My favorite flea power amp has been returned to me after theft. Thank you!

 This is a good story with a happy ending.

In June 2021 my favorite amp was stolen from my van in Brooklyn. I played Russian roulette with my gear many times, it was buried under blankets but on this night I'm pretty sure I was being watched by someone in McCarren Park as I locked my van up for the night. 

I discovered the theft on Saturday as I was picking up a friend. I noticed the passenger side door lock had been tampered with. The funny thing was I parked in a no parking zone for two whole days! So naturally I was annoyed but I pretty much accepted the loss. I did file a police report and unlike me I didn't have the serial number. All I had was a good description.... I put the oxblood bakelite knobs on myself and the smooth sky blue pilot light was my addition too. 

I was annoyed but what are you going to do? In a city of 10 million folks I'm a very low priority for the NYPD. So, that's the way it goes. I did what I could including posting photos on the social media that I have and I wrote to all of the NYC guitar stores I could think of.

So fast forward to a Friday in December and a good friend in Baltimore texts me with a Reverb listing and he asks me "Is this your amp?" 

Yup! I could see my signature on the filter can in the back and it even had the pack of DR Pure Blues strings still in it. The seller didn't seem to know too much about it but he had a years long history and knew that it was a rare amp. I have a feeling he may have seen it on my blog here since I was singing it praises. 

His asking price: $2000! Local pickup only.

So all of the emotions came popping up right away. The stuff I didn't really allow myself to feel back in June. Disgust, violation, rage..... I thought about setting up a meet and showing up and just taking it. But I figured at $2,000 it's not going to go anywhere fast!

So I contacted the Greenpoint precinct. I figured that was a long shot and it was. A petty larceny in NYC? The cops literally have more important things to do. They did get back to me on that Monday but by then I had already gotten it back.

How did I do it?

My gut told me the seller was not the thief. So I simply wrote to him and said "Wow, you found my favorite amp! That's amazing! I would like it back now as it was stolen in June."

I did my best to appeal to his higher self and it worked. I presented photos and social media posts in my first message. He pushed back for one half of a sentence then apologized profusely. He bought it at a table sale in east Williamsburg for $40. He showed me the text exchange he had with a friend about his lucky score.

Within an hour of contacting him he dropped it off at Southside Guitars where I work once a month. I paid him that forty bucks as a finder fee and while I know I didn't need to do that since he was selling a stolen good, I was happy to pay him. Why would I do such a thing?

If I had found a cool amp on at a sidewalk sale I would have done exactly the same thing as him. In fact that is part of how I make my living. It's survival. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. There is little to no accountability in our eBay Reverb world for hot goods. 

When I worked at a shop in Portland two street drug dealers brought in an old saxophone.... I could see it from across the room and knew it was something I could get $2k for. Rare and desirable. The store turned it down so I asked permission if I could buy it. Me and the dealers stepped outside and they told me it plays nice to which I replied "bullshit. I know you don't play so don't try to play me. How much fellas?" They said $40. I took out two Jacksons and sent them on their way.

The horn had been neglected for years. No case, badly tarnished but in good physical shape. I ran it through the Portland Police Department second hand goods three times (I think that was 6-12weeks?) before I had it fixed up to sell. No one seemed to be missing it. I won that time. I could have just as easily lost.......

And I remember the pawn detectives. I think when I started working at that shop the Portland PD had 3 pawn detectives. It was reduced to one soon thereafter.... one moved to Arson and the other was moved elsewhere. That's too big a job for 3 people let alone one.

So for the fella who was trying to sell my amp: Thanks for doing the right thing! It's a good way to live.

J

DOD Stereo Chorus Vibrato 565-B pedal. 80's gem!

 Ok.... another pedal. This one was fun. It belongs to a good friend and it's been with him since the 90's. It came sounding rather weak and with a lot of crackly chunder going on. So I put on "The Gentle Side of John Coltrane and in 4 sides (just over 1 1/2 hours) I re-capped it and cleaned it thoroughly. I also changed the LED as the original was going dim. We went with blue cause... why not??

The re-cap was pretty easy except for the nasty double sided circuit board. But the nice thing is I could remove the whole thing just by disconnecting it!

It's funny. I've never worked on a DOD. Financially speaking I would say no unless you love it. These are still cheap as chips. That being said, once I plugged this in to my two baby Magnatones for that stereo glory I found I love this box! Instant 80's inspiration! 

Will I buy one for myself? Doubtful but if I wanted a chorus box this would likely be the one for me! 

Good times baby!!

J

1973 Mu-Tron Octave Divider, fun!

 Got lucky with this one. I've been taking on some pedals at Southside Guitars. I kind of enjoy them.... it's nice when you can find a schematic and even nicer when you can get them to work!

This one is a 1972 Mu-Tron Octave Divider with a cool 70's Miles Davis era ring modulator function. When it arrived it only half functioned (bass only side worked, the rest did nothing!)

