Guitar Amplifier Encyclopedia

Copyright © 2016 by Brian Tarquin

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Published by Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Allworth Press® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

www.allworth.com

Cover design by Mary Belibasakis

All photos by Erik Christian, Michael Howard, Ricky Restiano, and Crystal Scheidies

Cover photo credit: Erik Christian

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Print ISBN: 978-1-62153-499-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62153-501-0

Printed in China

Table of Contents

Foreword by Michael Molenda, editor-in chief of Guitar Player Magazine

Chapter 1: Amplifier History

• The Beginning

• Early Amp Designers

• The Vintage Collector

• Les Paul

• Gibson

Chapter 2: Fender, King of Amps

• Innovation

• Guitars & Amps

• The Sixties

• CBS Era

• A Change Is Comin’

Chapter 3: British Invasion

• Vox28

• AC3030

• Star Power30

• Jim Marshall31

• Early Days31

• JTM 4532

• Iconic Guitarists34

• The Plexi35

• JCM Series36

• New Era37

• Conclusion39

Chapter 4: DR. Z: Rise of a Boutique Builder

• In the Beginning41

• Fender’s Benchmark42

• Tube Technology44

• Analog vs. Digital47

• Innovative Amps48

• Inner Electronics of the Beast50

• Proof’s in the Pudding51

• UL Approved53

• The Future54

Chapter 5: The Players

• Jeff Beck

• Zakk Wylde

• Hal Lindes

• Larry Carlton

• Gary Hoey

• Leslie West

• Randy Coven

Chapter 6: Amp Designers

• Ampeg

• Carr

• Carvin

• CeriaTone

• Danelectro/Silvertone

• Divided By 13

• Egnater

• ENGL

• Epiphone

• Fargen

• Harmony

• Ibanez

• Industrial

• Jet City

• Jim Kelly

• Kustom

• Lafayette

• Lectrolab

• Line 6

• Magnatone

• Matchless

• MESA/Boogie

• Orange

• Pignose

• Premier

• Paul Reed Smith

• Quilter

• Roland

• Selmer

• Seymour Duncan

• Soldano

• Sovtek

• Supro

• Tone King

• Traynor

• Two-Rock

• Watkins

• Attenuators

Bibliography

Foreword

Ifirst knew a guitar amplifier could change the world when I heard of the Little Green Amp. It was actually a 1962 Elpico, purchased that same year from a radio shop in Muswell Hill, London, by The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies. He originally viewed the tiny Elpico as an additional preamp for his Vox AC30, but along the way, some creative and mischievous angel whispered in his ear, and that amp became much more. Davies slashed the Elpico’s speaker cone with a razor, plugged its output into the AC30, and the sound that was You Really Got Me was born. Miraculous!

As you can (hopefully) see, guitar amps are not just cold, boring circuit boxes for bringing the noise. Amps are the essential and mystical lovers of the electric guitar, and like with any object of desire, a lot of neural and emotional triggers have to fire off before a guitarist stares breathlessly and says, You are the one. None of this, of course, has anything to do with reality. Amp tone is as subjective as it gets, so the best or most appropriate amp may be the one standing alone at the outside edges of the dance floor. You see, guitarists become obsessed with different amps for myriad reasons. Les Paul was always seeking the cleanest, truest, most transparent sound an amp could reproduce. Jimi Hendrix? Well, he didn’t want that at all. Jimi wanted the beatific cacophony of a world gone mad with love, death, brotherhood, hate, peace, war, and everything written in the stars: in short, huge Marshall stacks spewing 110 decibels of grind. And then, there’s everything in between, from mini amps, micro amps, practice amps, modeling amps, solid-state amps, tube amps, combos, half-stacks, boutique designs, and major-manufacturer builds. It’s a jungle.

But whether you know what you’re after and want to celebrate it, are looking to change your sound but don’t know how, or are starting out on a quest for your own individual tone and need to know your options, Guitar Amplifier Encyclopedia will provide counsel and direction. By absorbing Brian Tarquin’s survey of the past and present of guitar amplification, you’ll be a better-informed player about what makes particular amps weave their sonic magic. It’s also simply a super-fun book for amp freaks. So, go find your bliss.

Michael Molenda

Editor in Chief, Guitar Player magazine

30 September 2014

CHAPTER 1

Amplifier History

Bell 15RV Reverb combo made by Gibson with four inputs with one Jensen speaker

The Beginning

The one instrument in the world that needed to be amplified at the dawn of modern music was certainly the guitar. Just think of those noisy big band horns screaming their obnoxious notes, how the hell could a guy like Charlie Parker be heard over such a commotion? I’m a fan of classic films, and it always makes me laugh when I see a scene with a band leader and his baton waving at the orchestra and there in the corner is the lonely guitar player strumming away until he is blue in the face, but you can’t hear a single note he’s playing. I mean why is the guitar player even there if he can’t be heard, just to keep quarter-note rhythm beats? It is absolutely no wonder why the amplifier was invented for the guitar! We can thank Benny Goodman for one thing, and that’s integrating the talented black guitarist, Charlie Christian, which led to the electric guitar and amplifier. Whether you like the era’s music or not, we certainly wouldn’t have Hendrix, Clapton, Van Halen, or Satriani without Christian, or Gibson for that matter.

