VAUGHN SKOW's blog

Most Requested New Models Available NOW!

This is an awesome day to be me … because I get to announce to the world that two of the most requested new models are available NOW!

The G12Q  is near and dear to my heart; up to now, it was a model that was only custom-produced in extremely small quantities.  Sweet, full, big, rich, expressive, touch sensitive.  Yea, it’s all that.  This speaker has been taking the breath away from everyone who hears it … and it ultimately won my 1967 Deluxe Reverb shootout!

The ET-90, in fact an ET65 with a Heavy magnet.  This speaker has been heavily requested, and limited to only a few custom-produced models for uber-famous guitar-slingers.  As any regular reader of this blog knows, the ET65 is one of my very favorite WGS models.  However, every now and then I discourage someone for using one, even if the tone is EXACTLY what they are looking for.  Why?  Because the ET65 is a medium magnet speaker; so, for some folks who want maximum SPL sensitivity or clean headroom, it might not be a good choice.  The new heavy-magnet version will change all that. 

It’s a good day indeed!

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Vintage Home Stereo Speakers: Repurposed as Rockin Guitar Cabinets

Hi fellow lovers of guitars, amps and … SPEAKERS, of course!  This blog is gonna be a blast for me to write and for you to read, too … I PROMISE!  Ever wanted a one-of-a-kind vintage rig that you and you alone possess?  Option A: spend BIG bucks working with a custom manufacturer.  Option B: find some groovy 1960s home stereo speakers and make it yourself BAYBE! (Imagine that last sentence in the shagadelic voice of Austin Powers).

Recently the always groovy Brad Sample took a pair of vintage high-end Fischer stereo speakers and repurposed them into 1x12 guitar cabinets … and it got me to thinking:  why not?  I mean, really … why not?  Totally awesome vintage stereo speakers are available everywhere these days.  Garage sales, junk shops, flea markets, and Uncle Albert’s attic; they are everywhere!  Coolest part: they pretty much give them away.  Big speaker cabs just ain’t in vogue anymore.  Folks want cute as a button little “satellite” speakers in there homes these days.  But in the 60s, big beautiful cabs ruled!  The 1969 Fischer cabs Brad used are a prime example of good quality vintage stereo speaker cabs.  They were made of quality components and put together in America by workers whose give-a-damn was properly functioning.  These cabs left the Fischer factory sporting CTS Alnico 12” woofers, a pair of cone midrange drivers in their own sealed-tube compartments, and a big soft-dome tweeter.  Ah the joy of such speakers playing vinyl and powered by a McIntosh tube amp.  Sonic nirvana!  And so it was a sad day that found these previously glorious cabinets destined for the garbage heap.  Until our hero showed up to rescue them.

If you don’t know Brad Sample, you should.  Having spent time on the road and in the studio with artists like Joe West, Alice Cooper, Color Me Bad, Vince Gill, Kerrie Roberts, Ricky Skaggs, Brett Eldredge, Kerrie Roberts, The Drew Davis Band, Sarah Davidson, The Peasall Sisters, The Telecommunicators, and a bunch more, he’s a bona fide super-picker.  BUT!  He’s also a seriously “outside the box” kinda thinker; his work with his own band, Run With Bulls, is a prime example of this, check them out if you have not yet done so.

So here is exactly what Brad did: 1. Removed all the original speakers and crossover components from the Fischers.  2. Installed dual parallel 1/4" jacks in place of the original positive & negative banana plugs, while retaining the original Fischer jack plate, and its inherent vintage aesthetic mojo.

3. Installed a WGS Retro 30 in one cabinet, for a full-bodied well-rounded cab with lots of highs and lows; and an ET65 in the other to add in some warm and wholly vintage midrange.

4. As of this writing, Brad is experimenting with using the midrange and tweeter baffle cutouts for various porting schemes.  The 4” tubes that previously housed the midrange drivers and the square tweeter opening provide quite a plethora of options.

The rig, complete with the original Fischer grill cloth and logos and powered by a Burriss Royal Blue, took her maiden voyage on a festival tour with Kerrie Roberts.  It made quite a splash, too!  Other artist’s guitar players also choose to play through this unique retro-mod rig, with accolades abounding.  Cool, huh?  Next week I’ll tell the tale of a super tone-tweakers Super-Reverb adventure.  It’s a SUPER (get it) story, y’all come back now.

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Memorial Day: The Musicians, The Artists & The Poets

Howdy friends!

