In the days of my youth I was told what it means to be a man Now I’ve reached that age I’ve tried to do all those things the best I can No matter how I try I find my way to the same old jam
Led Zeppelin
In order to pull off a mind-bending great amp, the aperture of the lens for your frame of reference must be wide. Rest assured that Mitch Colby’s time with Marshall, Vox and Park, as well as those that were and inspired by their likeness has led to him experiencing stunning, standout examples of all of those classic amps as well as the dogs and everything in between. It’s been his business for the last 45 years, which translates to him simply knowing his way around a circuit and specifically what each minor tweak will do to the sound and feel of a great tube amp. The knowledge runs deep.
TQR: Mitch, we’ve enjoyed a long-term relationship that goes back almost 20 years. Rich Lasner referred to you as “Mr. Marshall.” If you had to summarize your career in five sentences, how would that sound?
[Laughs] OK… A kid who was a guitar player found that the musical instrument industry attracted passionate people, and somehow he found a path to many great opportunities that continue to this day. It’s tough to put into five sentences.
TQR: I’m sure. Let’s touch on the places you’ve been.
I started out at Electro Harmonix, testing equipment, and was there only for a few months before moving onto Unicord in 1978. Unicord was the U.S. distributor for Korg and Marshall at the time. Korg was a big name in the burgeoning synthesizer market, and soon after I joined they came out with some fabulous products like the Mono/Poly and the PolySix. I started by going to dealers around the U.S.A. with Unicord’s salesmen to help them present new products, including anything that related to guitar, especially Marshall amps. I was also involved with marketing, writing ad copy, press releases, and things of that nature. A few years into that role I became the product manager for the guitar products. Korg bought Unicord in 1985 and became their own distributor for Korg in the U.S. and for Marshall, who stayed with the company. That’s when I became VP of Guitar Products and really got involved day-to-day with the amplifiers. I traveled abroad to Marshall twice a year, or more, for 30 years. I worked with the teams at HQ to develop products, marketing strategies, and artist relations. From 1985 until 2010, I was responsible for the U.S. distribution of Marshall. In 1992 Korg bought Vox’s distributor in England, which was Rose-Morris. That created somewhat of a dilemma as in what to do with Vox, because we were so strong with Marshall and you could perceive that there was a conflict of interest there, which Marshall did, but we worked it out for a while. Along the way, I convinced Jim Marshall to build the AC30 for us.
TQR: Some consider those some of the best modern versions of the AC30.
Well, it’s now known as the Korg AC30, the Korg/Vox AC30 or simply Korg era. Those amps are not hand-wired; they are PC board. Steve Grindrod, who was the head Marshall engineer, did all of the design on that. It’s a great amp. They sound amazing onstage. AC30s are just incredible amps to begin with. The vintage ones can be finicky because some of the parts they used were not great in the long term, and with the voltages we now have in the U.S., one has to be careful. The new one from the early ’90s is a little bit tighter, and because of that, some say, cuts through onstage a little better—not as much of a spongy feel—and that’s why players like them. They’re clear and they cut. There is also a handwired AC-30 that was designed by me and Tony Bruno. It too was built by Marshall and the first that I had a hand in designing. Some say may be the finest of that era.
TQR: What years were those made?
It’s tough to remember…around 2000. It was a limited run. We didn’t make a ton of them.
TQR: Did you make any changes to the original?
Yes. We made some tweaks to the original AC30 design, as over the years you learn that very few players use all three channels. The Vib/Trem channels in the old ones are usually broken. They sounded great when working properly but are limited in terms of controlling speed with only three settings, and the depth on the trem is really only trem and vibe. Depending on how healthy the circuit is, it might or might not sound great. So, we took that channel out and just went with a Top Boost channel with Tremolo and Master Volume and then added a Fender-style spring reverb.
TQR: What’s your coolest artist story?
Well, the coolest thing that ever happened to me was this past Friday night (November 3, 2023). Did you watch the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony or know anything about what happened?
TQR: Do tell.
It was a great event, and I was lucky to be there. They inducted Link Wray.
TQR: I think you’re going to tie this to Jimmy Page because he loves “Rumble,” and I know he is a huge Link Wray fan. You worked with him on the Sundragon Amps Supro Coronado build.
That’s right. For three days, I got to hang out with Jimmy Page in preparation for his performance. During the two weeks leading up to the show, we were hurriedly building our new Super Dragon amps that Jimmy wanted to use for “Rumble.” It was last-minute, as sometimes these things are. We had to overnight parts in, etc. We had all of the new old-stock parts we needed and the tubes—those were the easy things. But certain things, like the chassis not being 100% right, and we didn’t have all of the hardware we needed…. The cabinets built by Kurt Wyberanec of KW Cabs, made it just in time. We neglected to order knobs; it was just all a bit crazy. The final transformers came in at the last minute, but we got the amps finished and we drove them into the city on Tuesday. Wednesday was rehearsal. We hung out, made sure everything sounded right, and he played for a while. We took photos of Jimmy, Perry Margouleff (Partner in Sundragon) and me with the amp. He’s a busy guy and not always available, even though he’s almost 80 years old. Thursday was soundcheck, which can be harrowing, and this was at the Barclay Center. The crew there is incredibly efficient and professional, and it was a sight to behold as to how they handled all the acts and bands that transition throughout the evening. To pull that off with live TV feeds and video was just amazing. Jimmy did the soundcheck, and it was a bit of a complicated setup. We had to have tremolo for him because “Rumble” ends with that fast trem. We then got to hang out all day on Friday, which was the day of the performance. Jimmy stayed in the back until it was his turn to be onstage because it was a surprise that he was there and would do a live performance. Jimmy performed, and people went crazy. We got to hang out a little bit afterwards and he was happy with how things went, which is critical because everything he does, he wants done at the highest level. So, yeah, hanging out with him for three days is at the pinnacle of my artist interaction.
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
—John Muir
Shake it, don’t break it. If ever there was a mantra around here these days, that’s it. Life is quite a ride in the ever-brief time we are spinning around on this magical piece of dirt hurtling through the ether. Heading into fall and the holidays, perhaps you find yourself in a funky groove. The morning alarm clock, just plodding along to whatever your gig is day in and day out. The cliché food groups of Stratocasters and Les Pauls scattered around you. We’d bet a chunk of hard-earned cash you even have heaps of unloved, uninspiring pedals sitting in drawers.
Sell them. Oh, there is a simple cure for this rote and menial, and we’ve encouraged you a few times. Homegrown is a good thing. Rolling your own, baby−stretching your wings with a whimsical guitar build that takes you out of your usual romps. Don’t worry about a thing, just grab a few parts and viola’. Our guts are always right, so trust yours. Listen to the emotions swirling under your breastbone, and when you find a vibey body or neck that speaks to you get to it. Create something special.
Why a Jazzmaster? For decades, our life consisted of chasing waves to surf around the world alone when we weren’t cranking guitars and playing in bands. From Mozambique to Peru, Fiji to South Africa, and all points in between. Our gig was as a staff writer for a fancy California surfing mag. Getting paid to surf is about as wonderful as getting paid to play music. We always wondered if the cops were going to show up and tell us we were having too much fun, the jig is up. But they never did.
Eventually, we found peace with water. We just woke up one day and realized we had done it, followed the muse, and were satisfied. The surf world is as radically small as the music world, and studying the early days of it, we’ll admit we have always been cosmically inspired when we hear Ventures tunes and other groovy sixties instrumentals pouring out of the vinyl album turntable speakers, or even on a short-wave AM radio while sleeping on a cliff in El Salvador. Surf music rules. It is so good for the heart, can keep you young, let alone puts a mile-wide grin across your face. And we’ll count Link Wray in there with his whoopass tune “Rumble,” too.
You could choose a few likely guitars for surf grooves, but our money has always been on the dark horses in life, the underdogs who come from behind and leave the rest of the world in their taillights. A good Jazzmaster can change your stars. And let us announce it right here, right now, there is NO Fender clean as remotely as amazing as a Jazzmaster neck pickup. There is nothing even close. It is supreme.
We decided to find one of the most secretly hallowed underground cheap thrill versions of the Jazzmaster, and also build our own wicked custom ToneQuest Jazzmaster using the finest parts known to earth and tell you a story or two of what happened once the dust settled on our pair of guitars. We had no idea the ramble would take us from Dallas to northern Minnesota, southern California, Oklahoma, Virginia, Missouri, Washington, an island in the San Juans, and back home to Texas. But that’s what happens when you go full-bore in life. When you go the distance and trust that leap of faith over the Grand Canyon of tone, you get handsomely rewarded. And yes, you bet your ass there is always plenty to learn along the way.
The Squier J. Mascis Jazzmaster – Fender’s Worst Kept Secret
In 2013, we got a phone call from our Publisher Emeritus, David Wilson. He was quite fired up about the J. Mascis Jazzmaster, and he let us know that we, of all people, since our truck floorboards were filled with beach sand and there was surf wax on everything, needed to buy a Squier JM asap. David and I were the closest of friends, and those of you who have read ToneQuest for a while know him as your own family, too. Rarely did a day go by without us talking guitars and life, let alone all the gonzo hangs we had through the years. But I didn’t get around to grabbing one—until now.
