This Monkey's Going to Heaven (NAD)

singemonkey · 2013-02-06T16:24:58+00:00

For those who'd not guessed. This physical manifestation of awesomeness is mine: You already have more details than you could hope for on the build thread. I'll just add a few points. Firstly: My overwhelming thanks to EZ for guiding me through the options in selecting a kit, and most especially for putting it together with his increasingly epic build chops. Some quality product from the Scots islands will be necessary to reflect this gratitude more clearly. Secondly: To lapdawg for doing a spectacular job with the cabinet. Having seen EZ's original '60s Marshall combo cab up close this, at least in pics, gives nothing away. EZ and I barely hoped we'd get anything close to a repro of a '60s 1974X combo cab, only to find lapdawg's relentless perfectionism at very close proximity in Claremont. I haven't yet seen the amp in its finished state. That's tonight. I've also not yet played it with my loudspeaker in the cab. For those who're interested it's a 1978 (if I remember) Celestion "Blackback" (a greenback with the alternative cover they were using at the time). Someone on the forum spotted it going for 800 South African Ronts, and I swooped long before I had anything to put it in. This journey started with me hearing the Beano album for the first time and deciding no electric guitar tone had ever been better, got up to escape velocity by hearing EZ's 18W for the first time (eyes bulging, true Beanotone power amp distortion and I had to f***ing have one because I had never heard a guitar amplifier sound that good in real life), through the notion that a combo would be handy, thinking that red would be nifty, and deciding that the only thing I was interested in was the straight Lite IIB channel with tone, volume, and power-scaling to get that incredible sound at almost any volume. You'd best believe it's pretty amazing to see the thing now in physical existence. More pics and (if I'm less lazy than usual) clips to follow. I should also mention that this is the kind of thing this forum makes possible. Without EZ, now among my best friends in the world, and lapdawg, who's just a phenomenal craftsman, I'd still be looking for a pedal to simulate the sound that is inherent to an amp like this. So you can get sick of the endless gear debates or whatnot, but the true value of this forum is in the people you meet.

aubs1

Wow, some guys have all the luck! Congrats SM, that's a beaut! :applause:

Psean

Man, that thing looks the business!!

I also went through something like this:

Luc wrote My emotional rollercoaster upon viewing this:

? Damn that looks schweeeeet!
? Holy crap it sounds (from the description) amazing.
☹ I wish I had one
:applause: Congrats Singe! You must be beaming.

Absolutely dig the idea of a single tone and volume control with power-scaling! Molto jealous dude.

I'll be awaiting a demo clip.

Congrats to ez and lapdawg :goodtimes:
That is such a great looking amp. Absolutely no doubt you're gonna enjoy the hell out of it. Pleasepleaseplease post clips Mr. Monkey ?

Kalcium

That looks amazing!!! You HAVE to get sound clips though! It is 100% necessary! ...reading these things always makes me want to throw away all my pedals and go the best route, guitar + amp, but i need footswitchable sudden volume jumps for certain times when you cant stop playing to turn up the volume...still i must try!

DonovanB

Kalcium wrotei need footswitchable sudden volume jumps for certain times when you cant stop playing to turn up the volume...still i must try!

You want an amp with tourettes?

Steve Fataar taught me a trick of playing with your volume lower so you can roll it up or down when you want. In fact I remember Lance posting one how to use a LP volume and switch to good effect by setting volume differently on the two.

Sucks if you have tapered pots though.

ezietsman

Kalcium wrote That looks amazing!!! You HAVE to get sound clips though! It is 100% necessary! ...reading these things always makes me want to throw away all my pedals and go the best route, guitar + amp, but i need footswitchable sudden volume jumps for certain times when you cant stop playing to turn up the volume...still i must try!

Haha, yeeeesssss ditch the pedals! ditch the pedals! hehe.

The cheating way to do that on these amps is to beg/build/buy a "sanitizer" pedal, basically a volume control that you can switch on and off. You set the amp for your drive sound then engage the pedal and turn the singular volume control on it so that you have your clean sound, which will be quieter than the drive sound. Off you go, step on pedal - clean, step on it again - drive.

Once you start playing these low wattage amps cranked up and stop relying on pedals for drive, all other methods, although they work fine and sound fine, just doesn't seem to be good enough anymore. This is the case for me anyway. I have 'meh' moments often these days LOL.

aja

Donovan Banks wrote
Kalcium wrotei need footswitchable sudden volume jumps for certain times when you cant stop playing to turn up the volume...still i must try!
You want an amp with tourettes?

Steve Fataar taught me a trick of playing with your volume lower so you can roll it up or down when you want. In fact I remember Lance posting one how to use a LP volume and switch to good effect by setting volume differently on the two.

Sucks if you have tapered pots though.

You could also make a little pedal with a single guitar volume pot - totally passive, no batteries required - just lets you switch to a lower/higher volume when you need to.

