On May 6, 2:32 pm, Frank D. Greco <fgr...@REMOVECrossroadsTechNOSPAM-
FOOBAR.c00m> wrote:
> Trucked over to Piscataway NJ yesterday to the amp show. It was a gorgeous day,
> sunny and warm. Not exactly a day one wants to try their driving luck on
> stressful Route 287...
> It was an excellent show with most of the boutiques there. Check out the list
> on the website:www.ampshow.com
> Very clever layout. On the inner courtyard of the hotel, several rooms on the
> first and second floors were used as vendor "booths". A vendor would have their
> door open with their amps setup inside. Anyone could come in plug-in and play.
> And there was no restriction on volume, so occasionally you'd hear some
> mega-volume riffing throughout the hotel. Cool. :)
> Had a nice chat with Paul Rivera on his new small Knucklehead combo and new
> Venus combo. The 1x12 Knucklehead combo was able to add gain on gain to make
> the Strat I was playing through sound like it was going through a 4x12 cab.
> Paul said that was his intent. Its an aggressive sounding amp. The new Venus
> combo is similar to the Quiana but voiced a little differently. On a Quiana you
> typically have to keep both boosts engaged to maximize your tone (increases the
> noise); on this amp, I was able to get some nice tones (clean and overdriven)
> without the boost engaged. Nice smooth OD tones similar to the Quiana.
> The 65amps room seemed to be always crowded. Very unique sounding amp imho.
> Very nice OD tones. Has an identity all its own.
> Had a long chat with Jim Weider about his 50w Fargen amp (JW model). I can only
> describe the sound of the amp as "organic". Its pure tone. You really have to
> play through this thing to appreciate it. Jim said Mike Piera (AnalogMan) was
> instrumental in the OD circuitry of his amp. Jim handed me his '52 Tele and
> just said "here... try it out". Wow. What a guitar. It resonated just by
> looking at it (nod to Nigel). Hard to get a nicer sound than that combination.
> I gotta bring my guitars to the Fargen distributor and kick the tires in a
> closed environment. Seriously impressive amp. Jim Weider is just a super nice
> guy too.
> Talked to Andy Fuchs for a bit. The Fuchs amps are awesome. They can be
> Marshally aggressive on one hand and then Dumble-ish on the other. I was lucky
> to catch local axe-king Scott Lerner flying through some riffage for about 15
> min. Great, great sound.
> Greg Germino showed his line of vintage Marshall inspired amps. Finally got a
> professional looking logo for his amps. Looks great. You really can get the
> old Duane or Dicky sound from these things. No need to look for a vintage
> Marshall; just pick one of these up. The purple tolex on one model made my
> knees weak.
> Stopped in the Goodsell booth since I heard good things from an article in
> ToneQuest. Unfortunately the company rep (presumably the owner) kept on talking
> about the female models he uses in his ads and was over-eager in trying to show
> the guys in the room the porn he had on his laptop. Was one of the bad notes of
> the day.
> Someone in the Komet booth had a small head cranked through a bunch of new
> Celestion 1x10 and 1x12 cabs (to be available in the summer). Now *that*
> sounded nice! All power tube saturation. British sounding OD... very far away
> from a fizzy over-gainy sound. Those cabs would make a nice pair with a
> low-powered head.
> ARK Amplifiers had this unusual looking amp. It was the usual head/cab thang,
> but the outside of the amp was all fancy woodwork. The amp controls had no
> markings for Volume or Bass or Gain... just slightly different wood grains.
> Took a little getting used to. But, this amp was probably in the top 3 amps at
> the show. What a tone! Very creamy OD and not forced. I just wasn't crazy
> about the wood; a few gigs and all that fancy designed wood would be trashed. A
> few misplaced beers or some bumps on the way to/from the gig and goodbye. A
> more conventional head/cab style would help to put this amp in the head of the
> pack.
> There was a Two-Rock distributor there with some nice (and expensive) Two-Rock
> amps. The high end Two-Rock comes in at just under $10K, so you gotta be a
> seriously working dude to handle it. They are ultra-smooth amps; for some
> things they are too smooth imho. They're perfect for that Robben Ford, Carlton,
> Steely Dan sound (although John Mayer plays a mean SRV-ish blues through his
> Two-Rocks). All the models at the show sounded awesome. The JM, Kimock and
> Custom Reverb sounded as good as they cost. But the little ($3300) 20/35w Jet
> was the popular Two-Rock amp at the show. I heard a lot of positive comments
> from the test drivers.
> Also bumped into pedal-meister AnalogMan (Mike Piera) at the show. Seems like
> he still wants to build a killer mid-priced analog delay but other activities
> are keeping him really too busy.
> There was a Love Pedal distributor at the show. Imho, my Love Pedal Eternity
> pedal is at the top of my OD pedal list. Its a bit pricey, but it is a killer
> pedal. Everyone that I've recommended it to has raved about it. But all the
> Love pedals at the show were sold before the day started! So much for my
> thoughts of buying a backup Eternity.
> I should also mention the Ruokangas products. They had a great head/cab on
> display with a new boost (or was it an OD?) pedal. Good stuff. They also had
> some of their custom guitars there. These are seriously expensive guitars in
> the $4k-$6k+ range. I played their high-end model and was thoroughly impressed.
> Tremendously playable with absolutely no dead-spots. I started at the 15th fret
> high-E and stretched a full tone. The note just rang and rang! Kept on going
> up the neck up to the high D. The stretch note just hung there. Wow.
> Absolutely killer workmanship.
> I'd say the three top amps at the show were the ARK, the Fargen Jim Weider and
> the Two-Rock Jet with a lot of amps in the next seriously good category
> (Germino, 65 Amps, Rivera, Comet).
> There were about 55 vendors at this show. Mostly boutique stuff. It was a
> great show. I hope they do it again next year. Tone machines indeed. :)
> F
Cool Frank. Nice writeup. Thanks. mvm
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