The Musician's Room: My Backline

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While studying the amps used for many classic rock albums, one name kept coming up: The Fender 5E3 Narrow Panel Tweed Deluxe. I saw these amps mouldering in the back of guitar stores in the 1970s. This little 15 watt design from the 1950s delivers a range of cool and complex vintage sounds via a cathode biased pair of 6V6 tubes that also create natural compression. Through the 12" Alnico speaker, the amp delivers up some excellent, rootsy tones. The hallmarks of the amp from the player's side are exceptional touch sensitivity and ability to be controlled from the guitar's volume control. A guitarist's typical appellation for this amp is, "A minute to love and a lifetime to master." I commissioned an historic reproduction from a custom amplifier builder in my region. More HERE.

I was introduced to this amp when I was demoing something else and its sounds caught my attention rather quickly. This is the Mesa Boogie Express 5:25 1x12 combo. A fairly recent design, it allows a selection of four sounds from its two channels that can go from very clean to modern high-gain. The power amp is based around EL84 tubes for a bright, chimey sound and allows you to switch between A/B and A power modes to create a very versatile amp. The 5 watt Class A mode offers a quieter, brighter, more Vox-y sound and the 25 watt A/B mode offers both more volume and a smoother sound. In Class A mode, you can nail the classic Doobie Brothers distortion sounds from their Toulouse Street album. In A/B mode, the sound is strangely (and nicely) reminiscent of that of a 1970s Traynor YRM-1 Reverb Master amp. Between a three-knob pre-gain stage EQ, post-gain stage "Contour" controls, and switching options, you have the ability to shape your sound extensively and have lots of control in a live situation as well. One unique characteristic of this amp is that as you gain up, it is virtually impossible to create "ice pick" distortion because the high end is automatically moderated. Its not an amp for a quick plug and play, but is instead a "thinkers" amp, if you will. More HERE.

This is a Marshall JTM-612 combo which, like most Marshalls, loves to be pushed! It offers many features for recording and stage performance: channel switching, a balanced direct out, parallel and series effects loops, 60 watts RMS, reverb with individual channel sends, a twelve-inch speaker, compact size, and light weight. Yup, after schlepping large amps and stacks for years, I got tired of the arm-streching exercises before and after each gig. Most Marshalls have a fairly dark clean sound but this one is bright, complex, and pretty. It might be though of as a cross between a JCM800 and a Fender Deluxe Reverb but it really is its own bird.

At low volumes, this amplifier's distortion can get a little fizzy for some people's tastes. After some experimentation, I've found the way to get a great sound: resist jacking up the the boost channel's gain for more sustain. Instead, jack up the channel volume. The result is a nice, smooth sound and some rather pretty distortion. Much like a typical Marshall, this amp DOES love to be driven flat out, and its sound will round out to that very "Marshall-esque" bark (like the Allman Brothers at Fillmore East) when you crank it. When you add an external cabinet, it can hold its own with just about anything else. Oh and by the way, for "Spinal Tap" Fans, these go to 20! This one ran over twenty years before it gave me the first hint of trouble. More, HERE.

Sometimes you have to think outside of the box. Everyone seems to love the Vox AC-30, Marshall JTM-45, and Fender Blackface amps. What they don't know is that you can get the best of all of these amps in one, very robust and dependable amplifier, the Traynor YRM-1 Reverb Master. This amp was built from 1973 to 1979. It was basically a 45 watt, single channel, Blackface master volume amp featuring EL34 power tubes. It could put out a very nice, Marshall-eque bark, even if a little darker and colder by comparison, but also did the chimey stuff you expect from a Vox. You really could only get one sound at a time with this amp unless you used pedals, but it had some really nice sounds, mind you! Toronto-based Yorkville Sound built these amps and tested their designs' durability by literally throwing them out a second-floor window. They'd put in a fresh set of tubes and if the amp worked, it passed. Mine came with a huge model YCV-212, two-by-twelve-inch reflex horn speaker cab made for Traynor by Cerwin Vega and loaded with two ER-123 speakers. Talk about aiming for big venues! You could practically irradiate the first four rows without trying. I traded off the cab and eventually sold this amp to a vintage guitar store to make space, but I never got over it. So I replaced it! More HERE .

