New "Wall of Doom" in the works

[ItsaBass]

Well...probably not what you are thinking, as these are all combos, and mostly "vintage" oriented. But my amp/guitar layout was in serious need of attention. This is what I've come up with so far.



Where the amps are, I had two short bookshelves, accessible only with some annoyance. The amps were on the floor, with the big Ampeg, the Princeton, and the Skylark buried and not easily playable. The Boogie and the little Ampeg were on top of them, as those are the two I play most often. (I either play both in parallel, or use the Ampeg as an extension cab for the Boogie.) The guitar cases also came over farther to the left. Those three on the floor were removed from the wall in order to make way for the amps.

This is just a basic layout. I need to give the amps some support up front, and also some breathing room behind. So I'll be making a simple 3/4" birch ply overhanging base for them. It'll be about 18" inches in depth (from the wall), about 7" of which will be overhanging. That's deep enough to give the amps 4 to 6 inches of breathing room behind, and also deep enough to fully support my three pointy guitars in their extra wide cases.

If I went deeper (26"), I could completely cover three cases deep on the ground, which would look nice, as well as giving some room in front of the amps and upper level cases for effects, gig bags, more cases, etc. But at that depth, I'd want to install legs, and maybe bracing, on the overhang. It's more work and expense than I want to invest at this time. I also thought about carpeting it, but the four cats would go to town. They'd also probably be all over the overhang if I made it 26".

This allows me to play any amp but the big Ampeg without having to move anything. When I want to play the big Ampeg (rare, as it is brutally loud), all I need to do is move the little Ampeg on top of the Boogie. I would put the little Ampeg on top of the Boogie normally, but I want to be able to easily get the slip cover on and off of the Boogie. (The other amps don't have covers; I just drape cheap plastic flags over them.)

I will be putting wooden stickers between the big and little Ampegs, as I have between the Princeton and the Skylark.

I have my heads and my bass combo in the house too, and four big cabs in storage. I need to get a big bass rig soon too. I wish space allowed for them in this wall; then it really would be a Wall of Doom.

Any thoughts or suggestions on this setup?

 

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

Well...probably not what you are thinking, as these are all combos, and mostly "vintage" oriented. But my amp/guitar layout was in serious need of attention. This is what I've come up with so far.

View attachment 60935


Any thoughts or suggestions on this setup?

YES . . . U need more AMPS !

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

Cool amps.

I'd get a 112 extension cab for your little Boogie. Something like their 112 Thiele will give you a stack-type sound and still be very portable.

Bill

 

[blaise.brown.7967]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

Yea, you need a head amp& cab!!

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

Oh, believe me, I'm with you on the extension cab, Bill, but it's kind of a sore subject for me. They made the matching Express 19 1x12 cab for a very short time only. It was a perfect cosmetic match to an Express combo. They are very rare and hard to find on the used market. I also have zinc bronco covering and a cream and white grille cloth with the Mesa emblem deleted. So, ordering a new one would be the best option.

Problem is that none of their current extension cabs are the right size and a proper cosmetic match to the Express 5:25 combo. They are 1/8" too narrow for the 5:25's 18-7/8" combo cab, and/or are closed-backed, and/or don't have the matching grille screws. The Thiele isn't what I'm looking for sonically (I want open backed - this amp already borders on being way too tight), and the asymmetrical grille screws on that model aren't a good looking match to the Express anyhow. The closest they have to what I want is the 1x12 Widebody. I would deal with it being closed back if it was not for the fact that it is 4-1/8" too wide.

I already got exasperated going through the e-mail chain from hell with Sweetwater and Mesa, trying to get them to take an exorbitant amount of my money to custom build me a discontinued Express 19 cabinet (though they never actually quoted me, I assume it would have been a lot). Even if they couldn't recall their exact plans for that model, all they would have needed to do have done is to take 4-1/8" inches of width off of their 23" open-backed 1x12. It would have been a matter of maybe 15 minutes total of extra time on their part, for which I would have gladly paid out my ass. But the bottom line is that they simply would not do it, no matter what I proposed.

