Posted in amplifiers, amps, Amps/Amplification, GarageBand, gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, reason amps, recording, Saint Guitar Company, SM25, tagged guitar, guitarists, Music, musicians, new song, reason amps, recording, saint guitars on November 28, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I love getting those intense spurts of creativity when I’m using awesome equipment. I just happened to have a couple of review pieces on hand: A Saint Guitars Benchmark and a Reason SM25 combo amp. This song started out as a simple riff this morning, and grew from there. It’s called Lookin’ for the Good Life. Let me know that you think.
The song showcases the incredible tones the Benchmark and SM25 make together. Just love it!
Posted in amplifiers, amps, Amps/Amplification, buying gear, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitar lifestyle, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, performing, recording, tagged amplifiers, amps, anthony bonadio, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Music, musicians, obeid kahn, reason, reason amps, Tone, vintage gear on November 12, 2008| 1 Comment »
This is a continuation and expansion of the original new gear article I wrote previously…
Riddle me this…
So what do you get when you cross a veteran cabinet maker with an electrical engineering guru? Right. A new amp manufacturer. But the two guys I’m talking about, Anthony Bonadio and Obeid Kahn, didn’t just want to create another boutique amp outfit; they had to have a “reason” to create yet another amp manufacturing company; and after putting their heads together they did come up with a “reason.” It’s called Reason amps!
I recently had the privilege to speak with Anthony Bonadio at length about his new company, and I’m incredibly impressed with the vision behind Reason amps. As Anthony put it, their new amp had to be different: Not just a re-expression of existing designs, but something truly different; otherwise there wouldn’t be a reason to build one (get it?). And at first blush, it certainly appears that they’ve realized their desire to be different. But in order to be different, you have to know what you can do against the existing paradigms, and both Anthony’s and Obeid’s pedigrees as amp cab manufacturer and electrical engineer respectively have given them a certain industry perspective that have allowed them to produce an amp that does indeed push beyond the current paradigms.
So what’s so different about Reason amps? You might look at the amp and say, “This is just another flavor of a vintage-voiced two channel amp.” And if all you used were the Normal and Bright channels independently, you’d be mostly correct. In fact, both Obeid and Anthony are vintage gear freaks, and wanted to produce a vintage-voiced amp – but take it elsewhere… And it’s the third mode of operation that makes this amp really stand out. It’s something Obeid coined “StackMode.” Make no mistake, StackMode isn’t just adding a gain stage to an amp. It’s actually running the two amp channels in series.
“So what,” you might say, “That sounds like a bunch of marketing mumbo-jumbo. There are lots of multi-channel amps on the market.” Not like this. In almost all multi-channel amps, the signal handling for each channel is performed independently. Channel switching is pretty much an internal A/B box. Some amps will have independent EQ on each channel, though most have a “Master” EQ that controls the EQ for all the channels.
StackMode is different – and more importantly, it hasn’t been done before (at least not that I know of).
With StackMode engaged, the fully amplified signal from the first channel flows into the next channel in a series, so what you do to the input gain, EQ and output from the first channel directly affects the signal of the second stage; hence the term, “StackMode.” So in reality, this is not just a different take on an existing pattern. It’s taking an existing pattern and creating a completely new application out of it.
In light of this, I asked myself, why hasn’t this been done before? It seems so simple in concept. But in reality, it’s not easy at all because of the power management issues that arise from essentially re-amping a previously amplified signal that has already gone through a gain stage. With the Reason amps, it’s all about the engineering behind managing the voltage and current, and that’s where Obeid Kahn’s engineering genius has come into play.
So to re-answer the original question that I started the article with: What do you get when you cross a veteran cabinet maker with an electrical engineering guru? You get a new amp that completely breaks the mold of existing amp designs. To say I’m excited about this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I’m feeling.
The Amps
Reason amps come in two tonal flavors depending upon the power tubes you choose, either EL34- or EL84-based. From the EL34 side Reason offers the SM50 head, SM25 head, SM25 combo for 50 and 25 Watt ouput respectively. On the EL84 side, there are the SM40 head and SM20 combo, with 40 and 20 Watts of output respectively. And of course, they 4X12, 2X12, and 1X12 speaker cabs for the heads as well. No matter what amp you choose, all come with StackMode, so all you have to decide upon is your tonal and power requirements!
