Author: Bob Tekippe

Music Technology’s Talos Basic is an all-tube guitar amp is designed to be simple, yet so versatile that it stands out in what has become a rather large crowd.

The amp is based on a keep-it-simple philosophy that favors using a short signal path, like vintage amps, but with audiophile-grade components and an improved design that reveals the guitar’s true sound and allows the player to use the guitar as a tool to get good tone.

The Basic has just a handful of top-mounted controls including Gain, Drive, a Fat/Bright switch, and three-position wattage selector. Also onboard are high and low inputs, an insert jack, on/off switch, and a fan switch which is included only to allow the user to turn the fan off while recording. The back panel also has an extension speaker jack.

The Basic is obviously built for durability, with hand-built fiberglass circuitboards and an aluminum chassis. It uses a 12AX7 and 12AT7 in the preamp, and two 6L6 or 6550 tubes in the power section. The output transformer was designed specifically for the amp. Cabinet options include 13-ply birch or solid pine, and several finish options are available. Speaker choices are Jensen 12″ neodymium or C12N.

The Gain and Drive controls use a push/pull circuit where pulling adds gain, punch, and volume. The three-position power switch switches the amp from triode mode (20 watts output) to partial triode mode (30 watts) to pentode mode (40 watts). Each affects tone.

To test the Basic, we used our ’70s Fender Strat with stock pickups, an Ibanez Artist with Wolftone Greywolf pickups and a stock Japanese Fender reissue Telecaster. Using the Strat, we tried Talos’ suggested settings, starting with the guitar’s volume at 5, the amp’s Gain and Drive controls 3 o’clock, the Bright switch flipped on, and output power at 20 watts. The tone was very sparkly and clean, with great response and note separation. We then turned on the Fat switch and, as expected, got more low-end, but still with nice sparkle. Immediately noticeable is that the Basic does not favor any particular frequency – it has nice balance throughout. As we increased the guitar’s volume, we got more gain, with a touch of volume boost. The amp retained its clarity all the way to the top, offering great Strat tone in all positions at a lower volume.

We then pulled up the Gain and Drive switches and got even more gain, volume, and body without changing the tone. Treble got a little harsh, but we rolled off the guitar’s tone, and it stayed manageable. We tried the other power positions, and they delivered the expected volume along with more punch and bell-like sparkle. The amp was always there with all the gain we’d need, even with the Strat.

In the 40-watt position, we backed down the Gain and Drive to between 10 and 11 o’clock to reveal a truly gorgeous clean tone, no matter which pickups we used. It was warm and fat, with incredible sweetness and sparkle – pure, true Strat tone. The Basic’s push/pull Drive and Gain controls help it deliver a plethora of tonal options.

With then put the humbucker-equipped Ibanez through the same paces and got a fat, full blues tone with slight breakup and near-perfect sparkle. Switching from Bright to Fat produced a dark, almost jazzy tone. Bumping up the guitar’s volume control unleashed gobs of gain with great lead tone.

As we switched the amp to higher-output settings, the amp showed us it can indeed get loud. In the highest settings, you’ll be active with the guitar’s controls, but you’ll be “amply” rewarded with a variety of gain levels and natural amp tone.

The Basic also didn’t back down when we whipped out the Telecaster – recognizable Tele tones are right there. Again, in the highest of output settings, you’ll want to roll off the tone knob. For our money, the 30-watt setting with the Fat switch engaged produced the most overall satisfying Tele tone.

We were very impressed with the number of gain structures and natural tones the two-knob Basic is capable of producing. The amp lets every guitar sound like itself and lets the player control his sound. From sparkly clean to near-metal and all points in-between, the Basic delivers.

Features: All tube circuit, push/pull gain and drive controls, high/low inputs, variable-output design, Jensen Neo or Jensen C12N speakers, 13-ply birch or pine cabinet with finish options.

Price: $2,950.

Contact: Talos Instruments, 5418 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22151; phone (703) 764-7005; www.musictechnology.com

This article originally appeared in VG‘s Jul. ’05 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Reverend Musical Instruments head honcho Joe Naylor began playing guitar in 1982, graduated from the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery, started and ran an amp-building company, and in 1996 fired up the highly touted Reverend company in his home state of Michigan. Readers of VG are familiar with the man and his products.