EDIT: damn, EZ beat me to it!

Psean

aja wrote
Donovan Banks wrote
Kalcium wrotei need footswitchable sudden volume jumps for certain times when you cant stop playing to turn up the volume...still i must try!
You want an amp with tourettes?

Steve Fataar taught me a trick of playing with your volume lower so you can roll it up or down when you want. In fact I remember Lance posting one how to use a LP volume and switch to good effect by setting volume differently on the two.

Sucks if you have tapered pots though.
You could also make a little pedal with a single guitar volume pot - totally passive, no batteries required - just lets you switch to a lower/higher volume when you need to.

EDIT: damn, EZ beat me to it!

+1
I played around with one of these little trimmers (belonging to DDR4LYF). Seem great if you need to change quickly between clean and dirty.

Jack-Flash-Jr

Now that the EZ 18 has been put through the ringer with (what feels like) 100s of gigs it's time to move on ☹ ....... to something that is guaranteed to be pure magic ?
I look forward to tweaking it on stage ?

rikus

Put the guitar down and give us a review! Now! And Photos! ?

chris77

Wow, very nice.... :applause: :applause: Congrats and enjoy!

singemonkey

Kalcium wrote That looks amazing!!! You HAVE to get sound clips though! It is 100% necessary! ...reading these things always makes me want to throw away all my pedals and go the best route, guitar + amp, but i need footswitchable sudden volume jumps for certain times when you cant stop playing to turn up the volume...still i must try!

In truth there are very, very few situations where you can't turn up the volume. It's just a question of becoming faster and faster so that you don't even think about the position of your volume knob and it takes a sixteenth note to flip it. EZ is lightning fast at this and I'm a lot quicker than I was. I'm going to write a little something soon about the approach to electric guitar playing that an amp like this facilitates. It's not about not using effects, it's about using effects as... special effects, and letting the guitar and amp do all the basic tonal, dynamic, and drive work.

Psean

singemonkey wrote
Kalcium wrote That looks amazing!!! You HAVE to get sound clips though! It is 100% necessary! ...reading these things always makes me want to throw away all my pedals and go the best route, guitar + amp, but i need footswitchable sudden volume jumps for certain times when you cant stop playing to turn up the volume...still i must try!
In truth there are very, very few situations where you can't turn up the volume. It's just a question of becoming faster and faster so that you don't even think about the position of your volume knob and it takes a sixteenth note to flip it. EZ is lightning fast at this and I'm a lot quicker than I was. I'm going to write a little something soon about the approach to electric guitar playing that an amp like this facilitates. It's not about not using effects, it's about using effects as... special effects, and letting the guitar and amp do all the basic tonal, dynamic, and drive work.

I'm still pretty damn slow with the volume control but love using it.
Looking forward to that post.

Kalcium

ez wrote
Kalcium wrote That looks amazing!!! You HAVE to get sound clips though! It is 100% necessary! ...reading these things always makes me want to throw away all my pedals and go the best route, guitar + amp, but i need footswitchable sudden volume jumps for certain times when you cant stop playing to turn up the volume...still i must try!
Haha, yeeeesssss ditch the pedals! ditch the pedals! hehe.

The cheating way to do that on these amps is to beg/build/buy a "sanitizer" pedal, basically a volume control that you can switch on and off. You set the amp for your drive sound then engage the pedal and turn the singular volume control on it so that you have your clean sound, which will be quieter than the drive sound. Off you go, step on pedal - clean, step on it again - drive.

That is actually a great idea! Was thinking I could use my clean boost pedal as a clean drop too, just set it such that it outputs a quieter signal than the normal and set the amp for drive...definitely have to do more experimentation!

Kalcium

singemonkey wrote
Kalcium wrote That looks amazing!!! You HAVE to get sound clips though! It is 100% necessary! ...reading these things always makes me want to throw away all my pedals and go the best route, guitar + amp, but i need footswitchable sudden volume jumps for certain times when you cant stop playing to turn up the volume...still i must try!
In truth there are very, very few situations where you can't turn up the volume. It's just a question of becoming faster and faster so that you don't even think about the position of your volume knob and it takes a sixteenth note to flip it.

This is true, im starting to discover this more...last night i just did a simple thing of turning the amp all the way up and cleaning up with the volume and it sounded great, i think plugged into my pedals with the same settings on amp and guitar volume and it just sounded lifeless and dull...with the amp set clean and the guitar volume up the tone difference was minimal, but with the amp cranked and guitar volume low the pedals suck so much tone its ridiculous...i always thought i didnt like the cleans of a cranked amp and low guitar volume, but my mind has been changed!

Nicholas-L

Looking lekker monkey master ?

Greg

+1, that's some seriously awesome stuff!

nicovlogg

Beautiful!

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