Amazingly enough, prices are “Reason-able” considering the engineering that has gone into the amps and compared to other boutique amp manufacturers. Here’s a quick list:
EL34
SM50 Head – $2295
SM25 Head – $2195
SM25 Combo – $2395
EL84
SM40 Head – $2195
SM20 Combo – $2295
Cabs
412 Cab – $995
212 Cab – $595
112 Cab – $395
So why are the prices for the different amps so close together? Simply because the circuitry is the same for each amp. The only significant difference between the amps is in the power handling for each amp, and according to Anthony, that doesn’t impact the production cost in any significant way.
Hybrid Construction
A lot of purists scoff at the idea that any PCB board is used in the construction of a vintage-style amp. But Reason actually uses a combination of turret boards and PCB boards to handle specific tasks for optimal performance. For instance, all signal handling (read: the tone producing stuff) is done with point-to-point wiring on turret boards, while all the switching is done on PCB boards to ensure fast response and reliability. All boards employed are high-grade, 1/8” thick, so even the PCB boards have ample traces to ensure great current flow. So the idea is to use the best and most appropriate components for a particular job. That’s just plain intelligent engineering.
Made by players for players
A lot of companies claim this, but with Obeid’s and Anthony’s collective experience as performing musicians, they really had the gigging and session guitarist in mind when building their amps. For instance, the amps are voiced bright by design, as brighter amps will be able to cut through a mix a lot easier. They also record a lot better. Case in point, even though I love my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, I have to admit that it doesn’t record very well because of its naturally expansive output that makes it sound a bit muddy in a mix. It works great on stage, especially in the low volume venues I play. But in the studio, I tend to use smaller amps that have a real mid- to high-freq voicing because the guitars just sound so much better through them. But with a brightly voiced amp like a Reason, I wouldn’t have to rely so much on tiny, less “ballsy” amps.
One thing I do have to mention is that the volume knob on all Reason amps is a push-pull knob. When you pull it out, you get a high-freq EQ boost, to get more high-end freqs that’ll add extra sparkle and shimmer to your output. This is great for recording!
All that said, Anthony did stress that he didn’t want to alienate any players who didn’t happen to be gigging or session musicians; it’s just that those kinds of guitarists would definitely find an immediate advantage of using a Reason amp because of how it’s voiced.
My Take Overall
Yeah, yeah, I’m excited about yet another thing – if you read this blog with any regularity, when am I not? But really, it’s not too often that new gear totally blows me away. To me, the concept behind StackMode is a staggering achievement. As an engineer myself (though in software), I have a genuine appreciation for new and innovative solutions to different problems, and StackMode is something that really tickles the geek in me. Granted, I’ve only heard sound bites, but I’m soon going to be demoing the SM25 in the near future, and I just know I won’t be disappointed!
Check out the whole story at the Reason Amps web site. It’s awesome.
Posted in amplifiers, amps, buying gear, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, Tone, tagged amps, fat tone guitars, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, reason amps on November 7, 2008| 3 Comments »
Reason SM25 Combo Amp
Need a tube amp? Now you have a Reason. Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun. All right, I know what you’re thinking, “Another amp manufacturer?” That’s what I thought at first until I saw some video clips (I’ll get to those in a sec). But on the flip side of that mild complaint, thank the universe that people have the creativity to come up with different approaches to existing paradigms.
I found out about Reason amps from none other than Mr. Phil Vickman of Fat Tone Guitars just outside of Chicago, Illinois. Being a fellow blog freak, I found Phil’s Fat Tone Blog awhile ago, and signed up for his newsletter. Much to my surprise, his latest newsletter featured an upcoming in-store demo from the guys at Reason Amps on November 12 at 5-7pm. Go to Fat Tone Guitars for address information, or give ’em a call at: 866/512-8663.
