Every once in a while you have to pinch yourself and thank your lucky stars to be a guitarist in the 21st century. The Roland Micro Cube is a good illustration of this phenomenon; a dinky, portable amp that runs on AA batteries, it weighs just over seven pounds and measures less than 10″ x 10″ x 7″. But why such jubilation? Let’s find out.
We all remember the venerable Pignose from 40 years ago – a simple one-knob mini amp that virtually invented the portable-amp category. Today, Roland takes the concept of the portable amp and adds oodles of features that would have been unimaginable all those decades ago. For basic specs, the Micro Cube is a two-watt amp with a 5″ speaker that runs on six AA batteries (20-hour life span) or the supplied AC adapter. To make things interesting, the designers also put in DSP effects and a few of Roland’s noted COSM amp models. There’s also a digital tuning fork that provides an audible A, Ab or G note through the speaker for tuning, as well as line in/out jacks (including headphone outs), and a cute little carrying strap. The amp also has heavy-duty plastic corner guards and a metal grill, giving it something of a military vibe, but also plenty of toughness for bringing it outdoors to jam. The Micro Cube is available in black, red or white finishes, but again, given its Army-radio feel, an olive-green or camouflage finish might be a cool idea down the road (think “Combat!” or “Rat Patrol”).
For amp models, Roland provides you with seven sonic choices, including Acoustic, JC Clean (for a Roland JC-120 sound), Black Panel, Brit Combo, Classic Stack, R-fier, and Mic. As you might guess, these presets go from clean-and-sweet to progressively dirtier degrees of overdrive and crunch. For effects, you’ll find an EFX knob offering your choice of chorus, flanger, phaser, and tremolo, while the Delay/Reverb knob lets you set the amount of each of those effects. The Micro Cube’s top panel is completed with Gain and Volume controls, letting you set the amount of grit you want.
The amp emulations, in particular, are a blast. An acoustic/electric guitar sounds really good through the Micro Cube – almost shockingly so, especially when you dial in some sweet chorus and reverb. On the other end of the spectrum, the R-fier heavy-metal crunch is too much fun in an amp of this size – you can easily do a full Metallica set while sitting on the beach and that’s not an overstatement. Or dial down to Brit Stack for a medley of Kiss or Zep favorites while camping or hiking. Then again, there’s a line-out jack, so if you’re playing a real gig, go ahead and send that output to the P.A. and you’ll be in business.
At the end of the day, the Roland Micro Cube is a small miracle of 21st-century gear technology. With so many features in such a tiny package, the Micro Cube will make any guitarist glad to be a living, breathing picker.
This article originally appeared in VG November 2012 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
One of the more successful Japanese-made guitar brands of the 1970s was Electra, the brand name used for electric guitars sold by St. Louis Music of St. Louis, Missouri. If prices on eBay are any indicator, it’s clear that guitar aficionados have little appreciation about how good and innovative these guitars were. Let’s take this remarkable 1978 Electra MPC Standard X320 into evidence!
St. Louis Music (SLM) is actually one of the oldest remaining music distributors left in the U.S., most of the venerable examples of this institution having disappeared by the ’70s. SLM was founded by a violinist named Bernard Kornblum in 1922 as an importer of European string instruments. The company met with success and continued to grow. Other instruments followed, including Magnatone amplifiers and a variety of guitars, including Kays. SLM eventually developed its own brand, made by Kay, called Custom Kraft. Kay-made Custom Krafts were really pretty interesting and made until Valco/Kay went out of business in 1968, and, indeed, a few might have been made for a bit thereafter.
With the onslaught of European and then Japanese imports in the ’60s, SLM began exploring its options. Circa ’66, SLM began importing a line of Japanese-made electric guitars named Apollo. Following the Greek pattern, there were a few, apparently unadvertised models named Electra. The demise of Valco/Kay ironically coincided with a low-point for imported guitars. The 1968 NAMM show was the watershed. Japanese manufacturers had begun “copying” its European competition by the mid ’60s. This story is apocryphal, but Shiro Arai of Aria guitars visited NAMM, which was the show where the Gibson Les Paul Custom “Black Beauty” was reintroduced. “It’s a copy,” he thought, and relatively primitive copies of American designs followed shortly.
Arguably, the “copy era” kicked into gear in 1970. In ’69, Ampeg hired Dan Armstrong to design a novel new design and, in keeping with their penchant for alternative materials, the result was the See-Through guitar. The following year, a slew of Japanese companies offered variants, including Aria, Ibanez, and SLM, with its The Electra guitar.
