Forgives me peeps for I has not blogged in many a moon — despite being ‘up to’ masses of stuff over the past six months or so… that comes later, but first a (ahem) current preoccupation…

Lookit! The actual inside of an actual valve!

Yup, the world was once powered by millions upon millions of small devices that look like they were designed by Fritz Lang’s art director on Metropolis, the implausibly named Erich Kettelhut.

On the set of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in 1927!

Prior to the invention of the transistor, valves — or tubes to our cuz’s across the pond — were to be found in a huge range of electrical appliances, from the first computers to home radio sets, hospital equipment to televisions. As well as being incredibly useful and strangely beautiful when they’re at work, valves gave us rock’n'roll…

Preteen-focused valve porn!

Despite being designed NOT to distort the signal passed thru ‘em, overload a valve and the result is VERITABLE AURAL NIRVANA! For decades, guitarists have experimented with different brands and types of valves in their amps, as part of the quest to get their ‘signature’ sounds. Swapping or ‘rolling’ valves allows guitarists to radically alter the sound of their amps. And it’s as easy as deciding which member of the valve’s ‘family’ (yes, isn’t that schweet) you want to try, choosing a brand based on its reputed ‘sound’, pulling the old valve out of the slot, sticking the new one in and playing…

The general idea is that, f’rinstance, a 12AX7 pre-amp valve — which is pretty much the standard for many guitar amplifiers — is easier to overdrive than a 12AU7 from the same ‘family’, which has just 20% of the gain (AKA raunch). Consequently, with a little knowledge, a pair o’lugholes and a few sheckels, any guitar-slingerer can experiment with valves, to get the sound they’re after — from antiseptic clean to ‘ends of the Earth’ distortion. Swapping valves is sorta fun, (relatively) cheap and offers little chance of electrocution…

Cathode-based sexual shenanigans on the cover of a valve-lovers’ ‘bibble’

When the world was valve-powered, millions upon millions of the little blighters were manufactured each year, to the highest standards, using the finest materials, as countless lives actually depended on them. Now only five companies still manufacture guitar-friendly valves, ironically using ancient Western equipment, so there’s a brisk and increasingly expensive trade in vintage examples from the likes of RCA, Telefunken, Mullard and Philips. Each of these are the subject of seemingly endless navel-gazing about their respective properties and street values.

Unfortunately, although tube-rolling can make crappy amplifiers sound amazing, they can’t help the guitarist themselves, and there be the rub, innit?

Amazing Telefunken valve advert, heartily recommended for Max Fleischer fans!