We do all guitar repair, restoration, refinishing and setup work as well as pick up rewinds and amp and pedal electronics repairs. If it's broken or not playing like it should, we'll fix it.
The retail shop stocks and sells a full range of hardware, leads, strings etc and we have exclusive dealerships so check out the pricelists for the best prices around.

Tym guitars blog has moved




Tym guitars has a brand new website up and running with the new BLOG as part of the site. Please go to Tym guitars to view/comment and browse the BLOG.





October 28, 2010

HIRE GEAR - 1970's Fender "silverface" Bassman

The Fender Bassman was a bass amplifier introduced by Fender in 1952. Although it was originally designed for bass guitars, it was frequently used for normal electric guitar in rock and roll, blues, and country bands.
The Bassman was designed for the first mass-production electric bass, the Fender Precision Bass. It was introduced in 1952 and discontinued in 1983. Up to until 1954, the Bassman amps had only 1 speaker (circuit 5B6), but it was the four 10" speaker combination that came to be one of the greatest and most sought after amplifiers in history. The original series of 4x10 Bassman amps included the 5D6 (1955), 5E6 (1955), 5E6-A (1955-1957), 5F6 (1957) and 5F6-A (1958-1960) circuits.
Despite the fact that it was originally designed for bass guitars, it was more famous for its use with normal electric guitar and thus, when Fender recently reissued the 59 (5F6A) edition, it was categorized under guitar amplification instead.
We currently have 2 of these amps for hire at Tym guitars. We have one early 70's 100W and one later 70's 135W. Check out our HIRE list or cantact the shop for more details.

Bassman 50 (1973) - Silverface head - 50 Watts/RMS - Same specs as the original silverface Bassman heads produced between 1968 and 1972, except for the addition of a tailless amp decal and an AC568 circuit.
Bassman 100 (1976) - Silverface head - 100 Watts/RMS

October 27, 2010

Brisbane bands you should see and/or hear part 5

Part 5 : Undead Apes

Poppy, pinch harmonic, poppy, fuzzy, bassy, poppy, great live, nice guys (and girl) = Undead Apes.
Their site.

October 26, 2010

Tym Mosrite Ventures guitar/bass thingy ........

This is my "spare" guitar for when I play live. The first is the Jazzmaster of the same idea that I posted a few months ago here.
Take one old Mosrite Ventures that's been lying around the workshop for ages. Strip it. Put a Mustang bass pick up in the neck pick up cavity and connect the bass pick up to one output, the guitar pick up to the other. The bridge pick up is an SD JB. Before you vintage nuts go crazy, the only mods done to the guitar was a small hole under the neck pick up for the bass pick up screw and the tone pot hole enlarged slightly in the scratchplate for the bass output jack. Both not seen when taken back to original. Oh yeah , and the string guide filled out slightly to take my usual 12-54 gauge strings, which I do to all my Mosrites.

October 25, 2010

Wampler Nirvana Chorus

An extremely flexible chorus pedal designed to take you to total nirvana - extreme lushness, nice and watery if you desire, or swirling speaker tones! From phat chorus, leslie type wobble all the way to straight vibrato, the nirvana chorus delivers

Controls include volume, tone, rate, depth, switchable chorus types, and a switch to go to straight vibrato.
The pedal is mono however, as only one output is available.

Specs
*Toggle switch allows for 3 levels of chorus depths
*Depth knob allows you to fine tune each depth level even further
*Toggle switch allows for chorus OR vibrato
*High grade film capacitors and resistors picked for their superior sound
*Completely true bypass
*Ultra-bright LEDs for ease of use
*Battery connection and 9v power jack (barrel plug like Boss)
*3.5" x 4.5"
*Powder coated durable finish
*Level control allows you to have plenty of volume
*Tone control sweeps from warm chorus to bright chorus tones

These pedals are IN STOCK now. Contact Tym guitars for more info and prices.

October 22, 2010

The Source power supply

The ultimate accessory for any guitarist using pedals. No more batteries, no more maze of wires and plug packs and no more buzz and hum. The simple and elegant solution to running your effects pedals.

The Source is a rechargeable battery unit designed to run the vast majority of guitar effect pedals. It is the equivalent to approximately 30 brand new 9 volt (PP3) alkaline batteries, per charge ( 30 batteries @ aprox $4.00 ea = $120 per charge - It will virtually pay for itself in the first few recharges. It will also run keyboards, MIDI controllers and small amplifiers.