Amplification was first addressed for the electric guitar in the early 1930s for the Hawaiian guitarists who played this frying-pan-looking guitar on their lap. Companies like Rickenbacker, Gibson, Epiphone, and National tried to fulfill the need for volume by producing amps to accompany their Hawaiian guitars like the Rickenbacker A22, Gibson Roy Smeck, Gibson EH-185, Epiphone Model M, and Rickenbacker’s Electro Tenor amplifier. You see, during the pre-World War II era, Rickenbacker had a large investment in the Hawaiian guitar market, as opposed to companies like National, Dobro, Gibson, and Epiphone who devoted their production to resonator and F-hole guitars. The Hawaiian-style guitar at the time of the late twenties through the thirties was a much more profitable market than the so-called Spanish neck guitars produced by Gibson.

Bandleaders of the twenties and thirties didn’t take the guitar seriously in their music, looking upon it as a fad or a quirky instrument. Guitarists like Eddy Lang were the exception, accompanying singers like Ruth Etting in the 1932 film A Regular Trouper and Bing Crosby in the The Big Broadcast of 1932. Lang would use the original, acoustic version of the Gibson L-4 and L-5, before pickups were introduced. Then there was Eddie Durham, who was Count Basie’s guitarist, who is noted as recording the world’s first jazz electric guitar solo in 1938. He performed it on a Gibson ES-150 guitar with the Lester Young Kansas City Five. Ironically, the same year saw guitarists George Barnes with Big Bill Broonzy record electric guitar solos as well.

Whether it was timing or just fate, Benny Goodman, or all of the above, Charlie Christian was the poster boy for introducing the electric guitar into contemporary music. In Bonham, Texas, on July 29, 1916, Charlie was born into a musical family. Both his mother and father played the piano and trumpet as sound score in a local silent movie theatre. In 1918, after the family moved to Oklahoma City, Charlie began guitar lessons from his father. By 1928, he became heavily influenced by tenor saxophonist Lester Young; Charlie even scat sang Young’s solos while playing the guitar. In fact T-Bone Walker was a childhood friend of Christian’s, and they both took guitar lessons from Ralph Big-Foot Chuck Hamilton in the earlier thirties. Moreover, a chance meeting with Eddie Durham in 1937 changed the course of Charlie’s fate, because he was so influenced by Eddie’s guitar playing. Soon after that meeting Christian went out and bought a Gibson ES- 150 with the accompanying amp and started to woodshed. Within a year Charlie was getting local recognition in the Midwest as a hometown hero. Christian was even playing the difficult styles of Django Reinhardt’s St. Louis Blues solo, verbatim.

By 1939 Charlie got the attention of producer John Hammond. With Gibson ES-150 guitar and amp in hand, Charlie was set up for an audition with Benny Goodman by Hammond. In typical Goodman fashion, he was not impressed at the comping style of Christian, but later was blown away at Charlie’s solo ability to keep up with him note for note. This was the year everything changed for Christian as he went on to record landmark songs with the Goodman Sextet, Septet and Orchestra, the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, and the historic Carnegie Hall jazz concert. Standout recordings of Solo Flight and Honeysuckle Rose, made Charlie a legend and a new master of jazz guitar. Then in 1940 Christian went up to Harlem and participated in jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse. He jammed with such future greats as Thelonius Monk and Dizzy Gillespie, forming the sketches of bebop that would appear a decade later in New York. He even bought a Gibson amp to become the house amp for the playhouse. However, like great musical artists Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Randy Rhoads, he died young of tuberculosis in 1942. So the world was deprived of any great solo records that were surely to come. But he laid the foundation for the electric guitar amplifier and ironically died the same year Jimi Hendrix was born, so one great guitar spirit passes to another!

Early Amp Designers

Established instrument companies formed in the nineteenth century started to produce amplifiers when the new pre-World War II electronic craze began. This would help many companies create a strong foothold in the new market. Here is a list of some of the early companies that were involved in producing guitar amps.

Harmony: Wilhelm Schultz, a European immigrant, formed Harmony in 1892. The Chicago company became one of the largest manufacturers of guitars and amps. By 1916 Sears Roebuck bought Harmony, and in 1923 Harmony’s annual sales rose to 250,000 units. The company continues to be strong today and stands behind its proud heritage.

Supertone: From 1914 to 1941 Supertone was the Sears brand name for its musical instruments. It wasn’t until the forties that Sears switched the name to Silvertone, which people are familiar with today. Keep in mind that Sears never manufactured the amps themselves; they were always outsourced to other companies.

Jackson-Guldan: A violin company based in Columbus, Ohio, from the 1920s to 1960s. It produced lap steels accompanied by small tube amps.

Epiphone: This is a story that dates all the way back to the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Epaminondas, son of a Greek immigrant, apprenticed with his father in instrument making and at age twenty-two found himself in charge of the family business when his father passed away in America. They had a showroom on 14th Street in NYC, which became a hangout spot for New York musicians like Les Paul and Harry Volpe, who would jam there on Saturday afternoons. By 1935 Epiphone became one of the greatest guitar manufactures, so it is no surprise Epiphone offered amps early on in the thirties. Epiphone sold amps into the mid-seventies and then reintroduced them in 1991 with the EP series.

National/Valco: Like Epiphone’s, these amps date back to the thirties. But it was in the sixties when National introduced a modern group of amps to accompany their new Res-O-Glas space-age guitars. Then by 1968 they revamped the amp line with large vertical and horizontal piggyback models. One of the last