L.A. Amp Show

[ayan]

And so it came and went, attendance was pretty low and from what I heard it was considerably less than last year (I wouldn't know as this was my first show). The best part of the event for me was, as usual, seeing friends, and so it was great to see my buddy Chris S. which flew down to L.A. for the weekend, Billy, Professor Geek MacDaddy, Lauren, Norm and Moss at Brown Note, Andy Fuchs, and I know I am missing other suspects, for which I apologize. Sorely missed: Brandon, Gary and Scott. NAMM y'all? I sincerely hope so, guys.

As for what I saw, hard to get too enthused about things the older I get, but there were some very good moments. Like always, I liked the Brown Note amps, and heard quite a few of them: non HRM, 40W BM, Scott's own 100W BM and a Rocket-inspired amp that Norm put together. Of course, hearing Chuck D. playing those amps is always a humbling, finger freezing experience for me! I also stopped by Andy's booth and tried the HRM amp, and it sounds terrific at that sound -- total Marshall vibe, very well executed. Loved the "secret compartment" at the top of the cabinet, which allows easy access to the infamous HRM trimmers! Then we heard a demo of the Clean Machine, and it is simply incredible. Clean, clean, clean, 3-D sounding, great reverb and.... ungodly loud. The Twin that Fender didn't build.

Also stopped by the Fender booth and got a chance to play the Princeton reissue, but as much as the amp has that sparkly Fender vibe to it, there was a raspiness to the sound that made me wonder whether there must have been something wrong with the amp, it sounded like something was broken inside... not my cup of tea. Tried the Tweed Deluxe amp, and that didn't do it either... and finally tried the Tweed Twin and I liked that much better, however, not an amp for me. Along bluesy lines, we stopped by the Club Amps booth and heard a variety of models. Some of the amps sounded very nice, didn't even know they existed.

Now, the unexpected surprise came when Chris and I walked into the Peavy room. Those guys have revamped the looks of their amps and they look very nice indeed. Then, I was unawarer that Peavey now has a Dumble clone model, but as Chris pointed it out to me, I had to try it. I used one of the EVH (not sure what they are called now) type guitars an plugged in... Hard to say what's inside the amp, but the sound was non HRM with a bit of an aggressive character to it. There is a YoutTube video of Tom Anderson demoing on of his LP type guitars through an ODS, and the Peavy reminded me of it. They seem to have left out the Mid and J/R switches, but mounted on the front panel what I think are the pre OD trim and the post OD treble bleed circuit (which is labeled as Lead Prersence, or something similar to that). The boost is pretty radical, they may have done something like the mega boost in that amp, and it works just fine. The amp has a signal interrupt FX loop, so it would require a Dumleator to work well with FX, and lists at $1,599. So, it seems that we've reached the point in our lives where the Dumble inspired amps are being mass-produced... Who would have thunk that a mere 10 years ago, when we emabrked on this life changing adventure!

Anyway, that's about all I can remember. Once again, I was very pleased to see a bunch of great people, it made the show worthwhile.

Cheers,

Gil

[Scumback Speakers]

The attendance did seem to be well down from last year, fewer demo rooms, too. I attribute that to the 2 day format with the 50% jump in prices. As for the low attendance, rain on Saturday didn't help.

[bnwitt]

The Fender Princeton reissue is pcb based. The hand wired Hoffman style Layout I just completed and shipped sounded awesome. You just can't beat hand wiring for fine tuning the lead dress in an amp

[glasman]

Gil thanks for the recap. Sorry I had to cancel last minute would have been fun to see everybody. Worked out in the end, my daughter broke here ankle on Saturday and ended up spending a few hours at the local ER.

Gary

[ayan]

Gil thanks for the recap. Sorry I had to cancel last minute would have been fun to see everybody. Worked out in the end, my daughter broke here ankle on Saturday and ended up spending a few hours at the local ER.

Gary

Too bad, Gary. But, she's young -- unlike us! -- so hopefully she will be as good as new in 6 weeks.

* * *

OK, the Peavey Dumble clone is called 50L6D -- to answer a PM I got on the subject. Was discussed here after the Summer NAMM:

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... ght=peavey

Gil

[tjauernig]

Just to get the record straight, Peavey is not "mass" producing these amps. They are hand wired on eyelet boards. I know, I built them.

Thanks for the kind words by the way.

[Tubetwang]

Hi Tjauernig,

are you related to Greg Koch?

Major Twang

[Funkalicousgroove]

Forget the D Clone, When can I get a powerslide?? I GOT TO HAVE IT!!! That's the coolest thing I've seen in a long time!

[thyx]

27 frets? It doesn't look like you could get up that far...?

[Funkalicousgroove]

it's a lap steel and it makes my webbed toe tingle!!!

[tjauernig]

I built the Gristle Pedals for Greg Koch. (I still build them actually as well as design amps for the Peavey Custom Shop) As far as the Power Slide goes, I do believe they should be hitting stores any day now. It is pretty cool.

[ayan]

Just to get the record straight, Peavey is not "mass" producing these amps. They are hand wired on eyelet boards. I know, I built them.

Thanks for the kind words by the way.

Gotcha, so that means you and I spoke at the show. Great for you if you can hand build those amps and sell them at that price... labor alone should account for quite a bit of coin hand building these beasts.

Cheers,

Gil

[tjauernig]

There's a lot of hand work, but we have some advantages over other s. We have a very extensive wood shop, and those guys can build a cab literally in minutes. We can also punch a ton of chassis in just a few minutes. So, some of the labor for certain steps is very little. Covering as well. The guys that do that have done it so long, it takes them about 3-5 minutes to cover a 112 combo.

It's a different direction for Peavey to do hand wired stuff for sure. We'll see how it pans out.

[odourboy]

It's a different direction for Peavey to do hand wired stuff for sure. We'll see how it pans out.

Is there a web page reference for this beast? I searched around for one but came up empty.

[ayan]

There's a lot of hand work, but we have some advantages over other s. We have a very extensive wood shop, and those guys can build a cab literally in minutes. We can also punch a ton of chassis in just a few minutes. So, some of the labor for certain steps is very little. Covering as well. The guys that do that have done it so long, it takes them about 3-5 minutes to cover a 112 combo.

It's a different direction for Peavey to do hand wired stuff for sure. We'll see how it pans out.

That sounds great. However, I was thinking about the handwiring part of the job... If you use PCBs with flying leads, it'd be a different scenario, but I have not seen pictures of your amps so I am not sure exactly how they're built. All I can say is that for my amps to turn out the way they do, and then tweak them to my liking, I easily spend more time than $1,599 can buy. To cpmplete the picture, we would have to add the time to procure everything, mount all the hardware and iron on the chassis, plus the cost of part themselves which, in my case, sets me back on the order of a grand right off the bat.

Cheers,

Gil