As I write today’s blog, the Memorial Day holiday weekend is just beginning. Here in the southeastern United States high temperatures are running nearly 100°F, and so it almost feels more like the Fourth of July! My little rock ‘n roll band is gearing up for an outdoor show in an airplane hangar. It’s going to be hot. But man oh man is it going to be awesome!

I love holidays, and I love the United States of America. I know many of you reading these blogs are not Americans. Whoever you are and wherever you are, my wish for you is that you have received all of the amazing opportunities that I have received. The American way of life is truly fantastic. From my childhood years growing up on a farm, to my years as a young man playing in rock ‘n roll and country bands, to my current life as a Nashville music guy; it cannot be said that I have left the opportunities afforded by the American system of freedom slip through my fingers. I have milked freedom for all it’s worth, and the rewards have been great. Again I say, wherever it is that you are reading this from, I truly hope that you have had the freedom to be all that you can be.

Please forgive me if I’m sounding a little bit overly romantic towards the American way of life, on national holidays it’s easy to feel that way.

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I am well aware of the historical failures both of America as a country as well as some of America’s citizens individually. We are after all a country of… Well… People, and people can be unpredictable. Some are good, some are bad, and some fall in the middle.  In fact, the Memorial Day holiday officially began on May 5 of 1868, right on the heels of one of America’s darkest moments: the American Civil War. Personally, I sure am glad that those on the side of freedom for ALL MEN were the victors in that little disagreement. Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day was set aside as a day of remembrance for those who died in the nation’s service. That’s important, and it’s usually forgotten these days. The Civil War is now a century and a half behind us. World War I is now a century in the rearview mirror. And even in the case of World War II, there are very few people alive today who can personally remember it.

We must remember.

The classic line is “those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it”. This has been proven time and time again. Let’s not make that mistake. Whether in America, or any country on earth, we can all leave this planet a little bit better than we found it by simply learning from the mistakes, the successes, and the sacrifices of those who came before us. Around the world tensions are growing between groups with differing beliefs and points of view. Whenever these tensions break out into outright hostilities, innocent people suffer and die. No matter what God you believe in, or even if you believe in no God at all, if you are a good and decent human being you will want to do all you can to prevent this from happening.

We’re just a bunch of guitar players, singers, and songwriters; what can we do? We can play guitar, sing, and write songs. History tells us that the musicians, the artists, and the poets often are the ones to administer a soothing balm of reconciliation and healing to conflicts that can seem hopeless. Personally, if posterity remembers me at all, I hope it remembers me as a peacemaker; I hope it remembers my love, my kindness and my forgiveness. I can’t imagine the horror of living through times like either of the big world wars or the American Civil War. If ever put in such a situation, I’d like to think that I would do the right thing, regardless of the outcome for me personally. And this Memorial Day I remember those who did the right thing, and it cost them everything.

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Artificial Speaker Aging

Bear with me folks, this might be a fairly lengthy blog!  A few months ago I received this email from a very knowledgeable fellow, Rasmus in Denmark.  Read along, you’ll be glad you did: 

___________________________

Hi Vaughn,Thanks for all you efforts - and thanks for you pushing speaker business in the right direction.

Long story short, I have been at fender guy all my life and a tone seeker for about 20 years. Been tweaking at noodling with amps, pedals, pickups etc. etc. Recently I have been through at seek for the right 10" for my vintage 65 Princeton Reverb, and been buying: Eminence 102, 105, Jensen RI P10R, WGS Vet10, WGS G10a.

In general I liked your speakers best but.... all I tried is too loud for finding a sweet spot at home studio sound levels. It seems all brands are trying to increasing effeicacy which is not necessarily good for everyone! This week I went bazurk and did a chemical ageing with acetone - fabric softener - and mild sandpaper treatment on the cone of the Jensen p10r - which I considered the worst speaker among them. And now it sounds just FANTASTIC. Breakup at low level, good bass, articulate etc. etc. All positions on a strat sound right. This amp has turned into something I wouldn’t even have dreamt of. I don’t know if this is common knowledge among you guys, but to me it was really a breakthrough tone wise. Actually it makes good sense, because by thinning and softening the membrane it moves much more freely and tone becomes dynamic and nice for the ears. And natural breakup at home - NICE.

Cheers, Rasmus

____________________________

That got me to thinking!  I remember doing this same trick on a terribly stiff Jensen repro a few years back, also using the acetone based fabric softener.  My results were not as good as Rasmus’s, so I enquired as to just exactly what his technique was.  I think we can all benefit from his answer:

________________________

Hi Vaughn,

I think the key to my success with the Italian Jensen is to weaken the surround, not sure the acetone/fabric softener is all that important. In addition to sandpaper, I worked the cone surround good with my nail. So I really softened it being quite physical. If this should be recommended to anybody they should know that you easily destroy you speaker by doing this. But the reward is really worth taking the chance I think. At least with the Jensens RIs. The speaker cannot be played at high levels because it goes into extreme flapping. But before that there is now a very useful interval of tone heaven - which is perfect for at-home-use. You see, I have spent a fortune on overdrive pedals in my life, but this is IT. (Much of the secret of many great recordings is much more in the speakers than many of us believe.)

