18 watter at church again..more on caffine

Played the 18 watter at church again...my playing was much better this week. I mounted the 18watt on a board to keep folks from gettins shocked until I get a cab built. Love the sound..big full, even through my cheap cab. Now through the Vet 30 in my other cab...big mojo going on. The Celestion g12L-40H is a cheap speaker...less lows, smaller magnet...less db. All that is well and good for the church gig. If I play live somewhere else...use other cab.

Am going to Home Depot today to get boards to start on the cab with. Hope to work on it one night this week. Would love to get it cut out, finger jointed and then drilled this week. Then I can at least mount it in the box to use will I can work on it again. I would then do the stays to hold the front and back, then cut the front and back out and start working on the inlay for the front. Have a place to get faceplate material...so I need to go by there and get it and drill and mount it. Plan to get it engraved too. We shall see. May just get wood and do face plate first...
This is going to take a few weeks.

Still holdin out on no or low caffine...energy levels are ok...still not up to par yet...
k

school is almost here

My son is not looking forward to school starting....my 4 yr old is. My wife is ready so she can have a routine. I am ready, so things will settle down...
fun I guess.
Hope to grill tonight....swim a little and relax. Has been a long week.
Did get to see RUSH tuesday night in Atlanta...was a great show as always.
Playing the 18 watt again Sunday. May build a scratch cab to put it in until I can build a proper one...just don't want to get shocked or break the amp in the mean time.
kirk

18 watter at church...caffine again...

Amp did well at church. Sound was nice, my playing was off....had a brain lapse in the middle of one song and had to rethink what I was doing completely= not fun.
My mind is not thinking as fast on it's feet right now. Wonder how long it will be before my brain gets back up to speed? I hope soon. I have to be able to think to play.
Will be working on the cab later in the week...need something to put it in. Don't really want some kid going over there and shocking himself on all the DC voltage running around in there.

no caffine day 8 and the 18watt goes to church

Today is 8th day of no or low caffine. I feel fine. Am very relaxed...still. Still get tired easier than I did before, but I supposed that will change in time. Honestly, it is like my mind is in relax mode all the time. My only concerns are how I will handle stress, whether I will gain weight.

On another note. Fender is acting up and in shop..so the 18 watt get a call a few weeks early. Now I have to get the cab for it finished pronto. May build a scratch cab for it so I can safely play it and then build a better one later...we shall see.
k

Caffine......

I have been for many years...at least 20 years...a serious coffee hound. I all started when I was in college. Working evenings, nights and weekends at the radio station. The diner at college always had coffee on too. I graduated and went to work...they always had coffee. I was consuming 6 to 10 cups a day...sometimes more. Funny thing though. I could go home and just go to sleep. It takes 4 or five cups back to back for me to feel the caffine. Since I was just constantly sipping on it I never really reached a buzz most of the time..but my body was taking count, it liked it.
Enter 2007. In 2007 I began to notice my ears were ringing a lot. Low rumbles. I have always had, at least as long as I can remember, some tinitus. Too much music, guns and weedeaters growing up I guess. Not too bad though, not distracting. I began looking for reasons. I tried ginko this year for a few months, it helped some. Then I was reading....caffine can cause ringing, not a good thing...I love coffee.
So I tried reducing my caffine for a couple days to just morning coffee...maybe a little at night. End of day my ringing would subside some, then after morning coffee...it would increase a little. It still was there very prominatly. I decided I would bite the bullet and try going off caffine for at least a month or so...almost completely.
Do you know how hard that is? Coffee is everywhere. Coke is everywhere. Black tea is everywhere. I have had to readjust my whole thinking.
I took a one cup coffee maker to the office. Am now making one cup of decafe at a time. Am also drinking a cup or two of green tea during the day...yeah it has 40 mg of caffine in a cup, but I consider that acceptable, since the tea lasts for a long time..you can't chug it like I do coffee. It would make you nausiated. I drink it unsweet too. (my coffee is always black by the way).
What has happened? Well for the first day I was ok, a little tired. Monday I was friggin exausted all day. Tuesday was a little better. Wednesday I could still feel it.
What am I feeling. It's like my whold body achs....is tired. It just wants to go to sleep. Addiction withdrawal. Not fun, but not bad IF I can keep going. Is like I am on the edge of fatiegue. My mind is the biggest thing. I am not trying to wax philosophically, but my mind feels different.
I feel mellow. It's like before I couldn't wait to just jump into a conversation. My mind would race at things to think about as I constantly ran into situations. At the moment it as if my mind is trying to take in all the scenery it has missed for the last 100 years. My skin feels different...or at least my tacktile senses do. Have not eatin any multi contextural food...ie complex flavors, so I do not know how this has effected my taste buds. I suppose until the caffine withdrawal finish everything maybe effected. Will it change back? I can't say. It is almost like I have read drug addicts talk about how on cocaine, speed or what have you...everything feels different. Since I have been on HEAVY caffine for the last 20 years...I guess I don't remember what it feels like to NOT have caffine effecting my nerves. I feel calmer. I feel not so relaxed right now, but I can feel it easing. Will post again in a few days.
Decafe coffee is like drinking coffee without something. I know it isn't there, and it does taste slightly different...I still like it though..just have to find some good stuff or mix it half and half to get some more flavor.
Eventually I guess I will be able to stand a cup of regular in the morning or when ever...but I don't think I will ever be back on the coffee barge...why.
Over the last 5 days the ringing in my ears has changed pitch. NO more low rumble, less high hiss. Hope it continue to subside. We shall see. More later.
k

18 watt post 16

Took the 18 watt to praise band practice tonight. Worked very well. Hooked up my dd3 delay and a DS1 distortion to use as a boost.. (no drive). Was able to control the drive and tone of the amp by the guitar vol controls. Roll it off...it cleans up, cut it back up and it drives like crazy. Nice....exactly what i wanted. And very touch responsive.
Working on the head cab now. Hope to have it done in a couple weeks.
Will keep ya posted.
Kirk

18 Watt Post 15

I rewired front end of the Lite IIb tonight. Coax is a little more microphonic than I like, but it is quite. NO VZZZT... so I will leave as is for now...until I come across a piece of shielded wire that I find suitable.


Here is a pic of the chassis front..there is a post Phase Inverter Master Volume, a tone, and a Volume. (have almost convinced myself to remove the MV.)





Sounds nice....no noise...
Have a A/B switch on order from Musicians Friend. I need it to use with this amp. The low gain channel had a ton of tone and crunch. But roll the guitar vol to 7 and it clean right up. The High gain channel has a lot more pop to it. So, with the A/B box, I can have a clean, crunch and Lead gain...without doing much. Yeah, I know a lot of folks would say use one channel or the other, or use a Tube Screamer...but the amp has it, and has the tone...so I don't want it to go to waste. Will be playing this one live soon...getting boards tomorrow to work on cab.
k