Of Tubes and Tone

Hello, internet ghost world! how have you been?

not much going on here, except a full-steam-ahead decision to get serious/ get more focused with guitar tube amps. Repairs, mods, building, playing, selling, buying - you name it, i want to do it! I have collected a bunch of vintage amps from the unlikeliest places, and im currently studying/refurbishing them to get educated with an arcane and VERY OLD technology.

why? I LOVE music, most especially rock n' roll. Tube amps powered the birth of rock in the 50s and its global musical domination from the 60's on. Silicon chips and transistor/solid-state came in around the late 60's, ushering in a different era of technology. Smaller, faster, sleeker, cooler/less heat, easier to power amps, less bulk in a more powerful small package.

But solid-state has not quite gotten that "mojo tone" that tube amps produce - after 4 decades of solid-state guitar amplification, recording and performing artists have come to find out where they can get "that tone", and have always come back to tube amps each time. Or they start out with transistor amps, and eventually move on to tubes, as that realization hits home of what a true guitar tone should sound like.

At any rate, tubes (or valves) have now become near-obsolete technology, existing primarily only in hi-fi equipments (for music playback), and musical instrument amplification. It simply is NOT taught in schools anymore. Possibly the underlying concepts, and the most basic electrical principles and fundamentals are still taught, but that is the extent of it. Most classes branch out immediately to solid-state technology, and to what is used and what is prevalent in the world today.

But books still abound that teach tube technology. And unlike transistors that continue to evolve and continue to change, tube technology has contained itself in a bubble, and not much can be changed or added to it at this point. Tube technology has peaked close to 50 years ago, and not much if any has changed since. Though not perfected, its application to music has. The technology learning is in most cases already finite and set, and that allows ANYONE to come in and learn from start, knowing there IS a finish. No new developments, no new concepts - all the groundwork has already been laid down half a century ago. All we need to do now is to follow the path.

Granted, one has to at least know the basic electrical concepts to move into the realm of valves/tubes, and more importantly also know what true tone SHOULD sound like. I am admittedly still learning, and i WILL BE learning the rest of my life, but what i have learned so far has been my stepping stone towards tube technology. This has facilitated an easier shift (after coming from the hi-tech world of fast computers), thought it still poses a mountain of knowledge i need to climb. Fortunately it is something i gladly will undertake. It also helps to like (and even better, LOVE) what you're doing. Everything becomes simpler at that point.

The goal: to understand how tube amps work, so repairs and even building one can be done. Later on will be a line of custom-made tube amp heads and combos, crafted in the traditional way - point-to-point wiring. Ultimately to produce that guitar tone that oozes mojo. :-)