Naylor’s latest creation is a collaboration with Rick Vito, the renowned guitarist who has worked with Fleetwood Mack, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Todd Rundgren, Bob Seger, and others. The new Reverend Rick Vito Special and Signature model guitars are variations on Reverend’s Advanced series Slingshot guitar, but with a few funky twists. Both employ the Slingshot’s semi-hollow design with polymer rims and 6″ mahogany center block with steel sustaining rod. Both guitars have an anodized aluminum top and back, veneered to phenolic laminate.

The guitars each have a satin-finished bolt-on maple neck with a 251/2″ scale and dual-action truss rod. Their fingerboards are rosewood with 12″ radius, 22 medium-jumbo oval frets, and a graphite nut.

The Vito uses two slightly overwound Reverend P-90 single-coil pickups, which become humbucking when both are engaged. The bridge pickup is wound slightly hotter, creating a near-perfect balance in volume and tone.

Controls include a master volume, master tone, a separate bass control, and three-way pickup selector. The bass control allows for rolling off low-end response.

The Vito’s simple design and clean lines share all the elegance we’ve grown accustomed to with Reverend, while the custom sandblasted graphics (designed by Vito himself) add a high degree of funk. Both are visually appealing, and being semi-hollow, they weigh in at a svelte 6.75 pounds.

The headstock on the Special has a satin finish, while the Signature features a black finish that matches its body. Both guitars utilize Sperzel locking tuners and feature a string-through-body hardtail bridge available with an optional Bigsby vibrato with a roller bridge.

The guitar’s look is complemented by its nearly flawless workmanship; fretwork is impeccable, and the neck is extremely comfortable, with a smooth, low, and fast action. The necks on our two testers felt identical, which would lead us to believe Reverend is consistent from guitar to guitar.

To test the tones of the Slingshots, we plugged them into an all-tube Peavey JSX with a Peavey 4×12″ cabinet. Starting with the JSX’s clean channel, we were met with a fat, warm tone with tons of low-end, with noticeably nice sparkle and a very responsive overall sound and feel. Rolling the bass to about half gave us a sweet, almost Telecaster-like tone.

The guitar’s Volume control is very responsive; even when rolled back, the tone doesn’t lose sparkle. And due to their calibrated winding, the pickups sound balanced regardless of the position of the selector switch. Run together, they proffer a fantastic blues tone and lend themselves nicely to overdrive, with more-than-ample low-end that never gets mushy and high-end response that never wanes.

We tested the Vitos against a humbucker-equipped solidbody and were pleasantly surprised to hear the Vitos actually deliver a fuller, fatter sound. Overall, the Special is a slightly more midrange-focused than the hardtail version. Both guitars sustain nicely, with the hardtail holding a slight edge over the Bigsby.

Looking to add a little snoose and snort to our tone, we switched the triple-rectified Peavey to heavy overdrive. Given its semi-hollow design, one could expect to have to wrestle the Reverend in an extreme-volume situation. But feedback was never a factor. And even when delivering heavily distorted tones, arpeggiated notes remained distinct and clear, with the same full, fat tone and no loss of sparkle. And as in the clean channel, when we backed off the volume, the guitar behaved as if we were messing only with the amp – we experienced no loss of high-end detail or tone.

Rolling the bass control all the way off was like switching guitars to a vintage three-pickup Fender. This is an extremely usable control, and the single-coils are very quiet.

Turning our attention to the Special’s Bigsby vibrato, we ramped up our riffage in an attempt to knock the guitar out of tune via classic “whammy abuse.” It didn’t work. The Bigsby, of course, doesn’t do dive bombs, but such units have a reputation for tuning instability. But this one was tough.

Both Reverend Vitos are incredibly playable guitars with excellent tone and great sustain. The bass control is supremely functional, and gives the guitars a true personality twist. Whether used clean or with massive overdrive, the Vitos are ultra-versatile, offer incredible craftsmanship, and Stylish looks.

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Reverend Vito Special/Signature
Features: Semi-hollow construction with mahogany center block, sustain bar, polymer rims; aluminum-phenolic laminate top and back; 251/2″-scale maple bolt on neck with 12″ radius rosewood fingerboard; medium jumbo frets; graphite nut, Sperzel locking tuners, Reverend pickups, hardtail bridge with Bigbsy option, chrome armrest.
Price: $1,349 (Special), $1,499 (Signature).
Contact: Reverend Musical Instruments, 27300 Gloede, Unit D, Warren, MI 48088; phone (586) 775-1025; www.reverend
guitars.com.

