Why haven’t I heard of this? I don’t recall reading of it in any of the Zep or Beck bio information I have read. I mean, I have books that calendar out Beck’s work through the 60’s and don’t recall it - maybe I just missed it. Hmm - thanks for the link; haveta check it out.
Gotta love Frank Sinatra.
Update - I pinged my oldest music buddy who knows his stuff and he wasn’t familiar with it either. But he had a bit more time than me and found the following:
I plan to check this stuff out later tonight…
Hey, WordMan, aren’t you supposed to be, like, working or something? 
(As if I should talk…)
Tell me about it 
I am writing up the notes from the all-day offsite I led yesterday. Trust me, these brief visits to the GOGT are the “cigarette breaks” I need…
I mentioned previously that previously I was using the eMedia Guitar Method which is now no longer compatible with my computer (used it with XP back then, I have Vista now).
So I’ve been seeing all these ads on the free guitar-learning sites for online lessons and was wondering if any of you are using one and which you thought was the best and most economical (unless those 2 are mutually exclusive, that is!;)).
Also, I’ve been reading y’all’s comments about the Nashville system, so I looked it up. It’s a cardboard wheel where you set your root chord - Proud Mary in E for instance - and the wheel tells you what chords are compatible. Is that correct? I am having trouble understanding how the numbers relate to the method, though. So, E ( and others who know me pretty well through this site): Is this something simple enough for a simple guy like me?
It sounds like it’s right up my alley since all I wanna do is play rhythm…
Thanks
www.justinguitar.com gets good reviews. I hate videos, is all.
No. I think you went to this site. I assure you, the session musicians who use the Nashville number system are not using Dr. Duck’s cardboard wheel. The wheel has some basic theory…learn it from the colorful, happy wheel, or a boring book, or an accurate website, take a class, learn it from another musician…it doesn’t matter, just learn it.
If you want to see some examples of charts, look at this or this. It’s not just numbers.
Do you know what a major scale is? That’s the first step. Learn the pattern on your guitar. You can then learn the major scale in all of the keys. You can learn them in any order. I teach my students in this order: C G D A E B F# C# F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb (Yes, F#=Gb, C#=Db, Cb=B…same notes, different names). What’s significant about the order? The sharp keys go up a fifth, and the flat keys go up a fourth. This is the order sharps and flats are added to the key signature. Look up the Cycle of Fifths…it’s related to that. Once you know the notes of a major scale, you know the number component of the Nashville Numbering System.
Okay, I am in Chicago for my meeting (getting home tomorrow to NY will be…interesting) and am still pondering this thread.
Basically, **squeegee **old bean, I am not the guy who can dig into the circuits in any detail and break out the categories of amp based on that. Electronics are simply not something I have ever dug into hard other than the opportunistic soldering I have done swapping out pickups or wiring up a Parts-o-Caster. So breaking amps down by circuit type is beyond me. So it is possible to break amps down into “circuit groups” but I am not the guy to do it.
Having said that, I know a bit about amps over and above the long “tubes vs. solid state” essays I posted in that earlier thread linked to when I responded to your posted quoted above initially, so let’s see what I got:
The “evolution” chart would go something like this - the earliest big-deal amps were Fender Tweeds (nicknamed due to their tweed-looking covering). Around 1959-60, this “species” splits into two branches: in the U.S., Fender updated their circuit, with a step or two in between, to the “Blackface” circuit (an unfortunate nickname based on the black color of the thin backing plate which all of the controls were mounted on - this is contrasted with “Silverface” Fenders which were the next generation of design after the BF’s); in the UK, music-store owner Jim Marshall ripped off the Tweed circuit and started building his own amps. Unfortunately (;)) he had to adapt it to use the UK tubes he could obtain - EL34’s - and so the Marshall amp was born. At the same time Marshall was doing his thing, the UK company Vox was building their own amps. Hank Marvin, of the UK group the Shadows, wanted a bigger amp and so Vox modified their AC15 amps and created the AC30 for him - and since it was didn’t have quite enough highs for him, they created a special “top boost” control to boost them.
When I say “circuit” please note that each model of these makers had different circuits based on the level of power they were supposed to deliver, other features like tremolo built in, etc. So there is no single “Fender amp circuit design” - the Deluxe (now referred to as a Tweed Deluxe to differentiate it from a Blackface Deluxe Reverb) has the 5E3 circuit (link to a picture on the Fender Amp Field Guide here) but a Tweed Bassman has a 5E6 or 5F6 circuit.
Because the circuits themselves vary widely, folks got into the habit of grouping the amps and their basic tone profiles based on the power tubes that were used in the circuit. (If you go back to the first long amp thread I started, I discuss how amps are based on the holy trinity of pre-amp, power amp and speaker. Since the pre-amp’s job is to shape the tone and the power amp’s job is to boost it to usable volumes, you’d think the pre-amp tubes would be the “grouping” category that folks would use, but they don’t. I am not sure why - perhaps because many amps used the same pre-amp tubes (12ax7’s). Anyway:
Tweeds used old Sylvania 6V6 tubes, an earlier generation of that technology. Small, relatively lower-powered and very quick to max out and start clipping, i.e., distorting the tone. Now 6V6 amps are really sought out - the Tweed Deluxe and Bassman circuits are the basis for many boutique amps. They are super responsive - someone like Brian Setzer can play clean-but-gritty rockabilly through them and Stevie Ray used tweed Bassman amps extensively (along with Blackface Super Reverb models, too).
