Month: March 2003

Introduction
If you’ve read Gregg Hopkins and Bill Moore’s new book, Ampeg: The Story Behind The Sound, you know that Jess Oliver played a major role in the success of Ampeg. Oliver Sound Company, Inc. is to Ampeg what MusicMan and Randall are to Fender, and since space for non-Ampeg items was justifiably restrained in Hopkins and Moore’s book, it seems timely for anyone whose interest has been recently piqued to look at the Oliver line in detail here (last month I wrote, “As direct descendents of classic Ampeg and some of the coolest amps of all time, the Oliver line perhaps deserved more space;” this may be true, but since I didn’t even mention the Musicman and Randall amps in Fender Amps, I guess I should retract). So here is about as much as you’ll ever need to know about Oliver amps, short of reprinting catalogs and schematics, with technical support from the man himself.

Company History
Shortly after the 1966 NAMM show, Oliver left the Ampeg company and started one of his own, teaming up with Harry Bloom, whose name appears under his on the Baby Bass patent (along with Ampeg founder Everett Hull).

Bloom had a machine shop with serious tools (including a Bridgeport milling machine) that were essential in the design of the pickup, and when Hull wanted his name included on the patent, Oliver added Bloom’s (the men had been introduced by composer Raymond Scott regarding the sale of a high-end Conn Strobe unit and the story goes that Bloom originally purchased the tuner to help develop an inexpensive toy xylophone, but when he discovered he had to pay an excise tax if the thing played in tune – as in no longer a toy, but a musical instrument – he lost interest in the project).

Oliver left Ampeg in September of ’66 and by the end of the year, was able to entice Bloom into converting his shop in Brooklyn into a musical instrument amplifier factory, offering him half of the new company. Both invested $5,000 to get started and it wasn’t long before a line of “Patented” amps was coming out of the small building at 49-01 Farragut Road (the patent was actually not granted until May 26, 1970, but was applied for February 28, 1967). Showing up at the NAMM show in the Summer of ’67 with a line designed by Oliver, Gene Andre, and Alex Gonzalez, that went beyond Ampeg’s best models, the new company generated a great deal of interest and proved Oliver was still a major force in the business.

In truth, his early line was built around one basic amp, but the Powerflex’s Jetsons-like approach to the Porta-Flex (patented in the name of Oliver Jespersen, but held by Hull) offered store owners a modern alternative to the popular Ampegs, with internally connected speaker cables, retractable AC cords, and an improved dolly. The light-up panel was another impressive step ahead of the competition.

Expanding into public address equipment, the company began building an outrageous speaker designed to perch atop telescoping stands, filling the air above the crowd with sound instead of trying to blast through clothed humans, one of the best sound absorbers known. These “Sound Projector” cabinets had a great reputation in the hi-fi world (having been designed and patented by NASA consultant John Karlson) and dispersed a wide pattern horizontally, with a tight vertical spread, making efficient use of power. Oliver was way ahead of its time with this ingenious (but potentially tipsy) rig.

Before the end of the decade, Bloom amicably reclaimed his machine shop and Oliver moved across the bay to Linden, New Jersey, as sole proprietor. Work on guitars and basses with Mike Roman (of Ampeg Horizontal bass fame) did not lead to production, but an electric pickup for the vibraphone turned into a fourth patent for Oliver Jespersen, and the unit was hawked to Deegan, the leader in vibraphone manufacture. This deal fell through and for a short time, Oliver marketed the device himself, with the endorsement of musical wiz Gary Burton, before Ludwig picked it up for their Musser line (seeing Burton 20-odd years ago with a very young Pat Matheny in tow was certainly a night to remember – check out Hank Garland’s fabulous Jazz Winds From A New Direction for his stellar teenage debut).

The Oliver company managed to keep its head above water in the turbulent late ’60s (while Ampeg was losing big bucks), but an offer from former Ampeg salesman Edmund Finger for a new factory and distribution led the company back to New York (Westbury, Long Island).

