Category: Guitar Equipment

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Concert Sound Guitar Equipment

Carvin Guitars, Amplifiers, and PA equipment: 1971 Catalog

Download the thirty-two page 1971 Carvin catalog, presented in the original glorious black-and-white (9.9M zipped file):

DOWNLOAD: Carvin_1971_Catalog.pdf

Dig the excellent non-designed cover.  Products covered, with pictures, specs, and text, include: Carvin Super Band Leader amp SBL2000, Super Lead Master Amp SLM1600, Super Bass Master SBM1500, Band Leader BL1100 and BL1200, Lead Master LM990 and LM1000, Carvin Altec -equipped Lead and Bass Masters, Bass Master BM 755 and BM 775.  Public-Address (PA) systems/components include: PA5000 incorporating P2200 head and CR 150 speakers, PA600 featuring P3500 head and SR660 speakers, System 7000 featuring P4500 head.  ‘Compact’ instrument amplifiers include Twin Master TM550, Lead Performer LP400, Bass Master BM340.  Amplifier heads include Carvin B3000, B1600, B2400 and B1050 Bass amp heads or ‘Power units’ as Carvin calls them; L4000, L2500, and T2000 Lead Power Units, aka Guitar heads.

Guitars covered include: Carvin AS50B and AS50 hollowbody electrics, SS70, SS70B, SS65B, SS65 electric guitars, AB45 and SB40 electric basses, ABS95 bass/guitar doubleneck and AMS90 Mandolin/Guitar doubleneck; Carvin pedal steels # 41B, 61B, 81B, 101B, and 1010B; Carvin steel guitars PRO-S8, PRO-D8, PRO-D6; plus a range of parts and accessories.

1971 Carvin AS-50B Acoustic-Electric Guitar

1971 Carvin SB40 Electric Bass

1971 Carvin APS95 doubleneck

As far as i can determine, Carvin used imported European bodies for their acoustic electric guitars (similar to what Ovation did at the time) and imported the necks as well.  I am honestly not sure if they made their own solid-bodies, but given that they were making amplifier cabinets, I can’t see any reason why they would not have.  When you look at these guitars, the overall vibe is not Fender or Gibson…  I feel like the closest comparison is the work of fellow Californian Paul Bigsby.

(image source)

BTW, if you have not read Andy Babiuk’s excellent book on Paul Bigsby, spend the $32 and check it out.  Far and away one of the best books ever written on the subject of a musical-instrument innovator.    NEways…back to Carvin…

1971 Carvin Super Amp

1971 Carvin L4000 amplifier head

The most interesting thing about the amplifiers is the construction method used.  Years after even tube-based electronics had begun using printed-circuit-boards, Carvin was using point-to-point wiring for their all-solid-state amps.   The amplifiers ranged in power from 80 watts into 4 ohms up to 160 watts into 4 ohms (2 ohm capable).

Guild CopyCat Tape Echo as offered in the 1971 Carvin Catalog

As Carvin still does today, the catalog also includes accessories made by other manufacturers, as well as part and encouragement to ‘build your own!’

Plenty more on offer within the catalog.  Download and see…

Tomorrow: 1973.

Categories
Guitar Equipment

Carvin in the 1970s: Part 1

What If I told you that there was a US company that had been making good-quality electric guitars, PA equipment, and instrument amplifiers since the 1940s, in the United States, and for about the same price as better foreign made goods? And the company has remained in the same family for all those years? There is only one such company that I am aware of, and to be honest, I have never used a single piece of their equipment beyond a replacement humbucking pickup and a couple of raw speaker drivers.  And you probably haven’t either.  The company is Carvin.  While the appeal of the Carvin brand seems limited to aging hair metal’ers, fusion-bros, and faith musicians, it’s hard not to have a strong dose of respect for this resilient, independent corporation.

Lately i’ve been noticing that Carvin’s 1970s guitars are starting to look pretty fresh in an inscrutable WTF iron-curtain sorta way.  So I think it’s time to dig into my pile of 70s Carvin catalogs and get the discussion going here on these charmingly-misshapen sleepers.

