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Episode 22: Fireworks, DIY Amps, and Aliens
208 Plays22 days ago
In this episode of Amplified Nonsense, our hosts discuss fireworks, viral YouTube videos, and how much time they'd spend troubleshooting a non-functioning amp. They field listener questions about DIY amp kits and aliens.
If you'd like Bryan, Charles, and Chris to answer your question on an episode of Amplified Nonsense, call (513) 334-3803 and leave a voicemail.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to Amplified Nonsense, a podcast that is technically about amps, but is also driven by your random voicemail questions. Your hosts are Charles Henry of Silktone, Chris Benson of Benson Amps, and Brian Sowers of Sowers Sound Transformers.
00:00:20
Speaker
My name is Emily. I am producing this podcast.
Voicemail Invitation
00:00:23
Speaker
And before I get too far into the episode, you can call into 513-334-3803 and leave your own voicemail questions for our hosts. That's
00:00:37
Speaker
Time to turn it over to
Fireworks and Safety
00:00:38
Speaker
the guys. How are you all doing? Pretty good. Doing great. Looking forward to fireworks and hot dogs this weekend. Fireworks?
00:00:47
Speaker
Yeah. Fireworks. Fireworks. Are you 12? Dude, they go crazy and awesome out here. It's wild. I mean, like, I just read a thing of Portland canceled their fireworks. ah Good.
00:00:59
Speaker
I mean, come on, Chris, you have a dog. You can't like fireworks. Yeah, I may have um bought like a bunch of bottle rockets last week. Yeah. Oh, God. that' Sweet. and ah And a bunch of firecrackers. I mean, first off if you're going to buy anything. Buy Roman candles. Those are fun.
00:01:15
Speaker
those But those are legal. Are they legal in Oregon? I thought you had to go to Washington for that stuff. I think certain forms of them are legal. Yeah. I mean, best is when you tape them together and then you like hold them, like chuck them in your shoulder and you then you got like a rum and candle cannon. Brian, I'm getting really mixed messages from you right now. Okay. This isn't okay.
00:01:33
Speaker
Rum and candles are are a silent, relatively silent firework. You make guitar amps. No, I make transformers. You make guitar amps. That's fair. you forget? You've made guitar amps.
00:01:45
Speaker
Yes, I have. the They close down the block up here. they like There's like police escorts making sure no one's you know shooting them at each other, but like they go nuts out here and like all the neighbors take turns launching all theirs. like One of the main intersections just is crazy like all night long. A few years ago, some kid lit an M80 or something and like blew his hand into spaghetti. It was wild.
00:02:10
Speaker
Was there any dogs hurt? No, they're fine. Okay, good. Good. no Yeah. um So not that you care. What I'm going to do with these is go set them off by the warehouse because there's nothing to really to catch fire there because it all burned already. Yeah, i was just going to say there was already a fire. The the grease fire already happened. Yeah.
00:02:29
Speaker
Or what was that building? It was like a food building, right? Yeah, the ah the noodle factory. Did they ever find Y and did you have bottle rockets back then? um Took him a minute, but he got there. a grease trap caught on fire that they didn't clean or something.
Travel Tales: Japan and Vietnam
00:02:50
Speaker
Gotta clean your traps, folks. i Keep those holes clean. Yeah, I'm kind of, I'm just over the fireworks thing from like ah you know, like large scale stuff. And quite honestly, like the random people in the neighborhood who just will light off like a missile that they, you know, traveled out to the res and bought, you know, we just over it. And I mean, now Geezer is deaf, so like he doesn't hear the fireworks. It doesn't scare him. But back in the day, like we used to have a dope his ass up or go camping. You know, we go out of town. Yeah, we we have to give Molly Trazodone. Yeah. Where I was staying in Vietnam, I saw like the most insane fireworks show I've ever seen. Apparently every weekend they do them over the river. There's this really cool dragon bridge and it like blows fire and shit and fireworks everywhere. Every weekend.
00:03:36
Speaker
Every weekend. Why? That's awesome. Dude, they party out there. it It was one of the coolest places I've ever been to. Where in Vietnam? That was in Danang. It was like a beach town. It looks like, you know, the beach looks like Hawaii. And then you can get like $2 fun by me and, you know, whatever else you want. That sounds like a party. i would
Amp Talk and Anecdotes
00:03:56
Speaker
I would want to be there and do that.
00:03:57
Speaker
It was the coolest like party vibe I've ever i've ever been to. It was so cool. I'm old. I'm tired. I want none of that. So many motorcycles, like motorcycles to cars were like at least 20 to one, just flooded on the streets.