Retaining 51 percent of the company, Oliver became president. Finger had a knack for making money while working full-time for music jobber Bugeliesen & Jacobson, he was on the side pulling $150,000 a year out of Ampeg to pay himself and a small group of subcontracted salesmen – when Oliver was only getting $10,000 as VP! When Unimusic took control of Ampeg, he was forced to move on.

Finger hoped to get into the inexpensive student market, but Jespersen proved true to his roots and in a small power struggle (partly over Finger selling other manufacturers closeout amps on the side), Jess ended up back on his own in West Baylon, New York, in the mid ’70s. Undercapitalized in a volatile and fast-changing market, the company fizzled, moving Jess on to a long-running repair business out of the comfort of his basement shop in Massapequa Park, New York; free of the hassles from partners, payrolls, rent, etc. Almost 25 years later, he’s still tinkering away on new designs and still passing out business cards for Oliver Sound.

Powerflex Combo Amps
Oliver’s initial offering introduced the amazing Powerflex Series to the world, featuring “…the patented telescoping amplifier unit which automatically elevates the amplifier section out of the speaker enclosure.”

Any inherent problems with flipping an Ampeg Portaflex head upside down and into place were alleviated with this motorized take on the basic design. Flicking on the recessed power switch activated the tubes and a built-in motor, which would raise the head from its resting place. Vice-versa, switching the unit off slowly retracted the head, an astonishing sight to the uninitiated.

“Twenty-two new amplifiers for guitar or bass” were available, ranging in price from $450 to $1,260, with all employing one of two basic amplifiers. Each of these tops could be had with a variety of speaker configurations, ranging from a single 12 to four 15s. Reverb and tremolo were standard on the 502, with the 500 being essentially the same circuit, sans effects.

Two channels were standard, the first having controls for volume, treble and bass; the second including midrange and Ultra-High.

A pair of fixed-bias 7027A tubes easily generated 60 watts RMS from the B+ of 525VDC provided by a 5AR4 rectifier. A 6AN8 medium-mutriode/sharp-cutoff pentode performed the phase inversion and driver functions, a la Sunn. A high-fidelity 6EU7 twin-triode (amplification factor 100) was used in each of the two-stage preamps, with the 502 also including a third 6EU7 plus a 6DR7 dual triode for the tremolo and reverb sections. Intensity of the tremolo was controlled by a photocell, as on blackface Fenders.

While still in Brooklyn, the line settled into three basic speaker configurations; 500/502, designated a single 15″; 500T/502T, twin 12s and 500F/502F, twin 15s (500D/502D, twin 15s in dual enclosures, one with the built-in head and one without). Separate heads were available; the basic PA100X, the reverb-equipped PA100XR and the reverb/tremolo model PA100XRT.

Specified for use with the Oliver-built/John Karlson-designed PA speakers, circuit-wise they were almost identical to the Powerflex models.
The line carried over to Linden, along with the company, as shown on a May 1, 1969 pricelist. Work on a more traditional line including one-piece combo amps and two-piece piggybacks was started there and these showed up in the company’s press release regarding its move to Westbury, Long Island, and the June, 1970, pricelist showing the new address.

Uniflex and Duoflex Amps
Complementing and eventually supplanting the Powerflex Series, the Uniflex (combos) and Duoflex (separate components) lines featured a reworked control panel and offered the musician a second choice in power output. A smaller 35W amplifier powered the single-channel, single 12″ G120R guitar (a.k.a. “Little David”) and single 15″ B120 bass Uniflex models.

Solidstate rectifiers, 6L6 power tubes, 6EU7 phase inverters, and smaller transformers were just a few of the major electrical differences between the old and the new. A two-channel version of the 35W amp with reverb and tremolo powered the single 15″ G150R and the twin 12″ G200R.