This week I will be uploading original Carvin catalogs from the early, mid, and late 1970s.  Like I said, I can’t claim to have any particular knowledge of these offbeat items but maybe my readers can weigh in with some personal anecdotes about ye olde Carvins.

Categories
Guitar Equipment

Gibson Guitar Amplifers: 1966

Download a twelve-page scan of the entire guitar-amp line represented in Gibson’s 1966 catalog:

DOWNLOAD: Gibson_amps_1966

Models covered, with specs and photos, include: Gibson GSS-100, GSS-50, and PLUS-50 solid-state amplifiers; Gibson Titan, Mercury, Atlas, and Atlas Medalist (Bass) amps; Vanguard GA-77, Apollo GA-95, Multi-stereo GA-79, Ranger GA-66, and Saturn GA-45 Reverb/Tremolo amps; Lancer GA-35, Minuteman GA-20 RVT, Explorer GA-15 RVT, Recording GA-75 and GA-75L, Skylark GA-5 and GA-5T practice/studio amps.

Above is some of the most awful product-prose that I have ever encountered, taken directly from p.16 of the 1966 catalog.  ‘Butterflies, Stroking, Squeezing the full measure …..’  Were these people fucking high?  Actually, the problem is that they probably weren’t high.  Yet.  1966 seems to have been a decisive year in musical-instrument marketing; the very last year that manufacturers denied the very existence of Rock and Roll.  Most of the catalogs and advertisements from 1966 (and earlier) were very staid, grown-up, and had a romantic rather than… aquarian… sensibility.  In 1967 we start to see the bright colors, bold graphic design, and general emphasis on youth that remain in most musical-instrument marketing even today.

Above, the Gibson Atlas.  What a beautiful piece of industrial design this is.  After I came across this catalog, I looked for any examples of this unit for sale.  I could not find a single one.  While I am sure that the Gibson Atlas did not ship in nearly the same numbers as, say, a Fender Bassman, there is another reason that these 60’s Gibson amps are not too common today: reliability and build quality.  While Gibson amps of the 1940s-60s are excellent sounding in general, Leo Fender really had these midwesterners beat as far as construction quality.  Earlier this month I serviced a couple of early 60s Gibsons for a client.  Opening up a mint-condition Gibson circa ’62 student amp… I can’t recall the model, but it was a PP 6AQ5 amp with fixed-depth trem…  anyway, opened it up to find a few haphazardly placed terminal strips, and even a few multi-component junctions meeting in mid-air.  This is in sharp contract to the build of even the cheapest Fenders, all of which have carefully laid-out, serviceman-friendly terminal boards.  The same construction techniques you will find in much military and commercial hardware of the pre-PCB age.  This is not surprising when you remember that Leo Fender began his career as a radio repairman rather than as a luthier or musician.  As you (IF you) learn to design and build tube audio equipment, take some time to open up as many old pieces of hardware as you can find.  $2, $5 pieces… old test equipment, radios, organs…  check out the construction and mounting techniques, lead dress, solder joints…  you will find a huge variety of techniques used, all of which will have some useful applications in your own work.  This is all the stuff that can’t learn from schematics, and certainly not from reading (blogs) online.

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Guitar Equipment Uncategorized

Heathkit Rock-Band Hardware c. 1969


Download a five-page scan of the various guitar amps, guitars, effects, and other Rock-combo-flotsam available from Heathkit in 1969:

DOWNLOAD: Heathkit_guitar_amps_1969

Products on offer include: Heathkit Starmaker TA-16 amplifier; AKG and Shure mics and Atlas stands; TA-27 guitar amp; Harmony ‘Silhouette’ H17 electric guitar; Heathkit TA-28 “Fuzz” Booster and TA-58 headphone amp; TA-17 amplifier head and TA-17-1 speaker system; TA-38 bass amplifer (130 lbs!); and a kit version of the famous Vox Jaguar organ.


