Your amps through the years

[sub rosa]

As per the pedalboard thread, let's see your amps from throughout the years! Here's my history:

I got my first guitar amp of any kind around '97 - it was a second hand SS Fender amp for about £180. I don't have a picture to hand of the specific one I owned but here is an example:



It was a 1990 Fender M80 Chorus combo. 80 watts and had a silver grill and red control knobs. It had a nice clean sound but the overdrive channel was terrible. It got kind of fuzzy I guess but was never anything really useful. I had only been playing a couple of years anyway so I didn't know the difference at the time. I basically started out with an 80s Korean Squire Strat, a Zoom 4040 multi FX unit and this amp. The chorus was stereo.

The amp itself I had for about 6 or 7 years until I started to really get into gear in 2003. I'd read an interesting review/workshop on Matamp amplifiers in Guitarist and ended up buying the review head from that issue a few months later. This was a Matamp V-28 amp.



What attracted me to this company initially was that they sell direct to the end user - at the time their pricing was comparable to going into a dealer and buying an off the shelf Fender or Marshall amp. In fact, they were cheaper! It was a no brainer actually. Unfortunately the amp got damaged beyond repair by the courier company. Matamp made me another. I enjoyed it for a bit but wanted more so in the end exchanged it for a then new design in 2004 - a Matamp 1224 combo with matching extension cabinet:





This was actually a MKII. The MK1 to MKII phase was pretty quick as is common with Matamps. You can have custom options integrated into your amps to its not uncommon for the shelf modal to get upgraded due to popular requests. The 1224 basically allows you to switch out different power valves in both class A and class A/B configurations. It is probably one of the most versatile amps on the market.

In 2005 I added a Matamp C7 deluxe to the rig:



A 7 watt non-MV amp. I'd run this through the 1224 extension cab from an ABY box with the C7 on higher gain. I had a lot of fun with this setup but got tired of lugging the combo around - it was a heavy beast despite only being a 1 x 12".



Around this time I was simplifying my fx setup and decided I didn't need a complicated rig. I wanted a simple gigging amp that was easier to manage. What sold me on my next amp was a trip to the Matamp factory with a friend who was having a vertical 2 x 12" made up. I went upstairs and demo'd a few of their amps one of which was a Chino combo. Basically a 15 watt version of the C7 but lower gain and with a couple more features. I LOVED the tone and a few days after returning home ordered up a head and cab version of it:



This came with me to NZ when I moved here a couple of years ago. This is the rig under the Green Matamp sign at the factory in Huddersfield, England:



The factory is inside an old saw mill.

[Some Bozo]

1st amp - old 70s 3-in-one stereo with the "recording monitor" switched on and a dummy cassette ( no tape reels ) loaded up so it would "record" indefinitely.

2nd amp = old man's 60's solid state stereo amp, with an 80s Ibanez screamer deriviative pedal ( the one with five knobs).

3rd amp = Peavey rage 108. Debatable if it sounded better than the first two

4th = Fender M80. Nice clean, overdrive nothing to write home about.

[edit] 4.5 - Korg modelling pedal and a 10 watt "T amp" driving a marshall 2x12.

5th Valve junior with the 2x12 - various distortion pedals and a Korg modeller

6th Peavey Classic 30 with the 2x12, mostly with the Satchurator. Amp distortion channel isn't bad but doesn't have a lot of character.

[Vince]

1981: cassette recorder
1982: Fender Vibrochamp 15W
1983: Gibson Lancer (1962? 30W)
1984: Fender Bassman Compact 65W (?) (bass)
1989: Homemade guitar amp. Unknown origin or wattage.
1990: Argentine made practice amp 15W?
1991: Dean Markley 50W SS amp
1995: Peavey 75W 1x15 amp (can't remember the model)
1998: Laney Crate amp (bass, can't remember the wattage or exact model)/ Ghetto blaster when playing in parks
2003: Vox Valvetronix 30W
2006: H&K BK300 115 (bass)

[DaNextSlash]

1st Amp: Marshall MG10CD that came in the starter pack

2nd Amp: Peavey Classic 30 v V30 speaker and some other mods.

3rd Amp: Mesa Studio 22

4th Amp: Madamp 5 Watt with 2x12 Cab

5th/Current Amp: Laney AOR50 with 2x12 Cab

[Aquila Rossa]

1987: Jansen Little Brute
1987: Jansen Twin Reverb (can't remember exactly the model)
1988: Holden 100 with a Fane speaker in homemade cab.

1989: Quit playing.

1995: Marshall JTM 60 combo.
1996: Marshall JMP1, JFX and 50/50 EL34 Dual Monoblock. 2x Marshall 1936 cabs
1996 Digitech Artist preamp with Mesa Boogie 20/20 EL84 stereo poweramp. 2x Marshall 1936 cabs

1999: Quit playing.

2002: Behringer Vampire 1x12 modelling amp

2002: Quit playing .