So, being curious, I checked out the Reason Amps web site, checked out their sound bites, and much to my surprise, they didn’t have a dealer list, and they didn’t even list MSRP’s for their amps! So, I gave Phil a call, and we had a nice chat. Apparently, Reason Amps is NEW. So new, that not too many people have heard of them. But I have a feeling that their amps are soon going to get some traction.
So what makes Reason amplifiers so special?
Whether you go low wattage or up to their 50W amps, they all come with three modes: Normal, Bright, and Stack. It’s actually two channels, with the third mode being a blend of the two channels that Reason calls “Stackmode.” Stackmode uses a “cascade series connection that sets up the circuit architecture to blend the independent gain stages” of the two channels.
The net result? Yikes! Tones that you wouldn’t expect to find from an amp that is essentially a vintage-style amp. But don’t take my word for it. Check out the YouTube demo:
You can also view all their videos here by clicking here.
Granted, YouTube audio is not the most desirable audio to be heard, but if the amps sound that good over YouTube, you gotta believe they’re going to sound outstanding live. So check out the Reason web site!
A Little Plug for Fat Tone Guitars
Phil Vickman has a nice little business going with Fat Tone Guitars. I go to the Fat Tone site to get on my drool factor for the wonderful gear he sells. Amazingly enough, there’s not a Fender guitar listed on his site, though he does carry Gibson. But make no mistake, Fat Tone sells high-end gear from several boutique guitar makers like Baker, St. Blues, and Ram. From my recent conversation with Phil, he likes unique approaches to guitars. For instance, Ram guitars make Tele-style guitars made from pine! Wow! We spoke at length about Saint Guitars and how Adam Hernandez likes using different kinds of woods like walnut or bloodwood. That’s cool and unique. Adam told me he spoke to Phil, and will be sending him a couple of demo guitars. That’s so awesome! Way to go Adam, and way to go Phil! You won’t be disappointed!
Posted in amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear, Guitars, Music, musicians, recording, tagged amps, guitar, guitar gear, Guitars, Music, recording on August 20, 2008| 1 Comment »
 Roland Cube 60 Amplifier |
Roland Cube 60 Amplifier Summary: Built like a tank, great-sounding and versatile, the Roland Cube 60 is at home on the road and in the studio. Pros: Built-in Roland COSM modeling technology to mimic 9 British, Vintage and Modern amps, plus an added Acoustic mode. The Cube 60 also sports Recording Out, Line Out and Speaker Outs, plus a Tuner Out that can feed a Tuner independent from Volume control. Very loud for a small amp! Cons: Reverb sounds hollow and a muddy at higher settings, with a definite loss of clarity. Price: New $300-$359 Street ($250-$275 used) |
When I bought my Cube 60 a three years ago, I wasn’t even looking for an amp. At the time, I was using a Line 6 Flextone III that served my purposes beautifully. But when you’re a gear freak and you just happen to have a bit of coin to spend well, some things just can’t be passed up.
Such was the case when I was perusing my favorite local gear store. I sauntered into the cramped guitar area, and saw this tiny black cube amp sitting against the wall. Intrigued, I picked it up by its handle and marveled at not only its diminutive size, but also its light weight (it weighs only 25 lbs.). Then Jordan, the guitar guy walked up and said, “I just got me one of these. It sounds awesome, and you can use it anywhere.” Normally, when I hear stuff like this coming from a salesperson’s mouth, I just nod, smile and say, “Cool.” But I’ve known Jordan for awhile, and I’ve learned to trust him. After all, he’s a gigging guitarist who knows his gear. When I hear him even slightly rave about something, I know it has got to be something cool (not that I can always afford the stuff he says is cool, but that’s another story).
So instead of my usual reaction, I silently pulled a Strat down from one of the hangers while Jordan went to fetch a cord. Big mistake! 🙂 It took me no longer than 10 minutes to know that I had to have this amp. Plus it was on sale for the Christmas season, so I got it for $50 less than normal retail!
