episode of the Truth About Vintage Amps podcast, where legendary amp tech Skip Simmons fields your questions on guitar amps and their repair!
Want to be a part of the show? Keep the amp questions for Skip coming to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Voice memos or emails are welcome. And don’t forget we now have a Patreon.
This week’s sponsors: Emerald City Guitars, Stringjoy Strings (use the code FRETBOARD to save off your first string order), Amplified Parts, and Grez Guitars.
This week’s topics:
1:02 Making amps out of little intercoms, redux
4:01 Amplified Parts’ Potentiometer Adapter Sleeve (link)
8:34 Join our Patreon and hear a lost episode with Steve Melkisethian (Angela Instruments): https://www.patreon.com/vintageamps
9:19 What’s on Your Bench: A 1952 low-powered Tweed Twin found on eBay
12:00 Retiring the word “blackface” when describing amps
16:10 Coupling capacitor orientation, redux
20:28 Jonathan Stout (check out ‘Pick It and Play It‘); “For the Good Times” by Al Green
26:19 Sellers turning vintage amps on with no speaker load
29:55 The best DIY Fender Princeton kits around; roasted cauliflower with curry powder, Soursound transformers (link)
40:28 Does a lower B+ keep an old amp happier?
43:58 How quickly could you build a Champ? The Fretboard Summit (August 24-26 in Chicago) and JHS’s Germanium Chef competition (attend by registering here: www.fretboardsummit.org), wiring a part board before you put it in the amp
46:59 Chris at Deluxe Amplification (deluxeamplification.com)
50:08 A horse-powered IBM Selectric typewriter (Facebook post link)
52:06 Silvertone 1484 amps; in defense of metal film resistors, a forthcoming Ampeg documentary, Ampeg Jets and Rockets, the Jackson Audio 1484 – Twin Twelve pedal (link), a Guild 66-J amp with a Pyle Driver speaker
1:09:20 The Fret Files podcast capacitor test (link); the terminology of pickups
Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.
Support us on Patreon.com for added content and the occasional surprise and don’t forget to get a subscription to the Fretboard Journal (link). Digital subscriptions start at just $30.
Submit your amp questions, recipes, and life hacks to podcast@fretboardjournal.com and don’t forget to share the show with friends on social media.