I've always wanted the sound of an Early Marshall Plexi in a smaller, quieter form. That British sound we all heard in the early '70s was bold and bright. It has taken nearly sixty years but Marshall has finally come up with a way to shrink the size and quieten down the Plexi sound. They've created a tiny homage to famous JTM-45 1962 "Beano" combo and the 22450 head. While checking out another brand of amp I stumbled across one of the Origin 20H heads being sold used at a nearby guitar shop and was blown away, to put it mildly. I spent a couple of hours checking it out. At that point I was torn between the classic Marsall head style box and the 1x10" combo. Both were enormously attractive, but I eventually narrowed down the best solution to my needs in the Origin 20C combo. This amp has the glassy, ringy, shimmery high end of the classic Plexi amps combined with modern features such as a virtual channel jumpering system and power scaling. It is powered by a pair of full-sized EL34 valves giving it that big boy sound as well. More HERE .

Speaking of thinking outside the box, here's a lovely 1966 Gibson GA-45RVT Saturn amplifier. Back in the 1970s I owned a larger GA-55RVT Ranger which was a 60 watt, 4x10 behemoth known as the "Kalamazoo Super." Idly searching for another Ranger on the Internet I came across this amp in a local store and was intrigued. After visiting it at the store a few times I decided to bring it home. While it shares many features and technical details with the Ranger, it is quite its own beastie. The amp features a dual-6L6 push-pull power section, two ten-inch Gibson Ultrasonic alnico speakers, a smooth, long-tank reverb, a gentle opto-isolator vibrato, and two channels, voiced slightly differently. Oddly opposite to many Fenders, it doesn't begin to bloom until about seven on the dial. Crank it all the way up and it is a fast train back to the '70s. I cleaned it up to look, well, pretty good for a fifty-year-old veteran! Click the pic for a larger version. More on the amp, HERE.

Please tell me you caught the wordplay in that last title. I remember thinking of Fender Champs as toys back in the '70s. While I was thinking about them that way, Derek and the Dominos (featuring Eric Clapton and Duane Allman) were busy recording a Classic album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, with Champs. Surprise, surprise, the Champ is a class-A amplifier design! If you need that class-A sound, I can't think of a cheaper way to get there than a late-'60s - early-'70s silver-face champ. The early Silverface Champs are also virtually identical to their coveted '60s Blackface brethren. Wound out, they give you that bratty, brash sound from Layla. With a little moderation and a humbucker guitar, you can have the Doobie's "Rockin' Down the Highway" rhythm sound. Back off further, and you can "Listen to the Music". Now, mind you, the humble Champ is what good old boys would call "dumber than dirt": You won't find any bells and whistles in this package and with six (6) whopping watts, it can't do "clean" loud enough to compete with, well, just about anything. However, do try out the two inputs: One has higher gain than the other. You can buy all sorts of modification packages and replacement speakers to restore, "tweed", or "hot-rod" a Champ. I picked up a late-1971 Champ for a song. Though it's not all-original (replacement 10" speaker) or very collectable, it is clean and it sounds pretty darned good. Good enough that I've used it to record. It also dates from the early days of my playing career. For safety, it would probably be a good idea to have a tech replace the amp's two-wire power cord with a three-wire, grounded one. Click the image for a larger version. Click HERE for a couple of cool Champ applications. Champlications. Champlifier.

I do love the sound of rotating speaker systems. Here's a Motion Sound AR-112 Sidewinder. After years of wishing for a Leslie rotating speaker system, I came across this cool little rotating speaker combo used. It features a 12" speaker, a 100-watt power amp, and a tube preamp for cool growly sounds. At 40 pounds and little more than the size of a Princeton Recording amp, it's much easier to lug and store as well.

The amp offers an Accutronics spring reverb and pre- and post- gain stage EQ. For easy pickup and connection to a PA, a mic is mounted inside the rotor chamber. The back panel offers a mic input that runs parallel to the guitar jack on the control panel. The unit is finished in a black, textured polymer coating and the speaker openings are filled with dove grey cloth for contrast. The sound is amazingly deep, milky, and swirly, given the unit's size. With this unit's rotor set on slow and another amp on stage, your sound undulates between the two amps. The Sidewinder isn't made anymore so you'll have to look for one used. HERE is a comprehensive review.

