Dear Jeff,
I’m an older rocker who wants to learn electric guitar. I picked up a Fender Super 60 at an auction, but it doesn’t work. (Figures!) I’ve tried a guitar and a mic—and nothing. I live near Minneapolis and need to start asking around about who can help me. I looked up the schematic, but I’ll have to noodle on it for a while because I’m not fluent in electronics. The tubes light up and the fuse is good. It doesn’t even pop when plugging in devices. Is it worthwhile to start replacing some tubes? Is there anything quick or easy to check?
Thanks for your time. Rock ‘n’ roll!
Twisted Dave
Hi, Twisted Dave and Ask Amp Man readers. I quite often get questions like this, where people are basically saying: “I have an amp and it’s not working properly. Is there anything I can do?” Well, being a guy who has repaired amps for 30-plus years and having respect for others that do so, my first response should be “Take it to your local repair guy!” But ya know, sometimes there isn’t a local repair guy, or you may be on the road, or it may be 15 minutes before hit time and you didn’t bring a spare amp! (Shame, shame.) Whatever the reason, I’m going to try to help you help yourself.
As I write this column, we’re into the beginning of the new year and it’s cold out. Okay, for some it’s really cold out. But it won’t be long before the spring thaw, and that hopefully means more gigs, more outdoor shows, and maybe even more touring. While this is fantastic, most of the time you’re going to be your own tech and crew, which, when your amp goes down, might not be so fantastic. That being the case, I’m going to do my best to give you a step-by-step troubleshooting procedure so you can hopefully find and repair some common failures. You might want to keep this issue in your gig bag, tool box, or even in the back of the amp. Some of these fixes may sound simple or seem intuitive, but following these steps couldget you out of a bind. Also, you may notice some of these procedures assume that you have a particular item, and that’s because … you should! Read through this thoroughly and be sure that you have a “spares” kit with everything you’ll need to fix these problems. (Hint: Those items are in bold type.) Good luck.
Photo 1
• Step 1: Does the power light go on? Be sure your amp is in “standby” mode, if so equipped. If the answer is yes, proceed to Step 2. If not, first check the fuse. Almost every amp has at least one external fuse holder. If you don’t see one, it may be contained in the AC inlet (Photo 1) where the power cable plugs in. Look for a little rectangle as part of the assembly. If it’s there, you’ll need a small flat-blade screwdriver or something similar to pry it out. Sometimes a fuse can look good and still be bad. If you have a small multimeter, check the continuity. If you don’t have a meter, install a replacement fuse. If the amp still doesn’t come on and it has a detachable power cable, install a replacement power cable. Believe it or not, they can go bad, too!
• Step 2: Did the amp blow a fuse or does it continue to blow fuses? If not, proceed to Step 3. If the answer is yes and the amp is equipped with a tube rectifier, install a replacement rectifier tube. If it doesn’t have a rectifier tube, or continues to blow a fuse after a new one has been tried, install a replacement set of output tubes.
WARNING:
All tube amplifiers contain lethal voltages. The most dangerous voltages are stored in electrolytic capacitors, even after the amp has been unplugged from the wall. Before you touch anything inside the amp chassis, it’s imperative that these capacitors are discharged. If you are unsure of this procedure, consult your local amp tech.• Step 3: Does the amp make any noise at all? Does it make a little pop when you turn the power on (or flick on standby, if so equipped). Or is there possibly some hiss through the speaker(s)? If the answer is yes, proceed to Step 4. If not, and the amp has a second, external HT fuse, check that fuse with the multimeter or install a replacement HT fuse. If it doesn’t have an HT fuse, but it does have a tube rectifier, install a replacement rectifier tube. If the amp still makes no sound, you’ll need to check the speaker in the following ways.
A) If the amp is a combo and the speaker plugs into the chassis, unplug the speaker and check across the jack with your multimeter. You should get some sort of resistance measurement between maybe 3 and 15 ohms, depending on the impedance of the speaker. If you get no reading, try to check directly across the speaker terminals. If you now have a reading, install a replacement speaker cable. These cables, especially the types used in combos, which utilize a molded plastic plug, can definitely go bad.
Photo 2
B) If the amp is the combo type where the speaker leads are hardwired to the chassis, but you can remove connectors from the speaker, remove at least one connector and measure directly across the speaker (Photo 2). If you get a decent reading, the speaker should be okay.
