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Fun fact: A beer coozie is the perfect size to go over your wallet, assuming you have a basically normal wallet.

conky wrote:Both of my Les Pauls were bought without me being able to play them. My Standard from Musicians Friend and my Custom from Japan off of ebay. They both played great out of the box but once they got a proper setup then they were perfect. I doubt you'll have any problems with them once you get them setup.

Dual rig guys, I need help. I'm running both at home now trying to work out the kinks with my Jamman's volume levels so we can still be able to shoegaze once Matt leaves. I'm noticing a tiny bit of electric shock if I rest my forearm on my stop tailpiece or bridge. Its barely noticeable and at first I thought I was being paranoid. I put my lips to the strings to see and it shocked me about as much as an almost dead 9 volt battery. I flipped the ISO and ground switches on my Bigshot all kinds of ways and it still does it. I even triued it with my Hum-X plugged in to the Soldano's power cable and it still does it. It stops when I take one of the amps off of the power strip. Should I get separate power strips for the amps? I don't see where that would help at the space though because we all run off of one quad outlet. Once time while playing in Atlanta I had my pedalboard and amp plugged into the same outlet and when my mouth touched the mic it shocked the everliving piss outta me. I don't wanna add a second amp to that mix.

Sounds like a bad ground on one of the amps.

new05002 wrote:

conky wrote:Both of my Les Pauls were bought without me being able to play them. My Standard from Musicians Friend and my Custom from Japan off of ebay. They both played great out of the box but once they got a proper setup then they were perfect. I doubt you'll have any problems with them once you get them setup.

Dual rig guys, I need help. I'm running both at home now trying to work out the kinks with my Jamman's volume levels so we can still be able to shoegaze once Matt leaves. I'm noticing a tiny bit of electric shock if I rest my forearm on my stop tailpiece or bridge. Its barely noticeable and at first I thought I was being paranoid. I put my lips to the strings to see and it shocked me about as much as an almost dead 9 volt battery. I flipped the ISO and ground switches on my Bigshot all kinds of ways and it still does it. I even triued it with my Hum-X plugged in to the Soldano's power cable and it still does it. It stops when I take one of the amps off of the power strip. Should I get separate power strips for the amps? I don't see where that would help at the space though because we all run off of one quad outlet. Once time while playing in Atlanta I had my pedalboard and amp plugged into the same outlet and when my mouth touched the mic it shocked the everliving piss outta me. I don't wanna add a second amp to that mix.

Sounds like a bad ground on one of the amps.

i would agree with this. the bigshot and the hum-x are both great products designed to address noise from ground loops, and they work pretty well. however, they can't fix a bad ground, which is normally why you'd be experiencing shock. when i was a touring techie dude, a big part of my job was dealing with ground bullshit, although it got way better once i had everyone convinced to buy a good ab/y switch. you should get an outlet tester, something i believe should be essential to every giggling musician and they only cost a couple of dollars at any hardware store. start by plugging it into the outlet your power strip is plugged into. if it shows a bad ground then you or your landlord should address it. it's not just a gear thing, that's a safety issue in general. normally what you see is that either someone just stuck a three prong outlet into a circuit that has old wiring that doesn't have a ground wire, or they just improperly wired up the outlet, like didn't bother attaching the ground wire. the latter is easy to fix (turn off the breaker before you fuck with it, duh.) you can also just hunt around for a circuit that shows it's properly wired and plug into that, but just know that your leaving a problem unaddressed. the most likely culprit is actually probably the power strip you are currently using. if the outlet in the building shows that it's good, check the ground prong on your strip to make sure it's still there and secure. if not, get a new strip. if it is, then plug the outlet tester into each of the outlets on the power strip while you have it plugged in to make sure they all read as good. i bet you'll find your fault either with the ground prong or by checking the individual outlets. if those all test fine, then you know there's a ground fault with one or both of your amps. you can probably just open them up to check that the ground wire from the cord is attached to the chassis of the amp. beyond that, you need an amp dude. i would make sure you actually fix the issue, just for the safety of your gear and your personal safety, rather than just going and trying plugging into a bunch of stuff until you can't notice the problem being obvious anymore.

