Laney VC15
catinahat
I've got a Epiphone les paul and I'm looking for an authentic fruity
blues tone, but I dont want to blow the roof off my house -- Any other
suggestions??
nosferatu
clean sounds and a kick ass preamp .Laney make great amps and there
British !
catinahat
British, I thought the market was all tied up by the US
Nick Mason
> cool I've only heard good things about them -- I like that they are
> British, I thought the market was all tied up by the US
>
guitar amplification!
Not much help but I have the VC30 2x10 and if the VC15 only half
as good it's still going to be a *fantastic* amp.
--
Regards
Nick
catinahat
perhaps I should go for the vc30 -- does bigger amp mean better tone --
or is it just a matter of volume (why are these things never simple!)
George Weston
"Nick Mason" <noe...@no.net> wrote in message
news:%COxf.43323$zt1....@newsfe5-gui.ntli.net...
> catinahat wrote:
>> cool I've only heard good things about them -- I like that they are
>> British, I thought the market was all tied up by the US
>>
> How can you think that when Marshall play such *big* part in guitar
> amplification!
...and Vox (although they just shifted production to China)
George
Nick Mason
--
Regards
Nick
Steve Robinson
news:42qvdaF...@individual.net...
>
> ...and Vox
and Matamp/Orange
and HiWatt
etc.
Chris Bolus
Carlsbro?
--
Chris Bolus (change o to zero to reply by email)
I love cheap guitars, me. But I'm learning to appreciate expensive ones!
JNugent
> "Steve Robinson" wrote:
>>"George Weston" <geo...@REMOVETHISgeorgeweston.plus.com> wrote:
>>>...and Vox
>>and Matamp/Orange
>>and HiWatt
> Carlsbro?
I would advocate a different perspective on this...
The original UK innovator was indeed Jennings, with the Vox range, owing little
to USA designs (indeed, in succeeding decades, notably the 1990s, the USA would
start copying the AC30 as a boutique amp).
Selmer (the other big UK name of the time) also made great amplifiers, but the
designs were easily traceable back to the Gibson line (especially the "selector
buttons" for tone-changes, which had been seen on the mid-fifties Gibson Les
Paul amps). The Selmer amps looked better than the Gibson amps though (IMHO).
Marshall may have (allegedly) started out copying the Fender Bassman amp, but
the innovation came in the form of applying that form of circuitry to a lead
guitar amp - and to the (eventual) introduction of the 4x12 cabinet. The stack
(whether head+4x12 or head+4x12+4x12) simply hadn't existed until then (c.
1966). This was all new thinking and it created a different market.
Matamp/Orange, Hiwatt and Carlsbro all took their lead from Marshall, and though
there is a case to be made about sheer constructional high quality (especially
in the cases of Matamp and Hiwatt), these makers were (then) following in
Marshall's wake - as were a number of other manufacturers who have gone by
wayside over the years (anyone recall Impact? Simms-Watts?).
JNugent
> JNugent <not.t...@isp.com> wrote:
>>Chris Bolus wrote:
>>>"Steve Robinson" wrote:
>>>>"George Weston" wrote:
>>>>>...and Vox
>>>>and Matamp/Orange
>>>>and HiWatt
>>>Carlsbro?
>>I would advocate a different perspective on this...
>>The original UK innovator was indeed Jennings, with the Vox range,
>>owing little to USA designs (indeed, in succeeding decades, notably
>>the 1990s, the USA would start copying the AC30 as a boutique amp).
>>Selmer (the other big UK name of the time) also made great amplifiers,
>>but the designs were easily traceable back to the Gibson line
>>(especially the "selector buttons" for tone-changes, which had been
>>seen on the mid-fifties Gibson Les Paul amps). The Selmer amps looked
>>better than the Gibson amps though (IMHO).
> Selmer's Treble and Bass was a straight lift from Fender's Bassman. All
> they did was swap EL34s for 6L6s and tweak the bias to suit. Everything
> else was identical.
Yes, and arguably, the T&B50 was their most successful amp. I was thinking more
of the original Selectortone and the slightly later and better-remembered Zodiac
and Thunderbird (in 30w and 50w version). Either way, the Selmer amps were
derivative, whether of Fender (the piggy-back models) or Gibson (the combos).
>>manufacturers who have gone by wayside over the years (anyone recall
>>Impact? Simms-Watts?).
> Sound City.
