I've been contemplating the M-Audio M3-6 for my set up... the M3-8 would be far too much for my tiny music room.
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I've been contemplating the M-Audio M3-6 for my set up... the M3-8 would be far too much for my tiny music room.
Moving to St. Louis! And hopefully I'll be spending a lot of time in nashville. A friend's uncle produced some awesome stuff for some pretty well known people over the years.
So I'm hoping the next time I past something here, it'll be in regards to shows I've been playing, or super awesome studio time! I'm so excited! Wish me luck everyone, cuz I have a TON of work ahead of me overhauling and improving my solo work, and finding a new group of people to play with...really ironic at the timing this all fell into my lap.
Hopefully will have something to show off soon, but I'm not going to be premature with it like I have been in the past.
Love all of you! And if you see me online again, it's probably a good thing...cuz my noise will be paying the intranet and other bills.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
So I'm hoping the next time I past something here, it'll be in regards to shows I've been playing, or super awesome studio time! I'm so excited! Wish me luck everyone, cuz I have a TON of work ahead of me overhauling and improving my solo work, and finding a new group of people to play with...really ironic at the timing this all fell into my lap.
Hopefully will have something to show off soon, but I'm not going to be premature with it like I have been in the past.
Love all of you! And if you see me online again, it's probably a good thing...cuz my noise will be paying the intranet and other bills.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
Be aware, James, most nearfield monitors will work in small rooms, as they're just that: nearfield. Some will be too loud at high volumes, but many attenuate quite well. For instance, I've got Event BAS 20/20 V3s. They are insanely loud at high volumes as they're famous for, and will simply eviscerate your ears in my small room... however they are astoundingly flat at low volumes which is really nice as I live in an apartment and can monitor late at night without things losing all the bass (or high end) definition at low levels. On the other hand, when I was trying out the coveted Adam A7Xs, the tonal character shifted way too much at differing monitoring volumes for my tastes, and subsequently passed on them.
Your bigger concern should be how low you want your bass extension to go in your mains (vs. your sub and/or are you checking with a sub) and how it's delivered, i.e. in a smaller room your monitors are going to be closer to the walls, and front ports are generally preferred to avoid pesky resonances. Anywho, in most cases a bigger woofer is going to allow you to hit lower notes in your mains regardless of volumes. Many like the Events let you trim/boost the overall bass/mid/treble relationship anyway. Food or thought.
Indeed! Good information. The room in question is barely 7 foot x 10 foot once I built a 'room inside a room' (5 layers of drywall, 6 inches of empty space and a course of R13 between me and the rest of the house). Between the M3-6 and M3-8 there are only 2dB difference in the LF range... and $300 difference in pair price. Both are 3-way, 3 amp, 3 band EQ... that was one of the main things that pushed me to them.
They will be positioned on short stands on my desk a foot away from back and side walls. My go to bass and guitar cabinets since the early 90s have been Bag End, so I'm use to dealing with rear ports.
On my music life today... I'm waiting on a new set of strings for my upright. Jargar Dolce is what I decided to try out. Jargar Strings | Bass
I'm also waiting on a new video card to push 3 monitors (I have 3 24", one is a touch screen) and a new 2tb drive dedicated to writing audio to (OS and apps are on separate SSD).
What you said about getting out frustrations makes sense. Drummers I've played with were more laid back then the front people. Exercise leads to peace of mind I guess! Beat on something and get it out of your system.
Not long after I bought my Peavey Tube 60 I switched the 6L6 pair out for a pair of Tung-Sol KT66 power tubes and a Tung-Sol 12AX7. The KT66's made a noticeable difference in the body of the sound.
It's now about 6 years old and the tubes probably need changing. The other day at rehearsal something didn't quite sound right. The punch wasn't quite there. I reached back and tapped on the power tube cage and could hear metallic ringing in the speaker, like the cathodes were ringing on their supports.
I think it's time to swap the 6L6's back in and see if the punch returns. The 6L6's only got a year or so of use before I swapped in the KT66's, so they should tell me something about the condition of the 66's.
I love tube sound, but solid state is virtually forever as far as consumable parts are concerned.
It's now about 6 years old and the tubes probably need changing. The other day at rehearsal something didn't quite sound right. The punch wasn't quite there. I reached back and tapped on the power tube cage and could hear metallic ringing in the speaker, like the cathodes were ringing on their supports.
I think it's time to swap the 6L6's back in and see if the punch returns. The 6L6's only got a year or so of use before I swapped in the KT66's, so they should tell me something about the condition of the 66's.
I love tube sound, but solid state is virtually forever as far as consumable parts are concerned.