They were made in China, and that alone could keep some who chase logo tone away from having something special for low dough. The necks are talked about often as being wonderful, and some players hack them away from the guitar and use it on their fancier builds. The bodies were made of basswood. Think that’s not a good call? Guess again. There’s nothing that special about alder, although it can be more than decent and get the job done. Alder was viewed by western loggers as a “weed tree” that grows as much as fifteen feet in five years. It is extremely workable in terms of accepting stains and finish and it resists splitting apart when used in furniture.
Leo Fender chose it to replace swamp ash because it was cheap and plentiful. Basswood is an exceptional choice for solid body guitars, yet still considered inferior by the usual fools who couldn’t play their way out of a wet paper sack but prefer to talk about guitars all day on the internet. Around here, we like to play guitars. Remember that “Frankenstrat” that Eddie Van Halen changed the guitar world with? That was basswood. Basswood has a beautiful midrange, which is where the juju is in a great guitar. Keep your mind open and use your ears and heart to judge everything. Basswood. Now you know.
We found a used Squier J. Mascis JM in Oklahoma on Reverb for just a few hundred bucks, and the seller even shipped it in a Gibson gig bag. At the time we bought it, Fender seemed to have discontinued them, but we see them selling as new again. The earliest versions had Laurel fretboard wood and were a rich chocolatey velvet along the chunky frets. We don’t know how the new ones are, but our move would be to find an older one, like we did.
When it showed, we changed out the input jack, which were infamously lame, along with pulling the lightweight tremolo plate and putting in a heavy-duty official Fender replacement for more sustain, changed out the Gibson-style bridge for a Mastery Bridge which took some drilling, dowels, and glue, as well as soldered in a new Switchcraft three-way selector and set it up for Gabriel Tenorio handmade pure nickel 11s. The stock pickups are surprisingly cool, and no matter what they claim, they look and sound like P90s to us.
We tried a few great pickup sets in it, and you’ll hear about that and the Mastery Bridge in a bit. The neck is reportedly a big C, yet we didn’t think it was large at all, rather a nice C shape with a decent satin finish, with a 9.5 radius. Simply put, this guitar kicks ass for just a few hundred, and looks cool aesthetically. It is worth every cent, and in reality, they should cost two to three times more. It is that good. Did we need to make all the upgrades? No, it’s great without them, but yes, it is even greater now, and that’s what it’s all about. The word is out, and most of these older ones get snatched up by great players. If you ever wanted to get your Jazzmaster groove on without breaking the bank, this guitar will just plain steal your heart and you’ll have a natural ball cranking up the reverb and turning it loose.
Oh, we have had some Les Pauls over the past twenty years and you have read about them all right here. Goldtops, bursts, a magic black, some with big necks, some not as big, some were featherweights, others heavier, and they all sounded as different as they played and appeared. And then there were the six ’59 bursts we played in a single session. Depending on how you look at things this could be encouraging or depressing… Well, it’s a fact, every guitar is different, and we received one yesterday that is uniquely fine, among the best yet.
Abilene Sunset indeed… Lee Roy’s second signature Les Paul conjures the visual essence of all the authentic old bursts we have beheld and played in the past. Yeah, they were all uniquely varied in appearance with different degrees of flamey figure in the tops and equally varied hues of golden amber, brown and red merging to create the most coveted electric guitar ever made. With roughly 1400 built from ‘58 – ‘60, the sunburst Les Paul was not a big hit with guitar players, in fact, those 1400 guitars represented less than 3% of Gibson’s total production during those years. The fact that the bursts only lasted three years further underscores the point that in 1959 guitar players weren’t exactly lining up for Les Pauls. And for that reason, were you to find a ‘59 Les Paul in the late ‘60s you probably could have bought it for $300, just like Billy F Gibbons…
Gibson lost their way moving into the ‘70s, and no serious effort was made to accurately resurrect the ‘59 burst until the late 1990’s, and it wasn’t until the emergence of the Gibson Custom Shop in Nashville that Tom Murphy and the crew in Nashville succeeded in bringing the Sunburst Les Paul back to its former glory. And they did just that. In the past twenty years we have bought over twenty Les Pauls to play and review, most of them Custom Shop models. They were all good, yet different, just like the originals. A few were way down in the low eight -pound range, lighter than usual, but the lightest ones didn’t necessarily sound the best. Some players seem to go orgasmic over super light solid body guitars… well, mindlessly latching on to that idea can be fool’s gold. Whenever we play one of these guitars for the first time we don’t plug them in, but strum unplugged and note the degree to which the neck and body resonate, and for how long the good vibrations persist. That tells us what we want to know. When a guitar sustains well, you can hear it through an amp. The harmonic overtones are stronger with a long decay, and sustain is intense. You can hear the way the notes bloom with a percussive response to pick attack, and the pickups transmit what the guitar is giving you. Every guitar is different— it’s what makes them so fascinating, and the more guitars you can play the better your chances of finding a great one, although sometimes we just get a sneaky feeling about a guitar that might be 1200 miles away and sight unseen, we just have to have it. You might be surprised by how well that strategy has worked for us.
So here we sit with Lee Roy’s Abilene Sunset, and it clearly possesses all of the visual and sonic qualities we have chased in these guitars for the past twenty years. It is also stunning in appearance. The golden burst turns to a red sunset in the upper bouts, with flame that shifts from subtle to deeply intense depending on the angle from which it’s viewed. The craftsmanship is flawless, and being new off the line, it reeks of that fresh caramel-nitro aroma. This is also the first guitar we have played built under the new management at Gibson, and it is unerringly consistent with the bursts we acquired throughout the past decade.
The deep red mahogany neck and back nearly match the red in the burst with cream binding, pickup rings and pickguard. At 8 lbs. 11 ounces the weight is right, fit and finish are exceptional, and the fret work is what you would expect from a $7,000 guitar. What is really most endearing however is the neck, and guitars Lee Roy’s… Abilene Sunset Les Paul different necks can often present a make-or-break proposition. The neck on the Abilene is a fairly massive, rounded C shape with big shoulders and uniform girth from the nut to the 14th fret. It fills your hand yet chords have an easy feel and it is reassuring for solos. It also vibrates with an intensity that permeates the entire guitar. It’s alive. What more could you want from a guitar? It is also worth noting that Lee Roy worked with Gibson to develop a modified pickup rout that is shallower, which allows a snug fit inside the mahogany body, increasing resonant sustain. The cutaway is modified with a slight fall away at the back edge to better accommodate your hand when playing at the higher frets, and you’ll find paper-in-oil tone caps and vintage spec pots in the Sunset as well.
The pickups are a ’57 Classic neck and overwound Classic Plus in the bridge reading 7.91K and 8.15K. The Plus is a little gritty, but certainly passable. The trebly harmonics ring like a church bell, tinselly and bright, beckoning rich chords that inspire great songs. Our first pass on the bridge pickup of the Sunset lasted a half an hour. Lead lines have lots of bite, but it isn’t a sharp, hurtful tone… Penetrating is more like it. The neck pickup is woody and bold, perhaps lacking some of the treble definition we like on the top three strings in a great neck humbucker, but such is the price you pay for having heard those magical old PAFs. The in-between setting with both pickups engaged is beautifully detailed, weighty yet bright. You would use it, even if you haven’t in the past. This guitar is alive with tone, with persistent sustain and an animated vocal quality that defines a great Les Paul. The Abilene Sunset is simply as good as an electric guitar is ever gonna get. Quest forth…TQ
Two of Nacho Baños’ Stratocasters arrive from Valencia, Spain and we dig deep into the unmistakable craftsmanship and artful mojo that makes these guitars so stunningly good…
Our November 2019 issue on the Stratocaster chronicled the development of the Stratocaster and its uncertain future throughout the ’50s and early ‘60s in great detail. After a tepid reception by working guitarists that lasted ten years, the guitar languished until Jimi Hendrix arrived in London and set the world on Fire… The Stratocaster has since become a ubiquitous fixture in rock & roll, liberally copied, with so many different iterations created by Fender that it is nearly impossible to catalog them all.
Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Baños resides in Valencia, Spain and his publication of The Blackguard Book and his creation of replica blackguard Telecasters has propelled him to the very top of those designing and building vintage Nocaster and Telecaster reproductions. His work in creating these guitars is simply unparalleled and they are highly prized by collectors and players alike.
Not long ago Nacho began creating Stratocasters in the same spirit and image of his original Teles, and the results are stunning in their authentic look, feel and sound. We received two of Nacho’s Stratocasters for review— a ’50s hardtail and mid ‘50s tremolo model, and we spoke with Nacho at length about the creation of his guitars. Simply stated, the two guitars we received are recreated time pieces that mirror the actual appearance, feel and tone of these historic instruments in obsessive detail Valencia Magic and utter perfection. The aging is indistinguishable from the natural wear that occurs over 60 years of use; the neck shapes are faithful to the V shapes of the originals; the finishes are identical to the ‘50s 2-tone sunbursts: the guitars are proper featherweights with ash bodies, and fret work and playability are flawless.