M. and I were digging through some local pawn shops last week and we spotted the above-depicted ‘Starmaker’ amplifer buried under some radial arm saws.  Coincidentally enough, the price they were asking was the same $119 that it would have cost you to buy as a kit in 1969.  “…in about 8-10 hours and you’ll have the best value around in a solid-state amp.  Order yours now.”

Kit-built electronics were a fascinating and vital part of consumer-culture in America through the 1970s. It’s kind of liberating when you think about it: a product which parses out some (but certainly not all) of the labor from the physical materials of the product; you, the consumer, can then create the finished product from a combination of your capital (money) and your raw labor/time.  I am about to do the same thing with a shed; we need someplace to put our lawnmower, and the right balance of capital/labor for my particular circumstances is a shed-kit.  I have neither the money to pay someone to build a shed for me nor the free time to build a shed from a blueprint and a pile of uncut lumber; the shed kit seems like the right choice for me.   At some point in America, the value of the labor required to complete a piece of consumer-electronics equipment fell below a certain point, thanks to a combination automation (robots) and cheap foreign labor.  This made the Heathkit a fairly indefensible option.   This affordability of foreign labor (and transportation costs…) can’t last forever though.  So I have to wonder:  as foreign labor prices continue to rise, will we ever see a return of the kit-option for consumer electronics in America?

Do you ever come across a Vox Jaguar and wonder why it does not work quite right?  Well now we know: it could have originated as one of these kits; 91 lbs of cold solder joints and sloppy lead dress.  Heathkit makes a  bold claim about the capability of the above Jaguar when used in league with their TA-38 bass amp:  “Here’s a combination that will produce the most mind-bending, soul-grabbing sound around.”  266 lbs, $499.00.

 

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Guitar Equipment Pro Audio Archive

Vintage Marshall Archive Material Part 2: 1974

Download the complete sixteen-page 1974 Marshall Amplification catalog:

DOWNLOAD: Marshall_1974_Cat

Products covered, with text, specs, and photos, include: Marshall 1959, 1987, 1989, 1992, 2048, 2068, and 1986 tube heads; 1960, 1982, 1990, 2049, 2045, 2069, and 1935 speaker cabinets; Marshall 2064, 2065, and 2052 ‘powercel’ cabinets; Marshall 2040, 2078, and 2077 combo amps; Marshall Disco Unit (yup…) 1993 ‘turntable control unit’; Marshall 2071, 2050, and 2070 mixers; plus a slew of additional P.A. equipment.

I spent yesterday doing the final wiring and installation of my newly-restored Wheatstone SP-6 console into the control room at Gold Coast Recorders.  Took the opportunity to listen to a pile of records that I had not gotten around to.  “The Welsh Connection” by Man really caught my ear, and got me into a real UK Rock circa ’75 kinda mood.  Hence today’s post.

The most interesting bits to the ’74 Marshall Catalog are the 2050 and 2070 mixers, neither of which seem to have survived the 1970s. I cannot find a single reference to them on the web, other than in a book about Marshall.

The much smaller # 2071 mini-mixer remains in evidence; here’s a link to one for sale for a few bucks in Ireland.   A unit cosmetically similar to the 2050 is also available in England right now; price is quite good IMO…

And of course, let’s not forget the Marshall Disco Unit.

Jim Marshall offers some sage advice here as well:

This really is true.  Do not try to Disco alone.  Sad at best.

Finally, we meet the face of Marshall:

Oh that’s the wrong pic.

Here he is:

Follow this link for previous vintage Marshall coverage on PS dot com.

 

 

Categories
Guitar Equipment

A Lost Fender Guitar Design – The ‘Acoustic-Electric’ of 1965

Looking through some old Fender Guitar Catalogs, I came across this unusual entry.

Behold the Fender Acoustic-Electric as it appears in the Fender 1965 Catalog (see catalog cover at right).  I have never come across any record of this instrument before, and yet there it is… photographed…  so at least one of them was made.