Of course. Excellent source for original Partridge transformers, leaving them
fitted with cheaper substitutes...
Andy Bettis
JNugent <not.t...@isp.com> wrote:
Have we mentioned WEM yet?
Rev. Andy
catinahat
Daniel C
> On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 10:49:29 GMT, "Steve Robinson"
> <stephen.p.robins...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>>"George Weston" <geo...@REMOVETHISgeorgeweston.plus.com> wrote in message
>>news:42qvdaF...@individual.net...
>>
>>>...and Vox
>>
>>and Matamp/Orange
>>and HiWatt
>>
>
> Carlsbro?
Trace Elliot...
D.
JNugent
> Chris Bolus wrote:
>> "Steve Robinson" wrote:
>>> "George Weston" wrote...
>>>> ...and Vox
>>> and Matamp/Orange
>>> and HiWatt
>> Carlsbro?
> Trace Elliot...
...which is another good example of an innovatory manufacturer.
It also seems to me that the (UK) originator of the "solid state amps for bass"
concept was the (much-maligned?) HH Amplification.
George Weston
"JNugent" <not.t...@isp.com> wrote in message
news:JtadnTlQBPv...@pipex.net...
Oh - and Ashdown...
George
Steve Dix
wrote:
No-one's mentioned Charlie Watkins of WEM fame.
http://www.wemwatkins.co.uk/history.htm
--
http://www.cdbaby.com/sinistrals http://sinistrals.stevedix.de/
http://www.mp3tunes.net/TheSinistrals http://www.stevedix.de/blog
http://www.snorty.net/ <st...@stevedix.de>
paul.creedy
apart from
" Have we mentioned WEM yet?
Rev. Andy "
;O)
P.
nosferatu
ago packed with WEM equipment scattered about on a runway or a road .
WEM pa columns and the like , great picture .. and reflecting on T N
Nurse commenting on the Selmer T&B amps , that brought back great
memories for it was the first amp i ever played through . Let me tell
you the Selmer was loud , this particular one was rated at 50 watts ,
but it shook every floorboard in the house .Peering under the hood you
got this visual delight of 6 or seven valves glowing away , and givinmg
off a certain smell you don't get anymore . I appreciate these Selmers
were not the most reliable of Amps, but they sounded unbelievable .
catinahat
Matamp/Orange, HiWatt, Carlsbro, Selmer, Trace Elliot, Ashdown and
WEM..... there is not a single British company that makes guitar amps
....... I think I have proved my point beyond all doubt ....... What
was my point? .......... Did I have one anyway?..........Mmmmm
Steve at fivetrees
news:1137451090.6...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>I remember a great Status Quo "or was it Floyd ?," album cover years
> ago packed with WEM equipment scattered about on a runway or a road .
> WEM pa columns and the like , great picture ..
It was Floyd - but I'm buffered if I remember which album. Atom Heart Mother
inside cover perhaps? I remember the picture very well - everything laid out
on a runway like a fighter plane's munitions...
Throughout the 70s, I used a WEM ER30 "treble boost" top and a WEM 2*12 cab.
Loved 'em. Sold the lot around '84 when the amp became rather too noisy for
my liking (if only I'd known Trev back then...). I also worked at WEM
(albeit briefly) in the late 70s - mostly setting up Copicats. ISTR I was
allowed about 90 seconds to test, debug, and setup the tape azimuth on each
unit... Hey ho. Time & motion...
Brian
> It was Floyd - but I'm buffered if I remember which album. Atom Heart Mother
> inside cover perhaps? I remember the picture very well - everything laid out
> on a runway like a fighter plane's munitions...
Rear cover of Ummagumma - apparently shot at Biggin Hill -
http://www.pinkfloyd-co.net/disco/umma/html/umma05.html.
Brian
Steve at fivetrees
news:maednfPNkc4...@pipex.net...
Of course - d'oh! Thanks.
icarusi
> Matamp/Orange, Hiwatt and Carlsbro all took their lead from Marshall, and
though
> there is a case to be made about sheer constructional high quality
(especially
> in the cases of Matamp and Hiwatt), these makers were (then) following in
> Marshall's wake - as were a number of other manufacturers who have gone by
> wayside over the years (anyone recall Impact? Simms-Watts?).
IIRC there's a Simms-Watts in Leeds Musicground. Have we mentioned Watkins,
Sound City and Burman?