The trem version of Nacho’s Stratocaster we received weighs 7.3 lbs. with a mid-fifties two-tone ash body— these days that’s very light for an ash guitar. The V-shaped neck is a healthy handful, deep at the back, nicely rounded with a softer V and nearly uniform along its entire length. It’s meaty. The frets are medium-large with a perfect crown producing great sustain and effortless playability. If the neck shape on a guitar is important to you, this one would win you over after three chords. The mildly aged maple neck also reveals vertical grain along its entire length. The aging on the ash body is artful to the extreme, with the finish rubbed off front and back from arm wear and old blue jeans. The nitro finish shows super fine finish checking front and back, and while the back of the neck is aged, it’s smooth as glass. Even the tremolo springs are lightly burnished… You’ll find serial number 4928 on the neck plate, the body and neck date is 9/54 with control cavity tape that reads “Gloria.” All components have been aged. Pickup resistance readings are 5.77K neck/ 5.78K middle/ 6.05K bridge. No detail has been overlooked in putting this guitar together, and it is an entirely believable “relic” that succeeds far beyond the usual appearance of an artificially aged guitar.
The hardtail #7377 sent our head swimming— a nostalgic trip back to 1999 when we owned a vintage ’56 hardtail Strat, only we think we like the neck on this one even better. It’s a harder V, a joy to play, and indicative of one of the great necks carved by Tadeo Gomez (‘TG’) in the mid ’50s in Fullerton. You just can’t do any better. And of course, this guitar is a featherweight at 6 lbs.13 oz. A lot of the original ’50s swamp ash Strats were in this weight range, but that wood has largely disappeared in production guitars today. This guitar succeeds in embodying everything we came to love about our original ’56. The aging on the back of the neck is virtually indistinguishable from a played authentic ’54, the fret work is perfection, and the distress and wear on the ash body is exceptional in its fine detail and execution. It simply looks like an old guitar with no hint of ‘artificial’ aging. In addition to the artfully aged control knobs, Nacho has also reproduced the slightly rounded original pickup covers that do not share the hard edges of current Strat covers, and yes, the pickup pole pieces are aged, too, but not rusted! Pickups read 6.23K, 6.47K and 9.88K ohms. Serial number 7377 is stamped on the neck plate, the body date is TG 9/54, neck date TG 11/54, and the control cavity tape reads Gloria 11/9/54.
Tone
Do you really know how an authentic ’50s Stratocaster sounds? Yes, they varied due to inconsistencies in the number of turns on the coils, but in our experience we would describe the Stratocasters from this era that sound especially good as possessing great clarity. When they were good, the old pickups had tremendous depth, with deep and resounding low end, scooped mids and a very liquid treble tone on the neck pickup. In contrast, the bridge is sweet rather than brittle, still with great strength and depth on the low strings, and beautifully shaped treble tones that are lush yet bright. Pushed through an overdriven amp or a great 50 watt Marshall head the bridge pickup will tear your heart out. Played clean, the bridge pickups are also often quite jangly with tremendous harmonic overtones on chords that nearly mimic a 12-string guitar in their depth. When you hear it there is no mistaking this unmistakable sound.
When Stratocasters sound good, they are one of the most versatile guitars ever made. Three pickups provide a wide range of distinctly varied voices, and the sheer clarity and fidelity found in a good set of pickups are unique to this guitar alone. Depending on the amps you use and a few pedals perhaps, you can literally do anything with a Stratocaster… The key phrase here however, is our reference to a “good set” of pickups. Many hundreds of replacement Stratocaster pickups have been wound, and hundreds of thousands made for production guitars. And yes, they can vary to the extent that the tone of your guitar can be tangibly enhanced and uplifted… or reduced to a thin, sharp, and decidedly unspectacular tone that can render your guitar joylessly mundane. Over the years we have acquired and reviewed a truck load of Stratocasters, we built a dozen ToneQuest Strats, and we have always been very fond of the Robert Cray hardtail models in particular. That’s a hint. There is no dearth of guitars for you to choose from, and fortunately, there are plenty of very toneful pickups available. We listed many of them in our December 2019 Strat issue.
The pickups in Nacho’s guitars are, in our opinion, among the very best sounding you could ever hope to experience. Their overall tone embodies a classic ‘50s Fender sound, and even the set that measured in the low 6K range with a whopping 9K in the bridge didn’t sound remotely dark or overwound. How that was done we don’t know, because when pickups are wound with more turns of wire on the coils treble is often rolled off, and the tinsel-like clarity most of us crave is lost. Over winding can result in a muddy tone that just doesn’t work for anything except gonzo soloing through an overdriven amp. Nacho’s guitars are not remotely afflicted with such shortcomings. His neck pickup embodies the pure tone and depth this pickup is revered for, and you should know that when we evaluate pickups we focus more on clean sounds. If you can get that right, overdriven tones are invariably good. What we don’t want to hear are muddy, indistinct lows and mids, brittle treble, or a “hot” tone with trashy harmonics at modest volume levels. The pickups in Nacho’s guitars are utterly vintage Fender— bright, glistening, deep and wide. Overdriven tones are clear with excellent sustain and the harmonics don’t fade when the volume comes up. We referenced the bridge pickups sounding much like a 12-string… And they do. Once you have experienced this intense harmonic depth within chords there is really no going back— you’re hooked. And you’ll be playing the most addictive rhythm passages imaginable.
Nacho’s Stratocasters capture both the beautiful and tough, imposing tones we all want from a Stratocaster. These guitars sing with abandon and they wail with an intensity and sustain that makes solos a breeze. In other words, they tend to sound as old as they look. And they feel and present the appearance of genuinely old guitars without a hint of fakery… If not for the blank headstock and no decal, you would never know these weren’t vintage Strats. These guitars are authentic reproductions right down to the neck dates and strips of signed tape in the control cavities. If you crave a vintage ‘50s Strat but can’t or won’t tote that note, Nacho’s guitars are a cinch, and a bargain as well. The only downside is you’ll have to get in line— they never last long. But he will build more… Quest forth… TQ
Nacho Baños is an artist, and his artistry produces guitars that can fool you into thinking you are holding a 60-year-old relic built by shirtless craftsmen working in a sweaty tin shed in Fullerton, California circa 1954. And that’s the truth.
TQR:How did you develop the specifications for your Stratocaster— did you have any vintage guitars on hand to reference?
Yes, we have three great vintage sunburst strats (1954, 1956 and 1957) in our vault here which we use as a reference for our models.
TQR:The V necks on our guitars are just perfect, and identical to our original ‘56… Do you vary the neck shapes on your guitars to range between hard and soft Vs, or a more rounded C shape in some cases?
Our starting point for our necks of course is the CNC program with two basic shapes (D and V) which in the case of these necks, has been modeled after our favorite 1954 and 1957 Strats. We use the 1954 for the C/D and the 1957 for the V profile. Once the neck is completed, before it gets to the lacquer booth, one of our guys hand-shapes the profile so to give it a more “handmade” feel and approach. We try to get closer to the somewhat labor-intensive operation Leo had in the early ‘50s, with guys like Tadeo Gomez doing most of the final shaping by hand.
TQR:Ash bodied Strats have become a little rare these days, and especially one in a guitar that weighs just 7 pounds… Where do you source the wood for bodies and necks?
As you may know, the current situation with the Emerald Ash Borer and new climate change conditions have turned ash to be a very expensive and hard to find kinda wood nowadays. We have been lucky to source a stock of very lightweight ash which will secure our guitar production for the next 15 years. As crazy as it sounds, one week after we bought the stock, we were offered three times the money we had paid. I am not sure what the situation may be like in a couple years from now, but if things continue to be like this, I´m afraid there won’t be many builders out there offering lightweight swamp ash bodies for their guitars. With the purchase of this ash stock and the very limited quantity of our production we hope we will continue to offer this quality and vintage correct specs at least for the next 15 years. After that we will both probably be locked up in an elderly home, and with a little bit of luck, we may be able to get out during weekends to strum a couple chords while we chat about the good ole days.
TQR:We assume the finish is nitro of course for bodies and necks? We can feel the ash grain peeking through the finish, which is obviously very, very thin…
Yes, we are shooting five coats of finish (divided into primer, sealer and gloss coat) and we sand after each coat. We believe having a very thin coat of finish is key for a good frequency response on the instrument. We have a small local supplier who is making the lacquer for us, and he came up with our own formula after analyzing some of the genuine vintage guitars we use as role models. Nowadays most of these industries are in the hands of large corporations, so we feel very lucky to have a small lacquer manufacturer nearby willing to develop tailor made formulas for us. At first, they were a bit shocked, because their aim was to come up with formulas which will prevent lacquer from chipping, cracking and deteriorating and that’s exactly what we were looking for!
TQR:The pickup covers are also the rounded true vintage shape. Where do you get them?
We buy most of our plastic parts from Hosco Japan and WD in the US. Then we hand shape the covers and knobs and we aged them to the point where they look close to the original vintage parts we see in our 1950s Strats. It’s a long a fun process to age plastic. My main professional background has been plastic injection and tooling/mold making for the last 30years, so we have some experience with that which we use in the guitar making process.