The Acoustic-Electric is pretty clearly the ancestor of the Fender Coronado, Fender’s ill-fated Gibson ES-335 competitor.  The  Coronado was sold from 1966 through 1972.   There are a few notable differences between the Coronado and the Acoustic-Electric tho – the pickup design, the tailpiece design, bridge style, and the knob/switch placement.  We also see a dot-neck on a two-pickup instrument (Coronados had block inlays on the 2-pickup instruments and dot-necks with single pickups), as well as the classic Fender headstock shape rather than the soft lower bout of the Coronado headstock.  Taken in total, these small changes seem to represent a deliberate attempt to make the Coronado a more ‘rock/pop’ instrument than the somewhat ‘classier,’ ‘jazzier’ Acoustic -Electric.  This change in direction would seem to correspond neatly with Fender’s purchase by CBS.  I have to wonder if the Acoustic-Electric represented the thinking of Fender’s old-guard, which lost influence once CBS took charge.  Who knows.  Anyway, has anyone ever come across a Fender Acoustic-Electric?  Or were they all destroyed?  Anyone?

Categories
Guitar Equipment

Bass c. ’70

Just a few random things today that caught my eye.  The Hagstrom 8-string bass pictured above with players Noel Redding, among others, was recently re-issued.  seems like not a bad choice for live rock bands.   Tom Petersson of the not-terrible band Cheap Trick has used a similar contraption for years.   Yes I am joking btw Cheap Trick is rad.  ANYways…

Good lord.  Just in case the SVT is not big/heavy/loud enough for you, Fender swings back with 435 watt PS-400.  I have only seen one of these in my life; can’t recall when/where.  Great fan-site for these amps here…  interesting picks of melted (like, literally) 6550 tubes from some sort of biasing-mishap.  Proceed with caution…

The Fender Precision bass in classic James Jamerson trim.  Who is James Jamerson?  Books have been written…  but you can start here. Kinda invented maybe 25% of the electric bass guitar lexicon?  Rough guess.

The electric bass Jamerson played was a stock 1962 Fender Precision Bass which was dubbed “The Funk Machine.” Jamerson bought it after his first Precision (a gift from fellow bassist Horace “Chili” Ruth) was stolen. It had a three-tone sunburst finish, a tortoise-shell style pickguard, and chrome pickup and bridge covers (the latter containing a piece of foam used to dampen sustain). He typically set its volume and tone knobs on full. This instrument was also stolen, just days before Jamerson’s death in 1983. To date, it has not been found.

(source)

 

Categories
Guitar Equipment Technical

Magnasync Moviola URS as a guitar amp – UPDATE

Magnasync/Moviola was a Los-Angeles based manufacturer of film editing equipment.  They did make a few audio products designed to support the large upright and flatbed Moviola film-editing machines which were their main products.   The most common of these audio-products is the URS 5-watt tube amplifier with built in 4″ AlNiCo speaker.  The URS apparently debuted sometime around 1955.

I recently purchased a pair of these things for a few bucks.  Aside from needing new pilot bulbs and some contact cleaner in the volume pot, they seemed to be working alright.

The rear of the unit (not shown) has a 1/4″ speaker jack (labeled ‘Headphones” which mutes the built in speaker when a cable is inserted.  Other than that, though, there was no obvious input jack.  There is a 4-pin amphenol jack with DC present on 3 of the pins.  the 4th pin is the audio input. Ahh Ok.    There is a also a single-pin DC power connector/takeoff?  Not sure.

