What's everyone up to right now?

[Nakara]

In the bathroom at work, and the automatic light just turned off on me -_-

[Rev. Rye]

Dad’s been working on the amp. Here’s how it looks now.



Not pictured:

• The VAUX logo that Dad has already designed because the Letterboard letters he found weren’t close enough or small enough.
  
• The Naugahyde used to cover the wood as a compromise between Tolex and the fake pigskin on my Pignose.
  
• A proper way of integrating the AC-Tone into the amp circuitry
  
• The chicken head amp knobs.
  
• The brass handle, bar between the speaker grille and top, and box corners to be put on it as a finishing touch.
  
• Preamp output to plug into a PA.
  
• Battery extension.
  

I should note that I don't even know how it'll sound, but given the components, I'll expect a mix of this:



and this




Also, even though the amp is only 15 watts, it turns out 15 is plenty for most real-world applications (unless you're playing to packed arenas with no PA reinforcement and fans screaming so loudly that they compete with the band), and according to my calculations, this little 14 watt Vaux could potentially be 57.3% the volume of (read: 8 decibels less than) those iconic 100-watt stacks.



Math here:

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Using the chart at 1:16 as my guide, here's how I calculated it: log(1.4)=0.1461280357 [Number in parentheses is the ratio of the target wattage to 10 watts]. Since the baseline is that zero would be the 50% volume of the 10watt, log(1)=0, and log(10)=1, I divide the result by two. Log(1.4)/2=.073064. Add .5 and you get 0.5730640178. It's trivially easy to get the percentage from there.

---

And that's how Neil Young can wow arenas while Old Black is hooked up to an amp of comparably low power.

[Peebothuhlu]

AT home.

Not at work!

Bheer is goood!  

[Jackalope]

@Rev

I invitedare anyone who doesn't think 50W (RMS) isn't LOUD to be in a small room with a Marshall 50W half stack. Turned up to about 8.

[Rev. Rye]

@Rev

I invitedare anyone who doesn't think 50W (RMS) isn't LOUD to be in a small room with a Marshall 50W half stack. Turned up to about 8.

Okay, thinking about Speaker sensitivity, my estimation of about 8 decibels difference was a bit off. Using this calculator and my speaker's 88dB sensitivity, I ended up calculating it and its peak SPL (from a meter away) is closer to 100dB (99.5, to be precise, 102.5 if it's near a wall, and 105.5 if it's in a corner). Comparing it with this video of a 100w full stack at full blast:



It looks like my calculation is a lot softer than expected, but still plenty loud. Jackhammer loud, and, naturally, there'll be the line out for live applications (thankfully, the speaker emulation in the preamp circuit will help with that). But still, this little 14 watt amp with a speaker of less than optimal sensitivity, according to calculations, can be as loud as a jackhammer, motorcycle, or power mower at its peak power. Naturally, I can see no reason a 50w half-stack can't get so loud it's literally painful.

[Jackalope]

I knew a guy back in the 80s who's (rich) dad bought him a full stack when he was 15 (he went on to play guitar for Rob Halford amongst others). It was pointless; it was so obscenely loud you could never play through it.

[Rev. Rye]

I think I have found the worst thing ever to be made for YouTube. Unclick the hide button and bear witness to the following:

• A shitty rehash of Skrillex masterminded by the same manufacturers of Extruded Music Product that spawned “Friday.”
  
• A singer who was, at the time of the video’s release, was eleven years, nine months, and one day old.
  
• Said eleven-year-Old girl (young enough that her last single was literally called “ABCDEFG”) being dressed up in scanty clothing that seems to be an amalgam of the tackiest and most stripperific fashion choices of Ariana Grande, Ke$ha, and Lady Gaga (including one scene where her upper body is covered only by a vest, yellow caution tape, and gaudy makeup.)
  
• Said eleven-year-Old girl (who is younger than Dolores “Lolita” Haze was canonically) being repeatedly executed on the least convincing electric chair I’ve ever seen.
  
• The most Tone-deaf homage to Tarantino in the history of media that I can only assume was meant to be aimed at children. 
  
• The apparent assumption that saying the phrase “Shut Up” is somehow less appropriate than any of the Shit in this video.
  

---

---

Yup, it’s Jesse Custer time. 



Honestly, how has Patrice Wilson managed to not get named and shamed by #metoo? Or arrested?

[Angrboda]

Muddling through deciding what to do about having one drive fail and another reporting imminent failure in a 3 drive RAID 5 array. I have most of the info still on the old server, presuming it's still functional, but still, it's the last thing I need. I was tempted to spend $250 on mostly new disks to upgrade the RAID 1 mirror from 2 TB to 4 TB and restore the RAID 5 array, but I decided against it. Delaying past this weekend means I'll lose a $35 discount on the new disks, so I can't really change my mind after midnight. I'll be going with a bunch of used/pre-owned hard drives, but hopefully they will last a while and won't go belly up at the first opportunity. In the meantime, I'm buying materials to burn and store the zillions of DVD video files on my disks, freeing up space to use for greater redundancy/backup of more important data.

[Rev. Rye]

Currently watching Jem and the Holograms for my weekly horrible film resolution. I've only watched a single episode of the original series (the anti-drug one) and somehow I can tell that literally the only thing they kept from the original series are the names. 

And I just found out it's so lazy that it uses Google Earth for its scene transitions, AND DOESN'T EVEN BOTHER TO AIRBRUSH THE LOGO OUT OF THE SHOT.



(Yes, I took this from my phone direct from my bedroom TV instead of a more direct route. This was a spur of the moment thing and this movie doesn’t even deserve a decent-looking screenshot anyway.)





On second thought, this may be a deliberate stylistic choice to tie in with the obsession with modern internet culture that the film shows. A Stupid one, but still perhaps deliberate. I may be switching back to the commentary whenever it shows up again to see if this is the case, but the last few times I tried it, there was no mention of it. 

Also, I think I need to give that "watch a So Bad It's Horrible film per week for an entire year" a better name. So far, I'm thinking of going with "The Deep Hurting Project."

[Fireball]

Currently watching Jem and the Holograms for my weekly horrible film resolution. I've only watched a single episode of the original series (the anti-drug one) and somehow I can tell that literally the only thing they kept from the original series are the names. 

And I just found out it's so lazy that it uses Google Earth for its scene transitions, AND DOESN'T EVEN BOTHER TO AIRBRUSH THE LOGO OUT OF THE SHOT.



(Yes, I took this from my phone direct from my bedroom TV instead of a more direct route. This was a spur of the moment thing and this movie doesn’t even deserve a decent-looking screenshot anyway.)





On second thought, this may be a deliberate stylistic choice to tie in with the obsession with modern internet culture that the film shows. A Stupid one, but still perhaps deliberate. I may be switching back to the commentary whenever it shows up again to see if this is the case, but the last few times I tried it, there was no mention of it. 

Also, I think I need to give that "watch a So Bad It's Horrible film per week for an entire year" a better name. So far, I'm thinking of going with "The Deep Hurting Project."

Leaving in the GOOGLE Earth logo could just be a nod to "Cheepniss", ala Frank Zappa.