Blackface Fenders “upgraded” to Sylvania 6L6 tubes, aka “big bottles” - a next-gen tube with the ability to handle more power. BF amps are known for being able to do crisp shimmery cleans - think surf music with heavy reverb - and a nice overdriven tone when pushed - not crunchy really, just a warm tone. Think Keith Richards on Tumbling Dice or the intro to start me up. I call than an “organ tone” because it is just a rich, warm tone with the ability to really hear the individual strings.
Marshalls, as mentioned, use EL34 tubes. Big bottles but somehow different from the 6L6’s. And because Marshall was building bigger amps at the request of the London players - the 100w stack came from a Pete Townshend request - the design focused on supporting their experimentation with really driving the amps hard and hearing how the overloaded circuit sounded. What can you say? Marshall amps are the definitive crunchy tone. Do you hear about any players who use Marshalls and favor a predominantly clean tone? They are kind of like Les Pauls vs. Strats - Les Pauls only do one thing but do it better than anybody; Strats are better-suited to a wide variety of styles. Marshalls do one thing but do it better than anybody; Blackface Fenders are better suited to a wider variety of styles.
Vox based their circuit on EL84 tubes - smaller than EL34’s but from a similar generation of tube tech. They were originally known for their Beatles, jangly clean tones. You start using cork-sniffer words here, but they have a clean sound that has a richness and complexity to it that is addictive to play with when you get a good one. Easy to see how they would work with a Rickenbacker guitar - John’s small six string or George’s 12-string - because the guitars just sound good (sorry for not being more technical, but sometimes it is that simple) and the Vox amps take it to the next level. Think about the opening riff to Ticket to Ride - that’s what I am talking about.
What’s interesting to note is that the EL84 tube has become the darling of boutique amp makers - and we really are in a new Golden Age of amps - not only have the Fenders of the world returned to and improved some of their old tube circuits, but there are about 'leventy billion small-amp makers out there doing really, really cool things. And many/most of them use EL84’s - in fact, Fender’s hugely successful Blues Jr amp is EL84 based. Why all the EL84 love? Well, first of all they are smaller than 6v6’s and EL34’s so you can build a lower-wattage amp. That’s good becase we have moved past the need for louder-is-better amps - back in the day you got all of your sound on stage from your backline of amps so they needed to be loud. Now you use your amp to generate your tone, but it is typically amplified through the PA if you are playing a venue that requires a louder sound than what you’d get out of your smaller amp. Back in the day a 50-watt amp was considered wimpy, a 100watt Marshall Stack was the gold standard and a 200w Marshall Major was swinging the heavy lumber. Now most players target an 18-to-30 watt tube amp; more than that is a waste and you never really get to use it…
As for “rectifiers” - I don’t know a lot except from a distance. A rectifier is just an electronic component like a potentiometer, capacitor, transformer, etc. - it’s job is to transform alternating current to direct current - and that exhausts my knowledge of their actual workings ;). Mesa Boogie was one of the first boutique amp tweakers - they got their start sticking 12" speakers into small Fender Princeton amps, then beefing out the amp’s circuits to include more features, so that gigging players had a small amp that could play bigger and had more features they needed for gigging (Princetons were considered starter amps, one step above Fender Champs). As Mesa Boogie started to do their own thing, they came up with their own circuits. I don’t know if they worked in collaboration with Metallica - like Hank Marvin working with Vox and Townshend with Marshall - but the Triple Recitifier circuit was designed to handle the over-the-top, scooped-mids tone of thrash metal in the 80’s. What does a triple-recitified circuit do that a single-recified circuit do? No clue - well, I would say they are good at sounding kinda crappy. I love Metallica for the sheer power and the cool songs, but I have never held them up as a definer of great tone. I have assumed that all they really cared about was getting more distortion - and the scooped mids tone (nicknamed because on a Graphic EQ tone control where you have little sliders to control the tone across different frequencies, you little have the bass and treble max’d and the middle down low, so it looks like soft U) I have always assumed was done because mids can drive uncontrollable feedback in the circuit, so if you cut them, you can pump more distortion into the circuit before it breaks loose. And since mids are at the heart of good UK Blues/Les Paul-through-Marshall tones, it was just a place I never cared to go…
So - that’s a start - helpful?
Pretty damned cool, WordMan, even if you don’t consider yourself an expert on the subject.
That was awesome! You rock!
Like yourself, I’m traveling for a few days, so I’ve only read through the post just now and will probably have questions later. I don’t think I’ve ever read a summary of the amp food groups, so this is really new stuff for me. Thanks again!
