Finally A Good Blues Rig!

I've been playing through a series of different solid state amps for some time now. I've learned how to get the best tone from them, but at the end of the day, they are not a vintage tube amp, and they don't have the tone that I really wanted.

Searching Craigslist and Ebay and other sources had yielded a number of different good amps to buy in the 5 watt range ( Champ 500, VHT Special 6, etc) but every time I'd call on one, it was gone. What I really wanted was a Kalamazoo amp like Greg Heumann sells.

A couple days ago however, a Craigslist add popped up for a Gibson Skylark GA-5T. Looking it over in the add, it sure looked like a Kalamazoo. Some Googling yielded that it was made in the Kalamazoo factory. I don't yet know however if it is exactly the same circuit. More Googling to be done on that.

So I headed out to the shop and they had the amp. It was/is in awesome condition. I played it and several other 5 watt amps and this one beat the others hands down in the tone area. Price wise, I think they had it underpriced by about half- that did not bother me a bit. I walked out the door with the amp and its in my woodshed now for some playing. I'm still learning how to get the most out of it, but its got tone for days!

 

Opening up the amp, I can tell first that the covers have never been off, and that its never been worked on. This amp is perfect, just like it left the factory.

 



More Progress On the New Mic....

So I made some more progress on this mic.

First up, I had to find a good pot (potentiometer) for the volume control. That took a bit of doing. I ended up with a 5 meg ohm pot that I bought from Digikey. Pricey little thing, but it had a 22mm (basically 7/8") long shaft, which was necessary to get through the body of the mic. It also has a very small body itself, which fits behind the element nicely.

To make this fit, I had to drill out the hole that was previously used for the ground. This started as a hole for a 6-32 screw, and I progressively enlarged it with increasing bits up to the 1/4" hole needed for the pot. For those that have never seen one of these before, I'm putting a volume knob in the hole where the mic body would have been mounted on a post in its stock configuration.

The 'Before' picture.

 

And the 'After' Picture.

 

After that, I needed to drill out one of the molding posts to make a new ground. I actually decided to drill two of them before I painted it. Just in case I wanted to ground the pot and the element to opposite sides for some reason, or the tapping of one failed. I tapped this again for a 6-32 screw.

 

 

 

Now it is time to wire this thing back up. A couple minutes with my multimeter told me which pins on the pot were for control and which was ground. I soldered up the circuit. For those that I don't plan on desoldering for paint, I went ahead and heat-shrinked them. I left the others bare. Everything fits pretty nicely. I'll change out the wire coming from the Amphenol connector to a white wire for 'signal' to allow easy understanding of the circuit when I rebuild that portion.

 

 

With the wiring done, I was able to screw the thing back together and give it a go. I stole the knob off my other nice mic to give it a try (I ordered some good 1/8" post knobs that should arrive tomorrow that will go on this mic).

 

Results with the 5 meg ohm pot are dead on and exactly what I wanted. No tone change, just volume change.

 

Crushed blue velvet 'silk' to protect the element. 

 

 



 

 

Building A New Mic!





 

I've been looking for a new project, and decided to build myself a new harp mic. Don't really need one, but I wanted to build something new, so it was time. I found this one on Ebay and paid a good price for it. Looked pretty ugly when I pulled it out of the box, but it did have an element inside.

 

I was not sure if the element would work, but I was pleasantly surprised when I found that it did. Not only did it work, it sings! It has a great tone with my amp. Similar to the vintage crystal Astatic element in the Purple mic I built a few years ago. The element in this one is a Calrad C-3. Japanese made and has a good gasket with it.

 

For this one, I plan to clean it up, install a volume control, lay some cool paint and then do automotive clear on it. Unfortunately, the clear I laid on the Purple mic was just too delicate. I may also lay some Auto clear on that mic at the same time.

 

Here are the before pics. 

A New (to me) Mandolin

Its been much too long since I've posted, but here goes anyway.

