My Electronics Mentor, Mike Delvalle | An Interview | Fazio Electric
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.ค. 2024
- DISCLAIMER! I apologize in advance for the poor audio quality. This was an impromptu interview, and I did not have my microphone with me in Chicago. I hope that you still find the video enjoyable, as I really wanted to archive a conversation with Mike.
He is the person who launched me into amp repair. He helped guide me, build my confidence, and teach me as much as he could about diagnosis and repair. Working for him was one of the most formative and fun times of my life.
Special thanks to my Dad for holding the camera for us :) - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
![THE TOYS x NONT TANONT - ดอกไม้ที่รอฝน (spring) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pPa1d5cC8M4/mqdefault.jpg)
What a pair. Two honest talented people with drive who just happen to me into keeping old gear alive. Just great.
Great storytelling! This made 20 minutes seem like a breath of air
I am somewhat jealous. When I was a teenager, I made a guitar pre amp from parts I bought from an old tube amp repair store in Sydney. I didn't think until a decade later to ask the tech to do training with him. By this stage he was semi retired and had moved out of Sydney about 3 hours drive from where I live. He put me onto a speaker repair guy in Sydney but it wasn't the same thing and he didn't have much work.
Now 20 years after that a gorgeous big old 60s phonograph turned up across the road ready for the dump truck. I have repaired it. And in doing that I have found these new mentors via you tube. It's not the same thing but I am starting my own business now.
Thank you for your videos.
best of luck to you with your business :)
This was so great & heart warming to see the love between the two of you. Mike is an old school guy & he reminds me of my dad, who could fix anything but broken heart.
This took me back to 1972/3 when I started helping out in a busy electrical store with 5 engineers. I was so used to working on a safe bench with isolated power that I didn't have my brain in gear when quickly adjusting a TV that was on display for sale. Taking the back off the TV and holding the chassis, plugging in the aerial, I got a pretty nasty shock. It's very good seeing you both interact so well.
Yup. Electric fans fascinated me, too! I used to regularly service a big green Collaro fan heater for a pensioner. It had red and green painted 15w pygmy lamps inside that occasionally needed changing - red for blowing heat, green for blowing cold. When she died it was passed on to me, and I still have it upstairs somewhere almost 60 years later!
Adorable seeing you guys interact. You can tell there’s a deep admiration and respect. Great story on his background.
I'm a keyboard player, too (amongst other things!). What a lovely 'interview' - you must be so pleased and proud to have this for your archive!
His passion is bursting outta the seams! Great mentor, Fazio
Awesome! Thank you for the interview. Mike resurrected and repaired a blown power supply on my red Farfisa Combo Compact organ and he definitely knows his way around a MiniMoog. Repairs were done back when he still had the Chicago shop location but I see that he is still an excellent, entertaining, and no nonsense tech!
Awesome interview and great questions. People like him are few and far between in present times. Old mechanical stuff is what keeps my soul alive, and watching this made me happy.
I recently discovered your channel and I immediately signed up, I have already seen all your videos. I really like what you do and how you do it. You are fantastic!
Greetings from Italy 🟢⚪🔴
Vincenzo... ti ritrovo ovunque (ci sia musica). Un saluto!
@@marcotaticchi5343 Ciao Marco, visto che c'è, lo spremo per bene YT 🖐🏻👍🏻
Do they still have Lancia in Italy? Hello from neighborhood Peanut-Baby country Albania.
This was entirely adorable and I loved it so much.
Very thankful to have a mentor like that in my life.
So much to love about this. Thank you.
I could listen to mike talk for days and not get bored proper old school fountain of knowledge that we can only aspire to get close to, Thanks for sharing him with us and thanks for sharing your own journey with us, I am newly subscribed to your channel but hooked already
Loved that. Thank you. He is such a cool guy.
Thanks for the video, love these old radios and electronics and the people that keep them alive!
Fascinating! Happy 2022 to you and your family!! Thank you!
Great interview and video! Gotta show your mentors some love. 👊 He seems like a cool dude.
I just found your channel a few weeks ago and really enjoy it. I love your cool, low key style. The chat with Mike was great. I very much enjoyed his story. Please keep those amp repair videos coming.