00:04:15
Speaker
It was insane. I thought Chris was clipping his toenails in that video right there. i was, I was opening a Mineragua sparkling water with a flathead screwdriver.
00:04:28
Speaker
That's how it's done or a lighter. but It's been a while since we've done this. Um, Should we play Hey Charles, where in Japan are you? oh yeah, I'm in Roseville, Japan. Roseville, California, Japan. Yeah.
00:04:43
Speaker
it's ah No, i've been back I've been back stateside for like two weeks now. it's It's been kind of wild, but it's fun. I'll be here for a few months. Awesome. Yeah, I'm waiting on my like official long-term visa from Japan. should be a couple months before it's like approved, and I'll go back and set up official shop there and stuff. It'll be rad, but I'm here for a few months to do my thing here and see some fireworks this weekend. I got to come visit you guys. Yeah, you should. Yeah, that'd be fun.
00:05:09
Speaker
Ryan, what have you been up to? Yeah. He's had the worst It's been a week. It's been a week. Man, i don't know.
00:05:21
Speaker
It's like, just I just want to chase chase the stuff I like to do, but, you know, just running a business. It's, y'all know it, trials and tribulations, you know. But, ah yeah, you know.
00:05:35
Speaker
still Still doing cool Still ah trying to do new stuff. Stuff people haven't done before. Stuff people haven't done you know, decades and decades and half centuries. And still stoked on it.
00:05:54
Speaker
Just, you know, running a business is not what gets me out of bed in the morning. Those new wax transformers seem pretty cool. I want to hear them. mean, Chris Benson likes that stuff, but yeah who cares what that guy thinks?
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, I heard that that guy doesn't know tone. Nope. I heard he gets all his tone from AI plugins. Like, I actually did hear that. thank oh really Yeah. It's like, so like heard it like physically, like someone said that to you are they say to someone else in the room, they're like, Hey, is that Chris Benson? And someone else is like, that guy doesn't know tone.
00:06:28
Speaker
So yeah, I've actually heard that Chris Benson doesn't know tone. Um, a while ago, a mutual friend was, i mean, it's true. Like true we all know that no contest. I mean, I don't understand why you don't know it Or why you haven't put it on a t-shirt yet.
00:06:47
Speaker
Everyone in my life is just propping me up and trying to make me feel good about myself. okay By buying my amps. It's all a conspiracy. um No, there there's at a friend of a friend who went to this amp tech that wasn't you and it wasn't Charles and it wasn't anyone I had ever actually met. And this person was like, said to this friend of a friend, Chris Benson doesn't know Tone.
00:07:17
Speaker
And ah that happened like over 10 years ago. And I still think about that. Do you feel like you know tone now? Like, do you know it? Have you met it?
00:07:28
Speaker
i kind of feel like I've known tone for at least a little while. i am I like tone. You're not strangers. And some tones are like more than others. And so maybe that means I know tone. I don't know My stepmother's nickname for my father is tone. So every time...
00:07:43
Speaker
like Chris knows my dad. Oh, and and public public ah ah information. His name is Greg. which has nothing to do with like Tony or Anthony or anything. I i don't know. I never got that one. i never asked.
00:07:58
Speaker
That's sweet. Yeah. Yeah. So now that you ah have met my father, you make good guitar amps. Oh, OK. Yeah. That's that one was. I see what you did there. That was a little confusing.
00:08:09
Speaker
He knows tone. You met him. You finally found him. Yeah, there it is. There you go. i Finally shook his hand. Yeah. Have you met tone? Has Chris Benson met tone? That's a good shirt. There it is.
00:08:22
Speaker
Oh, man. I came up with a pretty good shirt idea a couple weeks ago because I did some recording with Adam Levy and Dan. And this is ah based on the experiences recording. Shirt idea is wow, I didn't know you also sucked at lap steel.
00:08:38
Speaker
And that's it. No context, no brand. Just that's like... No, it just says that? Yeah, it just says. I saw a pretty good one the other day. It said... Brian. It said, my job is turning hot dogs into hot logs.
00:08:54
Speaker
that's That's better, honestly. That with a silk tone logo actually makes a lot of sense. yeah Like a lot of sense. Yeah. It wasn't my idea. I saw it. It's already a shirt, unfortunately.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, but is it like copywritten? No, I should steal it. Yeah, there you go. It's the greatest form of flattery, yeah? Right. You can cut out my stupid lobster thing.