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This article originally appeared in VG‘s Jan. ’06 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

St. Louis Music has been building Crate amplifiers since the late 1970s, and straight out of the chute, they gained a reputation for being well-designed, good-sounding, affordable, and oh-so-cute in their little crate-like cabinets.

Through the years, the Crate lines has evolved. The latest progression in the line is, in terms of design, something of a step back. Cognizant of the ever-growing popuarity of tube amps, Crate recently launched its all-tube V series combo amps, the V1512 and the V5212. These are different from the company’s Vintage Club series in that they offer much more gain and, on the 50-watt model, feature built-in effects.

These amps are very solidly built, as their weight bears testament. Aesthetically, they offer a crossover look between vintage and modern.

The V1512 features 15 class A watts and a 12″ speaker. The top-loaded control panel has the stanard 1/4″ input, plus controls for gain, low-end boost, treble, mid, bass level indicator, and on/off switch. The internal speaker can be disconnected and a 16-ohm cabinet may be plugged in via a 1/4″ jack. Three Groove Tubes 12AX7s and two EL84 power tubes provide the heart of the operation. For test guitars, we used a ’70s Strat, a ’59 Esquire and a ’70s Ibanez Artist.

Setting the amp to clean, and playing the Esquire, we dialed in a downright decent country tone that was very punchy and sparkly, with nice low-end response. We had to keep the gain control way low, as it would start to break up as we pushed it. Same with the Strat and Artist… but keep in mind, this is a high-gain amp.

As we pushed the gain, though, we easily found great blues tones that were again very punchy and responsive. We kept the treble backed off, as it tended to get a little fussy when cranked! And as we cranked the master volume, the tone stayed tight, even with the bass dimed.

As we drove the gain progressively harder, it came on strong, but was never brittle or soft. Smooth and tight was still the order of the day. With theArtist we had plenty of gain for metal. Wherever we set the gain it was smooth and tight with the speaker almost wanting to jump out of the cabinet at higher gain settings.

The reverb, for being a small tank, was very nice. Yes, you can get decent surf tones by cranking the reverb. Volumewise, this is a loud little amp that would work well onstage and in the studio. It has one channel, so you’ll have to mix it to your liking.

The V5212 features 50 class A/B all-tube watts with two 12″ speakers. It uses four 12AX7 preamp tubes and two EL34 output tubes, all supplied by Groove Tubes. The amp features channel switching and digital effects, and includes a footswitch for channel selection and selecting between two effects presets. Control-wise, the first channel features volume, treble, middle, and bass.

The second channel features gain, treble, middle, bass, and level. The master section which affects both channels includes DSP selection, DSP master level and presence controls. Standby and on/off switches are next to the indicator.

The digital signal processor features the most commonly used effects and presets for a handful of combinations – very cool, and very useful!

For our test run, we started with clean settings on the first channel. With the Esquire, we again were able to achieve fat, punchy, and sparkly country sounds; a desirable clean tone found in much more expensive boutique amps. With the Artist, we got the same clean tones, and with a slight edge when the volume was boosted. Very fat blues tone.
The presence control allowed us to dial in that right amount of sparkle.

We set channel two for various amounts of distortion. With the Esquire, the V5212 produced a smooth, fat distortion. We were even able to make the Strat sing with considerable fat by simply backing off the treble – it produced plenty of pleasing sparkle while retaining the low-end. The 5212 sounded very wet and tubey with the Strat. Very pure.

Using the Artist, we toyed with the gain and were able to get a great very responsive blues tone.

When we cranked the master, the amp really stepped into its own, typical of pushing the output tubes. Again, we had to watch our treble settings.

Then we toyed with the effects processor, which colors the way it should, and did not color the amp’s overall tone. You can switch between two effects presets via the footswitch – all effects are very usable. Volume-wise, this amp will fill almost any situation you encounter, and an extension speaker cab can be tagged on.

The V5212 covers three important bases – great clean tone, great overdrive tone, and great value. In short, it may be one of the most versatile and affordable amps on the market.

Both V amps are screamin’ tube units with the affordability any player can partake of.

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Crate V1512
Type of amp15-watt 1×12″ combo.
Features Class A tube circuitry, V series 12″ speaker, 15 watts – all tube, class A design, three Groove Tubes 12AX7 preamp tubes, two Groove Tubes EL34 power tubes, external speaker jack, 16-ohm operation, spring reverb.
Price $599.