Dressed up with the new control panel, but keeping the old 60W guts, the twin 15″ G400R completed the guitar amp line, coming in $150 less than the comparably outfitted (and soon to be retired) Powerflex. This amp was also available with a single 15″ as the G300R “Special Vibraphone” model, paired with the Oliver Electro-Vibe pickup. Again, the new model was priced over $100 less than a comparably equipped Powerflex, marking the beginning of the end for this patented, but somewhat pricey, design.

A comparable, but effect-less 60W piggyback bass head was available as the single 15″ B150, the twin 15″ B200 and the four 15″ B600. Equalization on these heads included Bass, Midrange and Treble, plus Ultra-High on Channel 1 and Ultra-Low on Channel 2. Ditto on the Powerflex price comparison here, too. The new bass amps became the mainstays of the company and were also sold with the Sam Ash brandname.

At the top of the 1970 line sat the short-lived Model 300W. While specs were not given for this $1200 set, the four 15″ speaker cabinet appears to have been the same as that used with the $799 B600, leaving one with the impression the additional $401 went toward a much more powerful head, especially since it was only a single-channel design. Dimensions were listed as 10″ X 31″ X 10″, as compared to 9″ X 19 1/2″ X 10″ for the standard 60W heads. The “W” designation was unique to this model – was this Oliver’s answer to Ampeg’s 1969 SVT? According to Jess, the amp never made it to production and possibly was not even built as a prototype.

By the July 15, 1972, pricelist the remainder of the Powerflex stock had been sold, with the G120R and the four 15″ bass amps joining them in retirement. This left a small and consistent line for the last years of the company. Holdovers included the G150R, G200R and G400R guitar amps; B120, B150 and B200 bass amps; and the PA100X and PA100XR heads.

New versions included the placement of G400R and B120 heads into twin 12″ combo cabinets, which became the G2400 and B212; plus additions at both the bottom and the top of the line. A “240 watts PMP (92 RMS)” head was offered with reverb as the PA200XR and without as the B240. Reverb/tremolo guitar versions apparently were never offered and according to Oliver, only a handful of the large amps were actually made. The power transformers had been purchased from Conrad Sundholm of Sunn and a few NOS pieces are still hanging around in the parts bin.

The bottom of the line extended a bit lower with the addition of a bare bones 35W amplifier with only Volume, Bass and Treble controls, the B100 single 15″ combo and the H100 head (also available with reverb as the H100R). These single-channel amps had a narrower control panel than the larger models. As PA systems grew in the ’70s, it became popular to have more than two channels, hence, the PA150XR with “4 channels, 8 inputs, extra features.”

Closing out the new additions were a four 12″ cabinet for PA and the OP1 Orbital Power Projector rotating horn. This Leslie-style horn cabinet can add a pleasant effect to low-power guitar setups and offers an interesting and relatively inexpensive alternative to chorus stompboxes. With Ludwig given an exclusive on the vibraphone pickup, the G300R was dropped, and there you have the basic story of Oliver amps.

A pricelist from August 1, 1974, shows the address for the last real factory, in West Babylon, New York, and a basically unchanged line, save for the deletion of the four 12″ cabinet and the addition of the larger OP2. Shortly thereafter, the factory was shut down, with Oliver keeping the name for conducting business from his basement shop in Massapequa Park, where he has been repairing amps of all makes and doing warranty work ever since. The last NOS Oliver amp, a leftover G400R, was sold from there just a few years ago after being converted from the extinct 7027s to 6L6s.

Postscript
Oliver Jespersen, being the honorable kind of guy he is, managed to pay off all his credit accounts after closing the factory and dissolving the corporation. He actually received a letter from Paul Lovgrin, the president of Eminence, commending him for not leaving them holding the bag when he “…went out of business.” Since owners of corporations are not held liable for their company’s debts, this is a rare occurrence. Since then, Oliver has kept busy doing the things he’s been doing for years, namely playing music and working on amps and instruments. Next month we’ll interview this old-timer in depth and look at his numerous contributions to the music biz over the last 50 years.