Electronics lesson coming up. I got tired referring to “devices” and have used valve in the descriptions, all this applies to transistor amps too. Feel free to translate to tube.
In a class A amplifier, the output valve(s) is(are) always on/conducting, the output voltage is varying from just about zero to something like the rail voltage. This is a good way to get clean undistorted output without using negative feedback (I’ll get to that later). Trouble is class A is inefficient, you burn a lot of power and need a lot of devices to get the desired loudness, which takes us to…
Class B, you need (at least) two output valves, the output swings above and below zero with each valve off half the time. One valve does the positive part of the waveform the other does the negative bit. This is called a ‘push-pull’ circuit, and it’s why guitar amps’ output valves come in pairs.
The problem with pure class B is what happens as the signal swings through zero volts. You need a bit of oomph to get the valves conducting so as the input waveform gets close to zero the valve(s) are both off. This is called crossover distortion, and it’s not like nice overdrive style distortion. You don’t want it.
Which is where AB comes in. You start with the class B push-pull arrangement and add in a little bit of voltage [bias] so that the valves are running just a bit even when there’s no signal, that way as soon as there is some signal the valve responds immediately.
I could have saved myself a lot of typing if I’d just found this site earlier. It’s got pictures ‘n’ all.
Negative feedback I’ll get to tomorrow. And rectifiers. I hope you’re taking notes. I may get round to why any of this matters for guitar amps too.
Thanks guys - and **Small Clanger **- thanks; that the stuff I read about but don’t understand enough to try to relay here. I look forward to reading more.
Now I gotta get out of my hotel room and get to the big meeting I am here for…
Small Clanger, I’m heading out the door and won’t be back here, if at all, until tonight, but wanted to say Thank You! for tackling this from the circuit design approach. I am totally taking notes.
One question: do you have some info on what commercial amps map to what circuit design? e.g., my Blues Junior has two output tubes, so that makes it a class B or (more likely) AB, right?
[Lighter held proudly aloft]
WordMan!!!
Small Clanger!!!
[cue the slow majestic rock anthem in 3/4; kinda like ‘Sofa’, if that won’t get us sued.]
I agree. I have had the benefit of WordMan’s tutelage on amps and tone via email and even a bit in person, so I am used to learning from him. Special kudos to Small Clanger for the first A, B, AB explanation that didn’t cause my eyes to glaze over. And I thought your explanation was clearer than the one you linked to. I actually understood yours. Thanks to you both.
I shared dinner and drinks with WordMan and pulykamell the other evening. I felt like I spent 2 hours absorbing knowledge about music (and life). Both gentlemen come across as renaissance men here on the SMDB; they’re every bit as smart (and fun) in real life. 
Phew - just got out of my MD Symposium - as a non-doc, I gotta tell ya, nothing like a bunch of pictures of open wounds and ulcerated veins to make you throw up in your mouth a little - and of course, now I am taking a bunch of docs out to dinner…
Thanks you guys - I appreciate the kind words. The guy who became the guy I now refer to as “my drummer the record producer” came and saw my first mid-life crisis band. He came up during break and said “you guys are great - but your tone sucks!” Thus began the next, oh, 10 years of digging in and asking a lot of questions. It is hard to believe that there is no basic guide or inside-baseball book on this stuff. There is more about amps online than you can imagine, but where can you go to learn about amp “sweet spots” and different tube types and their effect on tone?
As long as I am feeding your curiosity - and enabling your G.A.S.!!! - well, my work here is done. ;)
::stands aside and waits for Small Clanger, because I am really curious about negative feedback…::
Thanks. From looking at the examples you provided, it seems a daunting system for me to learn, given my mental state (dementia, short-term memory loss, depression and just plain batshit in general), so I guess I’ll just stay with my chording and tablature.
Thanks again!
Q
Yeah, Q, you’re probably right. I don’t know any amazing musicians with dementia, short-term memory loss, depression and are batshit crazy. 
But seriously, learn and use what you think will maximize your enjoyment of playing. Just keep in mind the importance of knowing the language that you use to communicate. Wordman mentioned Victor Wooten’s book “The Music Lesson”. When I was at NAMM a couple of weekends ago, Victor Wooten was the keynote speaker at the educator’s breakfast forum. He spent a lot of time talking about the similarities about learning to speak as a child and learning to play a music instrument.
This is for both the theory-challenged and the experts.
How to Construct a Major Scale
half step = 1 semitone = 1 fret = one key on the keyboard (some teachers call the keys “digitals” to differentiate it from the other meaning of key)
whole step = 2 semitones = 2 frets = 2 keys on the keyboard
Major Scale Pattern
1 - whole - 2 - whole - 3 - half - 4 - whole - 5 - whole - 6 - whole - 7 - half - 8
C Major Scale: C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
G Major Scale: G - A - B - C - D - E - F# - G
Someone take the next two (D and A). Pass it on. Go in the order I suggested in Post #1267 (Wow, Post #1267?! You guys have been busy for a long time!!!) By the time we’re done (it’ll only take seven more posts), some basic theory will be demystified. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes - you will learn from mistakes.
