ARD Amps ( No, NOT ART)
Alnico2
they are(or were) the guys current amp of the month.
Jonathan Krogh
this is by Rick St.pierre, who did Wizard amps(wicked plexi clones) and was
AC/DC's amp tech for the ballbreaker effort.
Apparently the name "ARD" comes from Malcolm Youngs description of a
prototype.
"Its 'ard, mate!"
Aerosmith uses Wizards too, so it makes sense.
heres an exerpt where i heard this:-
Sidebar: Guns For Hire -- The Gurus Behind AC/DC's Gear By Chris Gill
AC/DC took more than eight months to record *BallBreaker*, placing a
considerable amount of wear and tear on their equipment. To keep everything
in top shape, they brought technicians Alan Rogan, who has worked with Pete
Townshend and Keith Richards, and Rick St. Pierre, who runs Wizard
Amplification, into the studio.
Alan says that Angus used three different Gibson SGs to record the album.
Angus' primary guitar for *BallBreaker* is a '64 model with Ernie Ball
regular-gauge strings (.010, but with a .048 on the low *E*). "It has a
thinner neck," he says. "It suits Angus because he likes the narrower necks.
We found it a couple of years ago, and he's stuck with that since he bought
it. He used a '68 strung with Ernie Ball Super Slinkys for solos, and his
original #1, also a '68 with Super Slinkys, for power chords on a few
tracks, just to beef it up a bit." Angus strokes his SGs with a Fender
extra-heavy pick.
Malcolm played the same guitar on the entire album--his trademark '63
Gretsch Jet Firebird. "It's been heavily changed," says Alan. "It's down to
one Filter 'Tron pickup in the bridge position, one tone, one volume, and
one master volume. He never touches the tone and volume, only the master
volume." Malcolm uses .012-.056 Gibson strings, with a wound *G* (.025).
For amplification, the Young brothers relied exclusively on Marshalls. "At
any given point in time, all Angus used was one 4x12 and a JTM-45 head,"
comments St. Pierre. For solos he played through one specific head and a
circa '68 cabinet with a basket-weave grille and brand-new Celestion
Greenback 25- watt speakers. "The cabinet has a Baltic birch back, which is
quite rare," notes Rick. For rhythm tracks Angus used a different JTM-45 and
a 4x12 loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s. "Malcolm used 100-watt Marshall
heads for all of his stuff," says St. Pierre. "We mainly flipped back and
forth between two--a '65 and a '66, one of the first with an aluminum
chassis." Malcolm played through a single 4x12 loaded with Celestion
Greenbacks.
On the bass end, Cliff Williams played a '76 Music Man bass strung with
heavy D'Addario flatwounds. "The flatwound strings give a fat, full sound,"
notes Rogan. Most of Cliff's bass lines were pumped through an early-'70s
Ampeg SVT and 8x10 SVT cabinet, although he also used a Demeter tube DI box.
St. Pierre's primary function was to maintain the amplifiers. "I took those
amps apart and redesigned them," he claims. "I wasn't merely keeping an old
design running, I was making extensive modifications. I redid all the tone
sections in the amps, and I pulled out the KT66s and put EL34s in. The way
these guys play, they can make shit sound like diamonds, but when you give
them what they want, it's phenomenal."
St. Pierre mentions that at this January's NAMM convention Wizard will be
introducing a new line of amps that he designed with input from the Young
brothers. "They're called ARD, like, 'It's 'ard mate.' Malcolm came up with
the name. They sound exactly like those old Marshalls, and they look a lot
like the old Marshall and Park amps." But for anyone hoping to cop those
elusive AC/DC tones, St. Pierre cautions, "If other people play through
these amps using the same guitars, they'll have a sound, but they're not
going to have *the* sound. Most of Angus and Malcolm's tone comes from their
touch and heart."
Alnico2 wrote in message <19981020080130...@ng-ft1.aol.com>...