1. Your amplifier
should sound the way the designer of the amp intended it to
sound the day it was new (until you make up your mind it
should sound differently).
Amplifiers
live hard lives and contain components which are compromised
by dust, oxidization, vibration, heat, cold, and also by the
innate instability of certain components over time. Even an
amplifier delivered by the factory may have construction
defects, or defective components, which usually manifest
themselves in the first hundred hours of operation. 2. If your style is
well-developed, and if your related equipment is not
changing, it may be time to "dial in" your amplification
equipment to produce your signature sound.
Your
guitar, cabling, amplification and speakers, are a musical
system, and changing any part of it changes the system's
product: your sound. 3. Who said I play
guitar?
We
believe in hifi. If your guitar (if you have one) can make a
good tone ---- can produce a good electronic signal, then we
want you to hear it. We will help you shape it too, if
that's what you want to do, within or without of the
original design parameters of your amplifier. But if you are
bringing us an amplifier from your home hifi, from sound
reinforcement equipment, from your recording studio, or if
you play organ, piano, electric violin --- you name it ----
we can do the same for you. Since we think great guitar
amplification is, in the first instance, hifi, we can bring
our same skills to all forms of amplification. 4. What about
speakers?
As
we say above, the speakers are a part of the system. We
could not get the results we do by treating only the
amplifier. So we study speakers, have access to a variety of
math models, computer models, and test equipment, are
familiar with all design options, and can execute them as
well as any manufacturer (and better than many)! 5. How far can you
go?
Amplifier
circuits, tubes, power supplies, wiring, speakers, their
related systems ---- is there more? Yes. Powerline
management; acoustical environment management, vibration
control, to name a few. We can go with you to the most
remote corners of music reinforcement and reproduction, and
can offer useful guidance throughout.
Sadly,
many amplifiers have been through the hands of technicians
who implement poorly thought-out modifications, which
certainly do change the sound of the amplifier --- usually
for the worse. Modifications need to proceed, if at all,
with the same or greater engineering rigor, than the
original circuit design. Modifications that do not, will
compromise elements of performance, even if they perform
some handy trick. Modifications that result in any circuit
component being asked to operate out of its design envelope,
should be understood as dangerous and destructive, not
"creative".
A
large percentage of the modifications we see in items
brought to our atelier, are modifications of just this type.
They need to be reversed, restoring the original circuit.
Only then will the owner know what they really own. When
we've done this, almost every client has liked his or her
"stock" amplifier, restored to its original operating
parameters, better than their former "hotrod" modified
version.
We
also see amplifiers which are the victims of time, and wear
and tear. These amplifiers can almost always be restored to
the performance they delivered the day they were new. That
would be our first objective.
If
you're changing your guitar every few months, getting new
pickups next week, or trying every brand of strings there
are, chances are you have not found your sound, your style,
your niche. Or your range of sounds. More experienced and
mature musicians (some young and some old) know what
guitar(s) or bass(es) they will be playing, the moods they
want to evoke, the stylistic influences they want to
channel, or oppose. By the time that happens the musician
will have developed a considerable technical talent, good
ears for musical detail, and reliable equipment.
It
might be that the sound of a Marshall Plexi, a Fender Champ
or Twin, or a Mesa Mark something, with your guitar plugged
into it, is all that you would ever want or need. If so,
that combination will certainly be best if the amp is just
as the designer intended it (see 1, above).
Even
with those noble amps, or others less pedigreed, there will
be nuances of tone that can be extracted through careful
attention to (1) tubes and (2) other circuitry, primarily
power supply related items. For instance, everyone can agree
that any amplifier that has less hum and noise, is a better
amplifier. We minimize noise in every amplifier we work on,
within the budget allowed.
Subtle
issues of the character of an amplifier's attack, overdrive
points, reverb quality, tone variations with volume level,
and others, we can address through subtle circuit changes,
within the rule we set of never doing anything what is
unsound engineering.
We
inventory thousands of new old stock vacuum tubes, which we
acquire constantly and at great cost. Chances are that your
sound can be, and should be shaped in part by the tone
characteristics of vacuum tubes made decades ago, though
there are ones in current production that also lend colors
and energy to some musical styles, with certain guitars and
basses.
Don't
forget about the box. That's part of the "system" of the
speaker. A good speaker can't sound good in a bad box.
What's a good box? Talk to us.
Audio Atelier
• 823 E. 4th Ave. • Durango, CO 81301 ©
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