FEATURES
6 independant voltage outputs
Independant current protection
Low noise
Will run 6 effects pedals for 8hrs +
fully automatic charging circuit
Extruded aluminium case
Includes leads and DC charger
Runs nearly all effects pedals
Long operational life
Can be used while charging
12 month warranty
Each DC outlet is protected by a custom protection system which isolates faulty wiring or effects units without interfering with the other outlets.

In stock now. Please contact Tym guitars for more info and prices.

October 21, 2010

Traves Effects GLOB.
















New to the Traves Effects range is the GLOB.
It is a versatile overdrive/distortion with fuzzy edges and plenty of volume gain.
A 6 position rotary switch is used to select drive levels with the last 3 settings also altering tone. Ranging from overdrive and distortion through to the fuzzy side of things. All with a taste of their own.
It reacts well to different pickup type and position as well as responding well to rolling back the guitars volume control. It really does interact well and provide a variety of easy to recall cool sounds.
This is the 2 knob version. but coming soon will be a 1 knob version with 2 postion toggle in a smaller enclosure. These will be available with a couple of stock settings, but can be custom built with any 2 settings from the rotary version or even variations on those.
Handbuilt in Australia and featuring True bypass, Alpha Pots, Boss style adapter, LED indicator and other quality bits.
This and other Traves effects are in stock now. Please contact Tym guitars for more info and prices.

October 19, 2010

HIRE GEAR - 1970's Fender "silverface" Twins

The Fender Twin is a guitar amplifier made by Fender. It was introduced in 1952, about the same time as the Stratocaster (1954). As the Stratocaster's sales partner, its success was a large part of the increase in popularity of the electric guitar in music.[citation needed] To this day, these amplifiers continue to be sought after by guitarists for their characteristic clean tone. The Twin's circuit has been copied and modified by many other manufacturers.
The first silverface Twins used the blackface AB763 circuit until May 1968, when Fender switched to the AC568. Since the tube complement was the same, Fender just used up their stock of printed tube charts saying AB763 until they ran out. Thus many silverface amps are mislabeled and this has created some confusion, causing some owners to think they have AB763 circuits when in fact they are AC568s.
The Twin Reverb, along with all other silverface models, had an aluminum frame (trim) surrounding the sparkling blue grillcloth from late 1967 to 1969. Early silverface amplifiers made between 1967 and 1968 had black lines on the brushed aluminum control plate, still retaining the '60s "tailed" design. This feature was offered on models produced prior to the "tailless" period in 1973.
The rating of the amplifier's output power was also upgraded to 100 watts.
From about 1973 forward, a master volume with pull-boost (on a push-pull control) became a standard feature on all dual-channel silverfaced Fender models (usually known as "master volume" amps). Original master volume amps from late 1972 were made for a short time without that "pull boost" circuit on the master volume control.

Between 1977-1982 the power was increased to 135 watts. This increase was partly due to the output section being changed to the ultralinear topology, as different power transformer and power supply design resulted in much higher plate voltages. During the 1970s and to a point, the late 1960s, the American amplifier companies were all engaged in an undeclared "wattage war". Each manufacturer would rate and or produce amplifiers of increased power as a means of gaining market superiority (or the illusion thereof). American amplifier companies used a philosophy of bright clean tones and the elimination of distortion was a key design factor.

We currently have 2 of these amps for hire at Tym guitars. We have one early 70's 100W and one later 70's 135W. Check out our HIRE list or cantact the shop for more details.

October 15, 2010

Brisbane bands you should see and/or hear part 4

Part 4 : Sekiden


Poppy, synthy, poppy, fuzzy, not bassy, poppy, great live, nice guys (and girl) = Sekiden.
Their site.

October 14, 2010

HIRE GEAR - 1964 Selmer Zodiac 30

Think you've never heard a Selmer ? Well, if you're familiar with the immortal guitar riff forming the mainstay of The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" then you probably have.
The Selmer Company was a manufacturer of musical instruments started in Paris, France in the early 1900s. Selmer was known for its high-quality woodwind and brass instruments, especially saxophones clarinets and trumpets. A semi-independent branch of Selmer for the United Kingdom was created in 1928 under the leadership of two brothers, Ben and Lew Davis. They concentrated primarily on licensing, importing and distribution rather than manufacturing, and by 1939 had grown to become the largest company in the British musical instrument industry. With the growth of skiffle music and the arrival of rock and roll in the mid-1950s, Selmer UK began producing guitar and bass amplifiers. In the early 1960s, despite Selmer's apparent market domination, The Shadows' and The Beatles' endorsement of Vox amplifiers relegated Selmer guitar amplifiers to a distant second place in sales. The management of the company made various luke warm attempts to gain endorsement from aspiring musicians but became increasingly distant from the developments in pop culture from the mid 1960s considering that its role was to support "real" or established professional musicians and not the headliners of the pop industry. This was the beginning of the end for Selmer UK.

