Ep. 116: "Or Something"

The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons

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 [e-mail]! 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 talking about 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 [e-mail] and don't forget to share the show with friends on social media.