Geek » Fender Deluxe Amp Project

Troubleshooting

That night, Gary called and asked if I wanted to meet him to hear Lanny play at a club. Lanny and I had played together in a band called Vitasoul, so I knew Lanny's playing, and his appreciation of the tone. His Telecaster would be the first to try out Purple Shag. Right into the fire, on a gig.

I drug PS (Purple Shag) out of my trunk, put it on the stage, and Lanny plugged in. A few songs later he was smiling and the amps sounded sweet.

The next night at my club, the amp was proudly onstage, and there was a loud college band playing. After the gig I noticed a nasty hum, and when Gary came over the next evening to play around, PS was acting very weird. The amp was creating a terrible sort of tremelo effect with only the detuning, not the waver. It sounded terrible. Gary was bummed, but I was psyched. I could now did back into it to see what happened, and while I was at it could install the funky hi-end blue square Phillips caps that Mr. Wang gave me.

After wrangling out the board and undoing everything, the culprit appeared. A couple evening of playing had vibrated loose one of the tone control leads to the board. A quick fix later, and PS was back on track.

Greg, with his hollow body Ibanez was the next to try it at one of our Retrosexuals rehearsals, and we agreed that PS needed more of the bright input sound, with more control over the level and amount of crunch.

Cool. That'll be next. Mods.

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