Talk:Roy Buchanan

message: I must say that I agree with Dozenist and Jersyko's remarks -- regardless of what one thinks about Buchanan, there are three important criteria that need to be respected here (1. an encyclopedic style, (2. npov, and (3. no original research. I know nothing about this individual, but these three requirements are in force for every article on wikipedia. --Zantastik 18:26, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  comment on dispute 

message: In looking at the article on Roy Buchanan, the photo seems to have been flipped horizontally,before being inserted on this page, indicating he was playing his Telecaster reversed and with the strings upside-down like Jimi Hendrix did. I have seen him in person and in many, many photographs and album covers and have never seen him play this way and don't believe it to be true.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.228.142.242 (talk • contribs) 16:31, Feb 21, 2009
*Agreed, the original photo uploaded to Wiki Commons is certainly flipped left to right, I've added a note in the caption.  Chuckiesdad/Talk/Contribs 01:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've corected it. Roy Buchanan always plays his Fender Telecaster like most guitarists on his left side. WikiAR (talk) 00:00, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Photo

message: This citation is a perfect example of the weakness of banking on citations as proof of merit for the inclusion of obviously doubtful information into a Wikipedia article. The idea that one can "pour water on vacuum tubes" and cause them to produce a usable and even magical tube distortion tone is complete and utter rubbish. Further it is a highly dangerous proposition which can easily lead to death for the idiot who reads this article and decides to try it himself...because he "read it on Wikipedia". 
However, since this nonsense is published somewhere in a fluffy biography, it is presented in this Wiki as unassailable fact. This ridiculous citation 15 is unsupportable impossibility taken from a non-technical treatise written by an individual who has no electronic engineering credentials. Even a cursory reading of Citation 15 source material reveals that it is nothing more than a printed version of a dangerous and impossible urban legend that some individual told for reasons that are difficult for real amp technicians to fathom. Any credible tube amplifier technician can tell you that "pouring water" over high voltage vacuum tube circuits will not "cause them to glow purple" and produce magical guitar distortion tones. Because of the conductivity of water, what will happen is this: a.) IF the tube envelope doesn't immediately shatter from the shock of sudden cooling, and b.) IF you are not instantly killed by the 300-350 VDC present in the B+ circuit of the typical amp, (which will flow right through the water and into your cardiac muscle, just like a defibrillator!) then you were very fortunate. Presuming you are not dead, what will happen next is that c.) the amp's high voltage B+ plate supply will find some other path to ground, thereby d.) shorting its entire current to ground...This massive current inrush will e.) immediately blow the mains and/or HT fuse, depending on the amp. Either way, the result will not be fabulous distortion tones... it will be instant silence. Gig over...at least until you dry her out, replace the fuse and repair the damage caused by the water.
Further, tubes "glowing purple" as the citation gravely reports as having occurred by the magical Roy Buchanan water experiment, has absolutely no bearing on a tube's distortion or power output. The blueish glow seen in some vacuum tubes is an ionization effect. It is generally caused by outgassing from tubes with depleted getters. The subsequent ionization of the gas which has appeared inside the tube is the source of the eerie blue glow...not "water poured on the tubes causing them to glow purple" as the citation reports.
If by some means Buchanan and/or his amp tech had performed other modifications to an amp in the form of "way-off" bias current settings, they might cause the plates of the power tubes to glow cherry red. This phenomenon wouldn't last long. While it did, the amp would sound like crap, be low on power, and the tubes would quickly overheat and fail. That's an expensive proposition, even in the 1950's.
But, NEVERMIND the truth! This citation is rated V for valid, simply because it is PRINTED IN A BOOK (wwooooooo!!!!) Therefore, I'm just going to leave it. If I dared change, notate, or otherwise question it, I'm sure someone in the WikiPolice will come along and remove my modifications to the story. A crummy citation trumps the well established facts about the no bathing policy for vacuum tube amplifiers. All this because those facts are not printed anywhere except in the common sense training of thousands of tube amplifier technicians just like me. Yes - I've been working on classic vacuum tube guitar amps for over forty years. And for you doubters, yes - I'm old enough that I can say I bought black face Fenders back when black face was the "new" look for Fender. :-) I know the damned things inside out, and pouring water on a black face Fender tube amp won't do anything but ruin a beautiful piece of rock-n-roll history.
Rant is over - business at hand is this. I am going to add a cautionary notation IN THE ARTICLE that this water-tube amp practice is a foolish, dangerous, and useless exercise which can easily kill anyone who tries it. I recommend that other Wiki citation zealots at least leave that warning in place. In exchange for this urgent safety necessity, I will leave the cited story, even though it is utter rubbish. Deal? CoolBlueGlow (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 07:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: creating distortion by pouring water on the tubes, and citation 15