Whenever one’s life takes on a new interest, it usually means some money will be spent in pursuit of that interest. That is what happened to me with the resurgence of playing music. I had a lot of old equipment, that hadn’t been used for a long time, but a lot of it didn’t work, or didn’t work very well.
When the group I jam with recently decided to play a bit of electric music, I lugged my big old guitar amp out of my shop where it had been sitting unused for years. What a chore it was to have to move that heavy thing around, and it was so big and powerful, that it was way more amp than what I needed to play in a small room.
I thought about my little Peavy guitar amp, and how much better it would serve my purpose. Unfortunately, it didn’t work any more, and so it remained sitting in storage in my shop. It had quit working once before, but then Evan, a friend of mine, offered to try to fix it, and he did. When I got it back it worked, but after a while, it quit again, and I decided to give up on it, so it became a resident of the shop attic.
Manhandling my big amp made me decide that I should just break down and buy another small amp. That would make my musical life a whole lot easier, so that’s what I did. I ordered a small Fender guitar amp (Mustang II) on line and have been anxiously awaiting its arrival.
Another thing I started doing was playing around with GarageBand, Apple’s recording studio software. I used to mess around with it a lot and had a gismo that allowed me to play my electric guitar through the computer. Now the program has been updated many times, the adapter that allowed me to play through the amp, really didn’t work properly anymore, so I once again decided to bite the bullet and purchased, online, a newer gadget that would do the same thing.
After I had ordered that gadget, I started looking at the adapter that allowed me to play my guitar through my iPad, and discovered another cable that came with it, that had a USB end allowing me to play guitar through the computer. I plugged it in, and sure enough, I was able to access all the different guitar amplifier sounds and record in GarageBand. It looks like I really didn’t have to buy the other adapter that hasn’t yet arrived. Such is life.
The other day at the library, I ran into Evan, an told him about ordering a new small Fender guitar amp and waiting for its arrival. The conversation turned to my old Peavy amp, and he told me that if they weren’t used often, some part of their electric components stopped working. I asked if I should just plug it in for a while, but he seemed to think that that wouldn’t really charge it up.
Last night, while I was looking for something else in the shop attic, I saw the lonely Peavy sitting there, so I carried it into the house, and for a lark, plugged it in to see if its isolation had motivated it into working. I plugged my electric guitar into it, strummed some chords, but there was nothing that came out of the speaker. That’s that, I thought.
I went on to do other things, then about 20 minutes later, the Peavy made a loud crackle sound. Curious, I again plugged in my electric guitar in to the Peavy, and strummed some chords, and astonishingly, beautiful electric guitar sounds filled the room. While happy at the rebirth, I had to shake my head when I realized that I would soon have the new one arriving on my door step, and the Peavy would probably end up back in the shop attic.
Realistically, I’m not sure how dependable the Peavy is. I doubt it will work continually now on, and I don’t know how long I will have to wait before I play it, each time I plug it in, but still it seems very wasteful to have two guitar amps (three if you count my big one).
I feel a bit foolish buying both the new computer input adapter, and the new amp, when I probably, with a little frustration, could have gotten by with the old things I had, but I didn’t know at the time. On the positive side, new things always add a bit of excitement and motivation.
To read older blogs or to see my paintings, go to: www.davidmarchant.ca
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