While at a recent (back in October) car show put on by the national (international?) car club that I belong to, a friend had a surprise for me. I finally had the opportunity to meet my friend Ken in person. He and I had talked many times before via the internet and have much in common beyond just the marque of car we are both fans of.

When I finally got the chance to meet him and shake his hand, he tells me 'come over to my car before you leave, I have something for you'. I promised to do just that. Before I left, I made it a point to stop by his car and he pulled out a mandolin case from the back of his car. To say I was surprised is a gross understatement. He then said 'Its just a case' and grinned at me.

As I opened the case, I found a beautiful 2 point Aria mandolin inside. Ken me that he remembered that I played mandolin and since he did not play it anymore, he wanted me to have it. He also commented that maybe someday my son would play it. I know he is right about the last part!

Ken is a generous guy. He is always helping people on the car forum where we both regularly participate, and I know that he is like that in real life as well. That day, I must have shook his hand a million times and said thank you every time as well.

When I got it home, I cleaned up the case and glued down some of the vinyl. I then went to work on the Aria. I set the action the way I like it, and restrung it. I also polished it up and brought it to a wonderful shine. I also polished out the pickguard and glued it back in place.

The results are absolutely wonderful. It has great tone, plays well and I play it every evening after work.

 

I did some digging and found that the instrument is likely to be 35 -40 years old based on all the documentation I could find on the web. Below is a link to a catalog page from that era.

 

http://www.matsumoku.org/models/a-ap2_acou/mando_banjo.html

 



Chromatic Blues Scales

One good reference I was able to find on the web is the blues scale tablature for pretty much every blues scale, while played on a C Chromatic.

Very useful.

Blues Scales for Chromatic Harmonica

Credit to Andy Wilson for this document

Chromatic Blues Harp - Part 2

So more of the 'tools' of this blues harmonica business....

As mentioned in my earlier post, I started with a Hohner 270. Great Chrom, and this one works well.

 

 

The only issue with the 270 is that the 16 hole Hohner 20 (64 Chromonica) is what many of the old blues greats played. The 270 also does not have quite the range of the 280.

 

So some Ebay searching yielded a number of different 280's and eventually I won one of them. The Harp that arrived was terribly dirty on the outside. Nasty.... I spent an evening cleaning it, and now it is quite nice. It will need new windsavers at some point. It also needs one cover support, but I may try to make that myself.

 

Truth be told, I'm still barely past making horrible squeaking sounds on both of them, and anything resembling music is purely by mistake... But I'm going to keep at it.



Chromatic Blues Harp

Many many years ago, while hanging out in a music shop to buy a new harp (blues harp/diatonic), I spotted a harmonica with a button on it. As you can imagine, I was intrigued. I bought the funny looking harp and took it home.

When I got home with the little Chrometta, it completely confused me. It was hard to play, sounded like crud and just did not seem like the Marine Bands I had been playing. Windsavers and the slide really threw me off. I returned it (they actually took it back) and that was the end of my Chromatic playing...

Fast forward another 15 years and I was beginning to play diatonic blues harp a lot. I played in the car and really enjoyed it. I was listening to a lot of the classic blues harmonica stuff and found George Harmonica Smith. His blues chromatic harp playing is really the standard by which all other players are judged. The fact that he taught many of them does not hurt that a bit.

Once again, I decided to get a chromatic and learn to play it. I got myself a Hohner 270 and began playing with it. Once again, I was thrown off by the slide and windsavers. The truth is, the layout of the notes threw me off much more, and once again it went into a drawer to hibernate.

The hibernation did not last more than a couple years though, and I began trying to learn Chromatic Blues again. This time, Youtube has helped, as well as a lot of Google searching, and a website called www.Slidemeister.com.

Slidemeister is great. Though very few of the contributors there speak the blues vernacular, they are still chromatic players. Their encouragement has been helpful, and info I've found on that site has helped as well.

This song really gets my attention!