00:09:18
Speaker
No. Y'all want to take a call? to take a phone call? Let's do it.
Transformers and Tonal Quality
00:09:23
Speaker
All right. We haven't done that in a while. Hi, guys. My name is Anton, and...
00:09:31
Speaker
My dream amp is a Benson Monarch and I won't be able to afford one in the near future or in the foreseeable future, but I would love to put one together myself.
00:09:44
Speaker
And before i start looking for components separately and drill my chassis, figured I'd ask this question. Would you, Chris, ever be willing to start sending out kits for some of your amps.
00:09:58
Speaker
I've also just watched the video about the new Transformers and the caps that be using. And, you know, we could use the old ones, the bastards like me. So yeah, let me know.
00:10:11
Speaker
Thank you very much.
00:10:15
Speaker
That's a really, really sweet message. He dreams in monarchs. He's got to dream bigger than that. That's flattering. Hey, now. No, a dream in chimeras. Oh, yeah. Ball ringers. Babylon, dude. DIY Babylon. Oh, there it is. Oh, there we go. It is. yeah Not only does this thing not work, but it destroyed my house.
00:10:38
Speaker
I mean, talk about needing a waiver to be signed. Good God. And the kit, you should do that because the kit alone would be like seven grand, right? Pretty much.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Here's a Babel kit. Or like make a big like press announcement that you are offering kits, but don't tell anyone what the models is. And then when the kits go online, it's just that. only leave about mu if That would be psychotic. Oh my god. That would be so funny.
00:11:14
Speaker
um That was a really nice question to get. That felt really good. Thank you. I don't think that we're going to offer kits, and there's a few reasons for that. As soon as we offer it, first of all, I don't really have time to do all the documentation, write out like how to how to make one of the amps. and But then even more problematic is as soon as I do, I become responsible for it and responsible for making sure it works. I mean, you can say that I'm not, but i I would feel responsible for it as something that I sold. But I also think that like, for the record, I don't really care if someone just clones one of my amps for themselves.
00:11:50
Speaker
If someone's like going to do it as a business, that's a problem. But if someone is just, I mean, I started doing DIY stuff. I started cloning other people's things and cloning other circuits. And that's kind of how I learned how to do it.
00:12:03
Speaker
And it's honestly not that hard because I can do it. And I did it because I didn't really have any money. So I would actually encourage you to to try to build some stuff. And ah you can always reach out if if you have questions on that, and I'd i'd be willing to help a little bit, put you in the right direction and stuff. But yeah, I think that's the answer.
00:12:22
Speaker
I appreciate the struggle. So you're going to be okay when I release the ah proprietary Benson Wax Transformers online for sale on my website? I might not be okay with that.
00:12:37
Speaker
But I think you should release wax versions of all of your Transformers because that wax stuff really does sound very special. Yeah, it is something. you know It's scientifically quantifiable, but sonically it's really, yeah, it's a treat for sure. yeah Especially the old, like the 50s Fender stuff, all the tweed stuff. Good Lord. my guys can hear the difference between wax and vpi from the next room wow it's crazy it's it's so funny i was explaining this this to someone today it's like you know we were talking about something i can't remember and it was kind of one of those like you know how deep down the rabbit hole do you go sorts of things and i was like uh we changed the sound of things by you know what goop it's dipped in you know
00:13:26
Speaker
um yeah we change the sound of things by changing something that shouldn't matter yeah i mean and i mean it should matter it does matter and like from uh you know a design perspective and an electrical perspective it's that you know the transformer is effectively just a complex capacitor at some point you know the core has inductive reactants only up to a certain frequency And then you hit your impedance basically being zero. And then everything above that in frequency is going to be capacitive reactants. And that's generated from the capacitive coupling between different sections in the design of the output transformer. But again, if you know if you look at like marketing online from much larger and more profitable transformer companies than me, they'll tell you you know paper doesn't matter, plastic doesn't matter, the transformer can't see non-magnetic materials, and that is horseshit.
00:14:19
Speaker
So what exactly are are you wax sealing stuff? Are you waxing the paper dielectric or are is it wax potting? It's Chris's favorite word, impregnation. Impregnation. Ah, okay. So you're wax impregnating everything? Impregnating. Yeah, we're going to say that word a lot of times here because we're gonna we're going to de-stigmatize ah impregnation. My God, I can't believe said that. So it's kind of like potting, but. No, potting potting is an encapsulation.