This article originally appeared in VG‘s Nov. ’99 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

When it comes to effects pedals, compressors and sustain ped-als usually fall into the “love it or hate it” category. Aside from a graphic equalizer, it is probably the least pronounced effect there is. Most purist guitarists, who prefer to plug straight into the amp, would never dream of using a compressor. But there are some who wouldn’t play without one.

If you prefer to use a compressor pedal, there is one you may want to watch for – the Ampeg A-2. Though production of the A-2 was short-lived and few survived the ’80s, this is one unit you won’t want to pass up.

Produced in Japan and marketed under the Ampeg name in the mid/late ’80s, it is one of the smoothest compressors made in the days of big hair. At the time, just about every manufacturer in the music industry took a dip into the pedal marketing sea. Ampeg was no exception.

The A-2 measures approximately 2.5″ X 4.5″, roughly the size of an Ibanez or Boss pedal of the same era. Its enclosure is metal, painted black with hot pink lettering for the controls and logo (hey, it was the ’80s!). Other features include silent FET switching, three control knobs (level, sustain, and tone) and an led on/off status indicator. It operates on a single nine-volt battery. Upon close inspection, the pedal shares some of the manufacturing characteristics of the aforementioned Ibanez units.

Maxon, a Japanese company, manufactured pedals for Ibanez in the ’70s and ’80s that toted a reputation for being some of the finer-sounding stompboxes ever produced. Since the knobs on the Ampeg are almost identical to Ibanez’s fabled TS-808 Tubescreamer, and the circuitboard, internal on/off switch, and potentiometers all closely resemble those made for the TS-9 series, it’d be a safe bet the Ampeg series was produced at the same plant as the Ibanez pedals, if not manufactured by Maxon.

But enough manufacturing mumbo jumbo. Let’s get to the really important matter – the sound!

When you switch the Ampeg on, you immediately hear the thickness of the note you’re playing, especially at higher sustain settings. One of the A-2’s best qualities is its ability to drive an amp while still sounding natural, especially a small tube amp (Fender Princeton, Champ, or newer Fender Pro Jr.).

While testing the pedal, I used a Telecaster, Stratocaster, and these three amps. You have to love the natural-sounding sustain this pedal offers – like the amplifier is cranked. But it delivers this sound at lower volumes. Another winning feature is a low noise factor.

And still another nice element is the volume dynamics. With full volume settings on the guitar and pedal, it’s easy to adjust the sound of the effect by simply rolling back the guitar’s volume. It’s much simpler to do than turning the effect off; however, battery life won’t be as long. A guitar with humbuck-ers, such as a Les Paul, won’t react quite as strongly with the volume trick, but it will work in the same manner, just not as easily as single-coil guitars. The A-2 can be powered with a nine-volt adapter.

With the A-2, you don’t have to drive your tube amp hard if you don’t want to. At lower level/higher sustain settings, the A-2 produces a thick, creamy tone with a slight overdrive. Your picking attack also affects the way the pedal reacts. With harder picking, each note makes a slight popping at higher settings. A softer picking attack produces little if any pop on the notes.

Overall, this compressor is a winner. But, as with many good pedals, there is usually something that’ll bother someone. With the A-2, it seems when you switch the effect on, there is a slight -but-noticeable signal loss. This is another reason for keeping the effect on and manipulating the guitar volume. But if you must turn it on and off, there is only a slight signal loss.

Although the A-2 is such an offbeat and rare pedal, if you do find one, it’s usually at a reasonable price. And in spite of the slight signal loss, all in all it offers a lot of bang for the buck.

Westwood 75
While the mantra for 21st century “alternative material” guitars focuses on carbon fiber (i.e. Rainsong acoustics) and wood/glass/carbon fiber/epoxy composites (i.e. Ken Parker’s Fly line), electric guitars made of things other than wood go way back. And one of the first companies to venture away from wood construction was Valco, which in 1962 introduced the National and Supro lines (as well as contract brand names like Airline) of fiberglass-bodied electrics.