Anyhow, kinda irrelevant.  Since no one is going to be using these things with an actual Moviola sound-head, figured I would just make em into lil guitar amps. OK it’s gonna get a little technical here, so pls skip the next paragraph if you wanna just get to the sounds…

Since the tube compliment is 7025 (aka 12AX7) – into 6AQ5 power tube (aka basically lower-voltage rated, small-bottle 6V6) with a single volume pot between the two 7025 stages, this thing is basically…. a tweed fender champ.  Yes, there are some important differences – different plate resistor values, no cathode bypass caps on the preamp stages, and i think some frequency compensation in a the feedback loop?  But basically a tweed champ.  ANYhow…  Following the advice offered here, i put a 1/4″ guitar jack where the single-pin power socket had been.    Then i simply added the other basic components of a Fender guitar-input-stage:  a 1m resistor to ground, and a 68k resistor between the input and the grid of the input tube stage.  Replaced the 2-wire AC cable with a 3-wire grounded cable, and done.

There is plenty of talk on the web about these things…  lotsa folks have converted these to guitar amps in the same manner that i discussed… and people seem to be very happy with them.    Check out this fellow’s work. He did an especially thorough job.  I was personally kinda shocked with the sound that it makes.  Never in my life have i heard so much distortion and fuzz out of an amp.  It really is, pardon my language, fucking insane. Here’s 3 sound clips.  (Gibson Firebird gtr.   SM57 3″ in front of the speaker, into MBox.  ‘Clean’ and ‘Overdrive’ examples have analog echo pedal between the guitar and the amp.  Fuzz is just the amp.  No other eq or processing applied).  Check it…

Clean: Magnasync_URS_clean

Overdrive, fingerpicked: Magnasync_URS_overdriven

Fuzzed out (max volume): Magnasync_URS_fuzz

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UPDATE:  One of the two URS conversions that I built was purchased by producer P.K.  for use on an album project with a new band out of London.  When the record comes out (assuming the URS tracks make the final mix), I’ll post links to the cuts here so that y’all can hear the sound of these fantastic little amps in-context.

Oh and about that other URS conversion that I built: as of today, it is still on-sale at Main Drag Music in Brooklyn NY for a mere $250.  Call or email them if yr interested.

 

 

Categories
Guitar Equipment Icons Pro Audio Archive

ICON: Kustom Instrument Amplifiers: 150, 250, 500 series

Download the twelve-page 1972 Kustom Electronics, INC catalog for their 150, 250, and 500-series guitar and bass amplifiers.

DOWNLOAD: Kustom_150_250_500_Catalog

Kustom amps, with their ‘tuck and roll’ sparkle-Naugahyde upholstery covering, are a true icon of the rocknroll amplifier.  Bud Ross took the idea of RocknRoll=hot rods to its logical conclusion with these things.

Tuck and Roll custom hot-rod upholstery (web source)

Interesting how well the Rock-Music/Hot-Rod connection worked in the 50s/early 60s.  Consider the Gibson Firebird and Fender Stratocaster guitars, both of which had direct aesthetic relations to youth-favored automotive designs of the times.  At right: the 1953 Buick Wildcat (source).  Below that, the Fender Stratocaster, designed in 1953 (source).

I wonder why no one has made a Honda Civic or Subaru WRX flavored guitar (or beat-making software interface WHOA maybe getting too far out there…)

The 1940 Chrysler Windsor, designed by Ray Dietrich (source)

The 1963 Gibson Firebird, also designed by Ray Dietrich (source)

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From Wikipedia:

“Rockabilly and Motown musicians originally used (Kustom) amps. Other artists known for using the Kustom brand for live applications are Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Altamonts, Dusty Murphy, 3 and Sheryl Crow. Some of the most famous Kustom P.A. users include Creedence Clearwater Revival, Leon Russell, Johnny Cash, Roy Clark, The Jackson 5, Carl Perkins,Alun Tan Lan(Y Niwl) and The Carpenters.”

All of the original 1960s and 70s Kustoms are solid-state amps, so their appeal nowadays is mainly for their cosmetic a(e)ffect.  These things were no slouches in the technical department, tho – the 250 and 500 lines shipped with optional JBL or Altec speakers (look for the silver dustcap on the drivers); furthermore, when you come across one of these things nowadays, they generally work well, which is more than can be said for most 40-year-old solid-state guitar amps.

Pictured above is a German 1972 pricelist for the entire Kustom line.  If there is enough demand I will scan and upload the entire thing.