TQR:Even the tremolo springs are aged… Where do you source them and the tremolo block? What is the composition of the block?
David, I will keep the secret on the block composition if that´s okay with you. It took us many years to come with the right combination in that respect and believe me when I say this component makes a world of a difference when you are talking about a vintage style tremolo bridge on a contour body Spanish Electric guitar.
TQR:Who makes the tuners!
We source them from HOSCO in Japan. They are very good quality and we try age them so slightly so that functionality is not compromised.
TQR:The pickups sound gloriously good and very much authentic to the mid ‘50s Fender era. Resistance readings are suitably low in the 5.6K range— as they should be. Who winds them and what kind of research and R&D went into them?
We have been passionate about vintage guitars in general and Fender instruments in particular for over 30 years now. The sound of our guitars is the consequence of that obsession. The hole in our wallets is the other! My dad used to say “Nacho, please, when will you grow up and get over that guitar thing??” Well, I’m going to be 54 this December and this disease, the obsession for good guitars and good tone ain’t getting any better I’m afraid!
The materials (wire, flatworks, magnets…) and process we use are aimed to achieve that magical three-dimensional complex sound of a great vintage instrument. It is really hard to find the correct components nowadays and then you have to combine them in just the correct way. I have yet to find a successful pickup winder to openly disclose his operation…. where he buys his coils, magnets and fibers and how the does the winding. So, I will stop giving out clues here. But I’d like to say this. As much as the pickups are basic element for a great sound in a solid body electric guitar, they are only one of many. There are many factors combined to produce that magical sounding guitar we all quest for. And I would like to say the instrument itself (its structure, how is it built, the wood— maple and ash interacting, how the neck fits the body, the fretwork, the finish) is the most important. If you add great electronics on top of that, that’s the icing on the cake. But you got to have the good combo to begin with. The pickups are microphones. Good, bad, mediocre… but just microphones. And we all know microphones don’t make the voice. They project the voice of the instrument. A voice that’s already there. Blaming the pickups for the voice of the guitar would be like going to the music store to buy the same type of microphone that Luciano Pavarotti used, because you want your voice to sound like his. The proof is you can choose any type of pickup and it will sound different on every guitar you use. The same pickup, installed on a Strat, Tele, ES295 or Les Paul… I guarantee you, it’d be like night and day, totally different sounding. But it’ll be the same pickup. That being said, my tip of the hat goes to the guys in my team who have been working with me for so many years making these great pickups, because they are a very important part of the success of Nachoguitars.
TQR:Frets are perfect— not too narrow… what’s the specification for them?
We are using two sizes and all are nickel silver. The guitars you have come with the 95/47 medium version. We also make an 80/43 vintage style. Our fretboards are radiused at a flatter 9.5” so that helps. Marcelo, my main luthier in the shop, works the frets in a very meticulous way, so that the feel is vintage but the final adjustment is flawless. Once the guitar is assembled and completed, we perform at least 3 Q controls before it is shipped.
TQR: The aging is outstanding. How do you create the fine finish checking on the body and the wear in the edges?
This question goes back to our nitro lacquer local supplier. He is making the lacquer we could buy 65 years ago. It’s like a time machine. Then the long and tedious aging process does the rest. We take about five months from wood cutting to final assembly for making a full guitar, and most of that time is invested in curing, marking and aging the finish. Some people asked me how to age their finishes and sell the guitars by the end of the month? I say that’s impossible. One of the things I like about our guitar operation is that I don’t rely on selling guitars to pay my bills. So, we only make a few guitars every year and we take all the time that’s needed to make them the way we like them. There are many luthiers out there making great guitars and I don’t claim we are any better than anyone. I have a lot of respect for Fender, Gibson, Martin and I really like what Bill Nash, Gallo Negro, Tussart, etc., do. They are all great in their own style. We are just different. We take a long time to make one guitar. And we like to make things in a very old-fashioned way. We are four guys in the shop and we were all born in the 1960s so we are vintage pieces ourselves!
TQR: Who makes your bridge and saddles, all nicely aged?
Nowadays we are machining in-house a good deal of hardware parts. As explained my background is in tooling making, so we have applied some of that knowledge and experience into making some of our hardware when the readily available product did not suit our needs. Aside from saddles, we are making some of our own string retainers, knobs, jack cups, string ferrules and bridge plates.
TQR: What type of pots and switch are used?
The switch is the CRL 3 and 5-way, classic vintage style from WD products. For the pots, we have CTS make our own vintage style models. The current standard CTS pots have the modern 90:10 taper which is pretty useless inside a passive system. Our custom-made vintage pots have a 60:40 taper with a smooth torque that works perfectly inside a passive guitar.
TQR:You even used a proper round disc string retainer!
Thank you, David that little sucker is so hard to find out there with the proper shape, so we had to machine our own model!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Liz and ToneQuest Report for all the great reviews and support you have given me over the years. Your magazine is so true, focused and devoted to the mission. And you never take a short cut. You are always direct and to the point. I have discovered so many great products and makers browsing through your pages, it’s always great news when the latest issue shows up in the mail box…In a world where guitar magazines are a bunch of ads piled up together with a few articles, you should be rewarded with the golden medal of life achievement service to musicians. The fact that our guitars are getting the TQR approval stamp really means a lot to me and the guys on my team. Thank you, David and to TQR!… TQ
Ten years ago Dr. Z launched the original Z Wreck amplifier in close collaboration with the late Ken Fischer of Trainwreck Amps and Brad Paisley, who collectively parlayed their deep experience and passion for tone to assist Z in creating the Z Wreck. Even in the midst of our troubles here in America,Z found time to build and ship a Z Wreck Jr. for review.Respect…
The Z Wreck Junior is a half-powered version of the 30 watt original with a post phase inverter master volume circuit found in the Dr. Z MAZ amps, Jetta and Nova that in Z’s words, “Controls loudness without compromising the character and harmonic overtones of the original Z Wreck.” Z uses the same turret board construction and aircraft grade aluminum chassis of the original Z Wreck, with excellent reissue Tung Sol preamp tubes and NOS military grade Russian 6N14N (EL84) power tubes as originally specified by Ken Fischer, with a 5Y3 rectifier reproducing the plate voltages and tactile bloom of the original amp.
At 44 lbs. this amplifier is solidly built, yet still a portable one-hander, and when pulling the chassis for pictures we noted how smoothly and tight everything went together. The hand wired chassis layout is meticulously crafted with premium Sprague Atom and Mallory 150 caps, and Z’s selection of a Celestion Greenback seemed perfect for this 15 watt amp.
Tone
Our first impression was just how formidable and seemingly bold the Junior is. You won’t be thinking “Junior” when you plug in… The Z Wreck possesses a strong fundamental tone that frankly sounds more like 20 or 25 watts. Headroom is adequate for cleaner rhythm playing in a full band setting with the Volume and Master controls set roughly equal at or below 6. Advancing the Master Volume creates a gradually more intense overdriven tone that can be dramatically ramped up and boosted with the Volume control.
The overdriven sound ranges from subtle and suggestive with a rich edge, to a hotter burn that is pure and melodious even at higher settings with intense sustain. You get no dissonant distorted tones from this amp whatsoever. Managing the Master Volume, you can also
acquire a solid overdriven sound at lower volume settings. Bass and Treble controls set EQ with precision, and the Presence control shapes brightness and shimmer. This amp is also very touch sensitive and emotive, making it suitable for bluesy rhythms and solos with cleaner tones and less grit, to full on rockers with a steady burn. Call it versatile to the extreme. In terms of overall tonality, we would classify the Z Wreck as being more in the vein of a Marshall 20 watt amp than a Fender, yet clean tones are far more abundant than anything Marshall ever built. Perhaps we should call the Z Wreck Jr. a versatile chameleon… Quest forth… TQ
Among the rarest of all truly rare guitars is the Gretsch White Penguin— perhaps the most uncommon and elusive electric guitar ever made. A mere handful were built, no more than fifty or so from 1958-1962, and the guitar never appeared in a Gretsch catalog. Adorned with gold sparkle binding originally borrowed from Gretsch drums, the Penguin featured jeweled G arrow control knobs, dreamy white lacquer and the head stock was finished with white Nitron drum material. The White Penguin’s list price in 1959 was a stunning $490— two hundred more than a ’59 Les Paul. David Gilmour purchased a White Penguin in 1980 that recently sold at auction for $447,000— the second highest price ever paid for a Gretsch guitar.
The first Penguins featured DeArmond single coil Dynasonic pickups, a Melita bridge and an ebony fretboard. From ’58 to ’61 the Penguin received Filter’Trons, a Space Control bridge and NeoClassical thumbnail fretboard inlays. The ’61-’62 models were built with a double cutaway body, following the trend throughout the Gretsch line and these guitars were equipped with a gold-plated Burns vibrato.
The current Vintage Select White Penguin has been built since 2003 as part of the Gretsch Professional Series with TV Jones Classic Filter’Tron pickups and a gold Bigsby tremolo, in the style of the original ’58 model. It features a mahogany body and neck with an arched, laminated maple top, U-shaped mahogany neck with medium jumbo frets, 24.6” scale length, 12” fingerboard radius, pearloid neoclassical thumbnail inlays, ebony fingerboard and gold sparkle binding. In addition to the standard two pickup wiring and tone switch it also has a master volume control. The Space Control bridge is accompanied by a Bigsby B3 tremolo, tuners are gold Grovers and the pickguard is a cool gold plexi with the penguin image. The standard finish is vintage white and the list price is $3199.99.