Valco, who could hype with the best of its peers, certainly wouldn’t settle for saying it was using “fiberglass.” No, it could do better. And arguably it did when it dubbed the material used in its early-’60s line of single-cutaway map-shaped electric guitars “Res-O-Glas.” Uh huh.

Ultimately, there were nine map-shaped Res-O-Glas guitars in the Valco line, all carrying the National name and ranging from the basic Newport to the overly sophisticated Glenwood 99. And for the record, these were not planned as “map guitars,” rather their shape and design merely grew out of the aesthetics of early-’60s solidbody guitar gestalt.

The 1964 Westwood 75 shown here was technically part of the line, but different for a couple reasons; 1.) it was made of wood, and 2.) it was the only model offered in a sunburst finish (its Res-O kin were available in Duco Seafoam Green, red, white, or black).

The Westwood’s treble horn is neatly curved down while the upper horn is flattened and stretched to accommodate a selector switch. Voila! – the continental United States (sort of) in an electric guitar, 15 years before the limited edition Gibson/Epiphone “map” guitar! The rest of the body is generically rounded, but an interesting feature is the relief (a.k.a. “German carve”) of the top, which adds an element of surface tension to the design and helps avoid the “slab” look.

This Westwood appears to be a single-pickup model with a neck-position humbucker. But hidden in the bridge is a contact pickup – more than 10 years before tranducers entered the mainstream on acoustic guitars, and 30 years before the emergence of electric/acoustic hybrids like the Parker!

Other National electrics had more pickups, and some had fancier trim, but they all have a similar playability that takes a little adjustment. Though today considered one of the must-haves amongst cheap/cool collectible guitars (expect to pay $800 to $900 for a Westwood in all-original, excellent condition), in its time, high production costs and retail prices (the Glenwood retailed for $25 to $30 more than a Fender Stratocaster at the time) combined to knock the Westwood and its Reso-O brethren out of existence by 1965. But the concept was cool enough that all-wood copies emerged in the mid ’90s. Retro lives! – ECS

Fifteen Reasons to Own a National Glenwood 99
1 Something old. Instruments began appearing with the National moniker in the mid 1920s, several years before the company had even been officially chartered. By 1930, the John and Rudy Dopyera’s operation was offering a full catalog range that included some of guitar history’s most timeless designs.

Every introduction from the Los Angeles-based concern rivaled the previous, and each incorporated some unorthodox (and patentable) material or construction. The National name was soon synonymous with innovation and first-rate quality.

2 Something new. By the middle of the ’30s, however, creative vision was as confusing as the corporate waters were muddy. Half of the partners had marched off in a huff to Chicago to compete with National.

They formed Dobro, but they merged back with the originals (as the National-Dobro company) to survive the throes of the Depression. In ’42, they reorganized once more (with a sampling of additional players) as Valco. It was Valco, a huge Chicago manufacturer (and a far cry from the Dopyera’s shop) that subcontracted gajillions of electric and acoustic guitars, amps, and related stuff right up through the late ’60s under a wide variety of names. But they saved their best for the name they retained – National.

3 Something borrowed. In 1963, the Studebaker automobile company introduced the smartly styled Avanti, and then promptly went belly-up. After decades of contorting vehicle metal into the ever-more-ridiculous demands of outlandish fins, dashboards, and fenders, producing a sleek Raymond Loewy design should have been a cakewalk. It wasn’t.

The tantalizing and seemingly profitable technology that enticed Studebaker off the beaten path was a brand new class of plastics called “resins.” Only just making the manufacturing scene, the story sounded too good to be true. You mixed gooey liquid A with gooey liquid B and poured the result into a mold with some shredded glass threads and it came out looking bee-ootiful. With limited finishing (shoot, you could add the final color right in the resin) and a little assembly, Bunky, you were on your way to the bank. It wasn’t half as easy as it looked, and the various bugs weren’t worked out until a few years later.