I've had tubes outlast capacitors... but yes tubes generally need more babying
My new strings came Sat but I was out of town... I'm off tomorrow so I think I put them on tonight
These are on the cheaper side @ $131 per set... almost makes me want to stick to guitars!!!
That's not a room, that's a closet!!!
And I thought my space was small. Actually, my fellow bearded warrior, if you've got the room in the walls and the architectural wherewithall, you could just go infinite baffle and build them in. It's the most ideal scenario, actually. Again, make sure the monitors ports are front firing.
Yesterday, my amp suddenly started a high pitched squeal during rehearsal and became unresponsive. I switched off the power for about 30 seconds, tapped on the power tube cage, switched it back on, and it performed well for the rest of the performance with no problems during our set.
I didn't bring it home, but will go in early this week for rehearsal and swap out the tubes for the JJ 6L6's that came in it. The KT66's will probably need replacing, but it might just be tube pin oxidation and sockets that need to be sprayed with contact cleaner. I should have done that while I had it at home. At least I can take the tubes somewhere and have them tested.
The KT66 set has had something like 5 hours a week on time for about 6 years. So, that's about 1500 hours. It's probably time to replace them anyway. The original JJ 6L6's only had a year of use before I swapped to the KT66's, so they should have some usable life left.
I didn't bring it home, but will go in early this week for rehearsal and swap out the tubes for the JJ 6L6's that came in it. The KT66's will probably need replacing, but it might just be tube pin oxidation and sockets that need to be sprayed with contact cleaner. I should have done that while I had it at home. At least I can take the tubes somewhere and have them tested.
The KT66 set has had something like 5 hours a week on time for about 6 years. So, that's about 1500 hours. It's probably time to replace them anyway. The original JJ 6L6's only had a year of use before I swapped to the KT66's, so they should have some usable life left.
1500 hours isn't bad for reasonably priced current production tubes! I dig the new Tung Sol stuff. My amp has a pair of JJ 6L6 currently and I've been considering picking up a pair of the Tung Sol KT66 for it.
Having the known good pulled tubes will let you know if you wore out one of the KT66 or if you need to have it looked at.
That's not a room, that's a closet!!!
Actually, my fellow bearded warrior, if you've got the room in the walls and the architectural wherewithall, you could just go infinite baffle and build them in. It's the most ideal scenario, actually. Again, make sure the monitors ports are front firing.
Yeah, it is a closet! the bathroom in this house was 4.5 feet by 7 feet... I had to step into the shower to close the door!!! It is in the process of growing to 11x7 this spring. I've been slowly working on it over the winter, but between living in the house and needing to not make it unusable for long periods of time, it is a slow renovation. The house is a 900 sq/ft summer bungalow built in the mid 40s. I've been slowly converting every usable inch into custom configured areas. By the time I'm done, it'll be time to start over again
1500 hours isn't bad for reasonably priced current production tubes! I dig the new Tung Sol stuff. My amp has a pair of JJ 6L6 currently and I've been considering picking up a pair of the Tung Sol KT66 for it.
Having the known good pulled tubes will let you know if you wore out one of the KT66 or if you need to have it looked at.
My original electronics course qualified me to be an FCC licensed TV/radio station engineer, but I went to work for a national company as a tech rep/field engineer working on solid state and digital electronics and all the other subsystems in high speed computer room and print shop electronic printers.
I never got to cut my teeth on tubes since solid state had taken over and digital was soon to be the next wave at that time, but I got a lot of troubleshooting experience on a wide variety of systems. I still remember all the theory with control grids, screen grids, suppressor grids, plates, cathodes, biasing, and filaments.
The JJ 6L6's sound really good in that amp. It's a Peavey Tube 60 that has really great effects built in. I use the Sanpera foot controller to select my programmed effects. I even have banks set up for humbuckers, single coil, and additional presets for different guitars. I think it has 255 preset storage locations in banks of 4 with an LCD display that allows naming the banks and the individual settings within a bank. It can be complicated or simple depending on how many you need to get to for a particular song or instrument.
The KT66's made a very noticeable difference when I installed them after a year of so of playing the amp. It could have been expectation or imagination, but I think that palm muted distortion licks were tighter and more defined. Think EVH. Clean tones stood out to me a little better than the JJ's. Of course, that could have been the same psychological effect as the feeling that makes a clean car drive better.
I'm thinking that the tube sockets need a spray of CRC electronics cleaner followed by several tube insertions and removals to wipe contacts in the tube sockets. I'll go ahead and re-install the 6L6's that got little use when it was new and test it for a while. Maybe one of the music stores will have a tube tester for the KT66's.