Icarusi
--
remove the 00 to reply
JNugent
> "JNugent" <not.t...@isp.com> wrote:
>>Matamp/Orange, Hiwatt and Carlsbro all took their lead from Marshall,
>>and though there is a case to be made about sheer constructional high
>>quality (especially in the cases of Matamp and Hiwatt), these makers
>>were (then) following in Marshall's wake - as were a number of other
>>manufacturers who have gone by wayside over the years (anyone recall
>>Impact? Simms-Watts?).
> IIRC there's a Simms-Watts in Leeds Musicground. Have we mentioned Watkins,
> Sound City and Burman?
Burman hadn't yet been mentioned. When was it? Late seventies?
Certainly a respected range at the time, and came out well in reviews - but not
"big". You don't often see one for sale, and when you do, the owner has to
explain how the brand was well-regarded at one time...
Justin Otto
JNugent wrote:
> Burman hadn't yet been mentioned. When was it? Late seventies?
>
> Certainly a respected range at the time, and came out well in reviews - but not
> "big". You don't often see one for sale, and when you do, the owner has to
> explain how the brand was well-regarded at one time...
I think every salesman I have ever met has told me that the brand on
sale is/was/will be well-regarded.
J.
George Weston
The guitarist in one of our band's singer/keyboardist's other bands (work
that one out) [1] plays his Patrick Eggle through a Burman.
And a nice sound it makes too.
George
[1] The singer/keyboardist plays in 3 bands
JNugent
> JNugent wrote:
...but not all owners are salesmen!
nosferatu
Stan Barr
Other odd British amps I've owned/used: Selmer, Bird Brothers, Burns and in
1959 I bought a "no-name" British made amp that was like a Fender Champ in
circuitry but covered in pale blue and grey vinyl - don't know who made it.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb .at. dial .dot. pipex .dot. com
(Remove any digits from the addresses when mailing me.)
The future was never like this!
Chris Bolus
wrote:
I think we may have forgotten Award Session and Tipton in this list...
and these are important brands to us!
JNugent
> what about Miles Platting
Yes - I vaguely remember them, c.1969.
I was later quite surprised to learn that "Miles Platting" was the name of a
district of inner north Manchester. When I drove through it (early 1970), it was
just-demolished - hundreds of acres of nothing. I expect it's all deck-access
flats now (the land was available just in time for their heyday).
The amps were another Impact-type Marshall-coattails-hanger-on.
JNugent
> icarusi <icar...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>"JNugent" <not.t...@isp.com> wrote:
>>>Matamp/Orange, Hiwatt and Carlsbro all took their lead from Marshall, and
>>>though there is a case to be made about sheer constructional high quality
>>>(especially in the cases of Matamp and Hiwatt), these makers were (then)
>>>following in Marshall's wake - as were a number of other manufacturers who
>>>have gone by [the] wayside over the years (anyone recall Impact?
>>>Simms-Watts?).
>>IIRC there's a Simms-Watts in Leeds Musicground. Have we mentioned Watkins,
>>Sound City and Burman?
> Other odd British amps I've owned/used: Selmer, Bird Brothers, Burns and in
> 1959 I bought a "no-name" British made amp that was like a Fender Champ in
> circuitry but covered in pale blue and grey vinyl - don't know who made it.
Selmer mps were mentioned early in the thread.
1960s Bird amps were not exactly popular (a 15w combo with an *elliptical*
speaker - and a 25w combo with a 15" Goodmans and a tweeter), but you did see a
few around - people who couldn't afford Vox, Selmer, Gibson or Fender amps
bought them. They were in the same sort of price-slot as Watkins' amps.
OTOH, there was another range of amps (early eighties), contemporary with
Burman, etc - called "Bird Brothers". From memory, they were an early attempt to
compete with the USA "boutique amps" (which for that period, means the Mesa
Boogie) - finished in a "sort of" tweed/blond Tolex covering, fitted with master
volume, etc.
Burns amps... what can you say about them? *Never* popular round the clubs,
though they seem to have made a bit of a hit with London session-men (because
they were so light to lug from studio to studio (the Fender Champ and Deluxe
were popular for the same reasons). The Burns range, a little like their
guitars, were re-designed time and again - not a good sign with amps. Baldwin
completely re-designed the range in 1967 - they might have sold five. Burns
amps, AFAICS, don't go for much on eBay.