Crate V5212
Type of amp 50-watt 2×12″ combo.
Features Four Groove Tubes 12AX7 preamp tubes, two Groove Tubes EL34 power tubes, external speaker jack, 16/8-ohm operation, 15 built-in digital effects effects level, line in/out.
Price $1,099.
Contact Crate/St.Louis Music, 1400 Ferguson, St. Louis, MO 63133, phone 800-738-7563, crateamps.com.

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This article originally appeared in VG‘s Jan. ’04 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Japan’s Maxon company has made some of the most popular guitar effects pedals of all time. But because they carried a different brand, you might not equate the box with the name. Here’s a not-so-subtle hint: green boxes. Need another? The letters T and S.

Got it? Good, because the original-issue versions of those pedals have achieved grail-like status in the vintage instrument market, so it makes sense Maxon would offer them once again.

We recently played around with three more pedals from the company’s Nine Series reissues of those famous pedals, the FL-9 Flanger, CS-9 Pro Stereo Chorus, AD-9 Analog Delay (we tested the SD-9 Distortion, OD-9 Overdrive, and AF-9 Auto Filter in the November ’02 issue) using an Ibanez Artist guitar with Wolfetone Greywolf pickups and an all-tube Peavey Butcher head through a 2×12″ cabinet.

Since first reissuing the line, Maxon has improved it with upgraded circuitry (including a Signetics NE570 compander) and true-bypass switching courtesy of a 4PDT. Those improvements were immediately noticeable when we plugged in the AD-9 Analog Delay, which was ultra warm and exceptionally quiet (our signal almost seemed quieter with effect delay on!), and absolutely devoid of signal coloration. We dialed in a rockabilly slap-back echo and found it to be very vintage-like, with all the requisite warmth.

Dialing in more delay and slower repeats, and with a touch more distortion on the amp, we got that classic soughtafter “big-hall” rock sound of our youth.

We then cleaned it up again and sped up the delay, increased the repeats, and achieved what could be best described as “bathroom” sound. The repeats deteriorated like they should when we increased the rate and slowed the delay time. There’s nothing warmer than an analog circuit! After trying this unit, you will not want to go back to digital.

The FL-9 Flanger uses controls for speed, width, re-generation (controls the effects intensity) and a delay time. Again, the pedal’s sound was appreciably warm, transparent, and our signal was quieter with the pedal on. We experimented with the sample setting for classic flange and found it to be just that – classic!

Adjusting the delay time to various settings, we dialed in a host of flange tones. Slowing the speed to off and with the width turned down, re-generation turned up, and adjusting the delay time, the pedal produced a very strange tone, almost like playing inside a metal tank. We then recalled the standard flange setting, increased the amp’s distortion, and added the AD-9 Delay. Switching to the bridge pickup, we found a familiar Van Halen-like tone.

Finally, we plugged in the CS-9 Pro. This is, very simply, one of the warmest chorus pedals we’ve heard. Set to standard chorus effect, we experienced deep, lush chorus, with absolutely no harshness.

Maxon includes sample settings with each pedal, and we tried the CS-9 Pro’s setting number one. Turning up the amp’s gain, we got a huge, very fluid tone. Awesome! We then tweaked the controls to get a variety of tremolo effects. For kicks, we hooked it up in stereo, with the help of a Vox Berkely. Now that’s chorus. After trying the Deep Chorus setting, we almost had to be hosed down!

These three pedals certainly complement the Maxon Nine Series reputation for being outstanding, with all the warm characteristics you’d expect from true vintage effects… but without the noise. Each is built like a tank. And while this kind of quality and sound comes at a price, these are easily worth the extra few bucks.

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Maxon AD-9, CS-9, and FL-9 effects pedals
Features Heavy-duty die-cast zinc chassis, true-bypass switching, LED power/battery indicator, AC/DC operation. AD-9: stereo outputs and controls for delay time, repeat, and delay level. CS-9: stereo outputs, controls for speed, width, delay time, and blend. FL-9: controls for speed, width, regeneration, delay time
Price $400 (AD-9), $299 (CS-9), $320 (FL-9).
Contact Godlyke Distribution, PO Box 3076, Clifton NJ 07012, phone (866) 246-3595, www.godlyke.com.

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This article originally appeared in VG‘s Oct. ’04 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.