When we found the White Penguin at Big House, we’ll admit to being a little skeptical of its glitzy appearance, but our skepticism quickly melted away as we played it. We actually brought it home for a solid and extended audition. Simply put, if we weren’t in the throes of launching a new website, we would find a way to buy it. Here’s why…
Looks a little heavy with all that gold doesn’t it? It isn’t. At eight pounds five ounces the Penguin is a virtual featherweight, well-balanced and comfortable to play. This guitar is lavishly adorned with its gold sparkle binding, gold sparkle truss rod cover, control cavity covers and heel cap. That’s just the cosmetic stuff… The gold TV Jones Filter’Trons, gold Space Control bridge, gold Bigsby and Penguin pickguard complete the look, and rest assured, this guitar is a looker. With all its glitz it doesn’t come across as cheesy or cheap in the least and you won’t forget what it is because there is a small gold plaque on the headstock that intones “White Penguin.”
Good Vibrations
The first thing we noted about the Penguin was its intense resonant sustain. When you play a big cowboy chord you can feel the body of the guitar anxiously vibrating on your chest and stomach (we’re sitting down). You might think that with all that bling on the top it would be a dead plank, but the Gretsch is an extremely resonant guitar— a real rumbler. They got their mahogany right, and that’s what compelled us to take it home. We suspect that the big headstock has a little something to do with that, too…
Tone Freaks
The Penguin features a Master Tone Selector (second switch upper left). The rear position boosts bass, the middle is neutral and the front delivers a slight high-frequency roll-off (nice). Basically, this guitar sounds like a classic Gretsch in every way. The bridge pickup is bright but sweet and alluring with no harsh or brittle tones, whatsoever, and it overdrives beautifully through a modestly cranked amp like our Princeton Reverb or the Blues Deluxe. It has that Gretsch tone that is unmistakably unique and we
love it. Actually, through the Blues Deluxe the guitar sounds much ‘bigger’ with good presence and sustain, deep bass response and utterly vivid treble tones. The middle position is a rhythm player’s dream, lush, still bright but with warmer underpinnings on the bottom three strings. The neck pickup is all Chet. Jazzy yet vividly defined with excellent clean definition on the top three strings despite its warmer character. These pickups are simply outstanding and completely embody the vintage Gretsch sound. They are also stunning at higher volume levels with overdriven sustain. The true sound of rock & roll.
It is also important to note just what an easy, effortless guitar the White Penguin is to play. The frets are tall and wide enough for great fingertip sustain, and the neck is a very comfortable rounded shape. The ebony fretboard is as smooth as black onyx, with virtually no grain. The Penguin also holds pitch beautifully with the Bigsby— waggle it and it comes right back, perfectly in tune, and the tuners are very precise.
In terms of design, craftsmanship, playability and tone, the White Penguin is without exception a phenomenal instrument that looks as good as it plays and sounds. We’ll admit to being very pleasantly surprised and progressively thrilled with this guitar the more we played it. It is in many ways a masterpiece of modern guitar building. Quest forth… TQ
Sometimes, the folks at the Fender Custom Shop create a relic that is entirely believeable as an old road horse guitar. This is one of those…
There are plenty of Fender relic guitars to be had, but once in a while a genuine relic appears out of no where ready to be played and further flogged by its new owner — someone like you perhaps… We had seen this guitar before, or something like it, maybe once in twenty years— perhaps fifteen years ago. Once in a while the crew at Fender contrives to create a heavily worn relic that looks to have oh, maybe 60 years of hard thrashin’ on it, like this one. It isn’t damaged exactly, but the abundant worn streaks, heavy finish checking and the ambered up fingerboard complete with sweat stains surrounding the frets creates a look that is legitimately old, worn and a little beat. You could even call it a beater… You may feel differently, but we really like these very rare Custom Shop guitars for their character and also their comparative rarity. You just don’t see this particular style of tumbledown antique Telecaster every day, and it goes so well with torn and frayed boot cut jeans, sueded up cow hide boots and a good flannel shirt. It is a look, and we like it.
But that’s not all to like about this Custom Shop beater… At six pounds and change it is a true featherweight, further cementing your appreciation for it hanging on your shoulder as if it weren’t there at all. Yet it possesses a blustery, ripping tone that belies its lightness. The neck is a solid C shape with a subtle hint of a V and the medium jumbo frets are neither too tall or too low — just right for easy string bends, and oh, you will be bending them… The brass saddles are burnished and worn with no rust, thank you Fender, realistically aged and the knobs are equally well-worn with a slightly duller patina that conveys the look of having been twirled for decades. The pickups appear suitably old as well with light but realistic wear. Only the white pickguard has escaped the yellowing, chips and scrapes that you might find on an old guitar, and that’s OK with us. The neck feel on this guitar is righteous, and despite its light weight it feels nicely balanced in hand and hanging on a strap. This guitar also seems to inspire the kind of tasty arpeggios and urgent, cutting riffs that make a song really move you, or your feet at least. It’s a relic worthy of a steamy dance hall in Dimebox, Texas or Crescent, Oklahoma, born from the sultry twang of Bakersfield…
Tone:
Now there are lots of different Tele tones to be experienced, some very bright and spanky, others less so to varying degrees, and some pickups seem more loud and powerful than others, too. It’s what makes the experience of experiencing different guitars so fascinating isn’t it? You never know quite what you are going to get any time you pick up an unfamiliar guitar. What fun. Well, this Telecaster is pure, old school country, bright, cutting… we won’t say shrill, but it is wiry and sharp, yet not brittle, but more in the style of an old lap steel with a naked treble character that sounds as old as dirt. We dig it a lot. It is a legit country guitar with a nekkid tone reminiscent of the 50’s and all the great country music that decade produced. In that sense, this guitar is entirely unique given our deep experience with Fender Telecasters — none of them have sounded like this. The bridge pickup doesn’t really kick your amp into heavy distortion like some Tele pickups can, and that’s fine. It’s plenty loud enough, just not blustery and thick. Old school country is what it is.
The neck pickup is warm and lush with very good string definition — it lacks the lush archtop vibe of our Lindy Fralin neck pickup in the ivory Tele we recently reviewed, but it is a fine sounding pickup with excellent clarity, deep low end and… this is the kicker — gorgeous top end treble tones that are surprisingly bright and spanky for a neck pickup. The top three strings are as bright and cheerful as some bridge pickups. We can’t say we have heard that before in a Tele neck pickup, ever. And of course the sound of both pickups combined is the perfect rhythm tone, and a good mix for breezy solos as well. What this guitar oozes from it’s battered ash body is character — tons of it. No, it ain’t no rock guitar if yer lookin’ for thick mids and sumthin’ to light up a Marshall, but played through our Blues Deluxe this guitar is entirely worthy of being permanently parked at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Yes, it is. You could most definitely tear off a jaunty rendition of Dwight Yoakum’s “Guitars, Cadillacs & Hillbilly Music” complete with Pete Anderson’s trippy Tele solo quite nicely, thank you very much. Or maybe you’re feelin a little melancholy, in the mood for Gary Stewart’s sole number one hit “She’s Actin’ Single, I’m Drinking Doubles...” (my heart is breaking, like tiny bubbles…) Well, hell, you can do it all with the relic, relic Tele. Yes you can. This is a damn fine guitar. One of a kind… A keeper… Now ya’ll Quest forth… TQ
We take off with the Demeter Compulator and find our sweet spot.
Compression is, in our humble opinion, underrated and probably underutilized. Can’t say for sure, but we don’t recall seeing a compressor on a lot of pedal boards, although we can assure you that Sonny Landreth uses one to smooth those rippin’ slide moves he makes. Maybe the idea of calming your rig down seems counter intuitive since you’ve spent so much time and effort trying to ramp it up? But that’s really not what compression is all about. We recall having an old pedal compressor way back in the late
’70s— an MXR Dyna-Comp, and we remember using it to smooth the rippin’ tones of our Fender Thinline Tele, and it worked miracles on that guitar pumped through our old beater Pro Reverb.
Demeter has created a super simple compression pedal called the Compulator, and we gave it a workout for your consideration. So what does a compressor do, exactly? Compress yer tone of course, but the effect is a little more subtly complex than that. We broke out our ’60s Telecaster and the Road Worn sunburst Strat with the Fralin True ’54 pickups to audition the Compulator, figuring these two guitars would be the most revealing in our stash. That, and as you know, Tele and Strat pickups can occasionally be a little unruly, brash and sometimes littered with trashy overtones, although of course ours don’t do that…
So here’s what you can expect from the Compulator… First of all, it smooths the treble tones just a bit, making them silkier and not quite as edgy. But maybe you like the edge… Depends on the style of music you’re playing doesn’t it? Well, if you were going for a really pristine Fendery tone like, say, Mark Knopfler, the Compulator completely gets you there. String definition seems to be vividly enhanced by degrees, and the pickups just sound a little cleaner and more well-defined. Your guitar sounds stringier… Your tone doesn’t change one bit, it’s the attack and overall landscape of your instrument that gets altered in a good way. What the Compulator doesn’t do is flatten your guitar making it sound dull, subdued or castrated… No, it won’t do that, so please stop worrying. If anything, it’s a tone enhancer that just makes your guitar sound less abrupt.
