I am sure I opined on that - the rule of thumb I have heard is that preamp tubes can last up to 10 years given the low signal they are dealing with. Power tubes should be changed once a year, but many folks, myself included, often wait until one malfunctions…but they are a mechanical technology and quality control, especially at the early stages of Russian and Chinese manufacture, was inconsistent. Look on the BJ boards to get a feel for what brands and sources have good reps for matched tubes. Probably a place like Lord Valve or RS Guitarworks, but I am sure StewMac and Allparts and all the usual suspects have them…
OK, I’ll keep all that in mind, thanks. I think all the tubes I had (certainly both power tubes) were Groove Tubes, but as was above said they just rebrand other folks’ tubes. Maybe I’ll try Mullards next time (hopefully years from now 
), since Small Clanger thought well of their durability. Anyway, shrug, parts that can wear out do wear out, unpredictably. If your hard disk has a MTBF of 10,000 hours and wears out in 2 hours, the MTBF was not necessarily wrong; you just ended up on the far side of the “shit happens” scale.
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Maybe I’ll try Mullards next time…
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My experience with Mullards is with 30+ year old British made ones. I haven’t actually bought any new valves in … a looong time (wanna buy some new-old Marshall brand EL34s?). Looks like the best valves these days are made in Russia, and US sold ‘matched’ sets are just re-branded. I’d say just buy a bunch of non American brand valves and swap them around until I got a pair that behaved… Oops, out of time back later.
There’s a big difference between preamp tubes and power tubes. Preamp tubes can last a long time without having to be changed. But power tubes, where the general practice is to run them hot, can sometimes fail. Maybe that was the source of confusion?
Personally, I favour modeling amps these days. My Vox AD50VT has a solid state power section, but puts a tube in the circuit to reproduce the tube tone. I’ve also got a Marshall AVT which doesn’t have any tubes, but models a tube circuit. These are my two main gigging amps, because they don’t weigh a ton, because they’re convenient, and because I don’t have to crank them to get a good tone out of them.
And in spite of what the cork-sniffers argue, they don’t sound that much worse than tube amps – not for gigging anyway. (If you want to sound really bad at a gig, play through a cranked Marshall stack – you’ll sound like ass because your stage volume will overwhelm the front of house, and there’s nothing the sound guy can do to fix it.)
Correction…
Er, sorry. Got that wrong. AVT is another hybrid with a 12AX7 tube in it. Those little buggers get in everything these days. It’s getting increasingly impossible to buy a decent mid-price bit of music gear that doesn’t have a tube in.
As a self-proclaimed cork-sniffer, I agree - I’ve said a number of times that for gigging, you largely can’t hear the difference, and a modeling amp’s versatility and ruggedness (I have heard for some brands) make them a good gig choice. And, from a cork-sniffing perspective, when you are playing on your own and want a level of organic responsiveness that helps you want to play and explore and groove it, nothing beats a tube amp 
http://www.guitarsquid.com/Video/dunlop-interview-with-guthrie-govan.html
This guy is a monster - few better in terms of basic technique and mastery across a variety of styles…he used to plan Cornford amps (I have one and first heard of him as an endorser) but he seems to have moved to John Suhr (former Fender Custom Shop co-founder who moved onto form his own boutique guitar and amp company).
Just an amazing player…
Pardon the language, but holy f**k!! His finger and hybrid picking is just insanely good. Wow, what technique. I like the how matter-of-fact guy is and unimpressed with himself, like when he refers to tapping stuff as “this nonsense” while he smokes out some taps for a second. And I am totally going to mess with his rolling-paper-pack string-lifter for using a slide on a guitar with low action. I’ve never heard of doing that.
On a previous subject: My Blues Junior is now back in business after getting two new power tubes. In fact, it sounds noticeably better; maybe those old power tubes were just unhappy little turds, glad to be recycled. Woo! Amp!
Yeah, I dug the string-lift thing, too. I don’t have any guitars with critically-low actions, but that looks like a cool trick.
Congrats on the better BJ! Wait, that sounds wrong…
I’d think that trick would make the guitar play some portion of a semitone sharp. Of course that wouldn’t slow down a guy like Govan, he’d just imagine the frets were off by some mathematically perfect amount and translate that to his left hand by intuition.
It’s a shame I can’t find any of his music online. There’s exactly one song of his, Fives, up on iTunes and Amazon plus a guest solo in another song. I see Cornford published an album of his, Erotic Cakes, in 2006, but it’s “out of stock” on their site (they couldn’t sell it to me digitally?).
It’s big of you to still think well of the guy, after he he was dissing on Twins in that video.