Electra became the official brand name of SLM’s Japanese imports. The earliest Electras are most interesting because many were made by the Matsumoku Motto factory of Matsumoto City. There have been a lot of excellent Japanese manufacturers over the years, but Matsumoku is legendary for its quality and innovation. Even by the time of early Electras, it was making surprisingly good guitars.
However, the breakthrough for Electra came in ’75, when SLM hired a budding designer named Tom Presley to take over its guitar department. Presley, a local, had gone to the coast only to find his dreams didn’t come true, and returned to St. Louis, where he landed the SLM gig. Sometimes things work out for the best after all!
While Presley may have offered advice on the woodworking side, his primary contributions were to the electronics. First of all, Presley began making their Super-Magnaflux humbucking pickups – indeed the whole wiring assemblies – in the U.S. These proved to be so good a bunch of Nashville pros started using them in their better-known guitars. Next was the Tone Spectrum Circuitry. This basically was a five-way variation on Gibson’s Bill Lawrence-designed six-way Varitone switch found on its L-6S guitars. Tone Spectrum gave you in- and out-of-phase, series, parallel, and access to two more toggles wired to tone capacitors. This was introduced on the Electra Omega. Pretty groovy!
Presley’s next project was the Modular Powered Circuit (MPC) series, introduced in ’76. By the mid ’70s there was enormous interest among guitarists for sound effects. Distortion, phase shifting, reverb, flanging, you name it. Gibson was just introducing its wonderful Maestro effects. Presley’s idea (well, with his engineers) was to miniaturize the various effects circuits and encase them in a cigarette-pack-sized block of epoxy (later a plastic case). They put two shielded cavities in the back of the guitar for two sound modules, plus a space for a 9-volt battery (and a spare!). The humbuckers were hooked up to the Tone Spectrum Circuitry. Replacing the dual tone toggles were two on/off toggles activating either or both sound modules. A master Volume and Tone control ruled the pickups, while each sound module was given its own Volume and Intensity control.
It requires a bit of dexterity to juggle all this in the middle of a song, but once you get the hang of it you have a remarkable arsenal of sounds at your fingertips! Quite a number of pros endorsed the MPCs, including Peter Frampton, Rick Derringer, and Leslie West.
The first MPCs were modeled after Gibson’s Les Paul and had a “copy” open book headstock. Following the 1977 Norlin vs. Elger (Ibanez) lawsuit, the more common wave head was used. Eventually, a variety of MPCs appeared, including an Explorer-style, the potato-shaped Outlaw, a Les Paul variant, and a thinline. By far the most common MPCs were based on the Les Paul design.
The Les Paul-style MPCs came in a variety of grades, most with mahogany bodies, maple caps, and set-in necks. These ranged from opaque finishes on plain guitars to fancy curly maple tops to the X340 with a one-piece rosewood veneer top. Like most Japanese Les Paul-style guitars of the ’70s, these are “arched” (bent), not carved, tops. The guitar shown is an MPC Standard X320 with a one-piece mahogany top (possibly veneer) over a one-piece mahogany body. Everything is bound and the block inlays are a green-pink abalone. The tuners may be Grovers, but in any case they’re top-flight. The brass fittings were typical of the times. It’s not sure who made this model, but it may have been Matsumoku or possibly Kasuga. This guitar is just a joy to play. No serial number is evident, but it seems to be early. Prior to ’77 or ’78, Electras had “copy” headstock designs.
The MPCs stopped being promoted around the time this guitar was made, though they could have lasted a bit longer. The MPC concept lived on beyond the guitars, of course, because their development led to the introduction of Crate amplifiers.
Is this a rare a guitar? It’s difficult to say. The fancier Les Paul-style models are rarer, and the rosewood ones the rarest. The other shapes do not appear very often, but it’s doubtful any Electra MPC is truly a rare bird. The sound modules are a whole different matter and can set you back a pretty penny! But play one, and you’re likely to want one!
This article originally appeared in VG Septenber 2009 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
When it comes iconic guitar tone – especially “British” tone – Vox and its flagship AC30 are at the top of most players’ list. After all, the Vox AC30 is one of the most widely recorded amps, used by countless artists in nearly every genre, on both sides of the pond. Vox recently partnered with American amp builder Tony Bruno to design an amp with a decidedly “American” signature – the TB35. Bruno is known as one of the leading boutique builders in the U.S., and has worked with Vox in the past on projects including the lunchbox-sized Night Train.