Thanks for taking time to discuss,

Rasmus

____________________

Interesting!  I was afraid to go so far as physically trying to scrape, and thereby weaken/soften the surround.  I merely applied the acetone to the surround … and even then I was afraid to use very much.  I got rid of that stiff Jensen as quick as I could … but if I ever encounter another equally stiff cone, I think I just might try the combination of chemical and physical loosening of the surround!

Of course there is also the age-old method of just blasting the crap out of a speaker for many hours on end to get it to loosen up.  I remember trying that trick in the garage.  I had some SRV on a loop alternating with sine-wave sweeps blasting at about full-power on a 60-watt driver.  Let’s just say that my wife is not a fan of that method, if you know what I mean.  Yea, now that I think about it, I DEFINITELY like Rasmus’s idea better :-)

See all y’all next time around.  Stay loose!  

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Guitar Players: Why Being LIKED Beats Being Talented

When I was about 14 years old my band was playing a gig at a little Bar-n-Grill in Superior, Iowa; a scruffy fellow walks up at break & invites us to his place to see how a REAL guitar player plays.  We were all little teenies and, lured by the promise of seeing a “real” Les Paul, off we went.  We arrived at this … well … it wasn’t quite a shack, and it wasn’t quite a trailer; truth is, it didn’t really look like a place any human would inhabit.  As we were all getting used to the stench and filth, out from under the bed comes an honest-to-goodness gold-top Les Paul.  Dude starts playing, and, yeah, he really WAS a spectacularly talented player.  We all wanted to get scruff-man in the band, but he couldn’t stop cussing & swearing at us long enough for us to even ASK him.  Do you all see the point to this story?

There wasn’t anything special in the water of Superior, Iowa.  Truth is, there are very gifted musicians under most every rock in most every town.  Many, like scruff-man, will rarely if ever know the sheer joy, and utterly thrilling fulfillment of playing in a great band with other talented musicians.  Why?  Because they are, for lack of a better word, jerks.  Jerks don’t usually have many friends, and they sure don’t get many gigs.

As a guitar player, I’m what they refer to in the south as “fair to middling”.  I’m okay, but I’m in no danger of ever reaching “guitar God” status.  I live in the Nashville area, home to the best musicians in the world.  Within 20 miles of my house there are probably thousands of guitarists who are better than I am, but I play out more than all but a handful of them.  You see, it took some time(!), but I have figured out how to be the kind of guy that people want to hang with.  That trumps sheer talent on about 99 out of every 100 gigs.  Look at it this way:  If your spouse and/or significant other were absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, but made you feel like crap every day of your life, would you stick with them?

And so it is that I am routinely approached at a show by some new version of scruff-man.  Dude tells me how much I suck and how much better he is than I am.  I smile, look him right in the eye and say “that’s awesome dude, I bet you are”.  Then I get back to playing guitar.

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The WGS Blackhawk vs Black & Blue (Paper vs Kapton)

Hi Yawl!

This blog is one that has been heavily requested, and it’s one I’ve been just itchin’ to do myself.  In my earlier blog: Paper or Plastic? The Great Kapton vs. Plastic Former Question!, I used up all kinds of words describing the subtitle sonic differences between a speaker with a voice-coil wound around paper as compared to one wound around Kapton.  This week I put my guitar where my mouth is!

For those of you who don’t want to watch the video, here is the skinny:

***Spoiler Alert***

The paper sounds just a little brighter than the Kapton.  There ya go :-)\

Roll the Video!

See ya all next week! 

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What Exactly DOES a Presence Control Do on a Tube Amp?

That mysterious control, usually found on the far right (or sometimes left) side of the control panel; what the heck IS it, anyway?  Most of us can figure out terms like Bass, Mid, and Treble, but “presence”, well that one seems a bit ambiguous.  Fact is, it IS ambiguous!  Enough so that it can mean very different things on different amps.  For the purpose of this blog, we will only concern ourselves with the true presence control found on some tube amps.

Here is a question I received via email:

The issue is that I have my presence control cranked really high for clarity. My understanding of the "presence" control is that it is the frequencies higher than “treble."