For as long as I remember, Mesa had always been a company who would do something special like that for customers, especially loyal longtime customers (been using Mesas since the Mk. III), and especially something as simple as rebuilding a cabinet that they had in standard production as few as 5 or 6 years ago. This, combined with the terrible reliability of this amp (it shorts its power tubes whenever it feels like it), have really made me think that the Mesa company has changed considerably from how great it used to be.

So for years, I've simply been running the Boogie out into the added external speaker out jack of my Ampeg combo, which has a "modern Greenback" type of speaker in it. It looks bad...but sounds incredible. I could also go into the Super Rocket 2x12 if I wanted (though the last thing the Express needs is to be piped through more Vintage 30's).

As or me needing stacks, I've got 'em in storage. No room for them in my gear area now. I have two Ampeg 4x12 guitar cabs (V-4 and Diamond Blue Series straight), a tall Ampeg 4x12 cab (in between standard 4x12 and 8x10 cab heights), and another one of those same medium-sized Ampeg cabs with two 15's in it. I have a pre-master-volume V-4 and a Diamond Blue Reverberocket head. I'm also trying to buy my old Mk. III back from the family friend who bought it.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

Looks like a lovely collection . . . I particularly like the vintage vacuum.

 

[d1dsj]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

I was expecting to a bass wall of doom but I would call that lot a wall of cool!

 

[ItsaBass]

New "Wall of Doom" in the works

My Bass Wall of Doom has consisted of a 1x15 combo for nearly 20 years now.

The Electrolux was bought new from a door-to-door salesman in 1969, and has been passed down since. I use it because it performs great, it has never broken, and there has never been any other reason to get a newer vacuum. My ownership of it has everything to do with its sheer quality, not its "vintageness." That said, when it finally dies, I'll have a hard time getting something new. I'll probably repair or replace it.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

Progress, though not as much as I would like.

Everything cleared away:



And I found a 9'6" long and 24" wide reinforced hardwood shelf buried in my basement/garage. It's almost perfect for this application, so that's what I'll be using. I'm going to shim it up 1-1/2" (a double stack of birch ply below), so there is more storage height below. I'll be elling that shim in order to give me a way to anchor the whole deal to the wall - no legging required. That gives me the advantages of the increased shelf width, but without the PITA of having to work around legs when storing things below.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

95% finished it today.

Leveling and mocking up the shims:




The shims:




Pretty solid as is (it's screwed into the corner pretty well)...



...but these additions really keep it from going anywhere:

 

[ItsaBass]

New "Wall of Doom" in the works

Holds a 100 pound amp all the way out on the shelf. I also sat, stood, and lightly jumped on it with no trouble.


All amps in, and instruments starting to go into place (basses up top, and rarely used acoustics, my banjo, and my F-key trombone below):


Fenders and pointies added (above and below, respectively):


My sax, trumpet, harmonicas, and effects and cables added on the left.


Looks great so far, but I have some Les Pauls and two more acoustics to squeeze in, not to mention some gig bags. So I move the Fenders that contain rarely used instruments or instruments in need of repair to the back, turned 90 degrees from the others. Not so good looking a move, but necessary.


As it now stands. Gig bags get stacked on top of the rear Fender cases for now. I'll probably eventually build a simple loft for them in roughly the same place, so they aren't actually sitting on top of cases. I could have put those two acoustics on the right where the pointies are, and vice versa, and it would probably look a bit more orderly. But I prefer to have the acoustics off the ground, because of the off chance of flooding. If a few pointies get water damaged, it sucks. But they can be replaced, if not repaired. The acoustics, OTOH, are far more likely to be ruined beyond repair by water damage, and far less replaceable.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

It's always good when your add-ons can be constructed out of wood you have lying around.

Do you live in the Silverlake/Dodger Stadium area?

 

[Grenade]

Re: New "Wall of Doom" in the works

Holy crap, my first amp was just like that Gibson, and my mother had an Electrolux just like yours.