2008: Line 6 HD100 head, line 6 4x12 V30 cab, yuk sold fast!
2009: Marshall DSL100, Marshall 1965a cab, Palmer PDI-03. nice.
2010: The Capt's Superbass!!


Only joking Capt. B.

[GrantB]

1. cassette player - SS mostly
2. borrowed Musicman somethign a rather - tube
3. Gunn 50 - valve...reliability issues but wicked fuzz channel
4.Rockit Lead 120 - SS
5. Vantage Valve 30 watt - man, shoulda kept that one - it was saweet!
6. Crate Club 50 - valve...awesome tone, horrendous reilability
7. Sovtek Mig 50 w/ 2x10 Jensen cab - awesome and still have it
8. Laney VC30 - great amp (and an LC15 for practising). Ultra reliable!
9. Vox AC15CC - great initially, now unreliable in spite of my wanking on about how good it was. Still sounds fantastic tho. Still have it.
10. TWeed Deluxe - made by me - still have it (also did a 2xTweed but sold it). Great for Ryan Adams tones.
11. TopHat Super Deluxe - what can I say....it is everthing an amp should be. Yes, still own it.
12. Vox AC15 Heritage hand wired - not in my ownership but will be by the end of today! Nice.

Loving the fact many started with a tape player...had to put a tape in mine, press record, then the mic in would work....used an old valve radio out of the extension speaker....sounded extremely distorted and lo fi - probably be very cool now!

[Ironbird13]

Peavey rage 108
Peavey Rage 158
Yamaha Budokan
Ross 40w had this tubeblaster switch, sounded feckin awfull
Peavey Bandit
now i got the Gunn and a little Yamaha VA-10

[sub rosa]

Nice guys, very nice. Any pics to go with the lists?

I notice a fellow former M80 owner. Interesting to read the similar observation re. the dirt channel! Those amps were loud. Funnily enough (bear in mind I didn't know better - or really care) my M80 amp would be pulled out for college parties. We'd run a CD player into it. Got SO MUCH volume out of that thing! Sound quality wasn't that great but we were pumping mid 90s Brit-pop/alternative music through it so we didn't care!

[shinenz]

Samick (blew it up )
Fender Princeton
Jackson Charvel 10 watt (was a nice lil amp)
Rocket 100watt Tube
Marshall 15wat
Marshall 100watt SS


Current amps

Laney Tube Fusion
Yamaha 10watt
Vox pathfinder
Alron 100watt SS

My 8yr olds amps
100 watt Marshall SS
Pignose

[Hot_Grits]

cool stuff!

Here's how it went for me:

my first amp was called 'the can' and was exactly that: a plastic petrol can with a speaker cut into the front and the amp cut into the back. Battery operable if needed. Kingsley Smith's used to sell them. I can't find mention of them anywhere on the net, let alone a picture, but imagine a smallish red plastic petrol can with a speaker and you're there. TONE.

Then: a Crate G80 (mine was the non-celestion equipped model though). I blame Steve Lynch's clinic tour:



Followed that up with a Blues Deville 2x12. My first decent amp. Much like this one:



From there, I went to Musical Sounds Greenlane looking for a more easily portable amp. I traded the deville in for a Mesa Blue Angel head, which indeed was more portable than my deville. Thing is, I also bought a Mesa Recto 2x12, which was larger and heavier than my previous amp by itself. Doh, but Doh in a good way, as that was a fantastic rig. Still have the head and use it occasionally:



After gigging the Blue Angel a while I found myself wanting something with a bit more clean headroom. So I tried everything I could come across, and ended up with a Custom Vibrolux Reverb. An amp with even less clean headroom than the BA. Is there a pattern here? -anyways, I did a mod to the NFB loop for clean headroom and the Vibrolux was my main gigging amp for a couple of years. It was a great sounding amp, but tough to play, as it would fart out any speaker. If I had known what I now know about amps I would have played with the coupling caps and filtering and kept it. And so nice looking:



...then along came The Defendants, and the 'need' for a higher wattage amp came along. I grabbed a Soldano Hot Rod 50 at Rockshop. A fantastic amp, but too modern and tight sounding for the band's sound, so it didn't last long. Instead the reliable old Blue Angel was pressed into service. Here they are together in happier times (first Hot Grits record sessions):




And finally, I made a trip to the newly opened Mojosound while gigging in Welly one weekend. Of all the great amps they had in stock I fell in love with the Victoria 5E3 Deluxe clone. I took it to soundcheck and it was laughably underpowered for my needs. But I liked it so much that I ordered it's bigger cousin, the Double Deluxe, on the spot. It arrived the day before BDO '07 and Has been a constant companion ever since:



So that's about it, apart from some tatty Gunns and my Dad's old ElPico home stereo amp.

[The Scarecrow]

Cool thread, if only I had pictures of all the amps I've owned.

