my rig and me

here's why I think God is telling me I should quit playing the electric guitar: in the past month, I've blown out two very good guitar amps and one pedalboard.

it started when I decided to re-tube my prosonic combo. It played great for about one minute... then it began to smoke... then it died. turns out one of the tubes (a Philips/JAN NOS 12AT7 from mojotone) had a short in it. this would usually cause minor problems and cause any other amp to stop making sound. in my amp, however (which was a "one in a million chance of bad luck" according to my amp tech), it caused the whole thing to heat up. the smoke was from my circuit board being fried to the extent that diodes began melting through the sauter, and falling off of it. Rob at guitar electronics graciously found the problem and fixed it. but not without a price tag of $120 - almost what it cost me to buy all new tubes in the first place.

while my amp was being resuscitated, I borrowed a fender hot rod deville from a local church. I was only intending to use it for one rehearsal. when I first plugged in, the thing rung like a bell. so beautiful. but by the end of the first song I ever played through this amp, it died too! sounded like a tube blew, but I don't know exactly what happened. I ended up apologizing like a moron to the pastor of the church, and to the band I was sitting in with.

my very next gig, I had to borrow yet another amp (which ended up working great). but my pedal board decided to poop out. it just stopped powering all my pedals. turns out all the adapter plugs were warped - from the Arizona heat or from being crushed or whatever.

so here I sit a few hundred dollars in the hole from new tubes, amp repair costs, and a new power supply for my pedal board. my pedals are jimmy-rigged with 9-volts and various adapters with wall-warts until the new power supply comes. but there's an upside....

my reward: wahba got a new tone - uh-huh - wahba got a new tone. i'm so excited to play again.