00:14:47
Speaker
Right. Impregnation is different. Like, you know, there's not a vessel to hold it. You know what i mean? Like it's not a can that you fill with wax and then dump a transformer in. So this is just like our standard VPI in the sense of it's an impregnation process. The the difference here is that this is actually vacuum impregnated. So the the wax is heated up to the point where over a span of multiple hours in a double chamber chamber vessel, um,
00:15:19
Speaker
to where it's basically liquid. And at the same time, the transformers are in our first baking stage where the moisture is baked out of them. Tape is thermoset, um, which is a process of heating the tape up so that it like the adhesive gels. And then it, when it cools, it it binds, um,
00:15:39
Speaker
So, yeah, again, ah transformers are heated up, the moisture bakes off while the wax is liquefied, heated to liquid. And then the wax chamber has a vacuum pulled on it, which pulls any of the you know air pockets that are in there out um and then released to atmosphere. And then the hot transformers are then dunked in that liquid chamber.
00:16:04
Speaker
So yeah, the wax is liquid. the The transformers are pulled out of the oven, still hot, put in the the liquefied heated wax. Then the whole vessel's sealed and a vacuum is pulled on it. So that um low viscosity wax is all just drawn in and the air is drawn out and everything's heated. So the whole process works a lot better. what's What's typically used like in the VPI process?
00:16:28
Speaker
Well, for us, we use this, ah it's it's an emulsified polyester resin. It's it's ah designed for electrical impregnation processes. um Though it's like it's like a custom version that I have made for us. And...
00:16:46
Speaker
um But that's in that system, the VPI is all vacuum pressure impregnation where ah the heated part is cooled down to atmosphere after the moisture is baked or cooled down to room temp after the moisture has been baked out. Then it gets dunked in the tank with the compound, vacuum is pulled. And then after a you know about an hour, it's released to atmosphere, then pressurized. And we pressurize overnight. And then the next day that pressure is released to atmosphere and then vacuum pulled again.
00:17:18
Speaker
And then it sits under vacuum for a while before it then gets released to atmosphere, pulled, drained, and then baked to cure. we You should send some, you should send a set of each to Jim Lill and see if he hears the difference.
00:17:31
Speaker
i I am so infuriated that you would bring up that rage-bating capitalist piece of garbage.
00:17:43
Speaker
um You know, the last time we discussed him, you were pretty pretty damn rude about him, and um I'm here. I'm here for it. Yeah. ah Dude's still a cunt. Let's move right along.
00:17:57
Speaker
I mean, Yeah. It's like, oh my God. i don't even know where to begin with that crap. Before, if we, I don't want to dive into it. I don't want to dive into it either. i I've just got to say, i just have to say that like, you know, the guy...
00:18:16
Speaker
is just a performer. He doesn't know anything. like Why does the video say that like 17 damn times? That's what i was saying last time. Oh my God. you know's Like I said, he's he's he's just figured out a way to rage bait people into views.
00:18:34
Speaker
And I bet you he's making money hand over fist for it and laughing his ass all the way to the bank. you know I told you like people were hitting me up after that being like, oh yeah, I toured with that guy. Oh yeah, I played shows with that guy and he's an asshole.
00:18:45
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm like, it It shows. So, you know, i man the the the beauty of audio or OK, one of the beauties, I would say, is that this whole thing can and is so subjective.
00:19:02
Speaker
You know, Analysis Plus, I've said this before, Analysis Plus had that whole marketing campaign. If you can if you can't hear the difference, then it's not for you. And it sounds like they were being a dick, but honestly, it was really smart because the reality is is those cables were expensive. It was true. And if you couldn't, if you didn't hear the difference, then you really should not have spent $80 on a cable that you don't get get anything that doesn't like gratify what you're doing. And that's exactly what this is. it's's It's like, it's almost like decision defense. It's like saying, if I can't hear the difference, then there is no difference. Whereas people like us,
00:19:37
Speaker
we we we naturally gravitate towards someone is always smarter than us. Someone is always better than us. Someone always has better ears than us, which is you know ah humbling, but it's true. And for him to go out and make a video, again, where he profits off of it,
00:19:55
Speaker
by saying, because I don't hear the difference, you don't hear the difference is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. You know, it's not even like the, the technicality of it. None of that, none of that crap matters. What matters is that for someone to come out and say something so absolute about something that is so subjective is asinine.
