***Trashed Gear*** JSeXy, Pedals, and THE CHANCE to get a fuzz pedal for $10

Alright guys, here are some more pics of my gear.

This is a backup for my backup rig's backup. haha. I would use this if I was actively gigging, which has been a while.

It sits beautifully in the shop in its cozy with a pair of sexy silver guitars (pickups are not stock) which will be the next topic.

If you are the first to guess what the 'sexy silver guitars' are correctly, i will send you one of my new FUZZ prototype pedals for half off. $10 to your door (which pretty much covers shipping and boxing on my end). Again $10 total to you door. Email it to me and i will get one out to you ASAP. It is a prototype, it like most of the others has no switch and is encased in my signature blue boxes. Those two things knock off $12 a pop but its lots of fun and pretty damn cheap. The circuit is very simple, but i have been toying with different values a little bit to see what goes over best.

FOR THE SILVER GUITARS, SEND ANSWER TO TRASHEDENGINEERING@GMAIL.COM. PUT THE NAME IN THE SUBJECT. FIRST THERE WINS.

Soooo... Here is a Peavey JSX. I paid $350 mint for it, including the footswitch. It is a three channel 120 watt all tube head. It is going into my Randall cabinet which is unique because it has a pair of Celestion G12-T75's AND a 15" Eminence Legend. The speaker combination sounds great to me; The T75's get along with the Eminence Legend better than Celestion Vintage 30's do which is what I had in the cabinet first. The bass is certainly controllable and not too 'boomy' or anything like that. For preamp tubes, I am running all JJECC83's (12AX7's) with the exception of the PI which is a JJECC81(12AT7).

PRO TIP: the PI (phase inverter) is not actually a preamp tube, it is technically is in the poweramp, I highly recommend trying a 12AT7 or 5751 in that spot as you will typically notice a positive change.

Power tubes are all JJE34L's. NOTE the spelling, E34L, NOT EL34. E34L's are the perfect rounder and thicker sounding bottom end with the bite of an EL34 in the upper mids still remaining, that we all know and love.

Great cleans for an amp marketed for heavier music, not too bright, not too chimey, Peavey nailed it  on this one. The Crunch channel is freaking awesome, Gain for days; more than you could conceivably need. Tight with the boost. The Ultra channel is just flat out liquid gain. This amp as a ton of gain, keep it pretty low if boosting with an overdrive. There is so much gain though that you could easily wreck the tone with too much gain. The EQ is a little different on the crunch and ultra channels. Past noon the EQ turns into an active EQ. This means that the amp adds more in, not takes less out. There is a built in noise gate, which knocks back the hiss a little bit, but isn't very powerful.

A Pessimistic Revelation

Dear Brothers,

Sometimes in life, things swell and fade.

Most of you have heard that I have been modding cheap Squiers quite regularly. $30 here $50 there etc. It is practically pocket change.

I didn't put a whole lot of money into them as everything was just sitting around the shop of a dollar here or there, and didn't pay a whole lot for them in the first place. I had a lot of fun with them. I learned a lot on the way. All could turn into an easy profit- and may well do so.

"Damn Trashed it sounds like you are depressed, 'ya alright?"

"Yeah Yeah. Nothing to worry about guys, already took my happy pills..."

The last few months I was just playing the Squiers, I put up a bunch of the other guitars because i was satisfied with the Squiers for the time being, and didn't need them out..They sounded good, felt great- or so I thought, so I thought. I have had a lot of fun with them, but there was ONE fatal downfall...

Today, I pulled out some of the Gibsons and high dollar USA Fenders. Slick like butter, ssweet like sugar, and singing like the birds. The Squiers don't make the cut amongst this lineup. They really shouldn't either, factoring in price, and components, etc. but I am disappointed. I have the HH strat down and the blue one. the others are heading to storage for a while.

I don't know if I am a pessimistic realist or realiestic pessimist, or if i am pessimistic about my pessimism but life is life/.

OMG So I got a new toob amp. What should I do now, Trashed?

Hey Trashed! I just bought my first proper tube amp! Whadda I do now?

There are a few things I would look into for most amps and just universally in GENERAL. I can't talk about every amp in all of hell and creation.

The first thing to do is to buy some tubes. I cannot advise on power tubes because that is too broad, simply due to different biasing methods for different amps. I don't want to delve in too deep. 

However, I will say that right now my personal go-to power amp tube is the JJ E34L. Read the last sentence again. E34L, not referring to EL34. E34L's have the British bite with a rounder and fuller bottom end. To illustrate how much I like them, I probably have TEN amps loaded with them. To take that further, I am POSITIVE I have over a dozen brand new ones in my shop.

