EEE: May 2016

Monday, May 30, 2016

New Strat Neck Completes My setup!

This little setup here is finally completely and ready for studio/jam level work! I got the neck from the distributed I found through Carl's Custom Amp's online business. It came fitted for vintage tuners. As soon as I got the tuners/screws/bushings/string guides/bone nut and steel wool polished the vintage stain off the frets I was ready to go! I just got it setup and it is ready to go! It is a perfect compliment with it's single coils for a good Fender tube amp with some vintage tubes! Studio time!

Technics SL 1200 MK II M3D

Another Photo of this bad boy ready to go. This is the best condition one I got. I just replaced the wire and lubed up the tone arm. I also gave it a good clean and wipedown, Next I am going to put a new target light one way or another and it is ready to go! Never underestimate the quality of these original turntables. I compared it to my guitar guy's Audio technica and this one made it look like it was made out of plastic. Everything about this is solid. Don't doubt it! Just put these trendy sites with their plastic turntables down and take a step back. The pawn shops still have some but they are onto the upswing in value so tread carefully. Whatever the price, it's worth it!
T.

TEchnics Sl 1200 MK ii Good as new!

Mark had a simple fix on Youtube!

I really couldn't believe I didn't have to replace the tonearm. I mean the thing looked sweet but it would skip on the outer tracks! The Shure M44 Cartridge I had on it appeared to be a little slanted too and would grind a little on the record. After trying this method the thing is level and plays like a fiddle! To think I thought someone had placed something ontop of it and bent the tonearm some! Its the best looking tone arm I have too! Check the link to see a simple fix that really made this thing work smooth...

Saturday, May 14, 2016

I recently got some vintage military era 12Au7 and 12ax7 tubes tested!

And almost all of them were good!

These tubes I got from a merchant who sells at the local artist market. I immediately noticed

he had some real vintage brands and this struck my attention. This is just a sample of what he and another merchant had. The brands included RCA, Phillips, Sylvania, GE, etc. Some of the boxes were labeled CBS etc. I have some of the boxes still. Unfortunately, they were using them in large quantities to make art. Some of the art was organite based sculptures, but I didn't think this use of the tubes helped them much. They are way more valuable towards hi-fi audio and almost priceless. I was pretty bummed to hear that, but fortunately I salvaged all these and a couple more! I tried a few and they sounded better than anything I had ever put into my tube amp's preamp before. The best sounding one that I found was an RCA blackplate with the rough looking carbon black plates (look up on Tube King's page on ebay). This one sounded extremely powerful and crystal clear on my clear channel on my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I even found a popular Westinghouse vintage tube in there as well and some Phillips AU7s that matched each other. I am putting some of these tubes up for sale soon. The 12 AU7s were almost as loud as some 12 AX7's, so they worked well in the Preamp section and were way easier to distort at lower volumes. I may use a couple of these to build DIY preamps if they don't sell!

Pioneer CT - F500 Tape Deck scored at local antique mall!

At a local warehouse antique mall I scored a cool vintage Tape Deck! It is a Pioneer CT F500 and it dates back to the mid 70's! It is working but upon using I noticed that it would not play! It would fastword and rewind and everything else but not play. So I took it to my local guitar shop guy who has been fixing an old Casio deck and we opened it up. Immediately we noticed the main belt (power?) was melted all over the place. The rest were still good and working. Stay posted as I found some belt kits online! This one should be a good save as the motors appear to be good and it has only light wear!

DIY Electret Microphone is Alive!

Here is a DIY electret microphone I built from scratch via a small breadboard.
I found a few videos on how to make them online. If you know your basic electronic components and
have the parts available it is fairly easy. Make sure you have a variety of jumper wires and some nice thin
wires. Plug into a small amp and boom you have a small battery powered mic! The next step, I will build a prototype mic case out of basic household parts from Lowes!...

Inside the Technics Tonearm

Recently I began having to replace the poor RCA wires that came equipped on my Technics SL 1200 M3D's turntables. Taking the Tone arm out was relatively easy. You just have to be really precise when you solder the wires to the board and have to really squeeze the wire through a small snap when piecing the turntable back together (make sure the wires are not too thick like good Gold plated ones can be). I got a nice solid wire from guitar center and cut it (3ft). The ground wire is connected to the gold screw. I didn't replace that. Make sure you put a new plastic tie to hold to the board tightly. This will absorb some of the tugs! All the instruction on how to do this are on Youtube and online ;^)

Notice the small wires on this one. A good reference in case you you have to rewire tonearm! I'm saving that for a Technics SL 1200 that I'm rebuilding!

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Replacing my Neck on my Fender Strat Mim and I found!...

A Squier name on my 1992/3 Fender Body! Only theres more to the story!...
https://spinditty.com/instruments-gear/The-Fender-Squier-Series-Stratocaster-Not-A-Typical-Squier

Wow, after reading this article it turns out that initially "Squier Series" used quality parts still so they were able to interchange the bodies for the MIM strats. The electronics were cheaper but I already knew I needed to upgrade those!
Phew. Good article.

Funny thing is, it was the Mim neck that was officially Fender that really sucked! Thing twisted everytime I looked at it wrong! I got me a real straight neck via Carl's Custom Amps in Las Cruces! Thing is a beauty and it can be fitted with vintage tuners too :)