00:20:16
Speaker
Yeah. And that's the thing. Like, I think I've said that before, like it, when people say they can't hear the difference like i believe them i believe that they can't hear it like but yeah it doesn't mean that other people can't and just the the fact alone that i have heard the difference in things and other people have said they can't hear those same differences i'm sure there are things that other people hear that i can't you know that's a range um I don't think it's subjective at all that things sound different or make a difference. I think everything, you know, down to wax impregnation will make a difference in sound. I was going to ask you. Oh, sure it does. But the implication is is subjective. Well, i think, I think whether it's better or not is subjective. I don't think whether it's happening is subjective. I think that's objective and it's measurable. And if anyone can hear it, then it is no longer a subjective thing.
00:21:15
Speaker
you know like are Are we arguing over the definition of objective versus subjective, Emily? I don't think it's up to opinion on whether something makes a difference or not. It it does make a difference.
00:21:27
Speaker
Whether that's good or whether you like the difference or whether you can hear the difference or not. doesn't you know that's subjective and up for debate but i am more interested in in why you think the wax changes the sound my first guess would be like self-resonation and yeah um yeah there is a so i mean why it makes a difference is because it is a different dielectric bonding you know this is that's the impregnation aspect of it bonding inherently with
00:22:00
Speaker
the insulation that's used between layers and between sections of a transformer. And what you have, like, okay, let's just imagine like a primary and a secondary, right? So you've got one coil, insulation, and then another coil, right?
00:22:15
Speaker
And for the sake of our conversation, let's just say it's something generic. It's like 10 to one. So the voltage on the primary is 10 times higher than the voltage on the secondary. So what you have there is a potential, right? 10 to one, that's your potential difference. Doesn't matter what the voltage is, but that's your difference. So the insulation that's in between becomes a dielectric and that becomes a capacitor because you have a potential between two, in this case, windings, but we're just gonna say, or or more to the point,
00:22:45
Speaker
opposing faces of windings if you want to go into radiotron and go through all that mess but the insulation acts as a dielectric and what you've created is a capacitor and if you have multiple interleaved sections in a transformer then you have a complex capacitor that has multiple different opposing faces that creates multiple different capacitances and this is in addition to shunt capacitance and all these other things that that come into play, right? This is, we call this lumped capacitance because it takes too damn long to go through and explain all the different capacitances that occur inside of a transformer. So it's either just say it's lumped. It's just like everything, right? But really what we're looking at is capacitance between sections, right? So if we dumb this back down to our example, 10 to 1, primary, secondary, and we've got, let's just say paper in between,
00:23:39
Speaker
ah For the sake of this example, we'll say it's 10 mil, right? It's 0.001 inches thick of craft paper. So now that's your dielectric. But when you bring in...
00:23:54
Speaker
um an impregnation compound or wax or or epoxy or whatever, you know, JB Weld, if you could get JB Weld to do this, that bonds with whatever that material is and you've now changed what that dielectric is. And as every one of us will attest, changing a capacitor type makes a difference.
00:24:15
Speaker
It's the same thing. You know, it's a polypropylene versus a polystyrene capacitor. Now, the Jim Lill's of the world will tell you that doesn't make a difference. You can't hear capacitors when, i mean, we've built our entire careers on the ability to critically listen to the difference between components.
00:24:34
Speaker
So ah what the WAC says, it's a different dielectric, so it creates different responses in the top end. the What we found is in our direct testing of the Benson 15-watt output transformer was that the... And Chris, you should correct me on this because I'm going off a memory here. and I don't have the stuff in front of me. But if I recall, this the 3 dB down point was a little bit higher frequency with the WAX.
00:25:01
Speaker
The 1 dB down point was about the same or a little lower, I think, with the WAX. Hmm... But the biggest thing, in my opinion, was that the self-resonant frequency increased by 20 kilohertz. Oh, wow.
00:25:16
Speaker
That's another Jim Lil thing. Like the self-resonant frequency of that transformer is what, 140 kilohertz? Like it's ridiculously high because that's how we make stuff. We're very good at doing this.
00:25:26
Speaker
So, oh, that doesn't make a difference, but it has huge implications to the entire curvature of how the high frequency rolls off in the transformer. which has big implications on harmonic content of everything downstream, which I think we've touched on in this podcast series at some point. But, yeah you know, it's Chris, did you look up at the the numbers? Yeah, it looks like the wax very slightly dies off a little sooner, but then is more extended. So it's at ah a different slope than the other one, which is incredibly hard to do with capacitors. Yeah. yeah
00:26:07
Speaker
Like that that is that alone, that that slope is different, should tell you all you need to know about. or if you know electronics, it's very hard to make a different slope with a capacitor.