C) If you don’t have a multimeter, but the amp has an external speaker jack, plug any other speaker cabinet into the amp—even if it’s a bass cabinet. All you want to find out is if the amp has some sort of output. If the amp does have some output, your speaker or speaker lead is more than likely the failure.
• Step 4: Does the amp have an effects loop? If “yes,” there are a couple ways to use it for troubleshooting, so follow the steps below in order. If “no,” skip to Step 5.
Photo 3
A) Grab a short 1/4” jumper cable. The type used between effects pedals is great, but any guitar cable is fine. Plug one end into the send and the other end into the return jack (Photo 3). If you now have sound, the switching contacts in the effects loop are compromised and need to be thoroughly cleaned, or the jacks replaced. If there’s no sound, continue to the next step.
Photo 4
B) Plug your guitar into the effects loop return jack to see if the amp has any output (Photo 4). At this point you’re past all the front-end gain and tone functions, so don’t expect them to work. You may, however, need to turn the master volume all the way up, if the amp is so equipped. If you have output, the volume will be substantially reduced and only controllable with the volume of your guitar, but that’s okay. If you don’t have output, proceed to Step C. If you do, proceed to Step D.
C) If you had no output, more than likely there are only one or two preamp tubes that could be the cause. Starting with the preamp tube closest to the output tubes (or farthest away from the input jack), install a replacement (12AX7) preamp tube. This will typically be the phase inverter tube, and while some amps utilize a 12AT7 in this position, using a 12AX7 for troubleshooting purposes is fine. If there is still no output, replace the original tube and move on to the next tube down the line. There is probably no need to go more than two tubes back from the output, as anything else would be pre-effects loop.
D) If you did have output when plugging into the effects loop return jack, this generally means that the problem is in the front end somewhere. Starting from the tube closest to the input jack, install a replacement tube and see if the amp has output. If not, replace the original and move on down the line to the next preamp tube.
• Step 5—Take your amp to a reputable, experienced tube amp repair technician, since that’s about all you can troubleshoot and repair yourself.
Hopefully this will, at some point, get you out of a bit of hot water ... or, at the very least, amaze your friends!
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For the first time in the band’s history, the Dawes lineup for Oh Brother consisted of just Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith (left and right).
Goldsmith’s lyrics spoke to me the loudest, with lines like “Well, you can judge the whole world on the sparkle that you think it lacks / Yes, you can stare into the abyss, but it’s starin’ right back” (a casual Nietzsche paraphrase); and “Oh, the snowfall this time of year / It’s not what Birmingham is used to / I get the feeling that I brought it here / And now I’m taking it away.” The way his words painted a portrait of the sincere, sentimental man behind them, along with his cozy, unassuming guitar work and the band’s four-part harmonies, had me hooked.
Nothing Is Wrong and Stories Don’t End came next, and I happily gobbled up more folksy fodder in tracks like “If I Wanted,” “Most People,” and “From a Window Seat.” But 2015’s All Your Favorite Bands, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Folk Albumschart, didn’t land with me, and by the time 2016’s We’re All Gonna Die was released, it was clear that Goldsmith had shifted thematically in his writing. A friend drew a thoughtful Warren Zevon comparison to the single, “When the Tequila Runs Out”—a commentary on vapid, conceited, American-socialite party culture—but it still didn’t really do it for me. I fell off the Dawes train a bit, and became somewhat oblivious to their three full-lengths that followed.
Oh Brotheris Goldsmith’s latest addition to the Dawes songbook, and I’m grateful to say that it’s brought me back. After having done some catching up, I’d posit that it’s the second work in the third act, or fall season, of his songwriting—where 2022’s Misadventures of Doomscrollercracked open the door, Oh Brother swings it wide. And it doesn’t have much more than Dawes’ meat and potatoes, per se, in common with acts one or two. Some moodiness has stayed—as well as societal disgruntlement and the arrangement elements that first had me intoxicated. But then there’s the 7/4 section in the middle of “Front Row Seat”; the gently unwinding, quiet, intimate jazz-club feel of “Surprise!”; the experimentally percussive, soft-spoken “Enough Already”; and the unexpected, dare I say, Danny Elfman-esque harmonic twists and turns in the closing track, “Hilarity Ensues.”
The main engine behind Dawes, the Goldsmith brothers are both native “Angelinos,” having been born and raised in the L.A. area. Taylor is still proud to call the city his home.