I LOVE KT88's, but they are expensive as hell. I have them in my Splawn Nitro, Splawn Pro-Mod and Fryette SIG:X. They are quite ballsy. They are not as easily interchangeable as the others, or example with Splawn, it involves removing or adding a resistor (which requires draining filter caps and soldering). 

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING INSIDE AN AMP, LEAVE IT ALONE, PAY SOMEBODY IF YOU HAVE TO, MUCH BETTER THAN BEING DEAD.

For EL84, go JJ. They are cheap and sound great. Again, I swear by these suckers. I probably have them in every EL84 amp I own. HOWEVER,  I don't have many amps that take EL84's. IMO no competition for JJ here.

Preamp tubes are a bit easier. get how many of 12AX7 you want after some research plus three more, a combination of 12AT7, 5751, AND get a different variety.

"OK Trashed, I done got me some backup tubes. What now?

Clean out the tube sockets, jacks and tube sockets with DeOxit or another quality contact cleaner.

"Got it Trashed, what now?"

Now turn it on.

There is a common misbelief that you need to put the amp on standby and wait. That is not important. Flip the switches however you feel inspired.

Looking for a heavy or metal tone? Nine times out of ten you want an overdrive pedal (Tubescreamer, etc). Lotsa' options.

EQ's are always good to fine tune the tone in the effects loop.

Then just fire it up and raise some hell!

One more thing that is misbelief is that you can't touch tubes with fingers out or the earth explode. Don't worry about it.

Here are another few random thoughts.

Tubes are more sensitive to damage if you move/bump/jostle a hot amp.

NOS tubes can be great, but make sure you get them from a reputable place that tests them.

If you have spring reverb, be careful moving it and if you take it off, they can cause some issues. IF you are getting too much jangle, wrap it carefully in a towel.

Trashed OUT! Cheers to all!

2016-09-05 Tube Amp Maintenance

Greetings to the Brotherhood of  the Quest for Audible Pleasure in the form of Guitar,

The Resentment:

This is one thing that boils my blood on a regular basis (unfortunately almost daily). It usually comes in the form of some uninformed, inexperienced player armed with an arsenal of bullshit online knowledge. Most of this "knowledge" is from another uninformed idiot spouting off something that they don't know either that they heard from somebody else. This is like the small snowball that rolls down the mountain getting bigger and bigger, and leveling a small town,

Now lets get on the topic... "Tube amps are expensive to maintain."


"Well I can't get a tube amp because I can't afford tubes."

 Immediately I call bullshit. yep, right then. I call it so fast that they cannot even get a word in.

My next retort is this: "Do you not play your guitar because you have to buy new strings?" "Do you not drive a car because tires wear?"  Following my statement this blank stare. EVERY time, always the same face.

So lets get down to it. How long do tubes last? There are still plenty of tubes out there from the '60's, as NOS (new old stock), some unused, some partially, and some that have been used since then.

For example i have NOS RCA tubes in a '70's Musicman amp, they are (to the best of my knowledge) the original tubes. This is not normal, but they are out there. I have pre-amp tubes from the '60's, my prized tube in my collection is a Telefunken 12AX7, I have a dozen others as well, some more RCA's, and GE, a few JAN Phillips around too. Current production tubes aren't made to that standard though anymore, but yet again you aren't paying $150 for one tube.

I use a lot of JJ ECC83's, i have probably 50 (yes, fifty) of them in various amps, and I just bought 40 (yes forty) more when they were on sale. I have been using them since 2009 and have only lost two or three, they are able to be had for about $10 brand new from some dealers. They are extremely reliable.

Regarding pre-amp tubes, you can expect a five year lifespan (minimum average) for current production 12AX7's. under moderate to heavy use.

Regarding power-amp tubes, they have a slightly shorter lifespan. If you use them a lot and are gigging, I would replace them every other year. *KEEP the spares though so you have them down the line.* They are also more expensive than pre-amp tubes, but not a whole lot more.

Bottom Line - Tubes are a wear item, just like strings, socks, and tires. I would be very surprised to hear that dumped more than $20-$40 a year (averaged) into tubes, I am sure some are out there, but few and far between, that would be HEAVY use, bordering on abuse.

Having said that, the Resentment and Rant were kind of in one this week.

As always, hatespam is welcomed, comments are fine too.

Cheers, and may you find much pleasure with your musical endeavors,

Trashed.





 **One thing that i purposely not discuss is brand, other than just a causal reference or reference gain levels. i will save that for another week**