I’ve had a blues Jr for a while now and realized I never have done a comparison of what it sounds like up against a Blues Jr with a stock Eminence speaker. Becoming so accustomed to how a UK made Celestion Vintage 30 sounds in my Jr, I never would have guessed there was this much contrast between the two speakers.
The Eminence speaker may have it’s applications but my reaction to listening to playback of the recording below was absolute shock that there could be so much difference in a set of paper and drivers. While they both push air, they push them in extremely different ways. The Blues Jr is an amp waiting to be released from its stock speaker — just listen to the difference in the video below.
I love my Hagstrom Super Swede. The 60’s profile Gibson neck, the over-wound pickups, the sunburst
finish and the solid Mahogany body all come together to form quite an amazing instrument for such a low cost.
Check it out:
The only thing it was really missing was that vintage grainy bite from the pickups. Now don’t get me wrong, the pickups it came with are pretty fantastic – I just knew it could sing much better. My friend
Will Boggs VTPH
Darren Morton has a Les Paul with hand-wound pickups made by Will Boggs. Well Darren went and found an auction on Ebay that was selling the very same pickups at a great price and I couldn’t pass them up.
I was worried when the pickups came in that I would have a hard time installing them in my Hagstrom. Sure enough the pickups screws I had were too big. I had to wait just a few more days for screws to ship from Robert Wiggs of BB’s Tone solutions. Once they came in the pickup installation was a breeze.
Want to know how they sound? Well here’s the after video. Thanks Si for writing this song for me to pretend I can play it.
It’s time to update again, seeing that I’m getting bad at posting here. Sorry for those three of you who actually read this blog.
This isn’t really a new song, but it’s mainly me attempting to work with iMovie and edit down some quick shots for some gear demo’s I’m hoping to do in the near future. Obviously the audio quality will increase when I use a real mic instead of the iSight mic on my mac
I think I’ll try my hand at doing a few updates on new music that I have found interesting. I actually got the idea from my buddy slim from his post about Radiohead’s song “Reckoner”. That kid opened my eyes to a new approach on that song…I normally listen for each musical piece but he took the song as a whole and enjoyed it as an orchestra of ambiance.
Well Radiohead did it again with a release [that I have caught rather late in the game] of a song that will possibly be on their new record set to release this year. The song is entitled “These are My Twisted Words”. Just like anything put out by Radiohead, this song is genius. The song opens up with a twisted chord reminiscent of an Oasis style intro, and then we promptly hear Phil’s drums and the tantalizing mix Colin’s bass and Ed’s, Thom’s and Johnny’s guitars come in that captures you for a whole two and a half minutes before the vocals sing their first note.
Radiohead has chosen to offer a free download of this song just to give us a taste of what they have been crafting in their home studio. I have provided a link to the download page after lyrics below.
Lyrics:
these are my twisted words
fell off the roof still walking
i know i should not look down
but i’m so sick of just talking
when are you coming back
i just can’t handle it
when are you coming back
i just can’t handle it
when are you coming back
i just can’t stand it
i just can’t handle it
So I went for it. Instead of building my own version of a Plexi with my good friend Darren from Dmo’s Diatribes [http://dmosdiatribes.blogspot.com/], I went out on ebay and bought one. This one is from 1988 which is the first year of the reissues…but she doesn’t have a reissue serial number. Apparently only a few hundred of this particular model was made so this is a rare find and I’m glad I snagged it!
My good friend Caleb was kind enough to let me play through his Gibson ES 339 so I made sure I played it in this video below. Let me know what you guys think of the guitar and the Plexi.
Normally I shy away from too much surfing on Craigslist’s music gear pages — it just makes me want to throw money to every poster on the site and pick up as much gear as I can. I decided to look up some closed back cab’s on the site and I found a GREAT deal. This cab for $250 loaded with UK made Celestion Vintage-30 speakers.
My great friend Darren Morton told me to stick away from Vintage 30′s but I couldn’t pass on this deal. I drove her home and plugged in my Blues Junior just to see how much bigger the tiny amp would sound, and it was like I plugged into a different amp!
The cabinet made the Blues Junior really come alive and let all the subtleties of the amp sing out with a new and unique voice.
I am ordering a new speaker cabinet for my Blues Jr. I sold the AC30 the other day to a friend of mine and I am ordering a custom made guitar cabinet from Weber Speakers.
An empty guitar cab
What’s cool about this cab is that it will have the option to convert from a closed back 2×12 to an open back 2×12. I’m also loading the cabinet with a ceramic Weber Blue Dog speaker [hand made version of an old Celestion blue Neo-Dog speaker found in old Vox amps] and a Weber Silver Bell speaker [Weber's hand made version of the old fantastic Celestion ceramic speakers found in old Marshall combo amps].
Back of an empty cabinet
I can’t wait to test the cab out and post samples of what each speaker sounds like with the open back and closed back configurations!