Pass on your UK mystery amp - except that it sounds a little like a Watkins
Monitor, sans the easily-detached plastic logo. Just then, the amps had little
of the "WEM" identity they would acquire in the mid-sixties - every model looked
different.
JNugent
> "catinahat" <thefitz...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>Ok .... so............... if you discount Marshall, Vox, Laney,
>>Matamp/Orange, HiWatt, Carlsbro, Selmer, Trace Elliot, Ashdown and
>>WEM..... there is not a single British company that makes guitar amps
>>....... I think I have proved my point beyond all doubt ....... What
>>was my point? .......... Did I have one anyway?..........Mmmmm
> I think we may have forgotten Award Session and Tipton in this list...
> and these are important brands to us!
:-)
Stan Barr
>
>Burns amps... what can you say about them? *Never* popular round the clubs,
>though they seem to have made a bit of a hit with London session-men (because
>they were so light to lug from studio to studio (the Fender Champ and Deluxe
>were popular for the same reasons). The Burns range, a little like their
>guitars, were re-designed time and again - not a good sign with amps.
Yeah they certainly were light compared with a Vox etc. They sounded ok
if you kept the tone clean, but *horrible* if you let them distort.
>Pass on your UK mystery amp - except that it sounds a little like a Watkins
>Monitor, sans the easily-detached plastic logo. Just then, the amps had little
>of the "WEM" identity they would acquire in the mid-sixties - every model looked
>different.
Come to think of it, the covering material did have a Watkins-y look about it.
Apart from my little 5W single-ended output model (all I could afford as a
schoolboy) the store also had some 15W 2xEL84 output models a little bigger in
size with a 10-inch speaker. They might have been a small local manufacturer
trying to fill need for cheap amps.
I like to play around with different amps and usually contrive to have
2 or 3 different ones to mess about with...
icarusi
> Burman hadn't yet been mentioned. When was it? Late seventies?
Probably. IIRC it was soon after the Mesa Boogies with the cascaded gain
stage idea, but IIRC (again) it had a knob per stage so you could play about
with 3 preamp stages in series.
icarusi
news:slrndss24q....@citadel.metropolis.local...
> Other odd British amps I've owned/used: Selmer, Bird Brothers, Burns and
in
> 1959 I bought a "no-name" British made amp that was like a Fender Champ in
> circuitry but covered in pale blue and grey vinyl - don't know who made
it.
I bought kit from the brothers Bird in the mid 70's, my Yamaha SG85 being
one. The had shops in Oldaham and Rochdale. remember them lanching the amps
but not too much else about them or who actaully made them. I still have a
TVM amp also Manchester based which has the same RS o/p tranny as some
sought after older Marshalls.
Stan Barr
>
>I bought kit from the brothers Bird in the mid 70's, my Yamaha SG85 being
>one. The had shops in Oldaham and Rochdale. remember them lanching the amps
>but not too much else about them or who actaully made them.
My Bird amp was a 25W one in muddy brown coloured vinyl. It's famous among my
friends as the one that emitted clouds of steam when someone knocked over a
pint which was standing on top of it. I took it home after the gig, washed
it out with clean water and it carried on working as if nothing had happened!
I've just remembered I have a Fenton Wiell bass amp in the loft...
George Weston
My AC30 "drank" a pint of Guinness (mine) through its vent-holes at a pub
gig a couple of years ago.
I had stupidly placed the Guinness on a shelf directly above the amp, on to
which it fell, due, no doubt, to the vibrations of said amp.
Miraculously, it carried on working for the rest of the evening but emitted
a mighty blue flash the following week and died.
Damage? Only one valve needed replacing - plus a clean up.
George
Chris Bolus
<geo...@REMOVETHISgeorgeweston.plus.com> wrote:
>
>My AC30 "drank" a pint of Guinness (mine) through its vent-holes at a pub
>gig a couple of years ago.
>I had stupidly placed the Guinness on a shelf directly above the amp, on to
>which it fell, due, no doubt, to the vibrations of said amp.
>Miraculously, it carried on working for the rest of the evening but emitted
>a mighty blue flash the following week and died.
>Damage? Only one valve needed replacing - plus a clean up.
>George
>
Clean-up's the important bit - tricky on hand-wired I guess, but on pcbs
the liquid gets under solid-state components and can't be removed
without unsoldering them. My dad used to repair videos; before they got
dirt cheap people frequently used to "knock" a vase over into them then
claim it on the insurance!