I do know for a fact that the internals on the tubes (or at least one of them) are loose enough to hear the metallic squishy rattle and ringing noises they make in the speaker when a microphonic tube is tapped.
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Clean tones stood out to me a little better than the JJ's. Of course, that could have been the same psychological effect as the feeling that makes a clean car drive better.
As the employee of a Classic Muscle Car restoration shop specializing in 'midyear' Corvettes (1963-1967)... I can confirm that a clean car does indeed drive better
Generally speaking the same amp with Kt66 will have a touch more clean headroom with a wider frequency response and the 5881 will be tighter with a slightly lower point of breakup when compared with the 6L6. All 3 should just be flavors of the same tones though... I hear far too many people tube rolling in hopes of making an amp something it isn't.
Sounds like you might remember more than I've known at this point. While I spent the mid to late 80s working PCB drafting and design, my tube and audio engineering knowledge is just cresting over the hobby/fanatic stage. I've got a dozen+ tube and tube amp design books from the late 40s to today that I've gotten lost in over the last decade...
My 5 year plan is to finally hash out my amp design in the real world. If it ends up passing the tone test I'll be opening a small run, hand built amp business from home. Not sure if I'll have a market enough to do it full time, but I do already have 4 players itching to send me deposits when I'm ready.
Why do y'all (guitar-boys) make things so dang complicated? Record it. Tweak the mix. .....
I got way involved in the tech back in early 2000's. No More!
Lay it down, Mix it, Put some stank on it.
That is all.
Your drummer
I got way involved in the tech back in early 2000's. No More!
Lay it down, Mix it, Put some stank on it.
That is all.
Your drummer
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As the employee of a Classic Muscle Car restoration shop specializing in 'midyear' Corvettes (1963-1967)... I can confirm that a clean car does indeed drive better
Generally speaking the same amp with Kt66 will have a touch more clean headroom with a wider frequency response and the 5881 will be tighter with a slightly lower point of breakup when compared with the 6L6. All 3 should just be flavors of the same tones though... I hear far too many people tube rolling in hopes of making an amp something it isn't.
Sounds like you might remember more than I've known at this point. While I spent the mid to late 80s working PCB drafting and design, my tube and audio engineering knowledge is just cresting over the hobby/fanatic stage. I've got a dozen+ tube and tube amp design books from the late 40s to today that I've gotten lost in over the last decade...
My 5 year plan is to finally hash out my amp design in the real world. If it ends up passing the tone test I'll be opening a small run, hand built amp business from home. Not sure if I'll have a market enough to do it full time, but I do already have 4 players itching to send me deposits when I'm ready.
Good luck on the amp design. I remember vividly when one of my guitar friends Dad built him a home brew tube amp back in the 1960s. We were all into the Harmony guitar and amp lines because they were within our budgets. The amp his Dad made was a simple tube amp with a 12" speaker in a slanted wooden box with grill cloth on the front. That amp was really sweet and bluesy. I always enjoyed going over to his house and playing through it. It was so clean that you could hear the scratch of the pick strokes as you played. That put a great edge on every note I hit.
My wife and I are going over to the church this morning. She is in charge of a Christmas Nativity Drive through that the church does the week before Christmas each year. They have to wash all the costumes and get them ready for this year. She's been bringing some home every week and returning them the next Sunday.
So, while she's dealing with costumes I'll go over to the Family Life Center and work on my amp.
I guess that this thread should be ReTitled "Guitar Boys"
Effin' string wangers.......
Effin' string wangers.......
There's always a niche market for boutique amps. People are looking for something that makes them sound unique and your designs could provide that. Lots of major players employ individuals who will take a Marshall head and make it sound better than the way it came from the factory.
We have way too many amps from China these days. Yeah, they are all USA designed, but the talent seems to be diminishing in the companies we've all bought amps from. It irks me to hear that companies like Peavey are closing down factories in America that have provided great guitars and amps made by US workers.
Peavey to downsize A Street plant
Fender To Close New Hartford Guitar Plant
When I was in Nashville last year I looked forward to visiting the Gibson factory. Imagine my surprise when I found out the Gibson manufacturing plant had closed down. The Memphis plant is still in operation and my wife wants to see Graceland, so soon we will go there and visit both!
Yup, some of us beat on things and others wang strings and caress keys.
Then, there are the prima donna lead singers who get all the limelight and most of the applause.
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if it ain't groovin', it better be swingin'!
Tell me about it, I'm a bassist or should I say "Oh, I thought that was a guitar".
I really hope so, but I'm doing this for myself... but if I can make others happy and make a buck or 2 that would be great.
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