Valco fell for the same pitch when they unveiled their “Res-O-Glas” lines for both National and Supro at just about the same time as Studebaker presented the Avanti.

4 Something Seafoam Green. Valco’s guitars consisted of two thin halves of hollow fiberglass shell enveloping a narrow solid wooden core. A more traditional painted wooden neck, as well as pickups, controls, and tailpiece were all anchored to the sturdy center block. Finally, a continuous bead of flexible vinyl neatly connected the rough glass-fiber edges of front and rear sections.

The most endearing, and enduring, quality resulting from the Res-O-Glas construction was the color. They almost glowed. The depth of the pigmented resin produced an almost iridescent quality unattainable by painting mere wood. Valco’s limited palette clearly derived from Leo Fender’s custom Duco colors, yet the plastic saved them from the rigors of age that dull and yellow most paint finishes.

5 Brush up on your geography. Turn the page sideways (with the neck to your right) and you’ll glimpse the source for Glenwood’s characteristic shape. That’s right, it’s the good old U.S. of A., with a bass cutaway horn that resembles Maine, a treble cutaway horn that is Florida, and extra lower bout cutout like the Mexican border. The tuners, however, are in Portugal.

6 Win bets. Say, buddy, how many pickups are on this guitar? Care to wager? Another patented feature common to some Valco-made instruments was a contact pickup inside the guitar’s otherwise normal rosewood bridge. Dubbed “Silver Sound” in company literature, it complements the more ordinary “Vista-Power” units, is almost invisible to the naked eye, and could spell big bucks for you.

7 A swanky floating pickguard. Cross the best elements of floating side-mounted scratch plates (à la Gibson and Gretsch archtops) with screwed-down top covering ‘guard technology from Fender and Rickenbacker solidbodies. Add multicolor rear-side applied and engraved decoration of an old-style National shield, and leave clear areas in between silkscreened vertical stripes to let the stunning resin color shine through, and you’ve got yourself a Glenwood pickguard.

8 Creative lutherie. An inexplicable, yet not entirely unattractive, feature of virtually all bound-fingerboard Valco instruments is fret-slotted binding. Normally, manufactured fingerboards are slotted, then fretted unbound, with plastic added lastly to cover and obscure the fret slots. Valco saw it (and sawed it) differently, with fret slots cut right through the pretty white celluloid.

9 Magnesium reinforced neck. Absolutely guaranteed by National not to warp for five full years. Unfortunately, those years were up during the Lyndon Johnson administration. This leaves you pretty much out of luck if you have a Glenwood with a curvy neck, since the bolt-on affair includes no easy method of adjustment. Happily, most have stayed pretty straight.

10 Knobs-a-poppin! National’s three Glenwood choices all came equipped with a full complement of controls, including a pickup selector, three individual tone, three individual volume, and an oversized master volume adjustment (right there in southwestern Nevada).

11 Flashy fingerboards. Whereas the majority of Valco instruments include fairly lackluster necks, the Glenwoods alone feature a full complement of dazzling ornamental designs, in a plastic and pearl combination, topped off with an intonation-improving zero fret.

12 Nothing but the best. With its genuine Bigsby tailpiece, Grover Rotomatic tuners, three pickups, seven knobs, Seafoam Green Res-O-Glas body, and gleaming gold-plated metal parts, the 99 is clearly the leader of the Glenwood pack. The plainer red Glenwood 95, and the midline white Glenwood 98, both offer considerable appeal, but neither can match the panache of the 99.

13 Avoid the rush. With prices for Valco-made guitars – and particularly the Glenwoods, which are now going for $1,500 to $2,000 – beginning to overtake those of more traditionally desirable makes, if you’ve ever wanted one you may want to act now, or be sorry later. Since the troublesome resin technology insured a relatively brief production run, the number of extant pieces is less than one might think.