00:26:20
Speaker
So... So, yeah, you have like quantifiable, what I would say, testable scientific ah qualifications that that it shows difference, right? But again, it's a capacitor, right? And we're talking everything above. I can't remember the frequency in that transformer, but, you know, it's non-grain oriented core material. Yeah.
00:26:44
Speaker
the point at which inductive reactance drops to zero and capacitance react, the capacitive reactance begins to overtake the, the,
00:26:56
Speaker
but the majority of impedance for lack of a better description is pretty low. It's something like, I want to say like 2,500 Hertz, 3K, something like that. So what that means is that that capacitance and that existence of capacitance is what is dominating impedance. And the whole thing is impedance, right? That's, that's what this, this is happening. You know, you have AC. So we're looking at resistance to that AC. So everything from that, whatever, three kilohertz ish and up is all,
00:27:26
Speaker
being dominated by what this capacitance is. And we now changed that entire capacitor. So it's like you just went, like I said, in the example, like you went from like a polypropylene a polystyrene, you know, it it has a different timber. It just sounds different.
00:27:42
Speaker
So I think that's a good analogy. I'm not even sure you could call it an analogy. That is actually what it is. Yeah. I mean, right? Timber, like that's that's what we're talking about here.
00:27:53
Speaker
You know, we could we could say tonality. we could even say tone. Well, I mean, it is literally a capacitor and change the dielectric. That's how you change the sound of a capacitor.
00:28:06
Speaker
Exactly. yes Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Timber is one of those things where it's like, yeah, that's those are the big changes that stand out audibly, but, you know, try to point to it on a graph.
00:28:20
Speaker
Like, it's
00:28:23
Speaker
it's interesting that people can hurt hear certain things and other people can't. Yeah, what's difficult, I think, is when you have the propagation of things like, again, that Jim, little video.
00:28:38
Speaker
You know, it is perfectly fine if somebody cannot hear the difference between piece of gear A, piece of gear B, transformer A, transformer B, capacitors, whatever. It's totally fine. um That's not a requirement. That's not a requirement to make music. you know That's not a requirement to enjoy making music or experiencing music. But it's just unfortunate that the the propagation of stuff like that, it kind of like dissuades people from diving in.
00:29:06
Speaker
In my opinion, you know what I mean? Like, like people watch that video and they're like, well, why should I try and chase preamps? They all sound the same now. And it's like, no, yeah you know, my hearing where it's at now and my my critical listening skills are so, so different from they were like five years ago, you know, let alone 15, know?
00:29:27
Speaker
you know And, you know, not developing those would make me completely different at what I do for a career and, you know, my pursuits. So, like, I don't know, it just sucks. I think that it does much more harm than good. It just puts money in the guy's pocket.
UFO Stories and Fears
00:29:44
Speaker
And, you know, all this stuff is really scientific, but it's still really quantifiable. And even if you can't hear it, you should still try and should still experience, you know? said, you think you'd come on the show?
00:29:57
Speaker
i don't know No, that guy is so rich and famous now. Would you want him on? Would you want him on if he... No, i can't stand the sound of his voice. And if i hear, I'm just a performer, one more time.
00:30:12
Speaker
he's ah He's a rage bait celebrity is what he is. Emily, try to get him on. I do have mutual friends, but I think what some of us do. He has no friends. Well, Facebook friends.
00:30:26
Speaker
Those aren't friends. Those people aren't even real. They're bots. He's in Nashville, right? I can ask around, but I would like, I prefer not to. no i don't want to talk to that guy. He's a skunk.
00:30:38
Speaker
I still think it's interesting the way people try to present tests and stuff. And I didn't watch the new video because I knew it would be bull, but remembering his old ones, like, I think it's a lot, I think i already said this, we're just repeating ourselves now, but I think it's a lot easier to hear in the room that it is recorded and played back, you know? I mean, YouTube isn't the platform for, you know, qualified analysis.
00:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's annoying. You want to take another call? Sure. yeah Let's take another call. All right. ah Hey, guys. This is Eric from Vintage Synth Lab.
00:31:15
Speaker
First, I wanted to say on that last episode a quick story about working at Fender Musical Instruments in the mid-'90s. We were given about 15 minutes per amplifier to try to troubleshoot it right off the line. 15 minutes.
00:31:34
Speaker
That's it. If you can't fix it, you go put it on a pallet, and that pallet gets wrapped up, and when it's full, they go hide it somewhere. Well, one day, the bean counters came up from corporate and found they were hiding outside in a trailer. Okay, well, the rest is history. Obviously, that shop shut down, and the i don't know.