This was so awesome! thank you for sharing this interview. Mike is an awesome and brilliant mentor. I can see why you are so good at what you do.
Mike seems like a fun person and has lived a pretty interesting life. I think all of us that watch your channel tinker and fix stuff and it is great to see the old masters. Was a great interview, thanks for doing it and sharing.
Very reassuring to see the respect for your mentor. We all started at the beginning and arrived here on the shoulders of talented folks who were willing to share and teach.
This was really enjoyable to hear, that story about the shock of his life was crazy! I can see that you had a great teacher, thanks for sharing this with us.
great video, thank you. What a great inteview, just got better and better.
A great teacher and review of the time and place of a great career. So real. Keep up the good work.
man hearing that enthusiasm is so refreshing! I had the same thing w me and trumpet, but its always nice to share what we enjoy getting our hands and minds into!~
That was one of the most enjoyable things I have seen in a long time. I love people like that. No wonder you are so enjoyable to watch.
That was a great video, and I think the audio quality wasn't bad at all.
Loved Mike's career story.
Awesome interview. Guys like Mike are rare and it's great your paths crossed. You are now the torch bearer for this service. Thanks for sharing.
I love hearing stories like this, thanks so much
Such nice folks! The world needs more people like you two!
Man I somehow knew you were from my neck of the woods! Great Channel!!! My daughters love watching you with me so now they actually have an interest in electronics now! Thank you and keep up the good work!!!
Your channel is such a breath of fresh air!! No bs. I got tired of that brad guy on another channel.
More vids please!
Lets go!! 🤘🤘
Lol, the lack of crazed political ranting here is indeed refreshing. Plus, I doubt Colleen would mix up solder paste with paste flux and then blame it on everyone else 😆
Great Video!!! Interviews with these Experienced Techs are the Best! Thanks for sharing this!!! 🎶🥰🎶
Years from now you will REALLY appreciate this interview. Awesome questions and a really cool personality. Thanks for sharing
Thanks so much Mike and Colleen. I really laughed at the fire story at 12:20 it was so hilarious! I hope more people put up videos of their mentors that are full of stories.
You're the next generation of these knowledgeable experts. Keep the legacy alive. Love the channel. Been playing guitar for about as long as you've been alive, am now getting into the logistics of tube amps. Been studying for about 2 years. Want to design my own amp. Thanks for the inspiration.
Felt good watching! Great idea to feature some shop talk and chatter on the channel.
People like Mike are priceless irreplaceable sources of info... you'd be very lucky to find anyone today willing to give you their time
Icing on the cake! Mike makes it all work from the past to the future! Long live all of you from one really old tech with many mentors, also a former Pacific Stereo and Business Degree grad. You can't write this stuff. Oh... still fixing anything that makes it to my bench. Wow Colleen, thanks and great to get to see Mike!
I was wondering about the audio and then I checked your D. Box. As long as you know about it! You'll have to go see him again and have your mic with you. This is so awesome. He taught you well. Thanks, Colleen and Mike and Dad!
Oh my, Mike was such a fanboy right from the start. Good it's not only fans :D
Nice to see you back! Being another gal in tube electronics, I always loved your videos.
I had a few mentors back in late 2000s, learned quite a few amp-related things from them. Other than that, I learned the stuff myself, sometimes the hard way, albeit I didn't get zapped too often. Ha, I've got a few mentors now as well, not just tube related. Generally anyone I consider vastly more experienced or knowledgeable, someone I can learn from, get inspired by and look up to.
I was also well known as someone who could fix anything. Still am :)
I've been doing tube stuff for half of my life (half-life?), started around 2004, serviced an occassional amp, radio, test equipment etc., built a few amps too, then kinda moved out of the field. Got back in 2020s after I've been missing these pesky little indirectly heated buggers, and I'm planning to go more public with it (i.e. doing videos), and going commercial if I can find customers. Truth be told, I met two amp builders/repairmen around and none of them has a tube tester, and I do, so... Oh my, things are getting serious here :)
Electronic repair is becoming a lost art. It really seems as if it's more a labor of love these days. I am not much of a business person, but my guess is not many get rich doing this for a living, but I encourage anyone that enjoys working with their hands and enjoys technical things to learn electronics. We need to pass the torch and carry on with the arts. It may seem as though it had traditionally been a male dominated avocation, but I believe that more women have been involved than what people think ... Regardless I encourage all young persons to give all forms of electronics a try...