Well, I suppose this is proof that I love the sound of rotating speaker systems. Here's my second one, a Leslie G37. The wonderful portability of the Sidewinder wasn't able to overcome the fact that it was a single-rotor system. There was a level of complexity missing. After seeing Joe Walsh live in 2016 using the G37's big brother, the 3300, I eventually succumbed to tracking down a real Leslie, this 100 pound beastie with two rotors. I have to say that those two rotors make all the difference in the world.

The G37 packs a watt-per-pound and a tube preamp with two gain channels and EQ into a smaller cabinet than those of its forefathers. Speed and braking are fototswitchable with the including footswitch. Gain is also footswitchable if you add a simple latching footswitch. An optional treadle allows you to set the speed anywhere from very low to very high. When the brake is applied, sensors stop the rotors facing forward for best acoustic performance. And the sound? Here is classic Leslie swirl like I've hear it on albums for forty-five years. Clean it is milky. Dirty, using a modeler as a front end, it is gritty and growly. Yum! Yum! Yum! My review is HERE.

Talk about a piece with history: This cab was once a huge, 4x12" Hammond Tone Cabinet built in the 1930s or 40s. In 1975 when I needed a guitar cabinet and couldn't afford it, my father and I cut down the brute into two smaller, more manageable 2x12" cabs. I bought a couple of re-coned speakers at a local guitar dealer and loaded one of the boxes and was rewarded with a lovely, smooth system that became my main cabinet for twenty years. Eventually in the 90s it was damaged by curious little fingers so I tucked it away into storage for a rainy day. Recently when the Traynor amp needed a cabinet, my family helped me refurbish it and bring it back into service! You can read about its former lives, its death, and new life, HERE.

I first got into the Echoplex EP-3 in the '70s when they were the only Echo game in town. If you know how to take care of 'em, they are dependable units with a really lovely sound that can't be had practically anywhere else. Oh, there were other tape units, but they were complicated and prone to breakdown on stage. The original version featured tube preamps but later ones were all solid-state. I remember Tom Scholtz of Boston and Joe Walsh complaining about the hiss from these units (and rightly so), but they were the best anyway. I picked up an EP-3 (solid-state) and kept it for twenty years. It was in better shape when I sold it than when I bought it! I finally sold it because I thought it was just too darned noisy for recording, both mechanically and electronically. I was an idiot. The Echoplexes didn't have true bypass. They added a little dab of gain and smoothed the highs of the guitar sounds just a bit whether the effect was in or out. In my opinion, the solid state ones sound just as nice as the tube ones and cost much less. Apparently Eric Johnson agrees, because he uses TWO of them in his live rig. I saw 'em with my own two little eyes. I loved mine so much I bought a new/old stock 'Plex off eBay. You can read about it, HERE.

The folks at Hughes and Kettner have come up with a wonderful pedal which nicely simulates the sound of a Leslie Tone Cabinet. A Leslie is a powered speaker system featuring a rotating tweeter horn and a woofer which plays through a rotating vane, both of which cause doppler shifts and spread the sound across the stereo field nicely. The Leslie amplifiers are underpowered and usually pushed to the limit to keep up with a band, causing a gritty growl which swirles around and around.

Hughes and Kettner have have fit the Rotosphere with two features which really allow an authentic sound: A 12AX7-based tube preamp which can be easily overdriven for that gentle Leslie "growl" and an acurate simulation of the rotation which realistically mimics the spin and "ballistics" of the original unit. As with a real Leslie, when you change speeds, the unit changes slowly and the tweeter and woofer change speeds at different rates.

I've heard criticism of the unit saying that it is hissy. Having used and maintained Leslies, I know that they are noisy beasts themselves and this unit is much quieter than most real ones. OK, nothing copies a Leslie perfectly but this is pretty darned good. See my full review of the unit and application notes HERE.

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