Carol Ann Amps - Thread XVII

[Carol-AnnAmps]

Hi Alan...glad to see you drop by.
I replied to your PM about my amp build.
All good.

The only reason I haven't been here recently is because my parents were here from the UK. No other reasons. Whenever my Dad is here he always gets the shop reorganized so its much more efficient. We worked on a few things too when they were here.
I need to be here more often at the moment to stop things going out of control again with assumptions. Its just really difficult when you work all week and you have a family and have to spend a number of hours working on amps.

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

I too tend to go for the black-only look with my amp colors or some type of tweed look for the Fender-ish stuff (yeah, old-school ).

I thought about the red CA cover...and at first was going to pass...but then thought "why not"...it will be like an accent piece in the middle of all the "black".
It was a bit pricey...but I figured not a very common thing. My other covers are all Studio Slips.
If you are looking for ones to fit the CA head...I think Humbucker still has some in stock...or you can always go direct to Studio Slips and she will make one to whatever size you need. I think they are some of the best quality and best looking covers.

I use Studio Slips myself, but those leather ones that Oz had made were gorgeous I must say. Yes I think HB still might have some too. I am a little out of touch though.

 

[244300]

If you are looking for ones to fit the CA head...I think Humbucker still has some in stock...or you can always go direct to Studio Slips and she will make one to whatever size you need. I think they are some of the best quality and best looking covers.

I did the rounds a few months ago with about five CA dealers in search of branded dust covers. No one had any.

I have posted a WTB in the emporium. No bites.

I do have one aftermarket one that's made of neoprene or something to that affect. I don't like it.

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

I just want to add something on here that is a concern. I have had two requests for deposit refunds by email from people who I DO NOT even know and I do not owe a penny too who have never even made any order. Both are overseas. Its been difficult enough knowing which way is up, but I can ultimately check if someone has given me money as a deposit, its either through Quickbooks or through Paypal.

 

[Crash-VR]

I just want to add something on here that is a concern. I have had two requests for deposit refunds by email from people who I DO NOT even know and I do not owe a penny too who have never even made any order. Both are overseas. Its been difficult enough knowing which way is up, but I can ultimately check if someone has given me money as a deposit, its either through Quickbooks or through Paypal.

Wow, that is concerning.

 

[Miroslav L]

I just want to add something on here that is a concern. I have had two requests for deposit refunds by email from people who I DO NOT even know and I do not owe a penny too who have never even made any order. Both are overseas. Its been difficult enough knowing which way is up, but I can ultimately check if someone has given me money as a deposit, its either through Quickbooks or through Paypal.

Well...there have been warnings on TGP that there are scammers checking the "WTB amps/guitars" listings in the Emporium, and then contacting those people with sale offers, asking for money...
...so it's not a stretch that some scammers are following these threads and looking for ways to hook people.

I still have my QuickBooks receipts from you.
Maybe you should tell them to produce the receipts and show that they have paid something out to you.

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

Well...there have been warnings on TGP that there are scammers checking the "WTB amps/guitars" listings in the Emporium, and then contacting those people with sale offers, asking for money...
...so it's not a stretch that some scammers are following these threads and looking for ways to hook people.

I still have my QuickBooks receipts from you.
Maybe you should tell them to produce the receipts and show that they have paid something out to you.

I do just that. Everyone should have a receipt from either QB or PP. Not difficult to figure out a scam....but really, how low must people go.

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

For some reason, I am incapable of keeping all this Marshall spec info straight.

All I know, is that for my strat, I prefer the ‘bass spec’ and a tube rectifier. The cleans on this sound better to me than any Fender amp.

So were Marshall so don't feel bad.

 

[Narwhal0514]

Good to hear from you, @Carol-AnnAmps. I’m glad you’re back working in the shop. I hope life is feeling a little less overwhelming for you.

I too have some work I’d love to give you upgrading my OD-2, if you’d be interested. I’ll check in with you in another month or so.

Hope you had a good holiday with your parents.

 

[doctorice]

As a long-time Dr Z "patient", I'm really looking forward to the amp Alan and Mike are creating. Z is quite excited by it, but no sound clips have shown up yet on the Z Talk forum.

 

[gtrs]

Yeah I'm not an amp thief bro .......just arrange it with me. For the next month I am busy finishing up outstanding builds, but after that, from mid Feb expect a 2 week turn around on service work.

Thanks Alan!
I was asking the status of upgrades earlier in the thread.
Gotta say it’s great to hear that you’re going to continue with that part of the business.

All the best to you Alan.

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

As a long-time Dr Z "patient", I'm really looking forward to the amp Alan and Mike are creating. Z is quite excited by it, but no sound clips have shown up yet on the Z Talk forum.