00:31:59
Speaker
They sent all their operations out to Mexico, and then it became China and all that good stuff. That's what happens when you don't take the time to repair things. That's the moral of the story. Anyway, um so the main thing I'm calling about is really important. It's very much related to amp repair.
00:32:19
Speaker
um so I don't know if you guys have caught wind of UAPs and all the progress with uh whistleblows coming forward um but as we have it today there are now confirmed
Fender Production Insights
00:32:32
Speaker
four different species of uaps grays the nordics the reptilians And the insectoids.
00:32:40
Speaker
If you don't know what this is, shame on you. ah You got to get up to speed with the most important news. And once you do let me know which ones you're the most afraid of. um I haven't made up my mind yet, but I want to hear what you guys have to say. All right. Thanks for the great show. Keep it up.
00:32:58
Speaker
Man, so great to hear from Eric. I ah got my job at Old Town Music because of him. Eric sounds like he has a lot of time on his hands if he can repair everything that he sees. Jeez. What I want to know is like, where are these pallets and like what smart person went in and like, you know, i'm just going to load this pallet on the truck. You know, no one wants to see it.
00:33:20
Speaker
But then you'd have a lot of stuff to fix, which actually sounds really freaking annoying. i I feel like I've actually gotten pallets of stuff from unnamed amp companies that were like this.
00:33:31
Speaker
i won't I won't go into who it was, but I have definitely received a pallet or two amps that they couldn't figure out. And then I would repair them and then charge them and then they wouldn't pay me. So I stopped doing that.
00:33:46
Speaker
How crazy to have that much extra stuff to where like, man, I'm such a hoarder. I couldn't imagine if my like, oh, I'll get to this someday pile, like got to the size of pallets.
00:34:00
Speaker
I'd end up like getting storage units just to store and pay for my like failed babies and stuff. That's wild. I just can't imagine producing broken gear.
00:34:12
Speaker
Like I know that sounds really, really, yeah. I that sounds so strange. I have toured shops, other companies. I know people that have owned other companies, still own other companies that have this. They have this shelf that's like the fix-it shelf.
00:34:30
Speaker
And it's kind of like there's nothing else to do. Take take this you know production unit, this pedal, this thing that we made and figure out why it doesn't work. And it's like, it's just so weird to me. I mean, why would you spend money to make, to pay people, to buy parts, to make something that doesn't work? Like if that happens, you have other problems, right? Like, am I wrong about this? I mean, you you had one job, make it, make it work. And it doesn't work.
00:35:02
Speaker
And you have a pile of that stuff. This is inherently a bad business model if this is the case. Yeah. charles charles Let me ask Charles a question. Cause I, yes, I agree with you, Brian. Okay. Okay. But Charles, I think I know what you're going to ask. Go ahead.
00:35:19
Speaker
Okay. How much time would you sink into fixing an amp that you could not figure out hypothetically that you made your company made would it be two hours would it be a week would it be a month i would go out of business until it was figured out and and why would you do that i that's why i do this i don't know that's i've never thought about that before but i've had amps you know take i think the most i've ever most time i've ever spent on an amp is like
00:35:57
Speaker
two or three days, even if it ends up being a stupid problem, I didn't, I didn't notice. That was like a matter of production design, right? Like, you know, something unforeseen.
00:36:09
Speaker
It wasn't that it just didn't work or something. Right. Yeah. No, I mean, it usually, and it ends up being like, you know, a wire shorting, you know, I think the last one we had was like, we accidentally,
00:36:23
Speaker
tightened ah chassis screw like on to a transformer lead. So it was like you couldn't see it underneath, but it was like, what the fuck is happening? So ripped the thing open and that was it. So sometimes it's weird stuff. Sometimes it's a swapped wire. Sometimes it's a bad input jack. I don't know, but I don't know. I think it's taken two or three days, but I don't have any amps that I've been like, oh, I give up.
00:36:48
Speaker
Like there's pedals just because it's like, ah whatever, make a new one. Who cares? Like that's, they're so quick to make, we'll just make a new one. I'm not going to even spend a day on a pedal that doesn't work. I'm just going to make a new one, but an amp, like it wouldn't matter the amount of time, even if it wasn't like financially responsible, the amps,
00:37:13
Speaker
just intrigued me more to where like, if I can't figure it out, like that's an, it like, not only is it an issue, but like it's a learning experience and it's also the most fun I have trying to chase down problems and stuff like that. Like trying to figure out what we did wrong or yeah, just anything and different problems always pop up. So like, I'm sure you guys have mental checklists and written lists of like,
00:37:42
Speaker
you know, issues that arise and now you have an immediate diagnosis for it. Like you hear a weird sound and you go, Oh, that's this tube or something cuts out and you go, Oh, this thing shorted into this again. So I don't know if there's an amount of time.
