Much more fun playing fuzzguitar......

[Donner]

yeah some of us can afford hairs to split more than others

[VacuumVoodoo]

yeah some of us can afford hairs to split more than others

You can always take one from your beard and embed it in the paint on a pedal box. Put on auction in Iran as original hair form the Prophets beard.

Anyway, here's another one from my wild formative years behind the Iron Curtain:

1968 my last year in High School. I already had some amp builds behind me and was doing sound for a pretty good band. Probably the first East European band playing covers of american R&B and Soul, massive brass section included. As always, we suffered from unobtainability of decent gear. There were a few guys building decent guitar amp given the circumstances but bass loudspeaker cabs were nonexistent.
There was a cinema theater where only Sovjet made epic movies were shown, good artistic stuff was always preceeded by at least an hour of propaganda mash. So, from time to time we had a "culture day" at school: see a movie at this cinema. Do I need to add the theater had "Moskva" neon sign in huge 3m high letters above the entrance?
This theater had for the period phenomenal multi channel sound system...there were two huge exponential bass horn at the sides of the screen....each loaded with two 18" woofers from AKG...
During the showing of "War & Peace", a 5 hr long epic, when almost all teachers were asleep and majority of students were making out in the back rows our group of 4 went on "Mission Impossible". We removed one woofer from each of the horns. This part went pretty smoothly. Now we had to get these behemoths out of the theater passing three doormen. Well, three bottles of vodka paid our escape.

Next, building the cab in woodworking class at school. Our teacher already knew we were weirdos after we converted a couple ironing boards into electric guitars. (Single piece body, fret boards made by a luthier who was in charge of all stringed instruments at Warsaw Philharmonics.) It turned out a big badass wall shaker bass cab size of a large bathtub. The AKG speakers usually didn't last more than two gigs, they were not really suited for bass guitar and overheated badly, burning out the voice coils. Luckily they were very service friendly, you just had two unscrew the whole cone assembly and rewind the coil. Thus they probably became the first ever "custom bass speakers with hand wound coils". Cone suspension at the rim also got torn after some time so I had to learn how to repair it with a stew made of toilet paper and glue slowly simmered for couple of hours. I also treated repaired rims with gum arabicum for a final touch.

Funny thing is nobody ever complained about changed sound quality in the theater. Missing woofers were noticed only when the sound system got upgraded several years later.

Next installment: How I run a pirate radio station for 2 days.

[Donner]

Wow Alex thats some geurilla equipment cration !!!!

hmmm AKG 18" ??? interesting....

and the stew of toilet paper and glue reminded me of my finger pickin buddies who make themselves fake fingernails by putting latyers of toilet paper and super glue on thier fingernails and then shaping them with a file.........very effective.....!!

hmmm did any of these exploits inspire anything that found its way into t he Louder and More amps ?????

[VacuumVoodoo]

hmmm did any of these exploits inspire anything that found its way into t he Louder and More amps ?????

Tough question Donner. In retrospective I'd say that all these exploits taught me to overcome difficulties and obstacles, to find ways around them. All this youthful bravado and tongue in cheek attitude is what Louder And More amp is about. With Bjorn being kind of my spiritual younger brother Louder And More was just predestined to happen. Karma, it works in mysterious ways, if you're metaphysically inclined.

[BJF]

Hi,

I have gotten to know Aleksander as a dear friend and a constant source of stories.
It's funny that I started building my own things as there were no really good things I could afford or for that matter have even if I could have afforded. In fact most things at the time were not so shall we say entertaining but more a conquer or give up type, while that was in Sweden in the 70's, funny as Aleksander had a similar experience in Poland.
When buying my first electric guitar, there was also an amp that the guy had and I wanted that amp bad, but the guitar was 200SEK and that was what I had and the amp another 200SEK so I settled for the guitar and rebuilt my mother's transistor radio.
Through the years I have built things to capture a specific sound or function that I have needed and the star to follow always being the sound.

Now like with this amplifier in some ways it may pay homage to a Chicago tube tape recorder that was the first amp I used for rehearsing. It had this diode input that gave truely inspiring fuzz when used.

I thought with this L&M amplifier that it should be designed in two halves, one preamp and one poweramp and that it should have just two knobs but that it should have a FUZZ circuit and the sound of this fuzz would be just the remains of a lingering memory of once a tube tape recorder- no I can't really hear the sound anymore but I remember the feeling of that sound and that is what got to be.

It's not so much a question of using this or that circuit but to design around amplifier behaviour and so we discussed before there were any circuit elements various things of amplifier behaviour as in for instance what powersupply to use to make the most of the format and what speaker et.c et.c slowly building the amplifier from the outside in.

If anything, and perhaps the between us common thing was just these sounds of electrical guitar, the sounds that were once the inspiration. Circuits then are only the means of achieving the sound.
Yes we did discuss this that fine guitar sounds were always hard to come by and such would Aleksander's experience be as a soundtechnician, just as it would be my experience as a musician and soundtechnician.

So, no I wouldn't say there were any specific circuit elements used from this or that but more a design to capture sounds and behaviours, but that of course experiences like snatching a bass woofer may have an underlying impact, in that that would also be a question of getting the sound.

I think the biggest inspiration ever were the sounds that weren't good at all and the ways to get around that.

Have fun
BJ

BJF Electronics
Sweden
http://www.bjfe.org
http://www.mpamp.com

[Donner]

ha - yes sometimes you run fastest when your running AWAY from something !!!
and bad sound is certainly something to run f rom......

and yes I very much understand trying to recapture some of those rare perfect sound moments ...

in fact I had a similar moment with a tape deck used as preamplifier....

it was t he first really good band I was in and a friend of the singer/keyboardist sat in with us and he had t his ugly box on top of his and a stomp on the floor that engaged it - and when he did his guitar just sang with sweet growly sustain like Randy Bachmans - much smoother than my beautiful chrome Morley power wah fuzz did - so much so I was startled and stopped playing just to listen to him............ turned out it was the guts from an old tape deck in there ................. that sound haunted me for years

and if I was a pedal maker I would surely try and recreate that

[BJF]

Hi,

I feel sounds travel and give hints therefore this demo of The Defining Riff is just rythmguitar and I would ask of you do you not also hear a lead guitar, albeit just one in your head?
This is how I think sound travels.
In my own head I hear numerous imortal licks of Richie and I know I grew up with that and something just lingers in my head.

Like with sound, it is a feeling and one that grabs you hard.

But the purpose of that demo was just to show how much fun can be had and shared.

I wonder did I miss the rythm or whatever but this is a riff everybody knows and one I played once younger and more eager.

Indeed those moments of experience!

I will say the sound of the amp...........yes it is much more fun playing fuzz guitar woohoo

Have fun and be most well
BJ

[Donner]

mmmm yes it seems to be much like food - a similar sense memory...

like when we are contemplating what to have for dinner we usually say 'Whatcha tastin?'

as in what memory do you want to chase ??

pizza? fajitas? etc.....

same with tones - I want THAT sound to come out of my amp....


like that ringing clang chord at the beginning of Hard Days Night - I would be happy to hear t hat come out of my amp


so 'whatch hearin? '

[VacuumVoodoo]

so 'whatch hearin? '

I'm hearing voices in my head......they make me write stuff and post it here.....and when I read it I can't believe I wrote it.
They're silent now but we'll see what comes out of my keyboard after next visitation.

[VacuumVoodoo]

No time to write another story now. On subject of hearing sound, tone, music. But if you can't hear how can you listen to music?
A fascinating lady shows you how. Yes, she's deaf since childhood. Incredible.

Watch her workshop: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/evelyn_glennie_shows_how_to_listen.html