A Funky Family Tree and day 47

Oh hey, that amp is in Rocksmith.

Oh neat.  That looks kinda similar.

Wait, that one looks like way similar.

Ok.  I see a pattern here.

Hey! That one looks differen.... oh wait.  No it doesn't, they just use sliders on the top.

So what is going on here?  Well, what we have here is the legacy of a man named Russ Allee.  Mr. Allee helped create one of the first "serious" solid state amps that were meant to replace tube amps with bass.  You see, a very long time ago an obscure bass player by the name of Paul McCartney plugged directly into a recording console and made this beautifully clear bass tone.  His band, called The Beatles, became huge and people loved this tone, and so extremely tight and clean tone became acceptable for bass.

The Acoustic series of amps came along and were adopted by a couple of famous bassists, namely Jaco Pastorious, that wanted that clean "direct into the console" sound in a live setting.  Russ Allee designed the pre-amp section that you see comes down to us through time in other amp designs.  They are all connected to him.  Russ worked with Steve Rabe to create the AMP420.  Steve Rabe later started the company SWR and designed the SWR SM-400.   He added to and changed the design by incorporating tubes.  Steve wanted to do some new cabinets, ones that would take advantage of the new super precise solid state amps, so he hired David Nordschow to help him design them.  Nordschow later went on to create Eden amps(the first amp listed up there).  The Eden World Tour camps were their second set of designs, which he had consultation with... Mr. Russ Allee.  Eden took the original designs of Allee, but added the newer parts that SWR had, namely tubes in the pre-amp.

Well what about the Gibson and the Thunderfunk?  Well AMP was bought by Gibson, and with its design Gibson made the GB440 that is pictured up there.  This, however, was not a long lived line, they boxed up all the old backstock and parts and put them in a ware house where a man named David Funk bought the building and the rights to everything in the building.  He would be surprised to find all these parts to amps, and being an amp expert himself, decided to put them together and sell them.  He changed and improved the components and created the Thunderfunk.

Thanks to Ivan Mike and various other Talkbass alumni for schooling me in the pedigree of my favorite amp.

Day 47

It is a funny thing.  Somehow if I'm playing metal, I can be responsible with the volume.  I know I miss the "feel" of the deep bass during a palm mute, but I know I'm still doing them.  Blues, well that's pretty simple to do quietly, lowering the volume on my amp actually helps me get a less driven sound.  Crunch tones are no so dependent on volume, the whole point of the solid state pre-amp section of my Marshall was to make sure you can get lots of crunch at bedroom levels.  I should not have to care about volume for Crunch. I tune in the ACDC crunch though, and I can't help but crank the volume up.  I guess its the 10 year old that always wanted to play Highway to Hell in me or something.

We're getting to the home stretch now aren't we?  That day 60 is creeping up.  I can also see reader fatigue, I can tell how many views and all that.  It has lasted longer than I thought.  I am lucky in that I knew from the start that this blog was done for me.  So even if my views go to zero, I still will continue this because it keeps me responsible, it keeps me playing, and it keeps me writing.  Still, I hope someone out there reads my little history of the tech blogs and my guitar profiles and maybe finds something interesting in all of this for themselves.

I have so many plans for after Day 60 that I feel like I am losing out on the "now".  I do have a sort of creeping thought that maybe I'm not utilizing Rocksmith as much as should, but I have to remind myself that it is a tool, and it is not like I'm stagnant.  I'm still using Rocksmith every day.  Jam sessions are a must for me to keep interest.  I play around with the tone designer, trying to match tones to songs that aren't in the game.  Guitarcade, come on, that stuff is fun even if you're not learning guitar.  I guess I'm just hoping for that next "breakthrough" to happen.  I understand that those "breakthroughs" come slower and farther in between as time goes by, but I guess I'm just an optimist... which isn't really a descriptor of me usually, but yea.