November 17, 2009
So once upon a time there was a bass amp. Here it is on the operating table. I got this for twenty dollars from a guy in Columbia Heights because some band left it in his practice studio (which, in the possession of anyone else, would have been ‘the storage shed’ or ‘the freaky sex dungeon’ or something. It was literally a shed in a DC alleyway. I don’t know why the landlord didn’t set it on fire for fun or something), along with an Acoustic model 127 (brown tolex, solid state) for a ridiculously good deal for noise jamming. The Acoustic is still way too much firepower for me to this day — a 2x12 for bedroom jamming? What was I thinking — and there’s something wrong with it at certain points — the former owner guessed ‘bad caps’ but who knows. But man, this 20 dollar bass amp, with the volume knob broken off and missing an EQ slider due to Hardcore-ness or what the fuck ever, leaving the gain as the sole method of volume control besides just EQing everything down to zero, I have gotten enormous mileage out of and the bass is so ugly and thick and it handles distortion so unbelievably poorly I haven’t been able to justify getting rid of it, because it sounds like shit and that’s actually exactly what I need in an amp for Friday Night Boyz. Which brings us to the present. During the most recent Friday Night Boyz performance, I broke off the gain knob, which leaves me with no volume controls whatsoever. And because it’s not worth it to get a new one at this point, since I’d rather just get rid of it when I relocate next, I figure it’s worth making the 20 or 30 dollars in repairs Here are what the insides look like. Tonight I am tearing out the faceplate, strategically snipping some wires, getting the broken pots out, and praying I manage to not electrocute myself in the process. Who’s feeling lucky, eh?

So once upon a time there was a bass amp. Here it is on the operating table. I got this for twenty dollars from a guy in Columbia Heights because some band left it in his practice studio (which, in the possession of anyone else, would have been ‘the storage shed’ or ‘the freaky sex dungeon’ or something. It was literally a shed in a DC alleyway. I don’t know why the landlord didn’t set it on fire for fun or something), along with an Acoustic model 127 (brown tolex, solid state) for a ridiculously good deal for noise jamming. The Acoustic is still way too much firepower for me to this day — a 2x12 for bedroom jamming? What was I thinking — and there’s something wrong with it at certain points — the former owner guessed ‘bad caps’ but who knows. But man, this 20 dollar bass amp, with the volume knob broken off and missing an EQ slider due to Hardcore-ness or what the fuck ever, leaving the gain as the sole method of volume control besides just EQing everything down to zero, I have gotten enormous mileage out of and the bass is so ugly and thick and it handles distortion so unbelievably poorly I haven’t been able to justify getting rid of it, because it sounds like shit and that’s actually exactly what I need in an amp for Friday Night Boyz.

Which brings us to the present. During the most recent Friday Night Boyz performance, I broke off the gain knob, which leaves me with no volume controls whatsoever. And because it’s not worth it to get a new one at this point, since I’d rather just get rid of it when I relocate next, I figure it’s worth making the 20 or 30 dollars in repairs

Here are what the insides look like. Tonight I am tearing out the faceplate, strategically snipping some wires, getting the broken pots out, and praying I manage to not electrocute myself in the process. Who’s feeling lucky, eh?

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  1. catbus posted this