@@southboundsuarez9832 it's true, the art of repairing old electronics (radios, audio equipment, vintage computers etc.) is becoming lost because most modern servicepeople get into repairing LCD TVs, phones, motherboards, graphics cards etc. stuff that's built in the surface mount technology, so they have the skills and mindset required for that. Servicing older equipment is drastically different and I'd say it requires less finesse, is more fault-tolerant and has its charm. There's something more of a custodian or archaeologist than just a serviceperson that's at play here.
Thank you for sharing this with us. I am a keyboard guy also. Been playing with bands since 1965. I’ve enjoyed watching your videos. Some of the amps you have shown I have. Guitar amps have been necessary for my Rhodes and Clavinet. I agree 100% with Mike’s opinion on the Leslie!
Awesome video! I love the channel and everything you do !!! Too cool !! I’m a journeyman electrician so it’s always interesting to hear stories about mentoring and our individual learning escapades. The world of electricity and us people that work on it are some of the smartest , quirkiest, intelligent people around! Keep up the great work 😊
Super fun interview and excellent interviewing skills! You really let people tell their stories and get good stories out of them.✌️😌
What a coincidence. I was watching your Champ video before I brought mine to Deltronics to be recapped. This man answered answered all my questions. they did a great job. It sounds fantastic.
I just found your channel today as I am just getting into vintage amp repair. I started with good Ole Uncle Doug but find your content to be very relaxing...I think I could watch it even if I wasn't interested in electronics...lol. I love how you still have a great relationship with your mentor. What a great interview.
This is a wonderful interview. Good work!
It IS a great interview! I teched in St. Louis in 1973 at St. Louis Stereo! Those were the days! Wish you would have told how Mike taught you. You obviously worked with him, but how and when that happened. You are such a beautiful woman and to carry on the tube amp trade is fantastic! Love them tubes! Can’t wait for another video from you! Love from NW Colorado. Thanxz
Love this. So great to hear the exoerience in old school audio gear vs today's microprocessor based gear.
OMG! Mike's top shelf now, resembles the one in the old photo, similar equipment anyway. Glad you visited and shared your friend with us. Mike seems like a hell of a nice guy.
Thanks for sharing about Mike! Glad you found him. The Leslie speaker uses Doppler shift for the cool effect.
Love that you let the dude have his glory, his well deserved glory. He also helps point out that a trade might be the way to go. A degree about a discipline out in the weeds was a great misdirection to many.
This is just the best! Especially the organ stuff at the end!!
♥♥My mentor owned a repair shop, and hired me, while I simultaneously went to college for tech school, and worked in radio stations, and they even offered to pay for my college. I'm so old, it was VCR's, CRT televisions, yes I know how to do color alignments, and replace driver boards and components. At that time in 96, I would also become the identifier of a mostly unrealized virus that attacks audio tape gear. To this day, we even have some professional recordings available digitally, that were originally mastered on audio tape that are damaged from this virus.
Like Mike, working on trying to fix things at a young age, (especially when your poor) is a really good way to learn, and in rare cases you can realize things that not even the creator or designer of those things misses, during it's conception.
Great video going back through your own history to see the paths that shaped those that influenced you...get em before they are gone...even do a second interview!
Great video!
Its great to see and hear from your mentor Colleen!
Nice Man and great stories!
Bob
This is a cool origin story Colleen. So many times when people like you are keeping up an old art or trade, they can point back to an individual who influenced and encouraged them. Then that person, Mike in this case, can reference the person that did this for them. It's like a lineage. Thanks for sharing this.
What a great guy . I enjoyed watching your amazing video. Thanks a lot for showing us 🙏🏼🤝👍👍👍🇨🇭
I really enjoyed the interview, Keep up the wonderful work.
Nice to know of your services here locally near O’Hare. Great interview and Like the shirt. Thanx.
Great interview! Thanks for sharing and love your channel!
