Electric guitarists, what amplifier do you use? Photos, please!

I'm a serious gear junkie when it come's to amps and guitars, have owned Carr, Orange, Savage, Traynor, Dr. Z, Vintage Marshall and many more but I have recently narrowed my collection down to just a few amps. The best amp I have owned and still have is the Aiken Invader in the photo below. I also have a Princeton Reverb Recording amp with a great attenuator, this is one of the most under rated amps Fender has made IMO, my 68' Drip Edge Princeton sits in a closet since the Princeton Recording amp can nail it's tone and is much more versitle. The only amp I really regret selling in the past is a 60's Fender Bassman with the AA864 circuit, but I will pick up another one of those eventually, they pop up for sale around here quite often.



If you are into the technical aspect's of amplifiers there is some good information located here:
http://www.aikenamps.com/TechInfo.htm

 

It was my pleasure. I do hope you are happy with the results although I'm pretty sure that you are after reading this thread. Which is GREAT and Cool too.

 

It's NAD!!! I ordered my EC Vibro Champ on Monday and it arrived on Thursday. ZZounds service is excellent. I'm in love with this little guy already. It's perfect! The attenuator really does the job controlling the power and the Tremolo is amazing. My ears won't be ringing in an attempt to get great sound anymore at reasonable volume levels. The Tele & Strat sound great and my PRS McCarty shocked me by the sound. It gets dirty and downright mean sounding with this little beast. I never really bonded with the PRS before, but I think that's going to change.

Here she is . . .

 

A beauty! I love tweeds. Great choice! Congrats.

 

I had Don Butler do his "re-originalization" service on my Marshall 1962 Bluesbreaker re-issue. He replaces all the signal path components to period spec, and retrofits Mercury output transformer and choke. Tightened up the bark of the beast a bit, as did swapping in a pair of 12" Weber AlNiCo Blue Dogs.

 

In 1980, I sold a mint '64 Telecaster (blonde with rosewood neck, OHSC)for $500.
It was sold out of necessity, and it was a premium dollar at the time, but it's depressing to see what they're going for now.

 

Thanks to JCRW and his Marshall setup that I found one of these at a reasonable price:


I guess it's knocked my other amp out of whack .

 

Great little practice rig and congrats on the find! I wanted to try one of those JTM-1's but there were none available in my area. Very happy with the JMP-1H.

 

Sweet!
Built like a tank too!

 

It is and it's cuter than heck lol! It's worth every penny. I tried my Line 6 Verbzilla & TS9 and they both sound great with it. Later down the road it would be cool to add an ext. cab with a 12" speaker. The Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Ext. looks like a great match up. Replace the speaker with a 4 ohm Weber Alnico and it would probably be really sweet. Heck the 8 ohm 12" Celestion that's in it would probably sound good. Change the carry handle to a leather strap.

 

The amp is at least as important to the sound of electric guitar as the guitar is, so you gotta have a few, at least, right? I've known plenty of guitarists who had several guitars but only one amp. Anyway my main amp is a Trinity Amps TC15. It's sort of a combo matchless lightning/vox ac-15 clone, with nice sensible features, very versatile, but still not too many knobs. Trinity is a Canadian company, they sell kits and do custom builds. I had them build this one for me several years back and the quality is top notch. And didn't cost near a Matchless really (you can find out more about them if interested at http://www.trinityamps.com/). The cab is a custom 1x12 loaded with an Eminence red fang. I've got a Weber alnico blue dog in that Avatar cab to the right which is nice too, but the red fang rocks more I think. And then a few other tone options, Magnatone and a couple Bedrocks. All in all plenty to wake the neighbors up with...

 

Pretty boring, I stick to what I know. These are the great imposters. I've either rebuilt or have done rebuilds of all my amps.

Top of stack:
Self-built JTM45/50 (based on a JTM45 with a 50 W output transformer and EL34 output tubes; sounds similar to a JTM50)
I use this head for lead. I like the look of the bigger head box. It feeds the top cabinet, currently filled with reissue Celestion Greenbacks.

Behind stack (unseen):
Marshall 1976 JMP50 (PCB removed and rewired with point to point turret board, Sozo caps, etc.)
I use this head for dirty rhythm. It feeds the bottom cabinet (1960B converted to mono @ 8 ohm) with original Celestion G12-65s.



Far left:
Fender 1969 Twin Reverb (black-faced)
It houses two reconed Altec Lansing 417B speakers. This amp is monstrously heavy.

Behind me:
Vox AC30/6 TB (clone)
I think I've got G12H30 Anniversary speakers in this; but, I'm not actually sure.
I will be changing the trannies out on this one soon. The PT in there now is noisier than I'd prefer. I'd also like to have Alnicos in there.




I also have Legend Super Lead 100 and Super Lead 50 heads (the ones with the oak cabinets); but, I don't use them much anymore. I'll post pics if there is interest.
Lastly, I have a Vox AC30CC2; however, reliability issues mean I almost never bring it out.

 

My PEAVEY VYPYR 120Watt 2 X 12" Tube Amp with the SAMPERA II Footpedal Board.

