For just noodling around, it will be probably be easiest to use the 2 x 10 I built for my Vibro Champ, since it is light, and I have attached a 6 foot 16 gauge cable with a 1/4 inch plug to the speaker terminals. That's what I had connected when the amp was on my bench for biasing, testing, etc.
If you remember from last fall, that's the one I attached the new grill cloth with the wrong side facing out.
"When You're Riding Down the Highway at Night, And You're Feeling that Wild Turkey's Bite" ZZ Top
The indicater looks pretty good in the pic!
I recently added some of the 6V #47 type LED bulbs to a 'bay order, I've used some of the 12V LED's over the years, no problems with them!
I was going to order a "warm white" LED, but they were out of stock, so I ordered the "cool white" one.
I played the Bandmaster Reverb thru 2 1x12 8 ohm cabinets spaced about 8 feet apart, and the sound was HUGE even on volume level 3. One of the speakers was a Jensen C12Q and the other was an Eminence GT12, so they emphasized different frequencies (and I assume one speaker was more efficient than the other). I thought my Made in England Celestion Vintage 30 was in one of those cabinets, but I saw it sitting in my closet, so maybe I'll build another cabinet for it.
At one time I had 2 Vintage 30's in a 2 x 12 cabinet but it was pretty heavy and one of the Vintage 30's has a voice coil rub so I'll need to have it re-coned.
"When You're Riding Down the Highway at Night, And You're Feeling that Wild Turkey's Bite" ZZ Top
Back in the day, we had a 2 week gig at our local hot spot, and lost our lead player. We got a steel player from Texas come help us out, but 3 days in he blew the 15" speaker in his Peavey 1000. I brought a 2-12 cabinet I had used for PA mids in our R&R band, EVM-12S speakers, the cab was 1/2 of an EV 4-12 design. He knew it wouldn't work, but I kept pushing him to try, finally he planted his volume pedal and hit a low grip on his C6 neck, it was great! He played the rest of the gig with it, even after I repaired his speaker, and tried to keep the cab, (I had it sold already). I sent him home with a couple of speakers, and my hand drawn plans for a cab.
About 20 years (or more) ago I bought a used steel guitar from Herb Remmington, who used to be in the Texas Playboys. I played it thru a Super Twin Reverb with 2 12 inch Utah speakers. It sounded good, but my playing didn't so after a year or so I took the steel guitar back to Herb, and he sold it for me on consignment. I kept the volume pedal and steel slide. Now I see the Goodrich model 120 volume pedals are going for a good price online. I may pull it out of my closet tomorrow and practice playing "I Need You" by the Beatles, lol.
Edit: I just pulled out the Goodrich, and noticed it has dual amplifier outputs, so I could probably create some fun sounds with it. Maybe run one output thru a wah wah pedal and get both feet in on the action, lol
Last edited by Michael Smith; 02-25-2023 at 05:23 PM.
"When You're Riding Down the Highway at Night, And You're Feeling that Wild Turkey's Bite" ZZ Top
Years ago I bought my Sho-Bud from my friends widow, I played it for a few years off and on, but never got past intros-outros, and a few turn arounds. I plan on getting back to it this year, I hope I can!
Last edited by Bill Moore; 02-26-2023 at 11:14 AM.
Your TR clone should sound ideal with it, Bill,
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
Yeah, it sounds great with the 15"SRO and the Svetlana 6L6's.
Even more amazing is it paired with the brown cab, it has a JBL K130, I'm not a pro, but can't imagine a better steel guitar sound. (I can't crank it up too much in our little "music" room).
I imagine not (unless you enjoy spackling and re-painting damaged sheetrock, ha ha!).
With both speakers -- the SRO and the JBL -- it should provide all the punch you'd ever need, for pedal steel OR guitar.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
I don't know why the Bandmaster Reverbs are frowned upon by some. To my ears, it sounds as good as any Fender amp from that era, which is pretty sweet. Perhaps people are pairing them with bad speaker cabs?
"When You're Riding Down the Highway at Night, And You're Feeling that Wild Turkey's Bite" ZZ Top
They're frowned upon because blond Showman's and tweed Twin's provide more bragging rights.
All important when you're a cork-sniffer.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
Ya, that's probably it. I feel much more comfortable working on silverface amps where I don't have to worry about "originality". I try to be as neat as possible, but don't mind substituting metal oxide for carbon comp resistors, or modern electrolytic caps. Adding the bias trim pot to my bandmaster reverb would have probably gotten me kicked out of the cork sniffer club if I had done that to a "valuable" amp.Originally Posted by phantomman
"When You're Riding Down the Highway at Night, And You're Feeling that Wild Turkey's Bite" ZZ Top
I do my best to maintain an amp's original cosmetics but the bottom line is, if a vintage amp can't amplify then all you've got is a real expensive door-stop. I'll use whatever parts are required to keep an amp functioning.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
I tried a couple of different speaker cabinets with the Bandmaster Reverb. Both were incredibly loud with the volume on 3 and even with headphones on and 20 feet away in a fairly large room. The Peavey is a 2 x 15 with their Spyder speakers and the other one is the 2 x 12 cabinet for my Super Twin Reverb with the huge magnet Utah speakers.
"When You're Riding Down the Highway at Night, And You're Feeling that Wild Turkey's Bite" ZZ Top
I'm thinking my Bandmaster Reverb is the best sounding amp I own, even better than my Super Reverb or Deluxe Reverb. I just played it for about 2 hours thru the 2 x 12 Super Twin Reverb cabinet. Perhaps it was the excellent servicing I did on it last week, lol.
"When You're Riding Down the Highway at Night, And You're Feeling that Wild Turkey's Bite" ZZ Top
Sounds like you got a keeper. It should be good to go for another decade.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
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