Photo by Jon Chu
“I have this working hypothesis that who you are as a songwriter through the years is pretty close to who you are in a dinner conversation,” Goldsmith tells me in an interview, as I ask him about that thematic shift. “When I was 23, if I was invited to dinner with grownups [laughs], or just friends or whatever, and they say, ‘How you doin’, Taylor?’ I probably wouldn’t think twice to be like, ‘I’m not that good. There’s this girl, and … I don’t know where things are at—can I share this with you? Is that okay?’ I would just go in in a way that’s fairly indiscreet! And I’m grateful to that version of me, especially as a writer, because that’s what I wanted to hear, so that’s what I was making at the time.
“But then as I got older, it became, ‘Oh, maybe that’s not an appropriate way to answer the question of how I’m doing.’ Or, ‘Maybe I’ve spent enough years thinking about me! What does it feel like to turn the lens around?’” he continues, naming Elvis Costello and Paul Simon as inspirations along the way through that self-evolution. “Also, trying to be mindful of—I had strengths then that I don’t have now, but I have strengths now that I didn’t have then. And now it’s time to celebrate those. Even in just a physical way, like hearing Frank Zappa talking about how his agility as a guitar player was waning as he got older. It’s like, that just means that you showcase different aspects of your skills.
“I am a changing person. It would be weird if I was still writing the same way I was when I was 23. There would probably be some weird implications there as to who I’d be becoming as a human [laughs].”
Taylor Goldsmith considers Oh Brother, the ninth full-length in Dawes’ catalog, to be the beginning of a new phase of Dawes, containing some of his most unfiltered, unedited songwriting.
Since its inception, the engine behind Dawes has been the brothers Goldsmith, with Taylor on guitar and vocals and Griffin on drums and sometimes vocal harmonies. But they’ve always had consistent backup. For the first several years, that was Wylie Gelber on bass and Tay Strathairn on keyboards. On We’re All Gonna Die, Lee Pardini replaced Strathairn and has been with the band since. Oh Brother, however, marks the departure of Gelber and Pardini.
“We were like, ‘Wow, this is an intense time; this is a vulnerable time,’” remarks Goldsmith, who says that their parting was supportive and loving, but still rocked him and Griffin. “You get a glimpse of your vulnerability in a way that you haven’t felt in a long time when things are just up and running. For a second there, we’re like, ‘We’re getting a little rattled—how do we survive this?’”
They decided to pair up with producer Mike Viola, a close family friend, who has also worked with Mandy Moore—Taylor’s spouse—along with Panic! At the Disco, Andrew Bird, and Jenny Lewis. “[We knew that] he understands all of the parameters of that raw state. And, you know, I always show Mike my songs, so he was aware of what we had cookin’,” says Goldsmith.
Griffin stayed behind the kit, but Taylor took over on bass and keys, the latter of which he has more experience with than he’s displayed on past releases. “We’ve made records where it’s very tempting to appeal to your strengths, where it’s like, ‘Oh, I know how to do this, I’m just gonna nail it,’” he says. “Then there’s records that we make where we really push ourselves into territories where we aren’t comfortable. That contributed to [Misadventures of Doomscroller] feeling like a living, breathing thing—very reactive, very urgent, very aware. We were paying very close attention. And I would say the same goes for this.”
That new terrain, says Goldsmith, “forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do. I’m really excited in that sense, because it’s like this is the first album of a new phase.”
“That forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do.”
In proper folk (or even folk-rock) tradition, the music of Dawes isn’t exactly riddled with guitar solos, but that’s not to say that Goldsmith doesn’t show off his chops when the timing is right. Just listen to the languid, fluent lick on “Surprise!”, the shamelessly prog-inspired riff in the bridge of “Front Row Seat,” and the tactful, articulate line that threads through “Enough Already.” Goldsmith has a strong, individual sense of phrasing, where his improvised melodies can be just as biting as his catalog’s occasional lyrical jabs at presumably toxic ex-girlfriends, and just as melancholy as his self-reflective metaphors, all the while without drawing too much attention to himself over the song.
Of course, most of our conversation revolves around songwriting, as that’s the craft that’s the truest and closest to his identity. “There’s an openness, a goofiness—I even struggle to say it now, but—an earnestness that goes along with who I am, not only as a writer but as a person,” Goldsmith elaborates. “And I think it’s important that those two things reflect one another. ’Cause when you meet someone and they don’t, I get a little bit weirded out, like, ‘What have I been listening to? Are you lying to me?’” he says with a smile.