An observation on reading dots for the guitar. I spent years playing just by ear and couldn’t translate standard notation to notes to play in anything like real time. It wasn’t until I got a bit more SJ Asian Escort serious and practicing “classical” SJ Asian Escorts scales and arpeggios that written music started to make sense. I don’t think standard notation is a good match for rock (or blues). So SJ Escort much of it is modified pentatonics, or SJ Escorts
modal, or playing in “boxes” that key signatures don’t really represent the notes you expect to play. It’s pretty common for a part to use both the major and minor third (or even something in between), often the home chord has a flattened 7 these things do not happen in classical music.
New guitar again, woot! A Takamine EG463SC. I’ve never owned an acoustic, so I’ll be settling in for a while. I am suffering a little buyer’s remorse on this coyote morning; the guitar seems a bit less bright than I’d like, a little “thuddy”. Having said that, I have not yet changed the strings that were on from the maker, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m also playing with fingers, not pick, so of course it’s not all that bright. If I finger-pick on my electric, I compensate for the decreased treble by turning up the tone pot. On an acoustic, I don’t have that option (unless I plug in). Bummer. The guitar is reasonably bright using a pick (and really loud! – I need to develop a less intense pick attack when chording). I do have 30 days as usual to return to GC, so we’ll see.
Jeez, I’m up to seven guitars now, I should probably get rid of a couple as my office is littered with cases. Anybody want a beat-to-shit '71 Gibson SG with frankenbridge, or a '83 Matsumoku Electra “super strat” with a ding in the face ? 
Happy New Guitar Day, squeegee!!!
Changing the strings will undoubtably help. You may want to start growing out the nails on your RH; it doesn’t have to be much, just 1/8th of an inch makes a tremendous difference to the sound.
A thumbpick is another fun thing to experiment with.
Thanks! I can mark “acoustic” off my list. Now I just need a 12 string, electric bass, a dobro, ukelele, electric sitar, mandolin…
I’ll change the strings tonight, we’ll see. I’m skeptical I can maintain good nails on my right hand, that takes some careful habits, but I can try it.
I got one a couple or so weeks ago. I find it is quite awkward to pick with (but what else would you expect at first?), and it either pinches my thumb uncomfortably, or tends to rotate around my thumb if I wear it looser, with no in-between state. I probably just need to persevere and keep trying to pick with it.
You might not like to work with a thumbpick; I never particularly cottoned on to one, but lots of players I know love them. Us classical players tend to use the flesh of the thumb for a mellower sound, and reserve the thumbnail for artificial harmonics. That’s why I get so pissed off when I break a thumbnail - it makes those 24th, 28th and 31st fret harmonics sound like damp toilet paper hitting a tinfoil pie plate when you use the flesh.
As far as your fingernails go, is it that you bite them? I never had that habit, so I can’t help you much there. If it’s just that you’ll break or tear them, well, you get used to it. I hardly ever break mine any more - just when there’s something major and planned coming up, like a recording or a concert. I’ve got the thumbnail splinted with a nylon patch right now - the concert’s on the 24th and it was on Tuesday when I mis-judged the door at my kids’ after-school club. BOOM! Down to the quick on the left side, which is the side I need. The nylon patch is working out so far, but I leave it to you to imagine what it’s like trying to hold a tube of crazy glue and a fingernail sized patch of former panty hose at the same time with your left hand…
Maybe it’s just that I need company in my misery, that I’m egging you on to grow your nails…
I’ll just… leave this here. Note the Dobro with a P90.
… and the Map.
And… well. You’ll see. Res-O-Glas for all!
And I still aspire to play gut bucket fingerstyle per previous discussion, so I’ll keep at it. But change comes hard. Not to be pick-y.
Huh, I don’t even think that high past the fretboard. Does nylon string permit more extreme (or extremely high) harmonics? I can get harmonics above the sound hole on my new axe, but couldn’t tell you what theoretical fret that is (although don’t the harmonics just repeat above 24, e.g. E-5th fret harmonic equals E-31st (or 28th?) harmonic? And just how many invisible frets extend toward the bridge? They’re angstroms (microns? nanometers?) apart at some point aren’t they? I’m honestly curious.
Oooh, OW! I’m cringing here, that sounds like a typical event in my fingernails daily toil. Seriously, I’ve played for years, and always considered finger picking with nails to be impractical because nails are so easily damaged, at least in my case.
So does your nail re-bond somehow with that nylon patch, or is it just holding the edges together until it can grow out? And if you only pick sometimes with the nail, then you must have a very short nail, but not too short. Switching back and forth when playing sounds pretty difficult.
Gee, thanks large. I’ll let you know how my press-ons & nail charms work out, as I’ll likely continue breaking a nail at least once a week. Bad habit I guess. And I’ve never bit my nails, I’m just a klutz.