We also like the straightforward controls. There are just two— compress and volume, and we liked setting the compression on anywhere from 10 o’clock to noon with the volume at about 1 o’clock. You get a slight nudge in volume at that setting compared to the unaffected sound of your guitar, and higher settings give you a really nice boost as well. The compression is strong, and you won’t want to set it above 12 o’clock in our opinion. Ten to twelve seems to be the sweet spot for light to moderate compression that again, just makes your guitar sound smoother, less abrupt, a little cleaner, with better string-to-string definition. This effect would also be very good for an acoustic guitar for obvious reasons.
Then we cranked the Princeton Reverb up to about ‘8’ and let it rip. With great sustain and a brilliant overdriven tone that stops short of being nasty, the Compulator really came into its own. Just imagine the sound of your favorite amp cranked into sweet distortion, now a little richer with no clanginess or rough edges. The Compulator smoothes the sound of an overdriven amp, seeming to pull everything together in a nice tight (but not too tight!) sound that is both thick, rich and melodious. The effect is subtle, but very real.
Like the AnalogMan Comprossor, the Demeter is simply one of those effects you won’t tend to turn off once you have experienced it. That’s really what compression does… It just makes your rig sound tangibly better. Quest forth… TQ
In case you forgot, the Analogman Comprossor is unarguably the most toneful and eminently useful pedal you can place on your pedal board. Here’s why…
Of all the many guitar effects we have used and reviewed, the Analogman Comprossor is one of the most essential and toneful pedals we have ever put on our pedal board. Compression tightens your sound, and with the Comprossor, it can be used as a beautiful-sounding boost to your signal. The guitar simply sounds thicker and richer with a slight to moderate boost in sustain. Unlike a distortion pedal, your tone stays clean and pristine with the Comprossor— you just get bigger notes and chords that are very wide glide and pristine in their clarity. This pedal more than most really does simply make you sound so much better and it’s another device that you will be tempted to perpetually leave on once you hear it.
Here is some supporting information direct from Mike Piera, Analogman:
Compressors have been used in recording and live broadcasts for many, many decades. They are usually used to keep the signal level even, to sit in the mix right and to be heard. But on guitar, they are more often used as an effect than for simple leveling. But it’s a volume-based effect. It does not change your tone or add distortion. On guitar, distortion is the most common effect, and one of the reasons people love distortion is that it adds sustain (the note will hold longer) and compression (less of a percussive sound, a more musical sound like a voice). Even clean, the best guitar sounds are through a loud amp that gives you natural tube compression for sustain, and a nice fat string attack. But these days, we usually can’t have our amps up loud enough to get that nice compression, so a pedal will help you out and make your amp sound and feel more like a loud amp. I often say that a compressor makes it fun to play clean. But they are also great for dirty leads, to add sustain and fatness to the sound. They also work great run into other pedals like Chorus pedals, to fill out the sound and add more sparkle.
In the year 2000, there were no Ross Clones being made. So with the help of Alfonso Hermida (Zen Drive), we reverse engineered an old Ross, and have been making our own version, the Analog Man Comprossor pedal, from scratch ever since. Our Comprossors soon became extremely popular and had a long waiting list. So others came out with clones of the Ross compressor, which is easier now, as all the info to build one can now be found online. But just building from a recipe will not give the same results as a cook who knows how and why to include or discard certain ingredients, and add the perfect seasonings. So we are staying a few steps ahead of the others, you will see the differences in quality and you can hear them even more. We came out with the ATTACK control in 2001, which one of our competitors finally added in 2005 after years of saying it was not needed. But it seems he only added half of an attack control— it only goes one way from the stock setting. Ours is able to add subtract from the stock setting, which we put in the middle of the range.
Features Include:
Excellent output impedance for a clearer tone with no signal loss or need for a buffer
More available output for boosting your amp
No phase reversal
Less compression is available
Also, in the past for use as a clean boost, there was too much compression even with the sustain pot all the way down. So we reduced the minimum compression amount, without changing the maximum amount. Now the pedal is more usable as a clean boost, and also sounds great left on all the time as a tone sweetener/buffer. It’s great stacked into dirt pedals, chorus, vibes, etc. now. With these problems fixed, there is not as much need for a mix knob. You should be able to keep your pure tone.
While we keep emphasizing the clean tone of the Comprossor, it will also tangibly enhance the sound of your guitar with overdrive and distortion effects. It’s really like pouring honey all over your tone. That’s the best way we can put it. Get one now and thanks us later. You’re welcome, and Quest forth… TQ
Following the acquisition of our silverface Princeton Reverb, we pondered our next amp to be reviewed in these pages expressly for you. We’ve had a good long run with guitar amps, acquiring and reviewing nearly every Fender ever made, John Mayer’s Dumble, vintage Hiwatts, Ampegs, two old Vox AC 30’s and a head, Magnatones, Traynors, the ’69 Marshall 50 watt, vintage Supros, Silvertones, Gibsons (GA40!) and more, plus a wide, wide range of contemporary boutique amps— the original Matchless DC30 and Balls being among our all-time favorites. The original developer of Balls, Danny Gork was a man possessed and his 18 watt amps will live on as some of the finest examples of the builder’s art. And of course, the original Matchless amps are rightfully legendary.
So we’ve had a lot of fun with a lot of great, great amplifiers… now how do we keep our inspiring run alive? Where should we look for another amp that can inspire truly great music and the muse within? It’s a tall order these days to find something that sounds… well, utterly and profoundly inspiring. Something that brings out your true and full potential on the guitar simply by the sound of it. Turn it on and you arrive at that elusive place where the notes sing and dance, unencumbered by any perceived imperfections. A rare and illusive space revealed where time is suspended as you become utterly lost in the music you make. Indeed, you must become lost in the notes to find your true potential. Lost and found. It’s a good place to be when you play the guitar.
Amplifiers are the great enablers in the guitar world. The little raunchy ones from the ’50s and early ’60s can be mystifying in their ability to bleed the timeless tones of yesterday as you revel in a trippy time warp that completely validates the soul. A testy little amp was also used to record one of the greatest records in rock history— Layla. The fifteen watters give you the confidence to rock hard without being labeled an immature reprobate locked in a juvenile time warp by your neighbors, and the fifty and hundred watt big boys remind us just how formidable the world of rock & roll had become by the late ’60s. We are referring to the old and weathered gems that were used to create the greatest musical movement in the history of man… And you know very well of just what we speak. And what is an electric guitar without an amp? Just a pretty piece of wood adorned with, nickel, steel and hard lacquer. In this respect the amp makes the guitar truly what it is and can be, for better or for worse.
So what have we found this time? The suspense is intentional, because the amp we found was a product of pure serendipity… Just so we’re clear, the meaning of the word according to Webster is:
The phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.
You see, when we discovered this amp, we weren’t really looking for it specifically. This has happened quite frequently in our ongoing search for inspiring gear. With an open mind we peruse various web pages, poking around for an idea worthy of your attention with nothing specific in mind. We read user reviews on sites like Amazon and Sweetwater where hundreds of user reviews can be found. Reviews not by “reviewers,” but just everyday players who have spent their money in the pursuit of better tone. While we try not to read these posts with a jaundiced eye, we do keep in mind the fact that when you have spent good money on something, you want to believe the expense was justified, and we lend more credence to reviews that have been written after having owned something for a year or two rather than two weeks. At other times an idea simply pops into focus from nowhere, really. Back to serendipity…
We suppose were you to name the amp of your dreams you might choose some relic from the past. There are plenty of them. Old vintage amps acquire a certain appeal because they aren’t made any longer, and there are a limited number of them. The value goes up, up and up until they are no longer easily obtainable, yet perhaps your memory of that great old amp you once played lingers. Today you may never hear the amp of your dreams again unless your favorite guitar hero uses one. It would certainly be quite expensive to own one, unless you already do… If so, we are happy for you. The amp we have in our music room now is not one of those cherished relics, in fact, it was built in 2018 and it was made in Mexico. Yet the significance of it is monumental against the backdrop of all the amplifiers that have come before. The first 1993 version of our amp was named the Blues Deluxe and it was unique, since it was rated at 40 watts and featured a single 12” speaker. Fender simply never built many powerful 1×12’s. The famous Vibroverb was 40 watts, but it had a 15” speaker, the brown Vibrolux 1×12 came kinda close to 40 watts but not really, and the 4×10 Concert was converted to a 1×12 in the ’80s, but that’s about it for powerful Fender 1×12 combos. Curious, isn’t it?
