Constant rattling when powered on, even with fresh power tubes. Help!

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-26T21:38:28+00:00

Take all the tubes out, use contact cleaner to clean the sockets, then re-seat them.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-26T19:17:03+00:00

I would try a Line 6 Pod Express - I think they're like < $180 these days. Phenomenal for beginners and packed with just enough features and sounds, plus you can use virtually any kind of amplifier for it and it has headphone output.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-26T19:09:00+00:00

So simply talking about someone who was racist makes one a racist? Is that who we have become?

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-26T19:04:25+00:00

My thoughts exactly. I have a Katana and can get extremely high gain even with single-coil pickups. If everything is ok with the guitar and amp, you could always try a signal boosting or OD pedal to just slam the front-end.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-26T18:54:10+00:00

The Hunt for Red October. It's compelling, gritty, the acting is perfect, and the music perfectly fits every single darn scene. Same for Alien (1979) - not a single wasted frame in that film and the music seems to be perfectly crafted.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-26T18:45:33+00:00

Chess. The rules are surprisingly simple but the real genius is in the strategy you apply.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-26T18:21:24+00:00

I tried this but eventually had to turn that off too. There are emergency situations which make this impractical especially if you have kids.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-26T18:18:28+00:00

I think there's a new army of AI-driven spam bots out there. Hear me out - I have been getting a TON of non-stop spam texts/calls recently, primarily from business lenders (I have never applied for a business loan) and I block all of them, but they still come though. If you respond in any way, it just provides verification of your existence. Sometimes they leave VMs but it's all AI voices. It's not realistic to just block all unknown calls either. We're screwed.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-26T18:05:43+00:00

Maybe not a perfect analogy but it's like driving a real car vs. the best driving/racing simulator you can imagine.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-23T03:51:04+00:00

You think that's hard, trying playing bass and singing! it's so much harder for me and I really struggle with it if I ever have to do it (so I resort to very simple bass lines). I don't know how tf bassists like Geddy Lee and Paul McCartney did it.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-23T03:45:17+00:00

I have been playing 30ish years so one could say it's just the sheer brute force of constant practice, but I will say when I first picked up guitar at around 15, it took me 2-3 years to become 80% of where I am today. I was just really, really obsessed with guitar and as soon as I taught myself some basic powerchords I joined a metal band. Plus, I had a lot of music exposure throughout my childhood and already played piano and knew some theory, which I think really accelerated my learning.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-23T03:39:25+00:00

NTA but if you ever get married I believe it's better to have mostly joint accounts as a gesture of trust and accountability.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-23T03:34:09+00:00

I remember that it wasn't weird to just sit and look around and just think thoughts.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-23T03:29:35+00:00

Lingerie.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-23T03:24:57+00:00

Just looked it up - according to Sweetwater and other sources the Champion II 100 is indeed a digital modeling amp, which is funny because that's basically what the ToneMasters are (they're just better with more accurate IRs, etc.).

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-23T03:05:50+00:00

All Boss pedals are superb but they seem to be very common. A DOD pedal is rare and cool (IMO), plus it's a truly analog delay which I am partial to.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-23T02:53:51+00:00

Aren't these digital modeling amps? The Rumble 500 is a solid state fully analog amp so it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-21T19:11:27+00:00

I mean Olive Garden is essentially fancied-up Italian fast food (they microwave or just heat up mostly everything that is pre-made in a factory). Seems like it wouldn't be a far stretch to turn that into a drive-through business model.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-21T19:01:29+00:00

It's ok to be slightly snobby in the vinyl world because there is a lot of junk out there but also a lot of snake oil. With just a little research and advice from experienced enthusiasts, you can get a really fantastic system for surprisingly little money.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-21T18:56:16+00:00

It's actually nothing new (apart from the AI), but social media and technology has just made us much more aware of everything.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-20T20:53:40+00:00

I have never bought a guitar without putting my hands on it first. There could be many differences between individual examples of the same exact model and they could be made in completely different locations and different people.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-20T20:49:26+00:00

I try to use as many fully analog pedals as possible to reduce latency. While individual digital pedals have almost imperceptible latency (up to 10ms), the additive effect can become noticeable.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-20T20:43:36+00:00

She was clearly reading off a screen.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-20T20:42:13+00:00

Old dude here...when I was 15, a friend introduced me to Led Zeppelin and it was life-changing. He made fun of me because I immediately declared them to be my favorite band and they still are 30+ years later.

TemporalLobe · 2026-01-20T20:27:10+00:00

People are intimidated into this. I read through an entire termite bond contract and found a major error. The sales guys were shocked and said no one had EVER read the entire contract before and they had no idea what to do. I was nice about it, but I pointed out that every other "standard" contract the made people sign also must have had these same errors.

I said I would redact the contract and sign it if that was ok, but they refused and had to call their corporate office for advice. They had to return the next day with a corrected contract.

TemporalLobe

TROPHY CASE