The Vox Bruno does not sport the EL84 power tubes Vox uses in most of its amps. Rather, it employs tubes more at home in a Fender – 6V6s. More specifically, four of them that help the amp produce 35 watts of output. Aiding the effort are a trio of 12AX7 preamp tubes, a 12AT7 and a 12AX7 in the reverb circuit, custom-wound transformers, an Accutronics spring reverb. and a birch plywood cabinet. The Bruno has a modern look, with a smooth cover and a cleaner, more stealthy control panel. It retains classic Vox features including a top-mounted control panel with chickenhead knobs, dual handles, Vox’s diamond pattern grillecloth, white piping, and a Vox badge. The control layout for the Bruno’s single channel include High and Low 1/4″ input jacks, Volume, Treble, Midrange and Bass tone controls, a Macho (mode) switch, Bass boost, Reverb level, and a Master Volume with Bypass switch, along with the standard switches for Power and Standby.
The Bruno is available in two cabinet/speaker configurations; the TB35C2 is fitted with a pair of 12″ Celestion G12-65s, while the TB35C1 has just one. Both have a set of 1/4″ jacks with an impedance selector for external speaker cabinets, a 1/4″ jack for their single-button footswitch, and a nylon dust cover.
We checked out the Bruno 2×12″ with a Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster and a Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus, both with stock pickups. With the Bruno’s Master Volume, Bass Boost and the Macho circuit bypassed (leaving only the tone stack engaged), the Strat offered a lively clean tone with full round low-end response, crisp highs and even harmonically rich mids (even if they were more subtle). Dialing up the volume, the harmonics filled in even more, and a smooth lively, light overdrive took shape with excellent touch sensitivity. Once the overall volume got to be too loud, the Master Volume control reigned it in, with no major tonal degradation until we really dialed it back to “apartment” volume, where it was a bit washed out if the preamp Volume was set too high. We ran mostly with the Master Volume bypassed, and the amp sounded a bit more open and uninhibited.
The Bruno’s tone stack interacted well with both the Strat and the Les Paul, allowing for quick dial-in with each instrument. Even though the amp has a Bass Boost circuit, the 2×12″ didn’t seem to need it; its low-end was plenty full, though at higher volumes, the Strat’s bridge pickup didn’t mind the help.
With a quad of 6V6s and the two-speaker configuration, our test Bruno had plenty of headroom and muscle, keeping clean with either guitar when asked. The Macho circuit not only adds substantial gain and midrange (for a very usable solo boost), but adds a bit of classic in-your-face British midrange, giving the Bruno added versatility. The amp’s tube-driven reverb circuit also has an American texture to its sound, with a crisp, clean dwell and a long decay – anything from a deep, wet surf reverb to a subtle, ambient tone.
The Vox Bruno produces an excellent, Yankee-inspired tone, and offers quality construction, useful features, and enough classic Vox personality to make it interesting, fun to play, and versatile.
This article originally appeared in VG July 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Pigtronix effects are known not only for their tones, but their sophistication. So it’s no surpise that the Envelope Phaser II has a potentially daunting array of control knobs and switches, some with familiar names (Sensitivity, Depth, Speed), others less common (Resonance, Staccato, LFO Smooth)! But the good news is the clear and to-the-point user’s guide makes it easy to tweak the pedal’s functions to one’s precise liking.
Running between a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Princeton, the EP2 offered nice phase tones without touching a single control. Flicking a couple switches dials up its envelope filter, wah, and Univibe sounds. Manipulating the Resonance and Sensitivity reveals its vintage-inspired phase tones, while more-radical sounds can be had via the Blend control, especially when used in conjunction with the envelope filter and the LFO. Various combinations take the sound from filtered lo-fi to analog synth to all-out mayhem. And the LFO switch helps the pedal sound like everything from Jerry-Garcia-styled Mutron tones to Hendrix-flavored Univibe. It’ll even cop the famous phase tone of U2’s “Mysterious Ways” without having to find a 20-year-old Korg A-series rack unit! And for as wild as this unit can get, it’s easy to reel in – even at its most extreme settings, it always sounds musical.
Adding to its flexibility, the EP2 can be triggered by an envelope follower, LFO, or anything you can plug into the EF trigger jack. Plug an audio feed from a click track, drummer, or drum machine into the trigger input, and your phase is locked in with the tempo. An expression pedal in the Sweep Pedal jack will control the modulation for a phase-wah effect.
The EP2 is capable of producing plenty of cutting-edge tones, and excels at vintage-styled effects in the vein of Mutron and Univibe. And it’ll reward quality time spent with unique sounds.