Here’s Fender’s original description of the Blues Deluxe taken from the owner’s manual circa 1993…
Due to the channel switching in this amplifier the Blues Deluxe is really two vintage amps in one. The Normal Channel is based on the original tweed Bassman circuit of the late ’50s, and is capable of delivering every performance characteristic of that type of amplifier. The Drive Channel shares the same tone controls as the Normal Channel but has separate Drive and Master controls. Using the Drive control, the overdrive sound of this channel can be set anywhere from clean and almost identical to the Normal Channel to the sweet, singing “on ten” Bassman sound. The Master control can then be used to adjust the overall loudness of this tone. The Drive Channel allows you to have gain and sustain without getting evicted from your neighborhood, or it can be used to supply that extra edge for a solo.
The Blues Deluxe reissue is a new design in some respects, but still quite similar to the original at 40 watts with a 12” Eminence speaker. It is also optionally dressed in lacquered tweed— a decidedly classic and durable look. Snooty amp hounds will scoff at the particleboard cabinet (the all-important baffle board is 7 ply 3/4″ birch/maple plywood) and PCB (printed circuit board) construction, the Illinois capacitors, the solid state reverb circuit, solid state FX loop and solid state rectifier. We don’t hold a knee-jerk grudge against modern amps that are built economically, as long as they are built and designed well. If you were to read the many hundreds of user reviews of the reissue Blues Deluxe on sites like Amazon, Musician’s Friend, Sweetwater and Reverb (and we invested the time to read them all), you would come away with the impression that the majority of Blues Deluxe players are thrilled with their decision to buy this amp, and their praise for it is as intense as it is very real. Many of them go into great detail describing the sound of the amp and all of its functions, and just how joyously wonderful it sounds.
Of course, all those positive, glowing user reviews only served to give us a more intense and healthy curiosity about the amp, so much so that we actually bought one new for $699. The average price for a Blues Deluxe is $799, and that’s what you may expect to spend online. For a 40 watt amp that is eminently giggable, that is a mere pittance. But, perhaps you are thinking, “Ewww, 40 watts… I can’t handle that. Way too much power and volume. What are you thinking, ToneQuest? And we’ll gladly counter with, perhaps you are not thinking. Get your head out of your caboose and please, please free yourself from the 15 watt pit of despair. We love those little 15 watt amps as much as anyone— we are gushing over one in this very issue because they give you what you want most at low volume levels— mild break up and distortion— but you’ve got very little headroom at usable volume levels to speak of with pretty much one tone and one sound. That’s it. Is that all you can do? Milk distortion and sustain? Can we not play clean or just on the edge of the greasy grind? Are you a proverbial one-trick pony on the guitar? Really? You are getting lectured here because… well, hell’s bells (more distortion!) if all you are doing is that, you’re missing out on a whole lotta love (still more distortion!) with the guitar. This is not debatable. It’s true. And that is why we are about to suggest you get your hands on a Fender Blues Deluxe. Oh, don’t worry, we have other reasons, too…
How about this? The Blues Deluxe is among the greatest sounding guitar amplifiers we have ever heard. Take a breath now and digest this slowly. The Blues Deluxe is among the greatest sounding guitar amplifiers we have ever heard. Remember now, we bought this amp with our own money– it isn’t a loaner from Fender (as if that would make any difference). The point is, we have no agenda here other than to turn you on to a spectacular amp, and the Blues Deluxe is among the greatest sounding guitar amplifiers we have ever heard.
Now, how can that be, you ask? It’s a PC board amp made in Ensenada, Mexico. Granted, they threw matched Groove Tube 6L6s and 12AX7s in it, and it’s got a Fender Eminence 12 of some sort… But you’re telling me that this kinda cheap, made in Mexico PC board amp is one of the best sounding amplifiers you have ever heard?
Yes, we are, and we mean every word of it.
Let’s pause for a minute and listen to Randall Aiken of Aiken Amplification explain the physical and qualitative differences between PC board and point-to-point amplifier construction…
What is a printed circuit board?
Point-to-point wiring is the term given to a style of construction where the components are mounted on the tube sockets and/or terminal strips, and the connections between components are then hand-wired together to complete the circuit. Perhaps the best-known example of point-to-point is the Matchless amplifiers, which had the parts mounted on terminal strips and wired together. Carr amplifiers also use this type of construction. The term is also commonly used when referring to amplifiers with parts loaded on eyelet boards or turret boards, with the connections hand-wired between them, although these are technically not “true” point-to-point. Old Fenders are examples of eyelet board construction, with the eyelets installed in a wax-impregnated cardboard board. Hiwatts are examples of turret board construction, with all the components neatly laid out between two rows of turrets on a piece of phenolic board.
A printed circuit board is a piece of copper-clad phenolic or a glass-epoxy board with portions of the copper etched off, leaving copper traces that connect the components together. The components are soldered to “pads” at the ends of the traces. This type of construction is well-suited to high-volume production, because the components can be auto-inserted by machines, and all connections can be soldered at once by passing the loaded board through a wave solder machine. Most of the cheaper modern amplifiers are PCB construction, including all new amps by Mesa Boogie, Peavey, Fender, Marshall, etc. Surprisingly enough, some very high priced boutique amplifiers, such as the Soldano SLO-100, are also PC board construction.
Okay, so which is better?
Either construction method can be good or bad, depending upon the way in which it is done. Neither is inherently good nor bad on their own.
Properly laid out, a point-to-point amplifier is a work of art, and is virtually indestructible. Improperly done, they are a veritable “rat’s nest” of wires, impossible to troubleshoot. The main advantage to point-to-point is ease of maintenance and modification. Components are simply desoldered from their eyelets or terminal strips and new ones are put in their place. There is no dis-assembly of the unit, and the repair is quick and easy. The main disadvantage of point-to-point is the intensive labor needed to construct the amplifier. This is why it is only used by low-volume boutique manufacturers who have lower overhead costs, and whose amplifiers usually command a premium price that allows them to cover the cost of the extra labor involved.
Properly designed, a printed circuit board can be every bit as reliable as a good quality point-to-point board. However, most manufacturers do a very poor job of designing the PC board. They skimp on quality in order to lower costs, by doing such things as making the board single-sided, where the traces are only on one side, which means the pads tend to be rather flimsy, and usually pull up the first time a part is replaced. In addition, these types of boards tend to have solder joints that break loose very easily under vibration, as there is only a very poor mechanical connection on one side of the board. A proper PC board should be double-sided, with plated-through holes, which allows the parts to be soldered in much better. In addition, some manufacturers also skimp on the solder mask, which is an insulating coating (usually dark green, gold, or blue) that protects the bare copper traces from solder shorts and other unintentional short circuits. Some manufacturers even go as far as not providing a silkscreen, which is the ink layer that indicates the component reference designator as an aid to troubleshooting. The hallmark of a very cheaply built amplifier is one that uses single-sided boards with no solder mask and no silkscreen. Incredibly, some very high priced amplifiers use this type of PC board construction.
A good hybrid method, in my opinion, is to use a thick, 1/8″ G10/FR-4 epoxy circuit board, but instead of just plated holes to mount the component leads in, turret terminals are mounted in the holes. If the board is manufacturing using heavy 2-oz double-sided copper, with plated-through holes, the turrets can be swagged in to allow a tight mechanical connection on the top and bottom pads, and then soldered to the bottom pads for absolutely reliable conductivity. This type of construction allows for extremely consistent wiring, a full ground plane on top of the board if desired, and ease of component removal or servicing or modification. Components can be soldered and desoldered from the turrets indefinitely without the possibility of lifting a circuit pad trace, because the swagged-in turret itself holds the top and bottom pads and inner plated-through core in place. In addition, a solder mask can be added to protect the traces, and a silkscreen can be added to allow easy identification of components during servicing. The disadvantage to this type of construction is that it is still time-consuming, and cannot be automated for machine-assembly, so it is not suitable for mass-produced amplifiers. It is also expensive to have the turret boards manufactured, so smaller companies may not be able to justify the added cost.
As to which is better, you can argue that point-to-point may be the better choice from a repair/modification standpoint, however a properly designed PCB amplifier can be just as reliable, but slightly more difficult to work on if you are replacing individual components. Ignore the hype put forth by the “gurus” who claim PTP “sounds better” than PCB for various unsubstantiated and unprovable reasons. You will find many of them extolling the virtues of PTP, claiming PCB amps “rob tone,” then, when they start making PCB amps to improve their profit margins, suddenly PCB amps no longer “rob tone.” Make an informed decision on which to buy based on quality of construction, not hype.
Randall Aiken, Aikenamps.com
Thanks to Mr. Aiken, perhaps we can now dispose of the argument over whether or not a PCB amp can sound as good as one wired point-to-point. Still not convinced? Listen to what former Fender designer of the Fender Vibro King, Tone Master, Pro Junior and Custom Vibrolux, Bruce Zinky, had to say about printed circuit board amps in his October 2012 ToneQuest interview: “We use circuit boards, as you cannot have a truly high gain amp that is noiseless and stable (free from oscillations and electronic feedback) without them. In our boards, extra space is used for extra ground plane for shielding purposes (contributing to low hum and low noise). While there are cheap, poorly designed PC boards that give the method a bad name, we use military spec, double-sided plated through-hole boards that would work even without solder. There are no point-to-point satellites in space for good reasons, and one of them is reliability.”