00:37:59
Speaker
if it's something that I made, i don't know if there's an amount of time that I would like give in. I was just curious about that. Cause I'm literally the exact same way. Yeah.
00:38:09
Speaker
There's no giving in. it's it If you produce something broken, if you produce something broken, it's an existential crisis of existence. Yeah, there's no way. Like, it doesn't that doesn't work. Yeah.
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah. You're either going to get one of two things is going to happen. You can blame it on someone else. Like, Oh, this is a faulty transformer. that's out Y'all screw y'all. And you know, the extension of that is I'm fine. i i know what I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:40
Speaker
Or you learn something new. Right, exactly. um Or you or ah you you learn a new process um or or a way to avoid making the same kind of mistake. So right there's no such thing as just wasted time trying to fix a problem like that, in my opinion.
00:38:59
Speaker
yeah there's refinement. And obviously, like, if there's issues, you engage in refinement, of course. But just, like, sacrificing a build. I mean, granted, i think he's he's probably referring to, like, maybe some of the solid-state stuff that they were making. I mean, trying to think of what was coming out of that Lake Oswego factory.
00:39:18
Speaker
i think they were doing, like, ah Tone Masters. No, that was in the California custom shop. You sure? i think Yeah. I think Sun, the Fender Sun reissue stuff was coming out of Lake Oswego. Don't quote me on that.
00:39:33
Speaker
I thought that was a little later. ah thought that was like the 2000s. Damn it, Eric. Why didn't you talk about that? Why didn't you tell us what was broke? Yeah, that's that's interesting. I don't think it was like Hot Rod series because I think that was a little too early. Yeah, that was all that was also all either what? California or Mexico, right? Yeah, I believe so. Corona. Yeah.
00:39:57
Speaker
When I think about it for that, for like a business model like that, it makes sense for me. this is a passion project as much as it is a business. So I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to go nuts trying to figure
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
00:40:09
Speaker
stuff out. But if we, if our business model was just moving as many amps as possible and pushing quantity, like, you know, out of, I imagine what a Fender make line looks like, I could see instructing people to like, you know, There's a point where it doesn't make sense financially to have your guys try to diagnose stuff instead of just building more stuff. I get it. I actually have a time limit for my guys. Right. I don't want my guys trying to fix them.
00:40:37
Speaker
Like if they can't figure it out in half an hour, I tell them to put it on the shelf and then I will come in and try to figure it out. Although I don't really have to do that much anymore. They've gotten very good at troubleshooting their own stuff, which is awesome.
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah, you run into something enough times and and and that's it. I don't like... don't like i don't like when A day is wasted on something that I come in and figure out in 10 minutes. But I also encourage exploration and and learning, you know, so it always ends up good.
00:41:10
Speaker
No matter what, it's going to benefit the employee to just to learn what didn't work, you know? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Let me let me flip this around for a second. Imagine having.
00:41:23
Speaker
a profit margin in what you produce that is so high that you can literally pay people to make things that don't work and then pay them to decide it doesn't work and then pay them to wrap it up. I mean, they put it on a pallet, but they palletize, which means they actually did wrap it up, which takes time and effort and equipment and materials to then put it in a truck that you probably paid for. And then somehow you have extra money to fly the board of directors out yeah yeah just to find your mistake. Like, what the hell? Find your little indiscretion and hidden in the trailer. Seriously, the level of profit built into whatever whatever they were making was so inherently high that they could just...
00:42:16
Speaker
piss it all away like that my god god what a fiesta must have been awesome what's it like to to be that successful jeez they should do a b stock line called fender benders i wonder how many of them were gray illinois caps i wonder how many of the board members were nordics or grays oh there's the connection Thank you for listening to this episode of Amplified Nonsense.
00:42:45
Speaker
Our goal is to release a new episode every other week, so please subscribe wherever you listen. If you have a question for Brian, Charles, and Chris about amps, pop culture, or relationships, please call 513-334-3803 three three four three eight zero three and leave a voicemail.
00:43:04
Speaker
If you enjoyed this episode of Amplified Nonsense, please leave a rating and review. Thanks again, and we'll see you soon.