This article originally appeared in VG February 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
“A spectacular model in real he-man outdoor Western finish with powerful appeal for Hill-billy and Cowboy bands.” This is how Gretsch first introduced the Rancher Jumbo – offspring of the 1940s Synchromatic models – in its 1955 catalog.
The triangular (or “French”) sound hole has been seen on most Gretsch flat-top guitars from wartime to the present day. Along with the catsseye sound holes on’40s and early-’50s archtops, it gave Gretsch an aesthetic that set it apart from Gibson, Epiphone, and other builders. A massive rosewood bridge in the shape of a grand piano also gave a different look; strings were anchored to a metal bar instead of through the top, and secured by bridge pins, like most flat-tops. This unusual bridge, as well as the triangular sound hole, was seen on the 17” model 6021 and on the mammoth 18” model 6042, which existed from wartime and into the early ’50s.
Around this time, the 18” was dropped from the Gretsch line and the 17” model (also known as the Synchromatic 125F), became the Town and Country jumbo – brother to the bold and different Rancher. Offered in natural spruce top with shaded sunburst maple back and sides, the Town and Country was a traditional jumbo flat-top except for its soundhole and bridge.
The Rancher stood apart from the Town and Country with its colos. The front of the 1955 catalog says, “Guitars For Moderns By Gretsch,” but perhaps it should have stated “The Colorful Parade of Gretsch Guitars.” The Rancher was no exception. While Martin and Gibson offered natural and sunburst finish flat-tops, the Rancher was offered in Golden Red; it and the Amber Red on the Chet Atkins 6120 are today often referred to as Western Orange.
If the color wasn’t striking enough. Gretsch replaced the Synchromatic script on the headstock with a longhorn inlay to complement the “cows and cactus” Western-motif engravings in the fingerboard’s block inlays and a “G” brand on the lower left bout. The pickgaurd was thick tortoise, with the longhorn engraving. Gretsch literature, notorious for using old photos and drawings, depicted the “Full western” Rancher in catalogs until ’63, though such Ranchers were made for only three years; by ’57, the longhorn on the headstock had been dropped in favor of a horseshoe inlay. The Western-engraved block markers were replaced with humped-block inlays, and the tortoise pickguard was replaced by Lucite. Only one Western appointment – the “G” brand – remained for another year. In ’58, when the neo-classic thumbprint inlay took over on the fingerboard, the “G” brand was gone.
1969 Gretsch Ranher. Photo: Edward Liglt.
When the first Ranchers were made, Elvis had not yet recorded “That’s All Right” for Sun Records and Chuck Berry had yet to enter the recording studio at Chess Records. Country and Western was the music of the era and it is evident the Rancher was pitched to that market – perfect guitar for the country front man to strum. Several artists used one, many not in hillbilly or cowboy bands; Eddie Cochran laid down some of his classic rhythm parts on one; Gene Vincent played one with a silver-dollar-size hole in its top. In the ’80s, Brian Setzer used a Rancher acoustic in the studio. And Robert Duvall won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a guitar strumming crooner in the movie Tender Mercies, in which he played a Rancher. Eric Clapton is seen with a ’60s model on the cover of Layla. Even Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx has been photographed with a Rancher, and Billy Walker, a country-and-western cowpoke, played one at the Grand Ole Opry.
The instrument seen here was made in 1954. Its back and sides are a rust-tinged brown, darker than the top – the norm in Gretsch’s two-tone color schemes due to the way different woods absorb lacquer. The back and sides are flamed maple, while the top is straight-grained spruce.
Unlike a typical flat-top, Gretsch’s had arched backs. The Rancher and its electric brother, the Round-Up, sometimes had an inlay at the first fret. Some came through without one, like this Rancher, where inlays begin at the third. Others had an unengraved inlay at the first fret, and still others had a fully engraved inlay at the first. The fingerboard and bridege are made of rosewood, the headstock has a solid black overlay with the steer’s-head inaly and the T-roof Gretsch logo. Certainly a unique, beautiful , and collectible instrument.
This article originally appeared in VG Classics #02 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
1942 Martin D-45. Photo by Kelsey Vaughn, courtesy George Gruhn. Instrument courtesy Jack Donskoy.
The Martin D-45, offered from 1933 through 1942, is well-known as the Holy Grail of acoustic guitars. While players and collectors debate whether it’s the “best guitar ever made,” in terms of collectibility, it easily outdistances any other acoustic in the vintage market.