Sabs: yeah, Airlines are really interesting to look at, but aren’t they pretty much, um sub-optimal built? I thought Jack White played them because they’re trash – see him encouraging his son to stomp on one in It Might Get Loud, for example. Kinda props more than instruments, no? And that Dobro – you know the pie plate is a glued-on inverted plastic colander, right? I’m kidding, but I bet I’m not that far off either. Well, maybe I’m wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Harmonics - the second year course…
Natural harmonics (e.g. on the open string; for right-handed guitarists, can be sounded either by the left hand stopping the string and the right hand plucking or picking it or by the right hand stopping and plucking.) are a standing wave produced by preventing the string from vibrating at its full length at a nodal point, causing it to vibrate as two halves, three thirds, four quarters, etc. The smaller the fraction, the greater the energy required to generate the standing wave.
1st harmonic - found at the 12th fret, produces a sound one octave higher. The string is producing a standing wave in which 1/2 of the string is vibrating on either side of the node. (The node is at the 12th fret, logically enough.)
2nd harmonic - found at the 7th and 19th frets, produces a sound one octave and a fifth higher (a ‘twelfth’.) 1/3 of the string length is vibrating.
3rd harmonic - found at the 5th and 24th frets, produces a sound two octaves higher. 1/4 of the string length is vibrating.
4th harmonic - found at the 4th, 9th, 16th and 28th frets, produces a sound two octaves and a major third higher. 1/5 of the string length is vibrating
5th harmonic - found at the 3rd and 31st frets, produces a sound two octaves and a fifth higher. 1/6 of the string is vibrating.
6th harmonic - found near the half-way mark between the second and third frets, produces a sound two octaves and a minor seventh higher. 1/7 of the string is vibrating.
7th harmonic - found about a quarter of the way higher than the second fret, produces a sound three octaves higher. 1/8 of the string is vibrating.
8th harmonic - found over the second fret, produces a sound 3 octaves and a major second higher. 1/9 of the string is vibrating.
Those last three have ‘off the fretboard’ equivalents, but I’ve never tried to find them. On my classicals, the 24th fret is found by imagining a line perpendicular to the strings at the centre of the sound hole. The 28th fret is a line perpendicular to the strings at the tangent of the inner arc of the sound hole. The 31st fret is a line perpendicular to the strings at the tangent of the outer arc of the sound hole. The 34th fret is just a little ways closer to the saddle of the bridge; I’ve never yet had to find it without having first played the 31st. One of the current pieces I’m working on calls for four random sweeps of harmonics between the 24th fret and the saddle, going top string to bottom. It’s a pretty cool sound…
For artificial harmonics, all the above applies except that you are adding that number of frets to the fret you are stopping, ie to produce a note an octave above the F natural at the 3rd fret of the 4th string, stop the string lightly with the right index finger at the 15th fret, and pluck with either the right thumb or the right middle, ring or pinky finger. To get a note a twelfth above, stop the string at the 10th or 22nd fret. I’ve never used artificial harmonics above two octaves higher, unless you count pick squawks. Really controlled players like Joe Satriani, Adrian Belew or Steve Vai use pick squawks, in conjunction with feedback and EQ to produce incredibly high, sustained harmonics.
I find round wound steel strings are more responsive to harmonics than nylon strings, but nylon players tend to have better nails and softer callouses. That’s part of why the RH technique for harmonics works so well - the RH fingertips are not calloused, and the softer flesh does a better job of stopping the string at the node. When using the LH fingers to stop the strings, the side of the finger may well produce a better tone than the tip.
The nylon provides a mesh which holds the extra layers of crazy glue in place. Without the nylon patch, you’re dependent on the crazy glue filling the crack to hold the nail fragment in place. The patch gives it a little extra stability. So far, it’s holding and as long as it makes it to 1 PM on the 24th of May, I’m happy.
I am entirely in general agreement with the quality of Airlines. But… someone’s making new ones.
I also think Jack White is a little full of himself and a bit obsessive about his lo-fi aesthetic. But hell, he’s got every right to be, his production work is outstanding.
In other news, I’ve discovered a minor flaw in my Telemaster. It looks like the holes the strings go through in my ashtray are a teeeny bit misaligned. 2MM or so. There’s aligned holes in the back, that are aligned, so I’m guessing that a run of ashtrays was misdrilled when made, then redrilled in the right direction. Makes intonating it a bit of a pain, but nothing that can’t be coped it. Still, the holes through the guitar are drilled right so I could swap the ashtray and it’d be fixed if I felt like it.
… I dunno. How do you feel about putting modern style saddles on a Tele? You know, six individual? Instead of the three barrels? It’s probably necessary if you’re gonna play a Keith style five-string open-G, but I’m not gonna do that.
Still incredibly happy with the Telemaster, compared to the other guitars, though.