One of the effects of the meltdown of the global economy—one I haven’t heard mentioned in the business section of the New York Times—is that, well, we guitar players can’t spend all our money tricking out guitars, hot rodding amps or experimenting with boutique effects anymore. But while the pefect tone used to come at considerable expense, my personal lack of finances (or fiscal responsibility for that matter) has led me to actually learn how to work on my gear. With Big Baby Benson celebrating the arrival of a nephew in Minnesota, Jimmy up in New Hampshire, and C-Monkey at his perpetual birthday party in Newton, I was left to my own devices in our practice space. What better way to usher in the anniversary of this great nation by drankin beers, flipping shit on craigslist, and soldering electronics?

The first order of business: my amp has been seriously fucked up ever since we played that show on the beach for my brother’s graduation. I don’t know what it is—blown speaker… microphonic tubes… sand stuck in every crevice… still figuring it out. But one of my main problems with the DeVille is that the Eminence ‘Special Design’ speakers are kinda crappy. Plus, I was unsure if it’s my speakers that are the problem, or the tubes. In addition to that, as we’ve been recording for the past several weeks I’ve become addicted to the sound of closed-back cabinets.

I set out to find a 2×12, closed back cabinet loaded with Celestion Vintage 30’s, and I found just that. After approximately two weeks of checking craigslist intermittently, I found my baby: an Avatar 212H. Celestion Vintage 30s. Plus it’s Red—this is RED Quiet after all—and the grille was black, even more perfect. Avatar calls the black grille color “Oxblood,” which I think is seriously badass. For those unfamiliar with Avatar, they’re a company based in Idaho that builds guitar cabinets loaded predominantly with celestion speakers, but there are many other options as well. Their workmanship is revered accross many internet forums, notably at Harmony Central, which is where we musicians go to read user reviews of almost every musical device known to mankind, and several more that are still unknown.

So, here’s the deal. Homeboy on Craigslist, some kid out on Framingham, wants $275 for the cab. They ship new from Avatar for $399+shipping. Call it $500, when all is said and done. So I offer him $150. Remember, this is a buyer’s market. He counters with $200, I counter with $175. Bingo. After Friday’s close I zipped out to Framingham (a city that doesn’t exist, I found out) to meet my craigslist friend.

There are many types of guitar players. There are the acoustic Dave Matthews types with all the hair gel and love songs; there are the punks with their Epi SG’s rocking a 100W solid-state Peavey head into a Marshall 1960A; there are the Hendrix wannabes, with their white strats and wah pedals; there’s Morgan from the Darker Hues (who’s out of his fekkin mind). Last and least, there are douchebag guitar players you find on craigslist who spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a rig that will never leave their bedroom. This was that guy.

He lived in a condo in Framingham, which was pretty empty. He took me straight to his bedroom, wherein resided his METAL RIG. Sitting atop of my Avatar cab was pretty badass rack—if you’re into that sort of thing—which ran from a Furman Power Conditioner to one of those Korg rack tuners (same one Paul uses) into a Mesa Mark IV head, which is, in my opinion, the rolls royce of the Metal rig. So, all I want to do is hear him fire this thing up, hear that the cab works, and then GET THE F OUTTA FRAMINGHAM. With this meathead, though, this would be no easy task. On flips the amp, cables connected. He takes it off standby and I’m cringing in anticipation of heavy palm-mutes and pinch harmonics. But… no… sound. WTF. Then when he cranks it up you can hear something very faint and…. yeah, low battery.

At which point I look at his guitar: this twanker is playing a Paul Reed Smith with active pickups. The kid had basically the most expensive rig I’ve seen in the Boston scene. He’s digging through his closet looking for a 9-volt, and I start asking some questions.

—What band do you play in?

—None.

—Did you used to play in one?

—No.

—Never gigged?

—Never. Just play in my apartment.

—Lotta miles on these speakers?

He bought it in January. Just enough time to break them in for me.

Fast forward: I’m back in Boston, and back to the point of this post: What should I do with this gigantic, heavy wooden box filled with heavy, large magnets?

First order of business was to do my proper inspections. Off came the back, speakers check, connections check. Put it all back together, test it out.  The two speakers are wired in series giving the cabinet a total resistantce of 8 Ohms. My DeVille wants four. BUT, one of the main drawbacks—IMHO—of the Hot Rod DeVille is that it’s WAY TOO EASY to overdrive and clip-out the preamps before you get to power-tube-saturation-paradise, the place we all want to go. A cabinet with more resistance is going to lower the current and therefore the output. Scott Robot and I worked it out on a napkin at TT’s on Thursday night… we should expect a total loss of 3dB. Big fucking deal. Pedals plugged into pad input…. now I’m pushing volume to 5-6 when I used to be at 1.5. POWER. TUBE. SATURATION.

Now… In the beginning I was talking about DIY and not spending any money… here’s the flowchart.

I’m going to order two Jensen C12N’s from Jimmy’s brother up in New Hampshire. This is a reissue of the original speaker that made the Fender Twin the most coveted guitar amplifier in the history of rock and roll. 30-day money back guarantee. Try the Jensens, try the celestions. Compare and contrast. If I like the Jensens more I sell this cab on craigslist for about $200-250. Make a little money while I’m at it. If I find I don’t like the closed back cabinet—but like the speakers—Imma rip them out of the cabinet and put them in the DeVille. Then take the crappy Eminence speakers and put them in the Avatar Cab, put it on craigslist, and sell it for basically what I paid for it. Free speaker upgrade. Or… if I want to sell them both… I can simply remove the speakers, sell them on their own, and sell the cabinet on its own. Either way something is going to move.

Next order of business: Time make some tuneups in the stable. Bob, our producer, decided that the tone coming off my old crappy stratocaster was basically unusable as far as recording goes. In addition, I have an old Epi-SG with one GFS Mean-90 in the bridge wired straight to the lead. Doing a lot of nothing, basically. Then there’s Jimmy’s super-tele, which has a really nice feel but really shit pickups. Time for a little modification. A word on pickups. A guitar pickup is a magnet with a bunch of copper wire wrapped tightly around it. That’s all. If you’re spending a hundred bucks or more on ‘vintage’ boutique pickups you a retahd. Get on guitar fetish and buy some GFS pickups for about 20-30 bucks. Booya.

His super tele luckily had a humbucker in the bridge, and so it could easiliy accomidate a P-90 in the same socket without having to take the dreaded wood chisels to the body. Dope. For the neck puckup I ripped out a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder from that old strat, a leftover from the time in the old economy where I was paying out the ass to have Nitro Tone do my setups and mods. So I wired them both in, did some soldering, burned my hand only once, and there she was. It’s a feedback monster. Running through my beloved Catalinbread Ottava Magus it’ll singe more than your eyebrows.

The point is this: the Post-Bush economy, shitty as it is, is certainly a buyer’s market when it comes to gear. Of course, the reason it’s a buyer’s market is because everyone is seriously fucking broke. But, with a little clever googling, the ability to read a schematic wiring diagram, and some 7th grade soldering skills, it is quite possible not only to continue the chase after the ever-elusive sonic oasis, but to allow yourself time to experiment with sound in a way that would have never previously occured to you.

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