Ironically, the D-45 was not the result of inspiration at Martin. In fact, the three key steps in its creation originated outside of the company.
The first came in 1902, when two customers ordered extra-fancy versions of Martin’s Style 42, which had abalone pearl around the top border and fretboard extension. Style 42 had been Martin’s top ornamentation package since the 1850s, and the company apparently saw no need for a fancier model. These two guitars were simply called Style 42 Specials, and a few more were ordered in 1903. In the context of modern manufacturing, a handful of special orders may seem insignificant, but in 1902 and ’03, Martin made a total of 218 and 192 guitars, respectively, so even a few orders amounted to a wave of demand. Martin responded in 1904 by making the “popular” new custom official, calling it Style 45. Only one 00-45 was sold that year, from total production of 178 guitars.
The company was much slower to recognize the dreadnought wave. Again, the idea came from outside, in this case from Harry Hunt at the Oliver Ditson Company, a prominent Boston retailer. Hunt contracted Martin to provide a line of Ditson-branded instruments including an oversized guitar Martin simply referred to as “extra large.” The body looked bigger thanks to an outline that was relatively wide across the waists. And it was bigger – 155/8″ wide and 43/4″ deep; by comparison, Martin’s largest body, the 000, was 5/8″ narrower and 11/16″ shallower.
Ditson called these monsters “dreadnoughts” after the HMS Dreadnought, largest battleship of its day, and they didn’t sell well – only 33 between 1916 and ’30. Then, just as Ditson was giving up on it, musicians began abandoning the tenor banjo in favor of the guitar, and they needed louder guitars – e.g., bigger guitars. In ’31, Martin gave dreadnoughts one last shot with two models featuring the same specs as Styles 18 and 28 (initially called D-1 and D-2 respectively). One of the first went to a hillbilly singer named Luther Ossenbrink, better known to listeners of Chicago radio station WLS as Arkie the Arkansas Woodchopper. Arkie asked Martin to inlay his name in script on the fretboard.
Arkie’s big new Martin drew notice from fellow WLS performers, including hillbilly/blues singer Gene Autry. In 1932, Autry’s career launched with his recording of “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine,” and he needed a guitar that matched his superstar status. Arkie’s Martin was relatively plain except for the pearl “Arkie,” so Autry asked for the same guitar but with the all-out pearl treatment of Style 45 plus his full name inlay. Martin delivered the first D-45 to Autry in 1933.
A Milwaukee singer named Jackie “Kid” Moore undoubtedly saw Autry’s D-45 and ordered one for himself in 1934. Still Martin did nothing to capitalize on Autry’s unofficial endorsement of the D-45. In fact, Martin seemed uncertain of what to do with the model. No D-45s were made in ’35. Two were made in 1936, but they were supersized with an extra-wide 161/4″ body width. Both of them featured the 14-fret neck that Martin had adopted for its larger models. The next D-45, made in 1937, was almost a standard model, but it had double pickguards. The second example from ’37 was another custom job, with a 12-fret neck and a solid peghead.
In ’38, Martin finally put the model in the catalog and sold nine D-45s. By this time, its annual production had reached 3001, so nine D-45s represented a smaller percentage of production than the lone 00-45 of 1904 that kicked off Style 45.
Sometime in 1940 or ’41, a player in the small Illinois town of Waterloo (near St. Louis) put down his $200 for a D-45. Seven miles up the road in Columbia, another was so impressed by his friend’s instrument that he later traded a banjo for a used ’42 D-45. The two played together occasionally, representing what is surely the only band to feature two pre-war D-45s. Through the years, the ’42 received no special care – the owner’s kids used the case as a ramp for toy cars and the guitar was propped in a closet. Somehow, it survived without a crack.
This guitar illustrates the changes in the D-45 since Gene Autry’s special order just nine years earlier. Autry’s had a 12-fret slot-head neck with the “torch” inlay that was standard on the smaller Style 45 models. With the change to 14-fret necks, the D-45 adopted a headstock inlay that had first appeared on Martin’s C-series archtops, consisting of “Martin” inlaid vertically, framed by the letters C and F. The fingerboard inlay on Autry’s guitar was customized, obviously; the production D-45s initially had the standard Style “snowflake” pattern, but that was changed in 1939 to another pattern borrowed from the archtop line – hexagons.