Taylor Goldsmith's Gear
Pictured here performing live in 2014, Taylor Goldsmith has been the primary songwriter for all of Dawes' records, beginning with 2009’s North Hills.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
Guitars
- Fender Telecaster
- Gibson ES-345
- Radocaster (made by Wylie Gelber)
Amps
- ’64 Fender Deluxe
- Matchless Laurel Canyon
Effects
- 29 Pedals EUNA
- Jackson Audio Bloom
- Ibanez Tube Screamer with Keeley mod
- Vintage Boss Chorus
- Vintage Boss VB-2 Vibrato
- Strymon Flint
- Strymon El Capistan
Strings
- Ernie Ball .010s
In Goldsmith’s songwriting process, he explains that he’s learned to lean away from the inclination towards perfectionism. Paraphrasing something he heard Father John Misty share about Leonard Cohen, he says, “People think you’re cultivating these songs, or, ‘I wouldn’t deign to write something that’s beneath me,’ but the reality is, ‘I’m a rat, and I’ll take whatever I can possibly get, and then I’ll just try to get the best of it.’
“Ever since Misadventures of Doomscroller,” he adds, “I’ve enjoyed this quality of, rather than try to be a minimalist, I want to be a maximalist. I want to see how much a song can handle.” For the songs on Oh Brother, that meant that he decided to continue adding “more observations within the universe” of “Surprise!”, ultimately writing six verses. A similar approach to “King of the Never-Wills,” a ballad about a character suffering from alcoholism, resulted in four verses.
“The economy of songwriting that we’re all taught would buck that,” says Goldsmith. “It would insist that I only keep the very best and shed something that isn’t as good. But I’m not going to think economically. I’m not going to think, ‘Is this self-indulgent?’
Goldsmith’s songwriting has shifted thematically over the years, from more personal, introspective expression to more social commentary and, at times, even satire, in songs like We’re All Gonna Die’s “When the Tequila Runs Out.”
Photo by Mike White
“I don’t abide that term being applied to music. Because if there’s a concern about self-indulgence, then you’d have to dismiss all of jazz. All of it. You’d have to dismiss so many of my most favorite songs. Because in a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.” (He elaborates that, if Bob Dylan had trimmed back any of the verses on “Desolation Row,” it would have deprived him of the unique experience it creates for him when he listens to it.)
One of the joys of speaking with Goldsmith is just listening to his thought processes. When I ask him a question, he seems compelled to share every backstory to every detail that’s going through his head, in an effort to both do his insights justice and to generously provide me with the most complete answer. That makes him a bit verbose, but not in a bad way, because he never rambles. There is an endpoint to his thoughts. When he’s done, however, it takes me a second to realize that it’s then my turn to speak.
To his point on artistic self-indulgence, I offer that there’s no need for artists to feel “icky” about self-promotion—that to promote your art is to celebrate it, and to create a shared experience with your audience.
“I hear what you’re saying loud and clear; I couldn’t agree more,” Goldsmith replies. “But I also try to be mindful of this when I’m writing, like if I’m going to drag you through the mud of, ‘She left today, she’s not coming back, I’m a piece of shit, what’s wrong with me, the end’.... That might be relatable, that might evoke a response, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily helpful … other than dragging someone else through the shit with me.
“In a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.”
“So, if I’m going to share, I want there to be something to offer, something that feels like: ‘Here’s a path that’s helped me through this, or here’s an observation that has changed how I see this particular experience.’ It’s so hard to delineate between the two, but I feel like there is a difference.”
Naming the opening track “Mister Los Angeles,” “King of the Never-Wills,” and even the title track to his 2015 chart-topper, “All Your Favorite Bands,” he remarks, “I wouldn’t call these songs ‘cool.’ Like, when I hear what cool music is, I wouldn’t put those songs next to them [laughs]. But maybe this record was my strongest dose of just letting me be me, and recognizing what that essence is rather than trying to force out certain aspects of who I am, and force in certain aspects of what I’m not. I think a big part of writing these songs was just self-acceptance,” he concludes, laughing, “and just a whole lot of fishing.”
YouTube It
Led by Goldsmith, Dawes infuses more rock power into their folk sound live at the Los Angeles Ace Hotel in 2023.
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