(web source)

(Web Source)

A Kustom-Brand Police Radar gun.  Hot Rod Cars are still a focus here, but the situation has changed dramatically.  And yes the same man is responsible for both product lines.   (Web Source)

Since Kustoms are so iconic, there is a ton of information on the web regarding these artifacts and their very colorful and storied creator Bud Ross.   Ever wonder what the connection was between Kustom and Kasino?  And a gambling addiction? Promo branded halter-tops?  Unsavory-looking plush toys?  And police radar guns?  Yes folks it’s all true.  This is an American Epic.  Here’s my pick of the best:

History of Kustom/Kasino amps and Bud Ross

A great stockpile of vintage Kustom literature

Personal site of a Kustom super-collector

History of the various Kustom lines

Polymath Bud Ross on-camera delivering an oral history of Kustom and his later ventures

Categories
Guitar Equipment

SUNN amplifiers c. 1970

Download the ten-panel SUNN amplifiers 1970 catalog:

DOWNLOAD: Sunn_Amps_1970_Catalog

Models covered, with specs and photos, include: SUNN Dymos, Solarus, Sonaro, Sentura 1, Sonic 1-40, Sceptre, Sorado, Sentura II, Solos, 200s, 1000s, 1200s, and 2000s instrument amps; plus Sunn Concert Sound System and Coliseum Sound System.

I’ve been using a SUNN Sonaro as our ‘house’ studio bass amp for several years.  E actually found this for me, deadstock, on eBay about 10 years ago.  Since then I have re-tubed and recapped it entirely, and it is really a fantastic amplifier.  Very simple, but always sounds great.  The ‘hi boost’ and ‘low boost’ switches enable one to get some very modern sounds out of this ancient tube head; much more versatile than, say, a Bassman.  The cabinet is not so great.  insufficient low end for many songs.

Growing up we also had one of these ‘Concert’ PA heads.  We used it briefly in our teen-age garage band.  For some reason, it regularly shocked the lead singer. Even if he was not touching anything else.  It basically kept him in a constant state of terror.  sorry J.  It was all we could afford at the time.  The CONCERT is a solid-state amp and it is not recommended.

SUNN amps have an interesting story.  From Wikipedia (abridged by PS.com):

“In early 1963, The Kingsmen, a band based in the U.S. state of Oregon, became known for the song “Louie, Louie“. After their hit single, The Kingsmen soon embarked on a fifty-state national tour. Because the band was used to playing small hops and school dances, many of the members found themselves ill-equipped with the amplifiers that they were currently using. Bassist Norm Sundholm discovered that his bass amp was not nearly powerful enough to play larger concert halls. Sundholm enlisted the help of his brother Conrad to help solve his problem. By 1964, the Sundholm brothers had designed a high powered concert bass amplifier. … Thus, the Sunn Musical Equipment Company was founded.”

What Wiki does not tell you is that Conrad’s ‘solution’ was basically to add a pre-amp stage to a Dynaco Mark 3 home hi-fi amp and stick it in a big speaker cabinet.   This basic design would provide the essential platform for all the classic SUNN amp heads.  The crucial point of all of this is that all the classic SUNNs (including the humble Sonaro) use the very powerful 6550 output tubes coupled to an ultra linear output transformer.  To my knowledge, no other major instrument amp manufacturer was using ultralinear transformers in 1970.  Not even the Ampeg SVTs of the era use ultralinear operation.   This fact gives SUNN amps a real advantage in accurate low-end (bass) sound reproduction.

I’ve also owned a Sunn SCEPTRE, and other than the crappy-sounding sold-state reverb circuit, it was pretty great as well.  It is still easy to get a great deal (around $400) for many of these classic SUNN heads, and I highly recommend them, especially since you can now easily get the proper high-voltage filter caps that these amps need.   This makes it very very easy to re-cap the amps for proper operation.

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To download the original schematic for the SUNN 1200S, click here: 1200s_schem