Martin stopped making the D-45 (and all abalone-bordered Style 40 models), during World War II, but the reason is not clear. Unlike Gibson or Epiphone, Martin did not cut back production and, in fact, increased production in 1945, the last year of the war. The most logical reasons for discontinuing the pearly models would be a shortage of abalone pearl or a shortage of craftsmen who could perform the inlay work. For whatever reason, the last D-45 from the original production period was finished in ’42, bringing the grand total, including Autry’s and the other non-standard models, to 91.
Martin did undergo a major change in 1945, when C.F. “Fred” Martin III, took over from his father, Frank Henry Martin, as president of the company. A mandolin player in his youth, C.F. III was in his early 20s when World War I ended, and he witnessed first-hand the dramatic change in the musical instrument business as the tenor banjo and “jass” quickly overshadowed the mandolin. He had seen the banjo succumb to large-bodied acoustic guitars in the early ’30s, and he had seen the beginnings of an electric guitar market in the years just prior to World War II. When he became company president at age 50, another World War was coming to a close, and the future of the acoustic guitar was unpredictable. Any student of history would have proceeded cautiously, and that’s what C.F. III did. He did not revive the archtops. He did not jump on the electric bandwagon (at least not until ’58). And he did not revive the D-45 nor any of the other pearl-bordered models.
Demand for the D-45 lay dormant for a while, but by the ’60s, there were not enough of these 25-year-old used guitars to go around. In the meantime, a repairman in Chattanooga, Tennessee, named Mike Longworth was building a thriving business converting D-28s to D-45s, and by ’68, Martin responded to the demand and revived the D-45. Having employed no inlay specialists since the pre-war years, they hired Longworth to do the inlays on the reissue. Since then, Martin has offered more than a dozen special variations. The basic model remains in production today and, in the minds of guitar aficionados, remains the epitome of acoustic guitar design.
This article originally appeared in VG‘s July 2009 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
As part of its Hand-Wired series, Budda has reissued the tube-rectified Verbmaster 1×12 combo that differs from similarly powered amps because it’s a two-channel with reverb and a second (hotter) input.
The Verbmaster uses the same A/B high-gain, low-wattage circuit as Budda’s Twinmaster, but with a three-spring Accutronics reverb tank and a Phat 12 speaker. Impedance is switchable for four or eight ohms, and the amp uses a 5U4 rectifier, two EL84 power tubes and three 12AX7 preamp tubes.
We tested the amp with three guitars; a Gibson ’59 reissue Les Paul, a ’55 Les Paul TV Special, and a ’58 Fender Stratocaster, and there were two big surprises with the Verbmaster – neither having anything to do with reverb. The first revelation was the usability of the amp’s Normal input. With the volume at 12 o’clock, its tone stayed relatively clean, with a nice amount of tube sag that would make it very capable of funky rhythm flavors. Things can then be dirtied up a bit by turning the knob to 3 o’clock, which adds volume sufficient to keep up with most drummers while retaining the integrity of chord notes. Even using the old Stratocaster, there’s more wallop and gain than one would need for blues or Stonesy rock and roll. All three guitars sounded very punchy using this setting and even offered a liquid, B.B. King-like lead tone.
The other big surprise was the amount of overdrive delivered via the Gain input, which is made hotter by a cascading preamp design. In the lower settings, the Gain input takes over where the cranked Normal input leaves off, adding a nice harmonic crunchiness and a singing lead tone with plenty of sustain, reminiscent of early Billy Gibbons. As you turn up, gain and saturation move from the hard rock to heavy metal to pure insanity; past 4 o’clock, all three guitars started to squeal until you either turned down the guitars’ Volume, or the amp’s Gain was backed down a bit. No big deal, though, as there’s more than enough distortion at a lower setting.
The Verbmaster’s Bass, Treble and Volume controls make it easy to dial in sweet spots, clean or dirty, bright or dark. Being an open-backed cabinet, low-end response is present, but not butt-shaking. Hooked to an 8-ohm closed-back cab, however, the amp produced staggering low-end for an 18-watt amp.
The Verbmaster has great-sounding 12AT7-driven reverb. In its Sand mode, verb is understated and mellow, with less high-end response – great for bluesy stuff. The Surf setting gives a bit more presence on the high end, as well as a deeper wetness, but slightly more background noise. Both are controllable from either the faceplate or the included footswitch. Most importantly, both settings let the notes take precedence over the effect, as opposed to the effect swallowing the notes; it’s a nice level of effect that will work well for stage or studio. There’s also an effects loop, a feature not typically associated with low-watt amps.
