Maintenance & Repair

Though I use a POD for recording(it's only because I can't crank my beloved tube amps at home), I have become a tube snob. As we all know, along with owning tube amps comes maintenance, and an occasional repair. I would like to know where to start for learning how to do this on my own. If I can ever find the time, I'm going to try to take a basic electronics course at the local college. But, besides that, where and how can I learn about tubes, tube amps, and maintenance and repair for them? What are some basic tools I will need besies the obvious soldering gun? Thanks for any help guys!

My Misses got me this for Christmas. I haven't had time to get stuck into it yet however, so far it looks good !

Sweet! That will defanately be ordered in a week or two. Thanks!

Just curious...have you installed the JJ's yet?

Na, I've just stripped the nerve center out of my studio and re-set it up with a duel processor G5 Mac in the middle.

Then I have been trying to learn all the soft-wear over !

I have just about got it figured out however Im not sure I like Logic better than Sonar ! I do like Macs much better than PCs so on balance Im happy !

I've dabbled with Sonar and Logic and find that I prefer Sonar because it's alot easier to figure out than Logic which is a haws. But, ultimately, for my needs, nothing could be easier than Acid Pro. I've never even touched a Mac before, so I don't know how i would like that. Was/is it difficult to get used to a Mac after only using a PC since before Window's was around?

Macs are really easy, they are designed to be easy !

Logic is great because it comes with just about every plug-in you could want, mp3 encoders etc etc (unlike Sonar). It is very stable however the interface is slightly different.

Example, the input meters are not as readily visible as they were in Sonar, I ended up clipping the top of a bit of guitar I was recording last night. Avoidable.... yes !!

Also when you are bouncing and exporting you seem to have to manually set the end of the song. I didn't have to do this in Sonar ! their may well be fixes for these things however it is just a matter of spending the time with the program to get familiar with the way it works what everything is called and where it has been put !