Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Another Pawn shop surprise

So I picked up another Amp, today. I went to the Pawnshop, actually planning to get a super cheap headphone amp I saw there before, but I decided to give this ugly, unloved Fender Amp a try, and talked the guy down to 50 bucks for a fairly loud 25 watt solid state Amp from the mid 1990's- a Fender Automatic SE. Look at the thing.  The design is obvious- Solid state, all the way, with an attempt to fool you into thinking it's a Champ . It's got these cheesey presets that, instead of having names, have pictures- a cowboy hat, and Eagle, a power lifter, a rocket ship and a mushroom cloud. Near as I can figure, they are clean, mild overdrive, distortion, fuzz, and heavy fuzz. You've got built in reverb ( which doesn't work on mine) and chorus ( which does) partial EQ ( treble and bass) and a ( I believe) mid cut button ( it just has pictures of a single coil and humbucker). That's about it. The distortion sounds completely sterile, and the fuzzes are just microphonic feedback. There's just barely enough bass. Sounds Crapty doesn't it? Here's where it won me over- putting it on the eagle setting, with the treble slightly goosed give a great stinging, and twangy sound- it makes my strat copy sound like a really good Tele- I mean really good. It makes my Epiphone SG sound like it's in some early 1980's post-punk Dance band. It's a really good sound. Some of the others are acceptable, but that one is really good. Then, that chorus? Perfect- just the right amount of depth for your goth infected post punk dreams- what I'm saying is that it sounds like an HH Studio 50. I can see how that's not lighting anybody up. It should- Daniel Ash, Marc Bolan, Andy Gill, mean anything? So, yeah, it's a sound I really like. But, here's the use I want to put it for: I've still got the Crate CR65, right? How about I roll the treble down on that, and crank the bass on it. Then, I keep the Automatic SE where I've got it- as a kind of biting mid range, which a slight lean towards treble. Then, the Vox to emphasize a smooth high end. Mix all three- and I think you'd have a completely unique, but still very good tone- it wouldn't have that lower mid mush like a marshall, and it wouldn't have the fizz of a Fender- I'm thinking since it's all solid state I could get somewhere around Jazz Chorus/ Gallien Kruger territory-and then, my pedal army could come into play- If I do it, I'm going to call it my "SRV Helicopter" rig. Mean? Yes, but Stevie Ray Vaughan was known for playing through a bunch of small tube amps, right? This would be the same idea, only about as anti-blues as you can get.
So, what's the point about discussing some piece of junk I bought at a pawn shop? Because finding something that pretty much only I will find "cool" is my whole point of being on this earth. See, yes, this is a blog about stuff- but the stuff we buy should be a reflection of us, not the other way around. So, should you want one? Maybe, I don't know.  Much more my point, and this will always be my point- you should want to find stuff that allows you to feel as excited and cool about yourself as my stuff makes me feel.

No comments:

Post a Comment