Another Stella Amp!

Well, my wife liked my little Stella Cigar Box Amp so much that she suggested I make one up for my brother-in-law for his birthday. He plays electric guitar and electric uke pretty regularly. He also has a habit of playing in his truck between jobs.

For this one, I found a slightly larger box. That gave me an opportunity to make a slightly nicer arrangement inside the box for the components. Everything fit much more nicely inside his than my first one. I also improved the positioning of the knobs and jack. Finally, I used crushed velvet for the background behind the speaker grill.

After getting everything shaped as I wanted it, I sprayed the enclosure with several coats of nitrocellulose lacquer for longevity and shine.

The little amp sounds great. Slightly different tone than mine, likely due to the very different style box.

Most importantly, my bro-in-law likes it :)

 

 

 

Guitarra Baiana!

If you want to see some wonderful electric mandolin playing, then go to Youtube and type in Guitarra Baiana. The Guitara Baiana is a 4 or 5 string instrument almost exactly the same as a 4 string electric mandolin.

Stella Amp Completed and Rockin!

I finished the little Stella Cigar Box amp on Sunday afternoon and have been rockin' it ever since.

The little amp really is fun. Big tone from such a simple and small package. Thats exactly what I was going for. I'm still getting used to the controls, as they are a bit different than most amps I've worked with. The results are similar, they just behave a little differently.

Mostly, I've been playing it with the volume and trim all the way up, and with the gain up until it starts to feed on itself and buzz out. Back it off just one hair under that level and its got a great gritty tone.

A couple other interesting details about it - It responds differently to the Moongazer MG4 humbucker that I have installed in my BluesBird. Different than my VOX and different than my Crate. The amp also is more responsive to different attacks of the string with the pick. More responsive than both my other amps.

The other fun element to this amp is the way it reacts to a harp microphone. I play harp through an Astatic 335, and with this amp, the tone is really good. Great for jamming in the garage.

I'm extremely pleased with the little thing!

 

 

Different Wiring Schemes.

A few months back, I posted up on the Mandolin Cafe forum Electric section that I was having difficulty with the volume and tone control on my BluesBird. Frankly, the problem was that I had no control! Volume was an on/off switch instead of linear, and the tone control was non-existant.

This was probably due to an incorrect wiring job by myself. Here is a pic of the original.

Several people posted up opinions on what was wrong. Andrew Jerman of

http://www.crossroadswood.com offered up that he might have a better wiring scheme for the instrument. Shortly later, he offered to make me up a new harness for my instrument if I would make before and after sound files and post them on the Cafe. What a great offer!

So, the wiring harness arrived this week and I installed it in the BluesBird. Did not take very long and fit right in.

Here is the new harness.

From the first, I was very impressed with it. First off, I have full volume and tone control. Both are very effective. Probably due to having the right wiring, right cap and right pots.

Here is a video of the difference between the harnesses.

I'm currently waiting to hear a few other 'Cafe visitors comments, but I'm pretty impressed so far. Now I have 3 distinctly different channels. Two of the channels are full and strong, but distinct from each other. The 3rd channel has a 'faraway' tone (to borrow Andrew's wording).

Frankly, at this point, I think I like the 3rd position best with its full tone and slight edge to it. Its pretty fun and is the tone that I like when playing the blues!

Thanks again to Andrew Jerman at www.crossroadswood.com. Great guy, very knowledgeable and makes a beautiful mandolin!

Leave My Little Girl Alone!

Spent the evening playing "Leave My Little Girl Alone". My favorite version is by Stevie Ray Vaughn. Well heck, he's my favorite guitarist, favorite bluesman, favorite musician of all time.

Frankly, I like to sing along with the song as well.

So to play this, you play it in A. I use standard blues chords in A and follow the blues scale in A. On a blues mandolin, your root note is 2nd fret on the G string (bass string).

ProBlues Jam Tracks

Great find from the Modern Blues Harmonica forums.

User TookaTooka put up a link for ProBlues Jam Tracks. Very nicely done backing tracks. Provided in MP3 format and available to either play directly from the site, or download to your computer. The key of the track is also noted in the listing for the track.

http://www.probluesjamtracks.com/blues-backing-tracks.php

Download some in your favorite keys and jam along!

Electric Blues Mandolin

Happy Birthday To Me!

I'm lucky I have a very understanding wife. She also happens to be a guitarist!
So for my upcoming birthday this year (couple weeks from now), She 'bought' me a new amp.

I've had a Crate 2x10 monster of an amp since the early 90's. Fun amp. Big sound, has chorus and reverb built in. Unfortunately, to get the tone I like when playing the blues, I have to turn the gain up a pretty good bit while leaving the volume bottomed out. Even with that, its loud enough to vibrate the glass in the house - no fun for those not playing the mandolin/guitar!

I started looking for something that I could play my new e-mando on. I wanted something that I could get good sound out of while not turning up insanely loud. I was also interested to try something with a number of effects built in. Final detail was I want something I can carry around easily (vs my 80lbs Crate) and something that could be battery powered.

I looked at the Line6 Spider, Fender Mustang and a few others, but none really knocked me over.

In the end, I selected a Vox DA5 practice amp. More features than I'll use, but most importantly, good tone. Many effects, most of which can be mixed in some fashion, along with 11 tone setups. Inputs for things like my Ipod for jamming along, or a Mic. The amp is battery powered or I can plug it in. Finally, it has an output setting on the rear - .5amp 1.5amp or 5amps. Each setting gives a different power level, while reducing the output volume!

I'm still figuring out exactly how I like it, but so far it is a sharp little package! Even has a bit of 'Brit' to it.

Oh yeah, it was an Ebay purchase used, so I paid approx 30% of new, and it looks absolutely brand new.

She's Got The Devil In Her

GREAT song to play electric mandolin with. Song is in the key of G and so the G blues scale works perfectly with the song. Chord progression is GCD. Easy to follow fun to play along with. Give it a try.



The Blues Bird - Blues Mandolin

So I looked at all the electric mandolins on the market. There are a ton out there, Mandobirds, Schwabs, Ryders etc. Unfortunately, they were all a little rich for my blood (except the Mandobird, which looked like it needed a new pickup to make it viable). If you want to see a bunch of great electric mandolins, then check out http://www.emando.com/

Then I found Moongazer Music. A great guy named Tom Morici runs it. He's a 40+ yr veteran of the lutherie business. He runs a website http://www.moongazermusic.com/ where he sells electric mandolin kits and their parts. His site is great. He allows you to buy individual tuning machines instead of sets. Bridges just for emando's and a great variety of emando pickups. Tom's kits are top notch and look really good.

I wanted a little more however and wanted to design my own. To that end, I designed the instrument in CAD.

I then contacted Tom and purchased wood blanks and all the parts needed to build the mandolin. He even provided a partially completed neck. Tom was also great in providing advice on the build.

I started building in the fall and ended up with a killer little instrument. It turned out beautifully, and the tone is exactly what I was hoping for. I was gunning for a little bit of Buddy Guy grit and that is what I got. I run the BluesBird through a Crate 2x10 amp and it sounds really good.

The BluesBird has construction just like a Fender Thin-Line Telecaster. She has an alder body capped with a fiddleback maple cap. The neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard and a Moongazer corian nut. The blank for the pickguard came from Japan and holds a Moongazer/Almuse MG4 pickup wired for coiltapping.

I love this little electric mandolin!!!!!