And here was (and still is) my response:

In tube amps the "presence" control is usually a shelving type 

of equalizer, and is normally implemented as a low-pass filter inside the 

global negative feedback loop. By decreasing the amount of high 

frequencies that are fed back, the high frequencies at the output of the 

amplifier are boosted ... so not exactly "above" the treble control ... 

but MUCH different, as it's after the input gain stages!

But of course the big question is: what does this actually mean in tone terms.  As is often the case, there is no universal answer.  The presence control is so tied to the amps negative feedback loop!  The amount and type of negative feedback employed in the amps design, and the frequency of the presence shelf vary greatly from one amp to another.  However, here is one universal truth concerning true presence controls in tube amps:  Since they are in the final stages of amplification, they are generally less affected by input settings, which is not the case on a typical tone stack treble control.  So, if you want to dial-in an overall amount of bite in your amp, that will remain more or less the same regardless of input gain settings, this is the place to do it.

Are presence controls “above” the frequency of the treble control?  Sometimes, sometimes not!  Oh, and then there is the issue of certain manufacturers mudding the water.  Like this solid-state Randall with a “Presence” control.  What?  My dad, the old farmer, has a saying: “like tits on a bull”. It just ain't right...

See ya all next week! 

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A Little Love for the Fender Bandmaster Reverb

The Bandmasters, like most of the classic Fender amp models have existed for decades, and have went through several metamorphoses in their lengthy lifespan.  From very early tweed models with a single 15 or a trio of 10’s, the short lived (1960 only) brown combo, the fabled blond, brown, and blackface “piggy-back” heads of the 1960’s, and finally the silver-face models that began in 1967 and ran through the early 1970’s.  Although these amps run the gamut tone-wise , they all are fairly universally loved.  From the super-woody raw no negative feedback sound of the early tweed models to the quintessential  tight sparkly blackface tone of the blackface Bandmasters, there’s a whole lotta love in the Bandmaster fan club.  But, this blog is about the one member of the Bandmaster family that sometimes goes unloved: The silver-faced Bandmaster Reverb. Okay, there is the new Bandmaster VM, but that’s not even on my radar as far as a Bandmaster goes.  With digital signal processing, Chinese PC board construction, etc. and so on … that’s most decidedly NOT a Bandmaster in my book.

Okay, so let’s talk Bandmaster Reverb.  The 1968 Bandmaster Reverb bears the unfortunate title of being the first of the new CBS enhanced models.  I just finished reading Forrest White’s book: The Fender Inside Story. In this book Forrest mentions that the head engineer that CBS brought in to REPLACE Leo Fender (who had volunteered to stay on) was a real big name electronic engineer, but didn’t know a guitar amp from a toilet seat! (My terminology, not Mr. Whites.)  And so it is that while every other aluminum drip edge Fender from that time period is considered a real gem … basically a blackface amp with silver-face cosmetics, the Bandmaster Reverbs from that period have a reputation of sounding a little more like a toilet seat than a blackface Fender!

But, my friends, there IS a silver lining to all this talk of toilet seats!  Let me point it out.  The undesirable changes to the Bandmaster Reverb really were not a big deal at all, and a good amp tech can put it back to true blackface specs in very short order and for very little cost.  The changes for the most part are in the bias circuit and a few component values here and there.  Another concern some point out is that the Bandmaster Reverb had a pretty small output transformer compared to the (non-reverb) Bandmaster.  This last item may actually be a PLUS to some, because just like with the small OP tranny in ablackface Vibrolux Reverb, the Bandmaster Reverb’s small tranny makes for nice early-onset saturation.  There is one “new” feature of the Bandmaster Reverb sure to please most Fender Fans:  the Bandmaster Reverb re-introduced a little something to the Bandmaster that had been gone for a long, long time: a TUBE rectifier.  Yep, it was back-to-the-future for the Bandmaster Reverb!  And hey, what REAL Fender Ampaholic DOESN’T like tube rectification?

Okay, so what do you get when you take a classic blackface fender design with Tremolo AND Reverb, based around a tube-rectified 2-6L6 power section?  Well, let’s think about that …

With the stock (small) Output Transformer into a pair of 10” speakers, you get a blackface Vibrolux Reverb.

With a larger aftermarket transformer with multiple impedance taps feeding a quad of 10’s you get a blackface Super Reverb.

And with that larger transformer feeding a 15, you get a Vibroverb!  Quite a number of Bandmaster Reverbs have went this route, commonly called “Vibroclones”. Like THIS sexy example:

Since it just happens that I have several Bandmaster heads, I decided to do a little shootout between my blackface Bandmaster and my drip-edge Bandmaster Reverb, which has been “Blackfaced” and has the larger output transformer.  Ya all let me know what ya think.  WARNING: this one has a bit of my usual silliness, just sayin'...