For a heavy-rock player in a live setting, simply plugging into the Gain input, setting the lead tone, and rolling back the guitar’s Volume will render a cleaner-but-chunky rhythm tone. Turn up the guitar’s Volume and you’ll have a solo tone with ample sustain and rich, creamy saturation. A blues or blues-rock player could take the same approach on the Normal input and be happy with the amount of control they have from the guitar’s Volume control. Gain or Normal input, this method works great, as the Verbmaster’s preamp is very responsive to your guitar’s Volume pots.
The Budda Verbmaster has great clean tone, tons of gain, sweet reverb, and a lot of back-panel options.
This article originally appeared in VG October 2012 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
ZT Amplifiers is known for producing compact amps that generate sounds which defy their size. Their latest, the 35-watt ZT Lunchbox Junior, is the pint-sized version of the ZT Lunchbox (though even the larger model is very conveniently sized).
The ZT Junior is about half the weight of the original Lunchbox, tipping the scale at five pounds. Physically, it resembles the lunchbox you recall from grade school. For those of you who don’t remember those little food-packing means of self-expression, the ZT Junior measures 61/2″ x 73/4 ” x 51/2″ – “compact,” to say the least. Its build is sturdy and professional – the MDF composite housing is finished in a stylish silver metal-sparkle, while the front sports a diamond-pattern metal grille protecting the 5″ speaker. The back-panel switches are safeguarded by a protector extending from the back. It all adds up to an amp built to withstand the rigors of being ported to gig or buddy’s house.
The Junior’s top-mounted controls include Volume, Tone, and Gain, all of which function as implied. The back panel offers some cool features like a 1/8″ headphone/line level output for those times that call for jamming in privacy. (The output can also be used for recording.) A toggle switch allows the user to engage or disengage the speaker.
Another handy feature is a 9-volt DC output jack that can be used to power pedals and eliminate the need for wall warts or other power supplies. ZT claims this feature will power one or two pedals, but in testing it was used successfully to run a tuner pedal which in turn supplied juice to multiple 9-volt pedals on a tester pedalboard.
The Junior also runs on an optional 12-volt battery pack or can take power from a 12-volt car adapter. Topping the back panel features are a 1/8″ auxiliary input that is great for honing chops along with favorite tunes, a drum machine, or a metronome. When using the auxiliary input, the Gain function is appropriately disengaged, with only the Volume knob controlling output.
To put the Lunchbox Junior through its paces, a Fender Strat was employed to test clean sounds. With the gain set around 9 o’clock and volume at noon, the Junior produces a spanky clean tone, while transparently maintaining the sound of the guitar. With volume bumped up to around 3 o’clock, the Junior preserves its nice, clean sound while offering impressive volume. The snappish, warm tones are maintained at both subdued and loud volumes.
The amp exhibits a useful amount of touch sensitivity and relays nuances in one’s playing. The interplay between the gain and volume is dynamic – rolling up the Gain knob will significantly increase volume while adding hair. For a strictly clean sound, dial the Gain down to around 9 o’clock. With the Gain knob dimed, the Junior yields a fuzz-based, slightly snarling tone, but no matter where the Gain is set, the amp renders usable “situational” tones. To be clear, the ZT Junior will not kick out medium/heavy saturated rock tones without some front-end help. Rather, it’s partial to clean and vintage overdrive voicings. But, this amp takes to pedals like a champ (no pun intended). When a Gibson Les Paul was run through a pedalboard loaded with distortion/overdrive, modulation, filter, and time-based pedals and into the Junior, the amp turned out an abundance of tones with aplomb, from thumping metal chunk riffs to sustaining, searing solos to subdued chorus-laden passages, while accurately relaying each pedal’s attribute. With a clean boost pedal, it’s possible to coax even more volume, clean or dirty, from this little box. The amount of sound pushed from the Junior’s pocket-sized speaker, all while retaining an element of warmth, is quite impressive.
This article originally appeared in VG May 2013 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
An amp maker at the very heart of the British guitar boom of the late ’50s and early ’60s, Selmer was, for a time, the leader in the field, though it’s all too easy to forget. Briefly ahead of Vox, certainly ahead of the fledgling Marshall, this was a company that had it all to lose as the new decade dawned… and gradually did.
By the mid ’60s, Selmer was struggling for position against a pair of strong rivals with growing international reputations, while releasing what would be its most recognized and most collectible models – the short-lived crock-skin combos of 1963 to ’65. The most popular of these, the Zodiac Twin 30 and Zodiac Twin 50, were most likely released in direct response to the Vox AC30 and Marshall Model 1962 (a.k.a. “Bluesbreaker”) respectively. Good efforts they were, too. But while they made some waves at the time, they ultimately failed to blow either rival out of the water and did little across the pond, to boot. In the wake of this “defeat,” Selmer amps, though still great by any standard, slid into B-list status and started down the slippery road toward demise.