On another site, however, Carl’sCustomAmps.com, “Carl” takes his sweet time explaining why the Blues Deluxe “does not sound like vintage Fender.” He notes the particle board cabinet, non-floating baffle board, PCB board construction, solid state rectifier, solid state reverb, solid state effects loop, “tone dumping caps,” and low quality filter caps. He closes by saying, “The Blues Deluxe is pretty different than a vintage Fender. I’m not saying vintage Fender amps are perfect but many models are proven tone machines. Whether you like the Blues Deluxe or not is up to your ears. If you are looking to purchase one do not expect (it) to perform like an old Fender— the Blues Deluxe is its own amp.”
Well, how does it sound, Carl? Why would you go to the trouble of writing a screed on why the Blues Deluxe “does not sound like a vintage Fender” and then not bother to mention how the amp actually sounds? Did you even hear it? We bet not. How it sounds isn’t nearly as important as how it was built… This is the kind of overt, myopic cork sniffing that we just can’t abide.
Construction Method
Our Blues Deluxe was built in January 2019 with very stout Schumacher trannies, the two double-sided circuit boards are through-plated with very heavy traces, the power and preamp tubes are chassis mounted with long-tailed bases connected to the printed circuit board with leads flown to the main board. In other words, the “modern” build of this amp is state-of-the-art and designed to last like any good Fender amp for fifty years, or more. No, the reverb isn’t tube, but the tank sounds great, and when did Illinois caps become garbage? Fender has been using them for decades for a reason… they sound good and they are dependable.
Let’s take a look at the layout of the Blues Deluxe:
From left to right (the controls are labeled upside down in keeping with an original tweed layout):
Volume
Drive (this is where you introduce an overdriven tone and sustain at lower volume levels rather than merely cranking the Volume control)
Treble
Bass
Middle
Master Volume
Reverb
Presence
Effects Loop– Power amp in/preamp out jacks
To the left of the Volume control is a Bright/Normal push-button switch. A foot pedal for reverb and drive is included, but you also have a push button switch for the Drive channel on the control panel below the middle and master volume controls in case you forget the foot pedal.
We have been setting the volume on ‘4’, bass and treble on ‘6’, midrange on ‘8’, reverb ‘3’-‘5’, presence on ‘3’. In normal operation only the volume control is functional. With the Drive channel engaged, you have Master Volume, Volume and Drive controls. We typically set the Master on ‘5’, Drive on ‘4’-‘7’ and Volume on ‘5’. Treble seems to increase slightly with the Drive control engaged, so we will take a little of the Treble when using the Drive control. The Midrange control is also very important to this amp and it influences the roundness of tone in a big way. We like to keep it goosed a little with our Road Worn Stratsand Les Paul— it makes the guitars just sound huge!
This amp has a “feel” that leaves you feeling completely connected to your guitar, slight changes in pick attack come through the speaker with vivid detail. The subtle sustain you experience playing solely through the clean channel (no overdrive) is absolutely addictive, and it just makes you sound that much better. Really. The full fidelity of this amp is gorgeously well-defined, packed with rich overtones and harmonics, and the cleaner tones of the clean channel are exceedingly rich and pure. There really isn’t a better tone from a Stratocaster to be had, and it epitomizes the classic Fender sound in the style of a vintage low-power tweed Twin. If you have seen Eric Clapton in the past twenty years, that’s pretty much what you get with this amp on ‘5.’ Perfect freaking Stratocaster tones. Our Les Paul Traditional also really shines and thumps with this amp in a big, big way. The Drive channel is just fine as well. You get a boost in sustain and a sweetly overdriven tone that gradually intensifies as you turn up the Drive control, mixed with the Master volume. Again, we detected a slight boost in the high frequencies in this channel, so we just knocked them down a bit with the Treble control. We may not play another electric guitar aside from the Blackish Strat for months with this amp.
We wake up thinking about it. Quest forth…
Tricks
Of course we had a plan to optimize the Blues Deluxe beyond its considerable potential with the not-bad-at-all Groove Tubes… Several months ago we received a package from Larry Pogreba in Montana. No note, just a box, and inside were two new old stock RCA 6L6’s in their original boxes. He probably got them at a swap meet. They do that a lot in Montana, Now, for someone like us, this is crack shipped through the mail. At the time we didn’t have an amp to put them in other than our ’68 Pro Reverb, which we had already loaded with Philips 7581’s, and then a pair of softer Sylvania 6L6s. That amp didn’t need any help.
So when we bought the Blues Deluxe we knew the RCA’s were destined for it. In they went, checked with a bias meter, and they were beautifully in spec, about three watts apart on the Bias Probe. Remember, they weren’t matching tubes at Fender in the ’50s and ’60s… We also swapped out the Groove Tube 12AX7’s for some good RCA’s from our dwindling stash. Fully loaded now, we hit the standby switch and relished the deep, rich, orgasmic tone of the RCA’s in full bloom. And we do mean “bloom.” It’s what these tubes and this amp do. You hit a note or a chord and the tones just swell up in an overwhelming gusher of rich, pure tube goodness. Everything is fatter and the overtones are over the top. Not a hint of harshness, no rough, brittle edges, just solid low end, beautiful mids and the sweetest treble tones you can imagine. Perfectly perfect. One of the guide pins broke off in the socket of the 6L6(damn!) but we will be very careful to insert the tube properly should it ever come out (not likely).
Here we go again… Oh, but the Blues Deluxe is a PC board amp and the reverb isn’t tube and that’s a particle board cabinet and… Who cares? (We were tempted to add an F-bomb for effect.) The cabinet is so resonant that our guitar picks bounce off the top after three chords. It doesn’t matter. If you want to steadfastly remain a vintoid purist that’s your business, but do that and you will be missing one of the great amps of our time, or any time. Simply put, the Blues Deluxe has intensely rekindled our love and appreciation of the Stratocaster. Indeed, we have found an entirely new voice. Yes, the Road Worn Strat and our Les Paul Traditional had something to do with that, for they are remarkable guitars in all respects, and Slider’s pickups, the Fralins and our old pair of early ’60s Gibson patent number humbuckers are fine, fine, super fine, but it is the Blues Deluxe reissue that wholly completes our recent adventures with the Stratocaster.
Speakers
The stock Eminence ‘Fender’ speaker sounded very good in the Blues Deluxe, with solid bass response and sweet, singing treble tones, but we also auditioned two replacement speakers – a British-made Celestion G12 H30 70th Anniversary 30 watt speaker, and the Celestion Alnico Gold 50 watt. Thirty watts in a 40 watt amp you ask? We asked Dr. Z about his use of the Celestion G12H 30 70th Anniversary 30 watt speaker in his MAZ 38 – basically a 40 watt amp…
Interesting question David, one I have been asked many times. The Celestion G12H 30 70th Anniversary speaker shares almost the same specifications as the Vintage 30 , which is rated at 65 watts. They both have 100 dB Sensitivity, share a round copper 1.75” voice coil, and both have the ‘H’ or Heavy Duty 50 oz. ceramic magnets. The difference in specs is the resonant frequency. The H30 is touch higher at 85 Hz, while the V30 is 75 Hz, which explains their different tonal response.
Understand the G12 H 30 is a reproduction sonically of the speaker Celestion produced 70 years ago utilizing the famous Pulsonic Cone. Its 30 watt rating is in line with the original, but it is built with more modern and rugged components. I have installed G-12H 30 speakers in my 1×12 MAZ 38 combo without any problems, and the amp can produce slightly over 38 watts.
So rest assured you can use the Celestion G12 H30 in your Blues Deluxe, and our listening tests revealed a match made in heaven. The G12 H30 possesses deep bass response, solid mids and a very sweet treble characteristic that has always endeared us to this speaker. It is simply smooth, rich and devoid of any harshness or brittle top end. The G12 H30 has long been one of our favorite all-purpose speakers that matches up extremely well with virtually any amp under 40 watts.
The Alnico Gold presents a further step up, with an even bigger tone overall. The bass response is thundering, the classic midrange is typical of a great vintage Celestion G12, and the high end is sweet, overflowing with vivid and lush harmonic overtones. The sheer depth of this speaker is mind-blowing, and at $289 it better be… No, the Celestion Gold isn’t cheap by any means, but the tone and dynamic response you may expect makes it eminently worth every penny. And with its big magnet, the Gold just squeezes into the Blues Deluxe with the magnet cover almost nudging the back panel, but it will fit.
We must also again emphasize the sonic benefits we obtained with those RCA 6L6 tubes. If you don’t want to throw down $200 or more for a pair, we understand completely— the Groove Tubes are actually quite nice in the blues Deluxe. If you want to experiment, we recommend current production Tung Sol 6L6s. As for the 12AX7s, if you have a stash of good old 12AX7s, be all means use them. If not, again, the Groove Tubes aren’t bad at all. We also like the Tung-Sol 12AX7s.
As far as gear reviews are concerned, this is the best we can do for you. Maybe you will take these words to heart, perhaps not. You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, but even if you are weighed down with heavy skepticism, we suggest you find a Blues Deluxe reissue and just play through it. Do that, and we’ll consider this article to have been a success. You know the drill… Quest forth… TQ
