iAmplifier Gizmoidalage & Gadgetoids

Update 10:00 pm 11/26 - Welp whilst switching around tubes to see if I could isolate the hum issue in amp I tried to straighten a pin on one o' the tubes & snap. So my conjecture is that hum is probably due to way old tubes so ordered some to try. Not a bad thing. I also chose to pursue a newer tube set by Electro Harmonix rather than the Groove Tubes that everybody & their brother sells. End update.

This ramble has been a couple of days in the making but I think I'm content with the wisdom of the result. I had the usual Friday off after downing the Triptophan & other standard Thursday goods. I finally got around to changing my Fender's strings for the purpose of providing to Gloppage dude for the pedal mods as there are points in the mod process where the pedal needs to be checked. Anyway...I finally, I know it's a miracle, plugged my Crate amp in. Silly me...I expected it to work just fine after several years of dormancy in closets. It worked some of the time. Other times the left speaker has an annoying hum that indicates something is not happy somewhere. Anyway...I did finally try out the Phaser I bought. It's swirly cool ma'an. I also plugged in the yet to be modified Super Distortion pedal. Cool as well. But as I've spoken before, and that which I realized yet again, the amp is not designed for quiet or for close quarter living situations with neighbors; I'm not sure why I chose to buy such a powerhouse way back when but I was naive then. So between the speaker hum, which I will blabble about in a minute, & the loud factor, I allowed myself to enter a period of depresso discouragement. And that's pretty typical for me in regards to musicdom over the years....Try something, don't like it or something's wrong, throw a pity party about it. As far as the left hummage goes I did pull out & reseat the 4 tubes & made sure that they all glowed when turned on. They weren't purple though. Oh well. So the speaker still hummed. I noticed that at least for a few moments applying pressure upon this metal overhang heat absorber plate thing the hum went away. But it comes back so I need to dink about with it a bit & possibly call Crate on Monday.

Back to the original subject which I haven't really mentioned yet & that is I started considering should I bother with an attenuator like the THD Hot Plate or sell the overpowered, but well reviewed, amp & get a low wattage studio type practice amp. So I spent a few hours on Sat. night researching myriads of 15-30 watt amps available for an amount much lower than a Hot Plate costs. It's puzzling to me that manufacturers of these amps do not supply an Effects Send/Return jack on such amps. I was really sold on the Spider III 15 Modelling amp until I read that they don't include effects loops. I was also looking at the Orange CR-15 amps. I still want to try one but no effect loop. And as I write this I conjecture that an effects loop is not included so as to try to lead buyers to choose a more expensive amplifier that has one. And boy the Orange amp prices jump radically from the CR-15. Ugh. I went to bed last night with a possible few models to try to go try if any stores within the Santa Cruz/Santa Clara counties might have one to try. Still discouraged though.

I mounted my computer chair this morning once again to continue to look around & I stumbled upon some good wisdom that helped me conclude that I will keep me loud thing & try to obtain a Hot Plate off Craigslist or EBay. The wisdom is here:
http://www.guitarnuts.com/amps/myths.php

Now not so blah & negative about things. Sometime next year I might invest in some Celestion speakers to replace the Crate stock speakers.

The only thing positive about the smaller lower wattage things is that they do offer headphone jacks that mute the speaker. That's a big plus as the bulk of the time I would just be dinking around & need to keep annoying Terra to a minimum.

Until later comes, turn it up to Effects Loops.