I got lucky. I did the routine: changed EVERY electrolytic and tantalum capacitor and cleaned everything thoroughly, touched up the solder joints. 

And yes! it came back to life. No IC changes necessary. But then two out of the three LEDs died!!! So I ordered a kit o' LEDs and replaced all of them. It's ready to go cut tracks in your Miles inspired band or EDM or whatever you wanna do! Go on and get your creativity on! If you buy this one it's a good one. Y'all know me, I'm a strong proponent of changing out those electrolytic caps (exceptions are old fuzz boxes that sound like the customer want's them to sound.... gotta wait till those die otherwise you'll get that "but it had this thing before!!)

Funny demo. I don't know what to do with this one!!

1969 Park 75! Rare as hen's teeth yo!

 This was a fun one. A very nice Park 75 from 1969.

In my 32 years of doing this I've had the pleasure of working on exactly 3 Park amps from the old Marshall 60's plexi era. I did work on a 70's one at some point but that one wasn't as memorable.

The first was a Park 45 a guy brought to me in Portland about 20 years ago. He had just bought it at a pawn shop in Vancouver Washington for $300. A wild man apparently had dropped about a dozen ancient Marshalls there so I dutifully drove there right away and bought several. They were all in various states of dis-repair but little things like, in the Park 45 the slope resistor had been removed.

That amp with it's KT66 tubes left an impression! I wish I was the lucky man who popped in that day. 

The second was a Park 150 I bought from a shop in downtown Portland for about $500 or so around the same time. That one didn't thrill me as much but it was pretty fascinating. I recall it being somewhat like a Marshall Major but far more interesting. It had an early "overdrive" channel and was just too much amp for me. Think Ritchie Blackmore. I did like that channel though, more primitive than the few Laney Klipp amps I've seen. That Park didn't stay with me long, I re-capped the power supply and flipped it like a burger. 

I do know that Park was built by Marshall, but with subtle circuit changes as to not totally compete with Marshall. The coolest thing about that 150 is there isn't a Marshall like it. He seemed to be in a groovy experimental place building that one.

Then last week this beauty came across my bench. 

As far as I could tell, and I didn't bother with too much analysis as it was a "get it ready to sell" job and it was already in well maintained great health, it's just a 50 watt Marshall with KT88 output tubes and different cosmetics. Beautifully built inside and out like a good hand wired Marshall is. 

The cabinet is loaded with Celestion "Greenback" speakers and it's a cool bass cabinet. It sounds exactly as one with expect with a good Les Paul: voice of God or Satan depending on what style you dig. Or the voice of good LSD if that's your bag! I'm a big fan of these early Marshall amps. Nothing sounds like an amp pushed to the brink! Master Volume is great as this is too loud for me today but that being said, nothing beats the real thing! 

I thought the JJ KT88 tubes that were loaded in this one sounded pretty damned good for modern tubes. Of course I would like to hear it with the OG Genelex glass but.... that's a lotta dough.... Glad these were pleasing. Thumbs up.

This amp already had all of the filter caps replaced in the 90's. No hum, great bottom end, no need to change anything. I like it when they show up like this. In and out in no time at all. 

Electro Harmonix Double Tracker

 

Second box of the day. This one arrive DOA. Someone had boogered it up inside with some shoddy tech work and ya know, why make an EH pedal worse than it already is? These charmingly janky boxes that do a good job of falling apart on their own.

I got this one working by re-wiring the battery cables. The switch was intermittent so I replaced that and it worked brilliantly for about 3 minutes then POOF!

Power supply issue. I needed to replace the 2n4302 FET in the power supply. They are rare and spendy. I first tried a recommended substitute but that failed after 10 minutes. I replaced all of the electrolytic caps with the same values and replaced the tantalum cap with another tantalum. I also replaced the 13v zener diode (this pedal is 18v, takes two 9v batteries.)

I don't find much joy in working on janky pedals but it is nice when there is success and I've learned something.

How is it? It's a two trick pony.... slap back and faster slap back plus blend. That's it. I can do better with just a delay box. However, it sounds wickedly trashy! If I had a studio I would own one of these. I'm not sure there is anything else that quite sounds like this box.....

Maestro Envelope Modifier

 

Ok, I know it's not a tube amp but whatever. It's old, it's vintage and it's effing weirdly kinda cool.  

I've received a box of pedals from Southside Guitars in Brooklyn. Pedals are not my idea of a good time but I do like bringing things back from the dead. 

This one arrived DOA. If you are lucky that just means a bad battery cable or a bad joint. You should also heat up EVERY solder joint and clean every pot twice minimum. Did that and still nothing.