Regardless, models of all eras have continued to appeal to players and collectors for five decades, but fans are likely to drool most profusely over the combos like this 1964 Zodiac Twin 50. Owned by ex-Iron Maiden and Praying Mantis guitarist Rob “Angelo” Sawyer, this is a fairly rare example, certainly in this condition. More often seen is the Zodiac 30, a combo based around a pair of cathode-biased EL34s, nominally what we refer to as “class A,” as famously used by Jack White to record the White Stripe’s Elephant album. Changing the output stage from cathode-biased to grid-biased (a.k.a. “fixed-biased”) earned the Zodiac Twin 50, introduced in the early part of 1964, a few more watts than its class-A sibling. While this increase in power might not have been tremendously obvious to the naked ear, the change in feel due to the firmer output stage and slightly increased headroom made it a different amp.
As often as these amps are compared to their above-named “rivals,” they have circuits that are all their own, being products of a company that prided itself on originality, was still aiming to be a leader in the field, and was nowhere near to putting out “copies” of other British makers’ products. Largely similar other than these differences in output tube bias, both Zodiac Twins have circuits that might appear quite unusual to players more familiar with the Vox, Marshall, or indeed Fender topologies, and that’s a big part of their appeal. Preamp and power amp are built on separate chassis, mounted in the top and bottom of the 2×12 cab, respectively. Each of two channels opens the gambit with a single ECC83 (12AX7) gain stage, without any cathode bypass cap, which keeps the tone a little tighter and lighter at this point, but the two differ considerably from there. Channel one, intended for a mic or a second instrument, runs through a treble-bleed tone control that’s a little more involved than the average, then a volume control, then through a second gain stage comprising an EF86 pentode preamp tube, before scooting on to the octal plug that takes it south to the PI and the output stage. Channel two, though, is where things really get wild. After the first gain stage, the signal hits a six-pushbutton tone section that offers, in addition to a Rotary Control option that routes it to another treble-bleed tone pot, buttons for High Treble, Treble, Medium, Bass, and Contra Bass. These are achieved by tapping a network of tone caps that shape the voice between gain stages, a circuit not unlike that of some large Gibson amps before it, or indeed the six-position rotary Tone control on the lead channel of the Matchless DC30 several decades later. From here, the signal hits another EF86 pentode, then a tremolo circuit with Speed and Depth controls, then on to the bottom chassis via the octal plug.
In the bottom chassis, the octal plug ferried the signal to a rather unusual split-phase inverter that employed another ECC83, then on to a pair of EL34s that were pushing around 445 volts DC at the plates – not a ton for these output tubes to handle, but pretty hot for the cathode-biased Zodiac Twin 30, which ran everything about the same as the 50. The alnico Celestion 12s of the Twin 30 were changed to more robust Goodmans ceramic 12s in the 50, but that’s about the only other difference between the two models. Later models, however, dropped both the tube rectifier (for solid state) and the EF86 preamp tubes (for more ECC83), making them more conventional in many respects.
Obviously, these mid-’60s Zodiacs looked very different from anything before, or after, too. Their blend of mock-crocodile and black vinyl covering gave them an extremely outré look, further accentuated by the spacey green “magic eye” tremolo speed indicator on the front, which pulsed in time to the trem rate. Even if the large gold metal Selmer badge on the bottom panel tied the amp to ubiquitous and less-than-hip trombone-case cosmetics, these were pretty outrageous packages, in an age and industry that was ramping up for plenty of outrage.
In addition to digging the looks (as he does those of some eight other Selmers in his collection), Sawyer admits to an unabashed fondness for the tone of the Zodiac Twin 50. “It has a feel and character all of its own,” he says. “The whole vibe is ‘warm,’ and I just love those pushbutton tones. The tremolo effect is great fun – pure Duane Eddy! It’s not an amp that I would gig with, because it’s too precious and beautiful, and because it doesn’t have the heavy rock/blues tone my band sound needs. But I really enjoy playing the Zodiac.”
As cool as these amps are – and as much as you might want one now – their prices have escalated significantly over the past decade to the point they rival vintage AC30s. A difficult situation for the would-be buyer of a nifty Zodiac Twin 50, but it brings some measure of justice to round out the history of these exquisite and unique “also-rans.”
This article originally appeared in VG September 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
