chillybilly
Tele-Meister
I wanted to like mine (blonde TM Twin). I NEEDED to like mine, you could even say. I needed big Fender sound (and, to a lesser extent, the look) as the vintage blonde Showman I'd been using was no longer available to me. Needless to say a blackface and a brownface are different to begin with but the TM stumbled out of the gate and eventually had to be put down.
Attenuated, it was the old covered-with-a-blanket phenomenon. Doesn't necessarily make sense in a purely digital context but there it was. So I opened 'er up to the full 85W and kept that volume low. At least the articulation improved.
I took it to a rehearsal. Musicians coo over a new amp the way ladies coo over a baby. As the evening progressed, the eyebrows in the room including my own began to rise and not in a good way. Lots of sidelong glances.
Then we had a gig. Outdoors. Nightmare. The bugaboo with so many digital gewgaws: it disappeared in a live mix with frequencies flying and bouncing around. We fiddled with the volume and attenuation. We fiddled with EQ. About halfway through the set I thought the bass player might smack me in the mush with his headstock. Hey, I just dropped $1K trying to help with the backline!
I had a perfectly good '65 Deluxe reissue sitting at home and didn't think to bring it. The common worry is that a Deluxe will run out of clean headroom but the stories are legion of Deluxes holding their own against drums, bass and general stage cacaphony. A little bit of breakup from a Deluxe sounds heavenly anyway even for 'clean' parts.
The next week, it was the Deluxe. Necessity. Desperation. And a bit of anger and buyer's remorse. As I stared across the stage at the other guitarist and his vintage blackface Concert I feared being hopelessly overmatched. Many times in rehearsals I had been 10 ft from that jet engine. But...we did our own sound and got good levels and balance, thank you very much. In the end, I barely touched 4 on the Deluxe volume and my fears were moot. I received smiles instead of scowls, after-gig beers instead of beration.
I've carried plenty of heavy gear - not just amps - up plenty of ramps, staircases etc. It ain't fun even without physical limitations. The promise of the Fender sound and the classic Fender look in a lightweight package are an enticing combination. 'We eat with our eyes,' an old boss in the seafood business once said. My response now might be 'yes, we do but with music gear eventually the ears take over.'
Like the confused, frustrated construction worker who found the singing, dancing Michigan J. Frog in the Warner Bros cartoon and thought he'd found the shortcut to showbiz success, I admitted defeat and quietly sold the TM Twin on.
Horses for courses and all that. To the satisfied TM users, I quote Charlie (Fred Savage)'s friend in 'Vice Versa': 'Hey if you guys are interfacing, that's cool.'
Attenuated, it was the old covered-with-a-blanket phenomenon. Doesn't necessarily make sense in a purely digital context but there it was. So I opened 'er up to the full 85W and kept that volume low. At least the articulation improved.
I took it to a rehearsal. Musicians coo over a new amp the way ladies coo over a baby. As the evening progressed, the eyebrows in the room including my own began to rise and not in a good way. Lots of sidelong glances.
Then we had a gig. Outdoors. Nightmare. The bugaboo with so many digital gewgaws: it disappeared in a live mix with frequencies flying and bouncing around. We fiddled with the volume and attenuation. We fiddled with EQ. About halfway through the set I thought the bass player might smack me in the mush with his headstock. Hey, I just dropped $1K trying to help with the backline!
I had a perfectly good '65 Deluxe reissue sitting at home and didn't think to bring it. The common worry is that a Deluxe will run out of clean headroom but the stories are legion of Deluxes holding their own against drums, bass and general stage cacaphony. A little bit of breakup from a Deluxe sounds heavenly anyway even for 'clean' parts.
The next week, it was the Deluxe. Necessity. Desperation. And a bit of anger and buyer's remorse. As I stared across the stage at the other guitarist and his vintage blackface Concert I feared being hopelessly overmatched. Many times in rehearsals I had been 10 ft from that jet engine. But...we did our own sound and got good levels and balance, thank you very much. In the end, I barely touched 4 on the Deluxe volume and my fears were moot. I received smiles instead of scowls, after-gig beers instead of beration.
I've carried plenty of heavy gear - not just amps - up plenty of ramps, staircases etc. It ain't fun even without physical limitations. The promise of the Fender sound and the classic Fender look in a lightweight package are an enticing combination. 'We eat with our eyes,' an old boss in the seafood business once said. My response now might be 'yes, we do but with music gear eventually the ears take over.'
Like the confused, frustrated construction worker who found the singing, dancing Michigan J. Frog in the Warner Bros cartoon and thought he'd found the shortcut to showbiz success, I admitted defeat and quietly sold the TM Twin on.
Horses for courses and all that. To the satisfied TM users, I quote Charlie (Fred Savage)'s friend in 'Vice Versa': 'Hey if you guys are interfacing, that's cool.'
as it did show up the 'real' sound of my stock pickups, sounds so much so different from the Yamaha THR and other smaller amps I had been playing it through-more sense of presence and the pickups tone limitations - not drastic though.
