david taus

Rock And Roll All Night

music: Talking Heads- Stop Making Sense

I bought an amp this weekend. The old Crate was hitting the upper reaches of its capabilities and the new band setup demanded a little more headroom. Up comes an all-tube, 60-watt, 2×10 amp on craigslist for $300 and anticipating a decent tax refund this year I jumped at it.

The thing is a beast. An absolute beast. The highs are piercing and the lows are rattling. It’s way too much to deal with, more than I’m prepared to handle at this point. Louder than I’ll ever need it to be in our studio space downstairs, but plenty of headroom to entertain the possibility of playing an actual room one day. I spent about an hour each yesterday and today playing around with it, trying out its built-in lead channel, tweaking and balancing levels on it as it runs through my stompboxes. The increase in power will allow me to get a more full sound out of my axe with less finger strain, but also increases the likelihood of feedback, especially considering my guitar is semi-hollow. Probably doesn’t help things that I’ve got my guitar running through two tubescreamers, along with a flanger, crybaby, and compression sustainer. The compressor helps some but my rig is now an unruly 1,000 lb. angry gorilla ready to rage at a moment’s notice.

I worry a little bit that I’ve sacrificed the finesse and soft touch that the Crate allowed for, that I’ll go way over the top when I plug in with the band on Wednesday. New gear always takes some getting used to, and this will be a bit of an adjustment. Amps are curious things to use; they are often overlooked and money is spent on the actual guitar, but the amplifier (and all accessories) is part of the instrument in a larger sense. It is arguably the most important part-it’s where the sound comes out. I’m not completely set on the Fender, and there’s no way I’m getting rid of that little Crate, so there’s room for growing pains and experimentation. There’s also an incredible amount of headroom for me to crank the thing up and literally shake the house to its foundations.