If he didn't have one already, 'Therapy' would have been a very fitting name for this. It got me out of my doldrums and actually excited about an amp again. Something I have not felt in a long time. It truly is a wonderful amp. I played the proto for 4 hours straight not just to test but just because it felt so freaking good. Mikes choice of transformers hit the nail on the head when combined with my circuit design. I am due to get the second proto in soon, I will do a few tooling around clips.

 

[ptgold]

So were Marshall so don't feel bad.

The only reason I haven't been here recently is because my parents were here from the UK. No other reasons. Whenever my Dad is here he always gets the shop reorganized so its much more efficient. We worked on a few things too when they were here.
I need to be here more often at the moment to stop things going out of control again with assumptions. Its just really difficult when you work all week and you have a family and have to spend a number of hours working on amps.

Hey Alan good to see you're doing better!

Now that you're more open to working with other amp producers please consider having Dr.Z revive some of your line! I'd hate to see the Triptik go the way of the Dodo.

Your amps have a certain voicing which I gravitate towards that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else. Thank God I have an axe fx where your amps sort of live on in immortality but I'd love to own a real Triptik or Tucana someday. I know you feel jaded but don't go away forever!

 

[big mike]

By Bass spec you are assuming shared cathode, then yes, going forward the 1986 bass model has a premamp similar to the JTM50 and the 1987 lead models were split cathode, but the JTM50 lead amp in 1967 has a shared cathode but has bright caps that the bass models don't have.

With regards to the 67 I built, its neither. Its more like a hybrid. Study the pic harder and you will see.

That and The tone stack. I know it’s not a straight schematic clone. Beautiful work

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

I know right! Here's a quick run down...

1) Revo-1 100-watt "Proto #1" 2009 - I picked it up on Reverb from a studio in LA. It blew me away so it's now my "Marshall" sound.

2) Satin 100-watt S/N 151001 - Also bought on Reverb from a shop in Canada. Floored again. It's a revelation for distortion pedals I used to think sounded good on a Deluxe as they sound other worldly on the Satin. I probably should have bought a 50 watt version as I can't get it much above 2-3 on the gain/volume knobs.

3) OD100 Mk II 2015 - I picked this up at a local Guitar Center along with a CA OB 212 cabinet with Creamback 65s. Once again, just floored.

After I picked up these three, I shifted gears to grab some lower wattage models.

4) OD3r - Since it's lower wattage, I can dig into it more. I'm really digging the FX loop volume as a "master" volume to juice it up. This is my main "practice" amp.

5) Tucana 3r - This one is new to me. I think it's a 2016.

6) Revo-T - A promising twin-channel, lower wattage Revo circuit. I just bought this one four weeks ago and I haven't tried it yet. There are some issues to work through but I can't at the moment.

Plus two CA OB 112 cabinets from Humbucker Music. One's got a new EVM-12L and the other has a used Eminence Maverick. I've got a few other speakers waiting to cycle through.

My life's largely been at a dead stop since I took my teenage daughter to the ER on 12/8 seeking immediate psychiatric care. I admitted her to a residential treatment center in Malibu right before Christmas. The past few weeks I've been bouncing back and forth from Phoenix to LA and working on her care morning, noon and night.

I need to sort out all of their features and conditions but I'd love to...

Add or upgrade BiasMon/AutoBiasMon
Add or upgrade FX loops
Upgrade tubes that don't look like they were paired well when replaced
Upgrade foot switches were I can, only one CA branded foot switch in the batch
I'd even like to get some CA branded dust covers as not a single one came with one!

I'd love to do my own custom build at some point.

I'm on the lookout for a Raw 35 and I let one with a vertical 212 slip away several weeks ago when it was listed on Reverb. I'd possibly buy a OD3 Ultra if I could find one.

Anyway, I'm in no rush and when you get to a point where any of the above is possible to tackle, I'd love to do so.

One part of this message struck a chord, above and beyond amps:

I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter. Mental health issues are no joke. Thanks to a very bad reaction to an acne medication when I was a teen, I suffered clinical depression, severe anxiety and mania for quite a while and was also admitted by my parents at one point. It took quite a while, but I recovered 100% and have not had any further issues in 30 years.

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

That and The tone stack. I know it’s not a straight schematic clone. Beautiful work

Yeah the 56K/ 250pF vs 33K/500pF. The former is my preference for low to medium gain builds that have a cathode follower driving the tone stack , but the latter is so much better when its driven by a common cathode and you will see that in almost every OD stage in my multi channel amps.

Well if was an identical clone it would not be deemed electrically safe by modern standards. That aspect of cloning of old Marshalls and Fenders astounds me. No need to clone things that can potentially hurt people or provide the design compromised fault protection.