1996/97 - Fender Princeton Chorus combo which I borrowed from school on a $60 bond each year. I didn't know much about amps back then and pretty much ran it through the clean channel with a DS1 for the Cobain tone. It was loud enough to keep up with the Valvestate combo the other guitarist in my school band was using. It had a reasonably good clean channel and nice verb/chorus - dirty sounds were balls , though I was using a DS1, and later, a Danelectro FabTone with it. I am nostalgic about these amps and they do a very good Radiohead in the 90's sound.

1998-1999- I had a Peavy Bandit 15w practise amp, and then later a s/s 40w unknown amp with a 15" Rola speaker. Both of these were heavily used for home jamming and a band I was playing in at the time with some workmates, though neither of them had anything good in the way of OD - all my dirty sounds were provided stil by the FabTone, which had this ability to make even the lamest s/s amps sound half-decent.

2000 - I bought a Classic 30 from a Cashies in Panmure for $600 (the same day I bought an Ibanez Thinline Tele copy for $300) which was my first proper tube amp. Used it in a folk-rock trio I was playing in at the time and it was a sweet sounding little beast which never caused any problems in the year or so I owned it. The dirty channel was perfect for what I wanted from it but a Boss Bluesdriver made it wail. Still love these amps for blues cleans and and dirty tones. This particular amp went through about 3 jam bands and numerous hours up in my room writing songs.

2003 - Bought a Gunn 50 head & 2x12 cab on a whim. Ridiculously loud, and someone had done a MV mod which allowed it to be played at a tolerable volume but was still loud. The Bluesdriver loved this amp and it was kinda a cheap Marshall sound for me on a budget. Sounded particuarly cool with hollowbody guitars I found.

2004 - JCM 900 head and 4x12. Got it for the looks and it sounded okay for the modern rock I was playing at the time. Soon found limitatinons in the tone and was sold about six months later to fund my DSL 100 which after nearly 5 years of service (two of them mostly retired) it fell into Aquila Rosso's hands. I aslo bough a Classic 20 that year to have as a bedroom amp, but it was sold swiftly when the DSL needed retubing and I was poor

2005 - Laney AOR 100 - the unknown clone of the JCM 800 with more gain. Dirty cheap off TM, I used it and later sold it to a bandmate. Wish I'd kept it, great amps. Was paired with a Jansen cab that had two Greenbacks in it, monster tone. I bought an 8100 Valvestate too which served as my backup to the DSL for two years, best non-valve distortion I've had.

2006 - Peavey Valveking. Okay for most things, just not my cup of tea. Reliable and tough though but just too generic sounding to me. I sold it and bought my Rivera K100, which most of you will know is my holy grail of amps - purcahsed from ex Zed guitarist Andy Lynch, it had been his backup amp and was as such, not utilised so much. This is my swiss army knife of tones as people who've played it can attest to.

2007 - JCM 800 combo on a whim. Didn't last long before being offloaded. Also bought a cheap Ashton Viper which never shone and was onsold. The 800 was cool but I couldn't hack it having one channel and a distinct lack of bottom end from from the open back cap. The Viper was just too mushy in tone which I put down to having clipping diodes in the signal path.

2009 - Rivera R100 212 combo. Similar sounding but different to the K100. Currently my main giging amp as I am liking the portability of combos at the present time. As of now, I only own the two Riveras and an Orange mini-amp which I got from the states for $20 USD in 2008 and serves as my bedroom jamming amp.

[Basket Case]

yep, i started off plugging in through a stereo.
First proper amp was a 'Vantage'
Then a SS Jansen
Then a Crate 120 watt SS twin chorus thing
Then I went rack- ADA Mp1 through an Alesis Quadraverb and ADA poweramp
ADA and Quadraverb replaced by a Digitech Valve fx
Line 6 Axsys 212
Marshall TSL 100
Traynor YCV50
Peavey JSX

Im the happiest I've been with the JSX, however the Mesa MkV has my interest.

[sgt mukuzi]

1965 magnavox
1965 bassking
1973 fender twin
1982 fenedr bassman
HG`s blue angel
gallien kruger 200RCB
fuzziebro 10 watter
fuzziebro class A ten watter
18 watt baby marshall clone
SS rocket 100watt
tube rocket 130 watt
marshall lead
marshall JCM900 DR
fuzziebro 5 watter

[Some Bozo]

Nice guys, very nice. Any pics to go with the lists?

I notice a fellow former M80 owner. Interesting to read the similar observation re. the dirt channel! Those amps were loud.

The one and only time I wound it up to 10 was at a house out in the jungle outside Kumara on the west coast of the south island. Cranked it up on the verandah and flights of birds took off from the forest in all directions

[Vince]

Loving the fact many started with a tape player...had to put a tape in mine, press record, then the mic in would work....

On mine there was a prong that would get pushed in when there was a cassette in there. After a while I learnt to push the prong in manually and fool the recorder into thinking there was a cassette in there.