Rich Paton
From:
Santa Maria, CA.,
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Posted 24 May 2000 7:22 pm |
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Bobby; so why then didn't you make it "Bass Player Proof"? LOL!
>
A great player with nearly 30 years' road & local performing experience, and he connects a 300-Watt tube amp to a pair of daisy-chained, 18" Cerwin-Vega cabinets...
at a loud Rock & Roll gig, with a $1.98 Radio Shack 1/4", molded-end vinyl patch cord, which melted and shorted the amp output!
What was he thinking?
At the time I repaired it (late Fall, 1997), the amp's owner (& guitarist in the band, who had loaned it to the bass player for the gig) owned half of a commercial-client only computer service & network business, including an ISP division with no dial-up modem pools, two T1 lines, a small Sun mainframe & workstations, some behemoth server bays, and the necessary network routers.
I bartered that repair, for a then state-of-the-art motherboard & 233 Mhz Pentium chip, a Teac (very heavy-duty built) 24X CD Rom drive, four 32-Mbyte EDO simms, a Windows keyboard, a top quality mouse, and a bunch of software.
The amp repair soon lead to a profitable job for my electrical contracting business, upgrading their electrical system to allow backup operation on generators, including a code-correct (this is rare in the field, due to its complex technical and safety issues which generally fall above the skill level of most small electrical contractors) transfer switch installation, substantial facility rewiring to make it all work, and a follow-on service agreement.
In late 1998, I traded that board, chip, & half of the ram...for a 1962 Fender Blonde Bassman head that had slept in the swapper's closet since 1980. All it required for re-commissioning was cleaning the pots and a nominal "check-up".
I don't think I've ever played out with it, where someone didn't offer to buy it.
I've finally learned my lessons about seeking that etheral Holy Grail of better tone, when I aready have it.
NO WAY am I letting this one go!
It's hard to believe that this nearly pristine Bassman will very soon be 40 years old!!!
So...You built the amp, the computer guru bought it, the bass player "smoked" it, I fixed it, (and got a computer)...and now we're discussing the entire meandering path of events, here on YOUR website!
Is this a matter of Serendipity, or one of probability & statistics? :>)
( All of the above? ) |
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