Solid advice, misterstomach.

emptyparadigm wrote:Separate power strips. Something about grounds and circuits and pain. I don't know the electricity-related science behind it, but as someone who has had the shit shocked out of them multiple times, separate power should do it. Also, get a foam cover/spit guard for your mic. In a pinch, use a beer koozie (I always keep one in my back pocket because beer).

I thought about separate power strips but It'll end up going to the same outlet in my man cave and at the practice space (haven't noticed it happening in the practice space that i can remember, or maybe I did and forgot). I'm no electrician but it seems to me that wouldn't do much for here though since it's all going to the same outlet anyway.

new05002 wrote:Sounds like a bad ground on one of the amps.

I tried each one separate and it didn't do it. Only happens when I run both together. Electricity scares the fuck outta me.

misterstomach wrote:i would agree with this. the bigshot and the hum-x are both great products designed to address noise from ground loops, and they work pretty well. however, they can't fix a bad ground, which is normally why you'd be experiencing shock. when i was a touring techie dude, a big part of my job was dealing with ground bullshit, although it got way better once i had everyone convinced to buy a good ab/y switch. you should get an outlet tester, something i believe should be essential to every giggling musician and they only cost a couple of dollars at any hardware store. start by plugging it into the outlet your power strip is plugged into. if it shows a bad ground then you or your landlord should address it. it's not just a gear thing, that's a safety issue in general. normally what you see is that either someone just stuck a three prong outlet into a circuit that has old wiring that doesn't have a ground wire, or they just improperly wired up the outlet, like didn't bother attaching the ground wire. the latter is easy to fix (turn off the breaker before you fuck with it, duh.) you can also just hunt around for a circuit that shows it's properly wired and plug into that, but just know that your leaving a problem unaddressed. the most likely culprit is actually probably the power strip you are currently using. if the outlet in the building shows that it's good, check the ground prong on your strip to make sure it's still there and secure. if not, get a new strip. if it is, then plug the outlet tester into each of the outlets on the power strip while you have it plugged in to make sure they all read as good. i bet you'll find your fault either with the ground prong or by checking the individual outlets. if those all test fine, then you know there's a ground fault with one or both of your amps. you can probably just open them up to check that the ground wire from the cord is attached to the chassis of the amp. beyond that, you need an amp dude. i would make sure you actually fix the issue, just for the safety of your gear and your personal safety, rather than just going and trying plugging into a bunch of stuff until you can't notice the problem being obvious anymore.

I'll pick one up tomorrow. We redid a lot of the wiring when we bought the house but we didn't do anything in this back room since it was a later addition to the house. The power strip is old as hell. I've used it in all of my bands through the last 10 years so I imagine it is well beyond needing replacing. The bigshot has a ground lift though so wouldn't that help with the ground issue? I dunno shit about how electricity works other than if you fuck with it it will kill you. Like I said, the only time I've ever been shocked before is when we played the 529 in Atlanta and I was only running my Soldano then. I plugged my amp and pedalboard (on the same power strip) into the outlet at the club and when my lips touched the mic it popped the shit outta me. I unplugged the pedalboard from my power strip and moved it to a different outlet and it fixed it.

shit i need to get one of those testers too...i always get a little shock from the tailpeice. I never thought anything of it...but that sounds like it could actually get dangerous

so last night, I jammed with a guy...and it went really well. We still need a drummer and bass player, or he will play bass and we'll be a 3 piece. We're playing instrumental so no vocals needed, but it was fun, and hopefully we get a drummer soon so shit can go to the next level.

Also, took my Orange Cr120 to rehearsal studio with Matamp cab...it was the first time i had the orange turned all the way up...it sounded fuckin great. I had it on clean channel first with dirt pedals, and i didnt like it that much, but then put on the dirt channel, with the gain down, and volume all the way up, so cleanish...but on that channel, it takes pedals so much better than on clean channel.

conky wrote:I'll pick one up tomorrow. We redid a lot of the wiring when we bought the house but we didn't do anything in this back room since it was a later addition to the house. The power strip is old as hell. I've used it in all of my bands through the last 10 years so I imagine it is well beyond needing replacing. The bigshot has a ground lift though so wouldn't that help with the ground issue? I dunno shit about how electricity works other than if you fuck with it it will kill you.