In this case I needed to change the Optocoupler to get it going. I bought one and the thing made sound but did nothing else than that. I also re-capped the thing, still no effect. I was at a loss as to what to do. So I consulted the interweb and found a guy on the Facebook who had success with one of these. I followed his advice and made my own optocoupler with a white LED and a GL5528 photo sensitive resistor.

(Shout out to Pete's Pedals in St Louis for the help!!)

And, it started to do, erm, something! I needed to re-solder the batter connectors on both ends of the cable and clean the pots once again and now it works. I needed to adjust the little trim pot on the inside to make the LED maximum bright. The cool thing about making your own optocoupler is you can see how that light is actually behaving.

It's a very rare box with good reason..... not much use for a guitar player like me. I can pretty much make my fingers do what this does but I can see one of my analog synth addict friends having a good time with this box. You play it softer and it lets more sound through in one mode. Play it louder and it cuts the volume. That's in Bow mode. Percussion  appears to be the opposite. You hit the note hard and it really spikes. 

Can't really tell much from my little demo but here we go anyway......

1965 Fender Vibro Champ Amp, low volume, What are some people thinking when they mod an amp????

 

This was a repair amongst many I did for Southside Guitars last month over a marathon 2 day period. Simple amp, somehow it took up more bench time than the rest!

You're looking at a run of the mill used 1965 "Fender Electric Instrument Company" pre-CBS Vibro Champ. Lovely little buggers. The first time I ever played one was at this guys apartment in the 80's in Boston. He used a TS9 Tube Screamer into it to record my guitar tracks when I was a Berklee student. I was pretty floored at how good it sounded. I think he had a reel to reel or one of those cassette 4 track machines we all had in those days, the Fostex X15 or Tascam something or another. 

Anyway. This one had very little volume. I popped the chassis and, well, you tell me what you see:

Yeah. Seriously. What the eff? That nice bit of lamp cord poorly soldered between the input of the volume knob directly to the 15k midrange resistor which goes to ground. So where you want to see up to 250k between you and ground, you get 15k maximum. I just don't understand what they were trying to achieve here! Did they put it together and say "Yeah, now that's the ticket to Hollywood baby?" 

Why didn't they just undo it? Ugh......

That was the first thing to take care of and while it helped tremendously, there were plenty of other bugs.

Always start from the back and go forward. The speaker was an old alnico full range 8 ohm job with a whizzer cone. That wasn't helping any so I just threw in what we had that day, a reissue 4 ohm used Jensen Alnico speaker. That helped but still, meh.... blah.... lackluster. No bass at all.

They had replaced every single signal capacitor with used / leaky weak caps that were also the wrong values. I used Mallory 150s and if you notice, I grounded the amp and used the .047 "Death Cap" at the midrange capacitor cuz, why not? Reduce reuse recycle! And those never go bad and have a special sound. 

I also replaced the tremolo caps with fresh ones as that was super weak and they had some weird stuff going on in there too. 

But still, no bass and pretty sad tremolo.

Cathode caps..... no bass, sad tremolo. Tremolo is just an LFO right? Better have fresh cathode caps to get it strong. In fact, just replace them already! This amp is 56 years old now.

After that I still wasn't happy though. Tremolo was working albeit, just not awesome, and the bass would vanish when you turned the treble up. Weird......

So upon closer inspection I noticed the tremolo intensity pot was dated 1966, but no indication of the ohms. They always say 25K RA. So I pulled it and measured the thing. 500k. WRONG! 

I dropped in a 50k pot since that was all I had on the shelf. Those 25K reverse audio pots are hard to find. The 50k pot isn't correct but it did make the tremolo work better. With the 500k pot there was almost no tremolo until you got up to about 8. So, while not satisfied this would work. I could also bypass it with a 47k resistor to make a fake 25k pot. I don't like doing this but in a pinch it does work and only the rabid amp fanatic can usually tell.

But that treble control bit was really driving me bananas. The amp still seemed weak too. So I then figured if the Bozo that modded this amp changed that tremolo pot to something so wack, maybe they changed a tone pot.

They didn't. The tone pots are the original 250kA pots dated 1965. 

So I checked the volume pot. Lo and behold, it was the 25K RA Intensity pot I needed! Captain "Wha? TechNo No No" used the 25k pot and scrapped the 1Meg pot that was in there. I took that 25kRA pot and put it where it belonged and threw in a new CTS 1 Meg volume pot. 

Now we're cooking with grease...... GREAT tremolo and GREAT tone!

The power transformer was replaced sometime in the 70's with the correct part. I did clean up the wiring there too. Come on folks, twist those AC lines already!!

In conclusion. I do not know what this person was trying to achieve with the mods they did. If they were trying to make the amp play with little volume, why not just turn the volume knob down? I imagine they may have been trying to get more tremolo so they used that 500k pot. Nope! 

If you do not know what you are doing then please consult someone! Otherwise a fella like myself can spend hours undoing your ill conceived ideas. Seriously, ask. Most of us are happy to share information....

J