This is absolutely wonderful.
Alright, I'm loving this channel after just two videos. The easy back and forth here between these two people is a joy to watch, even if you don't care about the subject matter. Personally my favorite part was the fire story, and learning that Hammond hated Leslie.
Leslie speakers I remember from going to church, and being in the top gallery where the 6 to 12 year olds were, which also had there the church organist and a pair of Leslie speakers to provide the organ to the church. Open fabric cabinets so you could see the 2 speakers in them, and the motor and drive as well, and the changes in speed as the organist desired it.
I really enjoyed this video! Mr Mike is the genuine good guy. Bet he was a hoot to work with. It’s getting hard to find these guys,or gals, someone who will share their knowledge and help people out. Now everybody is out for themselves and will sabotage you just to get the credit. I worked as an auto/truck tech and it was cutthroat city! Glad you got to work with him and wish you the best of life.
Love to hear it! old technicians and their wisdom and passion.! I got the same oscilloscope! high five on that
I love working on old tube radios. Its great to see those filaments light up for the first time in decades.
love this. Mike is a real OG.
I would love do have watched the conversation...How did you fix the old '32 LowBoy Short-Wave? First, I set it on fire. WTH!?!?!? I think you are the still developing, next generation of the Mike Devalle's of the world. Thank God you learned from him. I can see how you are already so proficient at this craft. Thank you Mike for the Interview, and thank you Colleen for thinking of this. Great Interview!! Please keep up the good work!!! Happy New Year!!!! (Great video to kick off a New Year!!!)
I started working in a Shop in 1987 ! Thank you for the great Video !
Thank you very much for sharing this great chat.
Very cool. Great guy with good stories. Now we see how you got your excellent background! Keep up the good work.
This dude is a quintessential Chicagoan. All it's missing is a can of Old Style
Superb interview , progressed very rhythmic.
Mike has fixed many of my amps. He is reliable and reasonable great at what he does
Great interview, thanks for sharing!
I emailed you about my Fender Twin issue a few months back. Just wanted to say thank you! You were 100% correct about the hum trim pot!
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video, especially the flaming radio story.
Great video. Mike is a cool guy. Love old school audio equipment.
great video colleen! no need to apologize about the audio. it's the content, not the quality, that counts. it's sometimes more worth it to have to listen in and try and decipher what's being said, especially if the reward is simply a nice interview from a person who knows how to ask the right questions and someone who has some nice stories (and warnings) to tell. i may be wrong but it looks like beer helped make a more relaxing conversation as well ;)
Who wouldn't love Fazio ... Good vid , thx for posting ... Need some more amp repair vids tho ...
Quality, pride based repair business - can’t beat it
Enjoyed that, thanks for sharing!
I wish Mike was my dad. You are very lucky to have him as a mentor!
Great Video and Mike you seem like an honest hard working tech. Inspiration and respect!
Wow. LESLIE SPEAKER reference at about 17:30 is a great description of how they sound. Had one in a band I did sound for and fell in love with the sound in the 70s. Lovely.
Thanks for the video. As far as the audio quality, I always recommend turning off the "auto level" feature, which causes the varying loudness in levels heard here. Cheers!
Good job, Colleen! Very interesting interview.
Thx, good luck on New Year from Poland .Yours amazing
so great!!!!! thanks!!!!
Awesome video. I drive past this shop all the time!!
What a cool gentleman . Enjoyed those stories... best regards from far Ukraine!
Привет Товарищ от Украинская ССР ..
Слава Родина ..
Super interesting interview, love it!!
What a great guy! Good to know he’s just a couple of hours north of me. 😊
He just fixed my 1968 Weltmeister Claviset! Absolutely nothing on it online so I was super impressed when he said it was fixed!
That was lovely ... thanks Colleen... you're the sweetest amp/speaker fixer in the entire world ..! Here's one for you ... have you ever played a speaker ( on a plain open baffle ) directly into a fan ? It's like a cross between a Leslie and vibrato .. it's so nice to see you back honey ... I'm glad you're staying safe ... 😃
Great Interview. Chicago House Music got me into Electronics. Chicago is the place to be for both music and Electronics.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!!!
What a nice guy, and great stories!