The Zodiac Twin 30. Four inputs - Two channels. Built-in Tremelo with speed & depth controls and foot-operated switch. Selectortone push-button controls. Very low noise and hum level. Fitted with socket for extension speaker.
Here at last is a new amplifier with built-in tone colours. By simply operating the exclusive push-button controls you are able to vary the degrees of response from High Treble to Contra Bass, thereby obtaining an infinite variety of tone colours. The new Zodiac Twin 30 is a two-channel amplifier. Channel 1 acts as a conventional amplifier with normal controls for volume and tone. Channel 2 is controlled by the unique Selectortone push-button controls. This design enables you to use one channel for a microphone without cross channel interaction, leaving the other channel free for guitar and other musical instrument amplification.

Each channel has two high impedance inputs - giving you a total of four inputs which can be used simultaneously. Built-in tremelo on Channel 2 is instantly switched on or off by the footswitch provided. Speed and depth of tremelo are adjustable over wide limits by variable control knobs. Exclusive Selmer "Blinking Eye" (Patent applied for) gives visual indication of tremelo speed. The Zodiac 30 is fitted with two 12" loudspeakers and all controls are housed in a recessed panel. A pilot lamp is fitted.
Attractively finished in two-tone crocodile leatherene with modern styling. AC mains only, 200/250 volts, 50/60 cycles. Valve complement EF86 (2), ECC83 (3), EL34 (2), GZ34 (1). Output ratings British 30 watts, American 60 watts. Dimensions height 20", width 29", depth 10". 85 gns, including attractive waterproof cover.

We currently have 2 of these VERY rare amps for hire at Tym guitars. Check out our HIRE list or cantact the shop for more details.

October 13, 2010

Rothwell Atomic Booster

The Atomic Booster is a high quality guitar effects pedal, designed and hand made in the UK to give guitarists a transparent, clean booster pedal which can boost the overall level and the treble from electric guitars to drive vintage and vintage style amps harder or to give a volume boost for solos.
The overall volume can be boosted by as much as 20dB whilst the precision amplifier circuit adds no noise to the signal or alters the tone of your guitar. The treble boost facility of the Atomic Booster can add a glassy sheen to your guitar tone or give neck humbuckers more of a cutting edge or can be used to give distorted rhythm sounds a tight, well controlled bass with biting top end.
This pedal is a truly hand made, boutique effect, built to the highest standards and features true bypass switching. This leaves the guitar completely isolated from the booster circuit when the unit is bypassed so that your raw guitar tone is not affected in any way.
When using vintage amps or vintage style, low gain amps, driving the amp hard enough to get a good rock sound can be a problem, particularly with low output single coil pickups. One of the reasons why the Gibson Les Paul came back into fashion in such a big way in the late 60's and early 70's is because their pickups had a higher output than Strats and Teles and could drive the amps of the day into more distortion. Some players used a booster of some description to get more drive from their pickups. The Atomic Booster will help you to get a classic rock tone from simple, vintage style amps in the same way as the pioneers of the genre got theirs - by playing it louder.
However, unlike many 70’s boosters (and modern clones and repros) the Atomic Booster is a low noise pedal, built to a very high standard and has modern benefits such as a DC power socket (for use with external power supplies such as the Stompjuice), true bypass switching and high input impedance.

In stock now. Please contact Tym guitars for more info and prices.

October 12, 2010

EH/Tym Holier Grail

WEll, this started off as a matter of interest and turned into the ultimate surf pedal. I had this old EH Holier Grail that had been sitting around the workshop broken, with boxes of other pedals (and amps/guitars etc) for a few years. Lee, who works here bought one exactly the same off EBay and when it turned up, it had EXACTLY the same problem. The voltage regulator was burned out along with a few resistors in the same circuit. These are all easy parts to get and once his was repaired, so was this one. The main "problem" with the Holier Grail, and lots of reverb pedals is it drops in volume when the effect is engaged. To fix this I put a simple point to point single transistor "boost" after the output of the effect with it's own volume. Around 5-6 is neutral volume so it also has a fair amount of gain that sounds great driving the reverb into a little valve amp.
But why stop there ? It was itching for a tremolo to top it off. Since there's PLENTY of room in these things I decided to add the fantastic, yet subtle EA trem circuit that I love. It has a real "amp trem" feel to it and is a fairly simple (and much copied) circuit. This is added after the reverb effect with it's own true bypass footswitch (with LED) with RATE and SPEED knobs. The only real "issue" is the original Holier Grail runs on 18V centre positive power (opposite to most pedals) and the trem and boost work on 9V centre negative but it just means the EH works off it's own power supply as per factory. Easy.

