Blogging Ottinger (tim)

So, we’re done now? Most of us have been “done with it” for YEARS.

I got to be a Mac guy for a few months. I had the nice new Macbook Pro with the 15″ monitor and lotsa ram/disk.

I didn’t become a mac fanboy. I thought the device worked well, and I fell in love with the idea of 5 hours of battery life (which I actually got with the screen dimmed and the wifi turned off). I will never get used to a normal touchpad ever again. I kinda miss the nice Control-Space finder tool.

But I didn’t like installing and upgrading software, and I didn’t have the huge supply of ready-to-install software via ports that I have with the likes of Debian or Ubuntu. The filesystem hierarchy is different (not better) and it was not as much fun to get programming tools into the box. I don’t buy software, so I didn’t try any of the Mac special software that didn’t come with the box.

The UI is quirky and pretty, and the hardware is very nice but it wasn’t enough to win my heart in a few months of use. I actually didn’t like the terminal emulator, and that was a big turnoff. It had some nice UI effects, but I generally turn those off in Linux and Windows (not that I’ve spent any considerable amount of time in Windows in the past 7 years or so).

I think that Mac is a huge improvement if you’re used to Windows or RedHat-based distributions. If you are used to APT then you’ll not find anything nearly as nice in Mac. If you are comfy in XFCE, Gnome, or KDE you might find the apple UI a little annoying. I didn’t like that the UI was not remotable like X (though you can install X on it, just as you can install it in Windows — as a second-class citizen).

It was okay. I happily recommend it to my friends needing long battery life and jet-setter portability. If you have a Windows box, definitely check out Mac. If you are using Ubuntu or Debian, don’t expect too much and you might love it. I just didn’t fall in love.

I have an old 1980s Crate “vintage club 50″ combo amplifier (one speaker). It looks rather a lot like this one in a photo I snagged from an ebay ad (mine doesn’t have the price tag over the vents ):

I got it at a second-hand store call “Six Strings Down” in Plainfield, IN many years ago. My friend Steve Marcum was into the amp search, and took me to many guitar places. I had decided to finally go all-tube at Steve’s insistance and spent a few days playing a lot of other amps, including Marshall and Fender models well out of my price range, and this crate amp had the the sound I was looking for.

The Vintage Club 50 has 12ax7 preamp tubes (a kind of standard) and EL84 power tubes (a standard for British-like amps), which probably account for the great sound. I think the power tubes I got with it were Electro-Harmonix (power tubes)

I played the amp for years, practicing on Wednesday nights (and some saturdays) and playing in Sunday services (sometimes multiple services). As a newbie, I didn’t know you were supposed to rebias and retube your amp every year or two. I didn’t. Now my friend Jonathan is trying his hand at amp servicing in preparation for building (perhaps designing?) his own tube amp. My Crate had a blown fuse (which he replaced), while he had it opened up he took a look at the tubes. He says re-tubing is seriously overdue.

Now we’re into the wild world of tube selection. There is more variety than I expected. I am doing some online reading, and apparently different manufacturers of EL84 power tubes and 12AX7 preamp tubes all build them with different sound characteristics. The pair for my clean channel might be of different manufacture than those for the lead channel. The same for the preamp tubes, I guess?

The difference between two similar tubes (or even two dissimilar tubes) might not be enough for the average listener to tell, but maybe this is what chasing tone is all about. I should probably be figuring out what I want soon, and then budgeting my bi-yearly retubing and rebiasing costs.

My only complaints about the amp are that

1. The jacks are not wired over to the circuit board, they’re soldered down to it. My most expensive repair was when I walked away with a guitar plugged in and it broke some traces. This is really another good reason to have at least one effect plugged in — it gives more cable to take up the slack.
2. It’s almost too loud to use in church. It certainly can get too loud if you turn it up past three or four.

I’ve considered getting a lower-wattage amp (and have a whole survey document I should post here). Right now the Blackheart 5w/3w switchable “Little Giant” amp looks really, really good to me. I’m not ‘all about the distortion’, but lower power with tube sweetness really does appeal to me. I’m not interested in simulated tubes right now. I could dig some vox tube happiness. I’ve thought about getting a head, cab, and attenuator setup but that’s a lot to haul in and out of the closet.

It will be good to get the amp back, and all the better if it has a cleaner clean and a crunchier lead than before. I am still interested in the new lower-wattage amplifiers, but I am excited about getting my amp back.

