You probably have a humidity problem. Do you monitor the humidity in the room or case where the guitar is stored? Buy a high quality calibrated hygrometer or three inexpensive ones (hoping that at least two will agree). Humidify the room or case if it drops severely in the winter.
One of fhe American Standard’s advertised features in that period was a hotter bridge pickup. At least that’s true if the guitar has a Delta Tone system with switched pot.
Great amp. Ignore any advice to blackface it. The master volume is quite useful. I used to roll it back to 6 or 7 and the bass & treble near minimum for clean, warm, muscular jazz tone.
Those Celestion Golds are valuable, but are heavy (9.3 lb each). If you need to shave 10 lb off the amp, you...
A right angle plug reduces the leverage when the cable is tugged, which reduces risk of damage to the connectors, amp or guitar.
It can also help the cable drape better from the face of the amp, or from the guitar.
It came from Fender with that bead, and since it wasn’t damaged I left it there. It seems like hot glue, but apparenly a low adhesion type, since the plate wasn’t difficult to remove. It was only in that location—not on the other end of the plate.
Here’s another view of the plate and pickup. I...
My starting point was searching this amazing forum for similar issues and I found photos of the approaches you mentioned. I was considering those if this solution didn’t work, and I’ll definitely keep them in mind if the problem returns. Thanks!
I’m posting this in case it’s of use to others. I bought this 1997 American Standard Telecaster new and it’s all original. It’s never had a hum issue, but it’s always been sensitive to higher frequency noise such as light dimmers and computer monitors. I only realized recently that I could kill...
Following up on the last post... Plugged into the low input, the signal goes through a voltage divider, cutting the voltage to the grid in half. If you're not pushing the amp too hard, you can recover that loss by turning up the volume control.
I usually use the low input and set the volume...
Yes, it's critical to have every speaker in phase. My dad used to have a stereo with a phase switch, so you could go back and forth. When the phase was reversed, the bass dropped out of the center and higher frequencies just seemed like everything was turned inside out (I don't know how else to...
My '74 (or '75?) Twin Reverb export model has a master volume and pull boost. All components are date coded between 1973 and mid 1974. It's a 100W model, not the 135W ultralinear. The pull boost is useless, but I like having the MV. It's a great amp.
Since there are more than a few Tim Lerch fans here, I thought I'd spread the word that he just released a CD with his organ trio. It's jazzy, bluesy, soulful, countrified, and pure tele. I got my copy on Friday, and it's great.
http://www.timlerch.com/
There is no Telecaster that's "best for jazz". There might be one that's best for you. If you described what you do and don't like about your American Standard you might get some more useful advice.
Another consideration: Coupling to the floor reinforces bass frequencies. Raising the cabinet from the floor, and to some extent tilting the cabinet will reduce your bass response. You may or may not like that. It's another variable to experiment with.
I love having extension speakers or...
To be more accurate, it's neither a null nor a node. My point was that when you are sitting next to an open back cabinet, there is a lot of cancellation between front and back. If the audience can hear you but you can't hear yourself, that's probably the culprit.
With an open-back amp, the sounds from the front and back of the speaker are out of phase with each other. If you are sitting to the side, you are in the null! Tilting and/or moving the amp behind you gets you out of the null.
A wall a couple of feet behind the cabinet can also help fill the...
I have a version of the VSA Retro 20 sold through Sound Island Music. The tone stack is revoiced for jazz (less treble/less scooped midrange). This version adds presence (negative feedback) and reverb dwell controls, but no vibrato. I went with a Jensen Tornado neo speaker for headroom, tone...
I agree with a previous poster that disconnecting the treble control probably won't do much. Just turn it to 10. Your bass control bleeds a lot of signal to ground at any setting, so that's where to focus. You don't need to remove it. Just unsolder either its ground or hot side, whichever...
Buddy Miller always makes me smile. Most of today's mainstream pop country won't stand the test of time. Buddy's taking country music the right direction.
Look him up at allmusic.com, click the "credits" tab, and check out the other musicians he is associated with. You'll find a lot of great...
Try out a '65 Princeton Reverb Reissue. If possible make this a side-by-side comparison with your '68 Custom Princeton Reverb. See if the '65 gives you the additional headroom you are looking for. If so, read Fender's description of the differences between the two models, and reverse some of...
The "mid" control on a Fender amp is actually a mid cut. The flattest setting is 10 and as you turn it down it produces a notch centered around 700Hz. The mid could be handy if you happen to need a notch at that particular frequency. A fender amp with no mid control has a similar frequency...
By the way, removing or bypassing the Fender tone stack provides similar frequency response to the 0-10-0 tone control setting (i.e., flat!). People sometimes bypass the tone stack to recover the gain lost through the mid resistor.
I'd hate to go to this extreme, because I like having some...
The most common Fender tone stack is designed to have the flattest frequency response with the treble and bass controls both set to zero! If the amp has a mid contol, it behaves almost like a volume control when the treble and bass are set to zero, so you may as well set the mid to 10. That's...
For the other extreme, check out some live tracks with Jimmy Ryan and Hayride. Tracks 7 and 16 for instance.
https://archive.org/details/JimmyRyanAndHayrideLiveAtAtwoodsTavern
His take on Love and Peace is great:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuEOC-fJm48&feature=share&list=PLW5t2DsRN7IrBBsfkvMprw-dxsTddgjmU&index=10
(with Kevin Barry on lap steel).