 

[tweedphan]

And it’s this kind of care and attention to electrical engineering detail that makes me a very happy owner of an OD3 and 67C here in the UK.

 

[Irreversal]

If he didn't have one already, 'Therapy' would have been a very fitting name for this. It got me out of my doldrums and actually excited about an amp again. Something I have not felt in a long time. It truly is a wonderful amp. I played the proto for 4 hours straight not just to test but just because it felt so freaking good. Mikes choice of transformers hit the nail on the head when combined with my circuit design. I am due to get the second proto in soon, I will do a few tooling around clips.

I would love to see the Therapy moniker stick around. That is one of my favorite Z amps and I imagine there will be some overlap with this new model, being a cathode biased 6L6 amp.

Doc is in MKII mode, how about the Therapy MKII?!?!

 

[244300]

One part of this message struck a chord, above and beyond amps:

I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter. Mental health issues are no joke. Thanks to a very bad reaction to an acne medication when I was a teen, I suffered clinical depression, severe anxiety and mania for quite a while and was also admitted by my parents at one point. It took quite a while, but I recovered 100% and have not had any further issues in 30 years.

Thanks for sharing a little bit of your story and I’m happy to hear you fully recovered. That is impressive as I figure most people don’t and it often limits or outright ruins their lives. I’ve only witnessed clinical depression and I have a reasonably good appreciation from first hand experience that it is far, far worse than the run of the mill “I don’t want to get out of bed” depression from a broken heart or the loss of a loved one. Not to mention mania which I’ve also seen for myself and I don’t have anything good to say about it. Anyone that has experienced those challenges has already been through hell and back.

I’m very serious minded about dealing effectively with my daughter’s care right now which is why I admitted her to a residential treatment center that specializes in mental illness for adolescents. That’s not easy to find as it turns out. Substance abuse programs are everywhere but very few mental illness only programs for adolescents are out there. It builds an incredible tab day by day which just adds to the difficulty. Her mother suffered from mental illness and killed herself 11 years ago when she and her sister were four year olds. It was a brutal few years for us leading up to the tragedy. I’m traveling to LA each week so I can be there for therapy sessions and the weekly family day. I can’t afford to just hope for the best here. Presumably she suffers from a mood disorder but its not clear if it’s unipolar (depression) or bipolar. Plus she experiences what are believe to be dissociative episodes which are best described as very concerning.

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

Thanks for sharing a little bit of your story and I’m happy to hear you fully recovered. That is impressive as I figure most people don’t and it often limits or outright ruins their lives. I’ve only witnessed clinical depression and I have a reasonably good appreciation from first hand experience that it is far, far worse than the run of the mill “I don’t want to get out of bed” depression from a broken heart or the loss of a loved one. Not to mention mania which I’ve also seen for myself and I don’t have anything good to say about it. Anyone that has experienced those challenges has already been through hell and back.

I’m very serious minded about dealing effectively with my daughter’s care right now which is why I admitted her to a residential treatment center that specializes in mental illness for adolescents. That’s not easy to find as it turns out. Substance abuse programs are everywhere but very few mental illness only programs for adolescents are out there. It builds an incredible tab day by day which just adds to the difficulty. Her mother suffered from mental illness and killed herself 11 years ago when she and her sister were four year olds. It was brutal few years for us leading up to the tragedy. I’m traveling to LA each week so I can be there for therapy sessions and the weekly family day. I can’t afford to just hope for the best here. Presumably suffers from a mood disorder but its not clear if it’s unipolar (depression) or bipolar. Plus she experiences what are believe to be dissociative episodes which are best described as very concerning.

When I suffered it was still clouded in a bit of stigma, so actually having someone come up to me and say , yes, I have been there and I have recovered was something I wanted to hear, but never really did. So you are left thinking you are going insane or something equally wrong. I have zero issues telling my story publicly if it can help anyone not fell like they are alone, which by default is a classic symptom. I hope all turns out well for you. Often its finding the right people and the right combination of medicine and therapy as well as mountains of support from family. Recovery is something you measure in months to several years as you know. Its like a tunnel with lots of curves, you can't see the end when you are in it but there is an end if you just keep going. I believe most people can recover at least from depression and some anxiety related illnesses, but it requires much effort and support.
While suffering with this as a teen has some serious risk factors which every parent needs to be on the look out for, it also has some positives once the first glimmer of light happens, because you do have your whole life ahead. For me I found getting back to nature and really watching it helped take me out of my own head, which is major part of the problem. I was also swimming and walking a lot as well as religiously practicing relaxation techniques. After months and months of me thinking I was not really getting any better, I had a moment of total euphoria, not the fake feelings you get with mania, but a real feeling. After that it started to get easier and easier. I believe I came out the other side a lot stronger. Its all baby steps.