So the reverb works as standard, but has an output volume boost on all settings. This can feed into the trem circuit with enough gain to "break up" the trem nicely and push your amp into slight overdrive. So, you have the 60's surf sound in one pedal.
Anyone who wants their EH reverb pedal modded with one of both or these mods, contact Tym guitars for details.

October 8, 2010

Brisbane bands you should see and/or hear part 3

Part 3 : Seaplane






Noisy, atmospheric, drummy, yelly, not bassy, noisy, great live, nice guys = Seaplane.
Their site.

October 7, 2010

Crybaby Wah pedal















The Jim Dunlop Cry Baby (also known as the Crybaby) is a highly popular wah-wah pedal, manufactured by Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc. It is one of the best selling guitar pedal of all time. The name Crybaby was from the original pedal from which it was copied, the Thomas Organ/Vox Cry Baby wah-wah.

There are many different models of the Cry Baby manufactured by Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc, most are listed below:

* GCB-95 - Also known as the "Cry Baby Original", it is based on the original Crybabies. Typically the lowest priced model, uses a 'Fasel' inductor now that its been updated with a hot potz 100k potentiometer.
* GCB-95F Classic - A Cry Baby with a Fasel (classic Italian-made) inductor and a Hot Potz 100KOhm potentiometer.
* 95Q - A Cry Baby with a Q control (which varies the intensity of the wah effect), and a volume boost.
* 535Q - Features tone shifting abilities using the Q control, six different wah ranges, a volume boost and can also be used as sustain pedal.
* JH-1 Jimi Hendrix Signature - The Jimi Hendrix Signature Cry Baby is an original 1960s design with modified circuitry to lower the pedal's frequency range.
* JH-1FW Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Wah - A combination of the Jimi Hendrix Signature Wah Wah and the Jimi Hendrix Fuzz. It can be used as a Wah Pedal, a Fuzz Pedal, or both at the same time.
* DB-01 Dimebag Signature - Dimebag Darrell's Signature Cry Baby. Based on the 535Q as he used one prior.
* EW-95V Mister Crybaby Super Volume - A Cry Baby that doubles as a wah pedal and a volume boosting pedal. It can provide a volume boost of up to 16 decibels
* ZW-45 Zakk Wylde Signature - Zakk Wylde's Signature Cry Baby.
* 105Q Bass - A Cry Baby for bass guitars that only affects the mids and high frequencies, and features Q and Volume controls.
* SW-95 Slash Signature - Slash's Signature Cry Baby with an added heavy distortion booster.
* Limited Edition (1999) Purple, White, Red or Hammertone Gray
* EVH Signature - Eddie Van Halen's Signature Cry Baby.
* KH-95 Kirk Hammett Signature- Kirk Hammett's new Cry Baby
* JC-95 Jerry Cantrell Signature- Jerry Cantrell's signature Cry Baby

Possibly excepting the 535Q, the newer crybaby models have a single pole switch instead of true bypass; using single pole switching instead of true bypass adds a load impedance which affects the tone.

We stock or can order any of the current Dunlop Wah's and do get vintage and second hand stock in. Please contact Tym guitars for more info and prices.

October 6, 2010

FUZZ

A fuzz pedal (or fuzz box) is a type of effects pedal consisting of an amplifier and a clipping circuit, which generates a distorted version of the input signal. As opposed to other distortion guitar effects pedals, a fuzzbox boosts and clips the signal sufficiently to turn a standard sine wave input into a waveform that is much closer to a square wave output. The sound of almost creating a square wave gives a "Rough around the edges" effect that creates the classic fuzz tone. This gives a much more distorted and synthetic sound than a standard distortion or overdrive. Fuzz sounds also tend to have lower Mid frequencies than other distortion types.

