Sunday, November 25, 2012

Mission Chicago 32-20 Amp Acquisition - Part Two

I've had the opportunity to play this Mission amp out a few times.  I've had it out five times. 

The first time, I took it to Aki Kumar's jam.  We used it on several tunes and were planning on doing an A-B test with his Sonny Jr 410.  Unfortunately, there was some grounding issue on stage which effected both amps and made for an electrifying experience.  (It has since been rectified.)

The second time, I took it to a jam.  I brought a camera.  Unfortunately, a sax player sat right in front of the camera.  It didn't affect the sound quality dramatically, but I thought a video of the crotch of a balding, middle aged, overweight sax player wouldn't be interesting to anyone.

The third time out, I took it to another jam.  I forgot the camera.  The fourth time, I loaned it to Aki Kumar for a low volume gig.  The amp was way too loud for that place.  It was on the lowest usable setting.  He had the volume control on his mic way down in this video.



A few days ago, I replaced the 12AX7 in the preamp socket with a 12AY7 and it gave me quite a bit more usable range on the volume control.  The amp came with a 12AX7.  The volume control was pretty touchy.  

Friday night, I sat in with Steve Freund.  I brought the amp with me.  I had the camera.  I found a good spot to set it up.  I had a hard time keeping the band in the video frame.  This was all that I got with every one on stage.  So far, I am pretty happy with this amp.  I still have a bit of work to do to dial it in a bit where I want it.



There is a lot more volume to be had than where I had the amp and microphone set.  I have noticed that the amp matches up pretty well with most of my microphones, but some do sound better.  Right now, I am using a JT30 with a Shure 99A86 in it.  There is less feedback and it seems to sound better.