See ya all next week! 

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WGS Reaper vs Reaper HP!

Hi gang!

This week is a bit of an extension of my earlier blog, where I compare paper to Kapton former materials: Paper or plastic? The Great Kapton vs. Paper Voice-coil Former Question!  This one, however, is flat-out hearing-is-believing.  I won’t bore you with facts, just a straight comparison video between the WGS 30-watt Reaper, with its paper former, and the 50-watt Reaper HP, which has a Kapton former.

Spoiler Alert!  It’s a quick little video, but for those of you who want to get right to the answer, well here it is: The Reaper is just a touch brighter and/or the Reaper HP is just a touch warmer.  That’s all for now, see ya all next time around!  Roll the video!

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The Difference A Speaker Can Make in YOUR Guitar Amp

Okay, lets say ya got a gig, and you want to be heard above the drums.  What will serve you best, a 100-watt Marshall or a 40-watt Fender?  Yea, that’s a "loaded" question.  There is no answer, because I have left out the most important piece of the equation.  I didn’t say anything about the Speakers!

Let’s start with this stat: a 100-watt Marshall is only about 3dB louder than the same model in a 50-watt version.  Twice as loud?  Not even close!  Truth is, once you get above about 40 watts or so, simply throwing more watts at a speaker cabinet is like urinating into a stiff oncoming breeze.  Call it the law of diminishing returns if you want, the logarithmic nature of SPL really starts to kick in the governor when your trying to get into the same volume realm as a snare drum being whacked silly by an energetic young musician.  It’s the physics of sound; you gotta play by THESE rules.

So if a doubling of wattage (from 50 to 100)only results in a slight increase of overall SPL, what the heck is a club guitar player to do?  Just give up and admit that we will NEVER be as loud as the snare drum?  I think NOT!  It’s all in the speakers.

This topic is fresh in my mind; let me tell ya why.  I just recently bought a used Bugera 2x12 cabinet on craigslist real cheap.  It’s a nice looking, well built cab with that cool mono/stereo 4/8/16 ohm switching, and physically, it’s a perfect match for my Bogner Alchemist head.  I plan to cut about the center third of the back out to make it a semi-open back.  Also, I knew the speakers were some seriously light-weight cheapos, and that the only way they could be rated at 70-watts RMS was to open up the voice-coil gap to a point that they would be VERY inefficient; I was right about that!  Not a problem, as I’ll be re-loading the cab with WGS anyway!

So, why did dude sell the cab cheap after only one gig?  Glad you asked!  This is where it gets good.  Along with the Bugera cab, dude bought an 88-watt rated Egnater Tweaker 88.  Then came the reunion gig with his old band mates from high school, the other guitarist still had his old 65-wat solid-state Peavey Bandit with a Scorpion speaker, and that old Peavey ate his lunch.  Why?  The SPEAKER, of course!  Say what you want about those old Scorpions, they were LOUD!  A scorpion is a speaker with an efficiency in the 100dB range, and the Bugera is at 87dB.  That’s a 14db difference.  That’s huge, that, in fact is more than TWICE as loud.  But wait, there’s more.

Dude also said that his tone was boomy, and disappeared anywhere other than straight in front of his cabinet.  Meanwhile, the old open-back Peavey was filling the room.  Ah, that’s what I love about open-back cabinets; you don’t have to be directly in front of the cab to enjoy it.  Sure closed-back cabs are the kings of chugga-chugga thump-thump, but they sure are directional as all heck above about 200Hz.  The result:  in a club setting, most folks only hear the thump-thump, or in other words, they don’t hear a darn thing you’re actually playing.  In yet other words: the dude with the 30 year old SS Peavey blows your new golly-gee-wiz big dollar tube amp off the stage.

Just for the fun of it, the first thing I did with the new 2x12 Bugera cab was to A/B it against my semi-open back Avatar loaded with a WGS Reaper and Vet 30.  In all honesty, the Bugera didn’t sound BAD, it just didn’t make much sound at all.  Using my handy little Radio Shack SPL meter that I’ve had since my own high school days I measured an average difference of 15dB between the two cabs. That bears repeating: 15db!  Holy Cow!  That means that a 15-watt 2-EL84 amp would get about the same SPL (volume) through the WGS loaded Avatar as dudes 88-watt Egnater through the stock Bugera 2x12.

Do speakers matter?  Think about it.

See ya all next week! 

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