The term "fuzz box" is often used generically to refer to any effects device which produces a distorted sound, however the distortion in some classic guitar effects pedals, (so-called stomp boxes such as the Ibanez/Maxon TS-9, and 808 Tube Screamer) is not actually produced by transistor clipping, but rather by diode clipping.

As clipping is a non-linear process, intermodulation will occur, leading to the generation of an output signal rich in extra harmonics of the input signal. Intermodulation distortion also produces frequency components at the various sums and differences of the frequency components of the input signal. In general, these components will not be harmonically related to the input signal, leading to dissonance. To reduce unwanted dissonance, simple power chords (root, fifth, and octave) are often used when using fuzzboxes, rather than triads (root, third, and fifth) or four-note chords (root, third, fifth, and seventh).

Nashville session musician Grady Martin discovered the fuzz sound in 1961 during a recording session for Marty Robbins' "Don't Worry", due to a faulty recording console preamplifier circuit. In 1962, The Ventures, having heard the guitar tone on "Don't Worry", asked friend Red Rhodes, a steel player and electronics wizard, how they could reproduce the sound.

A few months later, Rhodes presented them with a custom fuzz box, reportedly the first, which The Ventures used to record "2000 Pound Bee." The song charted in December 1962 and is identified by multiple sources, including The VH-1 Music First Rock Stars Encyclopedia, as the first single to use actual guitar fuzz box (the story was in the April 2007 issue of Guitar Buyer magazine in an article titled, "Caught By The Fuzz").

Fuzzboxes gained wider popularity after a distorted sound was popularised by Dave Davies of British Invasion band The Kinks (It has already been noted that Davies had been influenced by American electric blues, though it is uncertain that Davies understood the precise engineering dynamics of the "Chicago tone".). In Davies' case, he played through a small amp whose speaker cone had been slashed with a razor blade, distorting the signal. In 1964, he plugged the doctored amp into a Vox AC30[citation needed] to record "You Really Got Me", the band's first number one single and the first popular rock & roll song using a distorted power chord riff. Fuzzboxes became popular as a much easier way to create a distorted sound.

The fuzz circuit was first marketed by Maestro as the "Fuzz Tone" Model FZ-1. In May 1965 Keith Richards used a Gibson Maestro Fuzz-Tone to record "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". The song's success so boosted sales of the device that all available stock had sold out by the end of 1965.

Other examples of fuzzboxes include the highly-sought Mosrite FuzzRITE, the Fuzz Face (originally made by the Arbiter Group) used by Jimi Hendrix, the Big Muff Pi (made by Electro-Harmonix) and the Vox Tone Bender, used by Paul McCartney on George Harrison's composition Think for Yourself, and featured on many tracks throughout Rubber Soul, Revolver and many other Beatles albums and recordings. Colin Greenwood of Radiohead uses the Shin-ei Companion FY-2 and a Lovetone Big Cheese. Pete Townshend used a Univox Super Fuzz pedal starting from 1968 and used on many recordings and stage shows by The Who (being his only pedal for concerts from 1968-1978). There is also a market for boutique fuzzes, such as the Ultralord, Woolly Mammoth, one of the most popular being the Z.Vex Fuzz Factory and the Italian T-Fuzz from T-Pedals, made with selected components.

Early fuzzboxes used germanium transistors. By the end of the 1960s, these were replaced by silicon transistors. Silicon transistors are desirable for a number of reasons, most of which have little to do with the actual tonal performance of the fuzzbox. For tone purists, the germanium transistor's tone is generally regarded as superior, or at least more authentic, to the original fuzzbox concept and design. Nevertheless, because silicon devices are generally less affected by changes in temperature, they offer more reliable performance than germanium ones. Warm conditions (such as the heat generated by stage lights or sunlight in outdoor performances) can adversely affect the tone of germanium fuzzes. Also, fuzz boxes that employ germanium transistors do not work well when placed after another effect pedal that uses "buffered bypass." This is because the buffer on effect pedals converts the guitar's signal from high to low impedance (to retain high frequencies and signal strength). Low impedance signals that pass through germanium-equipped fuzzes tend to suffer from a pronounced drop in volume and bass response. In the 2000s, many boutique guitar effects builders offer fuzz pedals with germanium transistors for a "retro" sound. Additionally, some units employ both silicon and germanium transistors.

October 5, 2010

Brisbane bands you should see and/or hear part 2

Part 2 : Turnpike



Noisy, poppy, drummy, yelly, bassy, noisy, great live, nice guys = Turnpike.
Their site.