<grin>

Update 31 Aug 2008
I decided to go a little upscale this time around. I am getting Tung-sol 12AX7 tubes (matched) for preamp channels and Mullard EL84 for power tubes. Just the tubes will run me about $120.00, and then there is the rebiasing and a paltry sum for my friend’s time & effort. It will be pretty close to $200.00.

I’m a little iffy about putting out bigger coin this time, knowing it’s temporary and I’ll want to do it again in a couple of years. I don’t want to get “addicted” to high-end tubes, but I do want to hear what this can sound like if it’s set up really well. I will probably start looking for budget tubes later on, so I don’t have crazy ongoing cost.

I’m aware that tube is a bit more fragile and costs more in the long run, but I’m still sure this is the right way to go for tone. I’ll just keep a little vox sold-state amp waiting in the background for when something goes poorly.

Updated 8 Sept 2008, from friends’ comments

A friend asked me how to do this, and I didn’t really understand the question at first. Finally I figured out the answer and mailed it back. It’s a reasonable question, so maybe it should get a place in my vim wall of fame.

1. You mark and yank your text, and it goes into the register named ” (doulbequote).
2. You go to the new place and mark the stuff you want to replace (as usual).
3. Now either:
   1. You press ‘p’ to “put” the default register over the doomed area
   2. Continue editing as normal.

   or

   1. You press ‘c’ for change. The marked text disappears, and you’re in insert mode.
   2. You type ^R” and it pastes the ” register into the current position.
   3. You press escape to leave insert mode.

Notice that you don’t have to use the default register. You can use any named register, and you have an awful lot of them. If you use register “a” for example, you would use "ay to yank the register. If you were doing a normal put, you would use "ap, or if you were using the change/insert mode you would use ^ra to paste the a register into the marked area.

If you are going to do a lot of search/replace, you’re still possibly better off using “:%s” substitution, but it’s reasonable to use this trick for relatively local replacement of arbitrary regions of code.

After I worked this out, I realized I needed it yesterday. And Monday. Duh. Would have definitely used named register instead of the double-quote default register.

I’ve always wanted to see a flightworthy p38 lightning (fork-tailed devil). I’ve seen some polished up and sitting in museums, but never seen a “live” one. This year at OshKosh AirVenture 2008 I saw Ruff’s Stuff:

And I saw Glacier Girl, the P38 rescued from ice. I knew this story, but had never seen the real plane. Not only did I get to see it on static display, but I got to see and hear it in the air. Here it is flying with a P51 and an F22.

Beautiful.

All the kids lined up and in a row. The signal path is right to left, a Main Squeeze compressor/sustainer, a Smash Box distortion pedal, my TubeScreamer clone, and the Danelectro Chicken Salad.

Having all of them on is really interesting. I get a ton of sustain from the Main Squeeze, which is roughed up by the Smash Box and then mellowed and focused by the tube screamer — long, fat notes. Finally the Chicken Salad gives it a mid boost and that sweet vibe “wobble” we love so much. Great for solos, though too little of the original guitar sweetness makes it through. It’s not the guitar’s natural sound, but it’s a good sound.

The last two are the newest ones. They get closeups.

This above pedal the one that my buddy Jonathan built for me. It is just amazing. It’s got a germanium and an LED diode, and the middle position on the toggle has them both working together. It’s meaty and very fine. It makes my distortion box sound a million times better.

The above chicken salad pedal is a vibe effect, it’s really not very expensive but it’s very nice. I use it dirty as a vibe, but if you tone it down it is like a nice chorus or a nice phase. Or maybe kinda like both. It came with the translucent plastic cover to protect the knobs.

The other item playing a supporting role in the top picture is a Visual Sound “OneSpot” power adapter kit with an eight-plug daisy chain cable. I can hook up these four pedals and four more with quiet power. And it takes up only one spot on a power strip or wall outlet.

I wanted to make up some more of my rub, but couldn’t find my recipe. That’s what happens when you don’t blog, boys and girls. Silly me. I have a very small sample of the original, and a little bit of memory of what it was like to make it.

This rub started out to be a chili powder, but I thought I could innovate a bit and end up with something better, richer, deeper, more complex than the average cumin, salt, garlic, and cayenne pepper powder. I added a little clove, a little allspice, a little ginger…. I used mostly ancho pepper powder rather than cayenne (though a little cayenne makes a nice “front burn”) and some habenero powder for the “back burn”. I added some powdered mustard, because that makes all my hot sauce attempts better. A little paprika to make it more smokey and fun.