It sounds to me that your problem is a wire that isn't grounded, so lifting a ground won't help.

A furhman pl8 has helped out immeasurably in my old ass house, knob and tube wiring so forget about a ground. But with the shock thing, as others have said, a good inspection of the amps wiring is in order.

Sometimes I feel bad because I don't post in here often enough or reply enough. Then I remember that I'm in a different fucking timezone...Fucking drugs man...

Anyway, thanks for the positive feedback on the review and the tracks guys. We get shit on in our town for being slow and heavy, everyone here seems to either be playing Slam or Prog shit so we tend to hang out and do shows with the stoner and doom bands here.

christianatl wrote:

conky wrote:I'll pick one up tomorrow. We redid a lot of the wiring when we bought the house but we didn't do anything in this back room since it was a later addition to the house. The power strip is old as hell. I've used it in all of my bands through the last 10 years so I imagine it is well beyond needing replacing. The bigshot has a ground lift though so wouldn't that help with the ground issue? I dunno shit about how electricity works other than if you fuck with it it will kill you.

It sounds to me that your problem is a wire that isn't grounded, so lifting a ground won't help.

Possibly, but it doesn't do it when I'm only running one amp. That is what is confusing to me.

Any Colorado peeps gonna be at the Melvins/Le Butcherettes show friday?

Joe Gress wrote:Any Colorado peeps gonna be at the Melvins/Le Butcherettes show friday?

Not a Colorado peep but that tour package was amazing back in Michigan.

This sexy sumbitch showed up at my house today. Sounds great clean and has a really powerful eq on it so it can go from shaking the house with bass to bright and chimey. Never had a 'good' solid state amp before - I'm no longer skeptical of them.

One of the inputs is noisey and a couple of pots are scratcy, but that's to be expected with something this old I think. The reverb is surprisingly good as well. The distortion seems to be broken, which is a bit of a bummer. I don't really care, but it was sold as 100% working, so I'm going to hassle the seller a bit over that on principal.

Takes pedals like a champ and gives me +10 cred for being Earth instead of Peavey.

t-rey wrote:This sexy sumbitch showed up at my house today. Sounds great clean and has a really powerful eq on it so it can go from shaking the house with bass to bright and chimey. Never had a 'good' solid state amp before - I'm no longer skeptical of them.

One of the inputs is noisey and a couple of pots are scratcy, but that's to be expected with something this old I think. The reverb is surprisingly good as well. The distortion seems to be broken, which is a bit of a bummer. I don't really care, but it was sold as 100% working, so I'm going to hassle the seller a bit over that on principal.

Takes pedals like a champ and gives me +10 cred for being Earth instead of Peavey.

that sounds real cool man. good solid state is great...my Orange CR120 never ceases to surprise me.

but a vintage Earth has all types of cred man...are you going to get a big 4x12 cab too?? you're going from mini doom to big doom!

samzadgan wrote:shit i need to get one of those testers too...i always get a little shock from the tailpeice. I never thought anything of it...but that sounds like it could actually get dangerous

so last night, I jammed with a guy...and it went really well. We still need a drummer and bass player, or he will play bass and we'll be a 3 piece. We're playing instrumental so no vocals needed, but it was fun, and hopefully we get a drummer soon so shit can go to the next level.

Also, took my Orange Cr120 to rehearsal studio with Matamp cab...it was the first time i had the orange turned all the way up...it sounded fuckin great. I had it on clean channel first with dirt pedals, and i didnt like it that much, but then put on the dirt channel, with the gain down, and volume all the way up, so cleanish...but on that channel, it takes pedals so much better than on clean channel.

I'm really enjoying running solid state right now, and I'm thoroughly debating picking up one of those CR120's . You're not helping that lust. Neither is the one I played at GC the other day when I was buying picks.