This is my main Amp these days. While it's a great modeling amp that also comes with a lot of on board effects that can all be programmed up to 400 patches by using the SAMPERA II footpedal and I like the Wah Wah pedal or it can also be like a Whammy type of pedal as well as it has a Volume Control pedal or can be uses as and Expression pedal.

Call me old fashion, but while I love the sound of all of the Amplifiers that this does in fact model. I must admit that I'm not to keen on trying to program in and trying to remember where the patches are stored in order to bring up those sounds/effects that I would want or need for using to play a live gig. So since there are so many cool and awesome effects pedals I've been buying those and along with 3 full sized pedalboards that hold and power 12 pedals on each board for using the effects the way I want them set so when I need the effect my foot knows just right where to go to turn it on and off.

As far as the Peavey Vypyr 120 Tube amp itself it's an incredible versatile sounding as well as can be incredibly LOUD amp all on it's own. It's pretty amazing but I wish like it's Solid State version that it had the Power Soak control on it so it could be easily controlled at lower wattage and bedroom volume.

It's got a lot of other features for recording directly via a USB cable from amp to a computer. It also has a nice Auxillery input and headphone jack as well right in the front of the amp.

 

That amp is probably "shweet".

Paul C., quite some years ago, was the guy gracious enough to teach me how to properly bias a tube amp, recommended I get The Tube Amp book and pushed me over the edge to start building my own gear. I went to see him a couple of times right before the (Brentwood, TN) Heritage amp shop closed down. I owe him a great debt of gratitude. (And, also without doubt, George Metropoulos.)

 

Nice BT! I'll bet that's fun to play with! Must sound awesome!

A 120 watt tube amp can't be too loud

 

Nothing fancy, just right for playing at home and recording.

 

Cactus Bob, it really is an incredible amp as it has 12 different amps that it models in clean mode and the other 12 are those same amps in dirty modes.
So as far as loud is concerned. Just in CLEAN mode only which I default to the Twin Reverb, The amps master volume has never been above 2 & 1/2 then my pre-volume on 3 and post volume on 3 and it's plenty loud just with the 2- 12" Peavey Vypyr speakers that are in this thing. Now with those same volume settings if I switch it into the Dirty mode it gets 3 or 4 times louder and I gotta be honest that's just to loud for even me.

So this is one reason why I like having seperate pedals where I can control the volume as well as the effects instead of using all of the stompbox and rack mount effects that are also built into this Tube amp.

I will admit, I've used the Mesa Dual Rcctifier or the 5150 amp model's and it's like I've gotta run an put cotton in my ears it gets loud enough that I should be out in a full house packed concert hall playing it onstage.
Basically the only way I can think of describing the 120 watts that this thing could and can put out is by saying it's "STUPID LOUD" where you gotta be playing an outside festival to use that type of power.

 

While I've had more amps than I can shake a stick at, I've been pretty solid the last several years with both an AC30tbx and an AC15tbx, both mid 90's vintage. I also have a 65 vibrochamp. I have been thinking about selling the AC30 and getting a princeton reverb, since I'm bandless at the moment and it'd be nice to have some variety.

 

I started with a Fender Super Champ bought new in the mid 80s. The one I had sounded amazing although rather bass shy. It gave me some really great feedback when cranked especially with humbucking pickups.



I then bought a Roland Cube 100, which I still use. It gives me a good clean sound and it can get pretty loud when needed:



I also have a Roland Mucrocube, which is a fun little thing to blast on and can run on batteries:



I've already committed heresy by moving away from tube amps. I've gone further by not using an amp for my recordings. I just find that at the low budget level of recording that I do, micing an amp is a little too noisy. I was happy to buy myself a Yamaha DG Stomp, which I still use. Comes with some decent effects and with an expression pedal I can do volume and wah and other things.


Then there's my new favorite toy, the Tech21 Leeds pedal...lots of tweakable sounds on this:



I mostly only use an amp for band practice. I could probably play out with the DG Stomp or Tech21 going direct and leave the amp at home.

 

The amp I used to use the most was my '64 blackface vibrio-champ (sounds especially great with the start in the 'out of phase' position) but of late, I've been loving my modest silvertone 1481. Sounds particularly good with my guild x175 playing my rudimentary pretend jazz (nice and dry); it is a little brittle with my tele. I also have a very cool transitional circa '64 champ with the one knob (that goes to 12!!) on the top but with black tolex. Great tone. Finally I have a brown deluxe that I rarely use because it is too loud for the house which is where I mostly play (actually, they're all too loud). When cranked, it kicks.

 

One of my three great instrument/amp regrets was leaving my super champ behind after an unpleasant break up.

 

I would much rather have one guitar and several amps. I could easily live with just my Telecaster, but I'd need at least a blackface Fender amp, a Vox amp, and a Marshall.

 

I really felt I needed a few amps until I got my Fender Bassman TV Fifteen. I can't stop playing that one now, even though I have several other excellent amps I haven't turned them on in three months.