Ooo. A little complex, this. Not too much of a price to pay for a miracle powder that would make everything you eat into an amazing experience. Even if you overcook it a bit.

A real chef wouldn’t probably have done this, because they could make something much simpler taste much better, but I just loved it. I wish I could just put it through a replicator rather than try to reproduce it through trial-and-error.

As it turns out, it wasn’t that great as a chili powder, because I took it too far from the accepted norms. It was great as a rub and a spice mix. I put it in hamburgers, on buttered corn, in chip dip, and even in soups and chili. I really liked this stuff. It had a fascinating layered complexity and was hot too. Hot came in three waves, even. The front burn (I think it’s the cayenne, anyway), the main burn (ancho) and the late burn that stings like a slap in the face. Yeah, it was good.

I poured some of the old powder on some pork ribs and dropped them in the oven for a bake. By the time they’re done, I should be too. The paprika, cumin, and ancho together give anything a lovely smokey flavor. I figure a little dry rub “faux bbq” would sustain me tonight.

Time to start over, I figured and I grabbed some utensils and spice jars. If I’m doing this, I’m doing enough to last a little while. Why not a big batch of powder?

Sadly, I didn’t have my original recipe or all the original ingredients. Gonna have to improvise. That means that I’m not really going to replicate the orginal. Now the question is what I could do that would be nearly as interesting, or maybe even better. The mad scientist gene kicked in, though, and I got carried away with ingredients. There is more here than I intended, and I let my pork ribs overcook while tasting and testing and mixing.

The habanero we have was flakes, not powder. No problem, says I. I got the mortar and pestle. Let’s skip the story and leave it at this: keep your face away from the grinding. Especially when it’s a really hot pepper.

No ginger this time, but here’s what we had:

• 1 part ground clove
• 2 parts ground fennel
• 2 parts mustard powder
• 4 parts paprika
• 4 parts garlic powder (Note: a little too much)
• 12 parts ancho pepper
• 2 parts cayenne pepper*
• 2 parts habenero flakes, ground at personal risk into powder
• 20 parts cumin

* I added four more scoops (making 16 parts more, total of 18 parts or 4 1/2 scoops) of cayenne. It got a lot better.

In my case “1 part” was 1/4 of the measure I was using, but that’s about the proportion. If it comes out good, I’ll at least have the blog’s copy of my recipe even if I don’t have anything else.

How can I test this? I was thinking of something bland, maybe buttered toast, but I didn’t pick up butter on the way home. Anything too dry and it won’t develop the flavor. I figure about a teaspoon of water and enough powder to get a good taste. Not quite a paste, but a very thin sauce. I slurp that up and wait for something to happen.

The first thing to hit you is the fennel and garlic. A nice, garden-y flavor, probably would be good with fish or poultry. Nothing fancy. Not quite what I’m after. I wanted more cayenne flavor up front, but I ran out of cayenne powder. I’ll have to adjust this after I get to the store. Next thing to hit you is the cumin. When that hits, the garlic is holding on but the fennel is backing away. There’s a little low note from the cloves. Nothing unpleasant, but nothing remarkable. Kind of a weak chili powder now. Oh, there is the Ancho pepper. Lots of it. Medium heat, smoky, and the cumin backs off as the pepper kicks in. Finally, there’s the habanero punch. Definitely habanero. The tongue goes tingly and numb, but the garlic is still hanging on. After the punch is all gone, the garlic remains.

Of course the real test is how it works on various foods. Now I have another reason to cook up some of the stuff out of my freezer.

Note to self: less garlic, less fennel, less cumin, more peppers. Maybe double up on them.

1 Sept 2008
I busted out the powder last night to put in a rice-n-beef mixture we’re just calling “chili beef and rice” here. It was incredible. I put a little in my eggs this morning, and didn’t care that much for it. It’s all in the context. It has mellowed while all mixed together. It has a really great flavor, and any issues with overage of garlic or fennel are faded. I could have a bit less cumin, but it’s okay. It’s not overbearing. It’s a really nice mix. I will be using it more in the near future, since it’s easier to have peppers in powered form than in liquid form at work. Maybe I’ll keep a little shaker in my computer bag for meal times.