Recent trends show players and collectors manifesting considerable interest in a variety of instruments that just a few years ago were the subject of scorn and laughter. Foremost among these are the more flamboyant models – particularly in cool colors like this one.

14 Lose friends; make new ones. Few guitars have such a polarizing effect on guitar collectors; people either love them or they hate them. No middle ground. But if you count yourself among the believers, you won’t walk alone.

15 They float. – RJK

This article originally appeared in VG‘s June ’01 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

When it comes to effects pedals, compressors and sustain ped-als usually fall into the “love it or hate it” category. Aside from a graphic equalizer, it is probably the least pronounced effect there is. Most purist guitarists, who prefer to plug straight into the amp, would never dream of using a compressor. But there are some who wouldn’t play without one.

If you prefer to use a compressor pedal, there is one you may want to watch for – the Ampeg A-2. Though production of the A-2 was short-lived and few survived the ’80s, this is one unit you won’t want to pass up.

Produced in Japan and marketed under the Ampeg name in the mid/late ’80s, it is one of the smoothest compressors made in the days of big hair. At the time, just about every manufacturer in the music industry took a dip into the pedal marketing sea. Ampeg was no exception.

The A-2 measures approximately 2.5″ X 4.5″, roughly the size of an Ibanez or Boss pedal of the same era. Its enclosure is metal, painted black with hot pink lettering for the controls and logo (hey, it was the ’80s!). Other features include silent FET switching, three control knobs (level, sustain, and tone) and an led on/off status indicator. It operates on a single nine-volt battery. Upon close inspection, the pedal shares some of the manufacturing characteristics of the aforementioned Ibanez units.

Maxon, a Japanese company, manufactured pedals for Ibanez in the ’70s and ’80s that toted a reputation for being some of the finer-sounding stompboxes ever produced. Since the knobs on the Ampeg are almost identical to Ibanez’s fabled TS-808 Tubescreamer, and the circuitboard, internal on/off switch, and potentiometers all closely resemble those made for the TS-9 series, it’d be a safe bet the Ampeg series was produced at the same plant as the Ibanez pedals, if not manufactured by Maxon.

But enough manufacturing mumbo jumbo. Let’s get to the really important matter – the sound!

When you switch the Ampeg on, you immediately hear the thickness of the note you’re playing, especially at higher sustain settings. One of the A-2’s best qualities is its ability to drive an amp while still sounding natural, especially a small tube amp (Fender Princeton, Champ, or newer Fender Pro Jr.).

While testing the pedal, I used a Telecaster, Stratocaster, and these three amps. You have to love the natural-sounding sustain this pedal offers – like the amplifier is cranked. But it delivers this sound at lower volumes. Another winning feature is a low noise factor.

And still another nice element is the volume dynamics. With full volume settings on the guitar and pedal, it’s easy to adjust the sound of the effect by simply rolling back the guitar’s volume. It’s much simpler to do than turning the effect off; however, battery life won’t be as long. A guitar with humbuck-ers, such as a Les Paul, won’t react quite as strongly with the volume trick, but it will work in the same manner, just not as easily as single-coil guitars. The A-2 can be powered with a nine-volt adapter.

With the A-2, you don’t have to drive your tube amp hard if you don’t want to. At lower level/higher sustain settings, the A-2 produces a thick, creamy tone with a slight overdrive. Your picking attack also affects the way the pedal reacts. With harder picking, each note makes a slight popping at higher settings. A softer picking attack produces little if any pop on the notes.

Overall, this compressor is a winner. But, as with many good pedals, there is usually something that’ll bother someone. With the A-2, it seems when you switch the effect on, there is a slight -but-noticeable signal loss. This is another reason for keeping the effect on and manipulating the guitar volume. But if you must turn it on and off, there is only a slight signal loss.

Although the A-2 is such an offbeat and rare pedal, if you do find one, it’s usually at a reasonable price. And in spite of the slight signal loss, all in all it offers a lot of bang for the buck.