Okay, Zep police, sound the alarm and prepare to loose the hounds – we are finally about to lift the lid on the Jimmy Page amp. Well, maybe not the Jimmy Page amp, but almost certainly a Jimmy Page amp, and even this claim should be enough to get the keys clacking and the internet [...]
Don’t we guitarists just love gear that looks like it was salvaged from our mom’s kitchen circa 1961? Give us something in high-gloss pastel, with Formica styling, gas-cooker knobs, plenty of chrome, and an emblem lifted off a fridge door and we go weak in the knees every time. When it comes to kitchen kitsch, [...]
1965 Vox Pacemaker v-3 Preamp tubes: three Mullard ECC83 (12AX7) Output tubes: two Mullard EL84, cathode-biased, no negative feedback Rectifier: Mullard EZ81 Controls: Volume, Treble, Bass, Speed, Depth Speaker: gold 10″ Oxford “Vox Bulldog” Output: approximately 17 watts RMS No doubt the mere appearance of that Vox logo and the diamond grillecloth beneath it has [...]
Rickenbacker Transonic TS100 Topology: Solid State Output: 100 watts RMS Controls: Volume, Treble, Bass controls and Hollow, Mellow and Pierce switches on each channel; Tremolo Speed and Depth, Reverb, and Fuzz-Tortion on Custom channel. Speakers: two 12″ Altec 417. A major artist’s endorsement of a piece of gear is often seen as a springboard to [...]
1962 6G2 Fender Princeton Preamp tubes: One 7025, one 12AX7 Output tubes: two 6V6GT in fixed bias Rectifier: 5Y3 Controls: Volume, Tone, Speed, Intensity Speaker: one 10” Oxford 10J4 Output: approximately 12 watts RMS For the past couple decades the Fender Deluxe of the ’60s and early ’70s – in its several variants – held [...]
1946 Masco MAP-15 Before Leo Fender’s rise to prominence, which is to say, before anyone knew what the Platonic form of the electric guitar amplifier would ultimately be, a broad free-fire zone existed between general-purpose amplification, PA amps, and guitar amps. Many companies covered all bases, as did Masco, a name that has come to [...]
1966 Vox Guitar-organ and ’66 Phantom XII. The Guitar-organ was a Dick Denney creation that combined the mechanical elements of a Phantom guitar with the oscillators of a Continental electric keyboard. Photo: VG Archive. In an industry hardwired to perpetually churn out a “next big thing,” any design that remains the kid to beat for [...]
In the early 1960s, a young Research Laboratory engineer named Roger Mayer filled his “spare time” hanging out with a jaw-dropping collection of up-and-comers on the fledgling London blues-rock scene, and building effects pedals for these future stars before most guitar players knew enough to ask, “What’s an effect pedal?” Though this would lead to [...]