I won’t go into the technical details of this amp because you can google for them. Let me just say this: This amp kicks ass! While I use my Fender Hot Rod for my electrics on stage, I use this with my acoustic, and it’s a dream. There’s something about the Acoustic channel on this amp that makes my Ovation sound like a Martin dreadnought! It’s that sweet
But in the studio, I use this amp a lot for recording backing rhythm parts. Even though it’s a modeling amp, which I normally don’t really get too wild about, this amp produces really nice tones in all of its amp modeling settings. And with its recording out jack, which shuts off the speaker, I can safely record deep into the wee hours of the morn without worrying about waking the neighbors. Surprisingly enough, it sounds great going direct into my DAW. In fact, I recorded this song using nothing but my Roland Cube 60. Of course, there’s nothing like the sound that a cranked tube amp produces, but late in the night, when you’ve got the inspiration, having the convenience of an amp that sounds great going direct is very nice!
Finally, did I say this amp is LOUD? You’d never expect the kind of volume that this amp is able to produce. At home, I rarely take the amp above 9am on both the Gain and Volume knobs. Any louder, and I’d start getting calls from the neighbors and complaints from my wife! 🙂 One of my close friends uses this amp for gigging, and he loves its versatility. Mind you, this is a guy who has tons of gear. His amps include a Marshall JCM half stack, and a gorgeous ’71 Fender Twin. But he likes to gig with the Cube because it’s so versatile AND it’s incredibly light! Weight matters when you’re hauling gear.
This amp is definitely worth a look.
Rock on!
Posted in amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear on May 27, 2008| 4 Comments »
The big drawback of being a gear freak is that it can be an expensive hobby. But at the same time, it’s a hell of a lot of fun discovering new gear, or discovering little-known vintage gear. I was in a local use gear store the other day, and happened upon this amp. What a classic! It’s all-tube, with 4 – 8″ speakers. As far as tone goes, think Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, and perhaps a little quieter Dick Dale. In other words, this produces pure, clean surf guitar tone.
I tried it out with a number of guitars, and could never get it to break up. Talk about headroom! I do have to say that with a drive pedal, it didn’t sound too good. Actually, it sounded awful with a drive pedal.
Here’s the cool thing about this amp: If you run across one, and you like its sound, you can get it for around $500. For a clean tone vintage amp, that’s a pretty awesome price!
As far as features are concerned, it has two completely independent channels. The first channel only has EQ, while the second channel adds Presence, Reverb and Vibrato. Unfortunately, the vibrato on the amp I tried didn’t work, but the reverb was nice and thick, and reminiscent of old surf music. It sounded best with a semi- or hollow-body axe with the reverb kicked in about halfway.
There aren’t too many of these floating around, but you can find ’em.
Posted in amps, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music on May 22, 2008| 3 Comments »
I’ve tweaked about everything I want to on my guitars and amp, but haven’t gotten around to trying out a new speaker. I have a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe that I love, and while the sound is awesome, I was wondering what kind of speaker would work well with it, since I haven’t tweaked that part of the amp yet.
I’m thinking definitely along the lines of a vintage sound, and am leaning towards an AlNiCo driver. But I wanted to open it up to discussion to see what other people prefer. Any ideas?
Posted in amps, guitar, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, recording on April 28, 2008| 4 Comments »
Getting a good guitar sound on a recording can be a real challenge when recording at home. It’s not that it’s difficult mechanically, it’s difficult because of the environment. Working around the limitations of the environment is really the challenge. For instance:
But despite all that, it’s still possible to record great, high-quality guitar tracks. I’ve done a lot of recording at home in the past year and thought I might share some of the things I’ve learned in capturing good guitar sounds. Mind you, I’m no audio expert. Everything I’ve learned comes from pure trial and error.
As I mentioned above, I’m not a professional sound guy, and I certainly wouldn’t call myself a recording engineer. But I recorded my first album over the past year entirely at home, under less than ideal recording conditions. It’s entirely possible to do. You just have to find ways to work out, work around and work with the limitations of your environment.
Got any other tips? I’d love to hear ’em!
Posted in amps, gear, gear reviews, Tone on March 10, 2008| 20 Comments »
My Hot Rod started making a bit of a humming sound a couple of weeks ago, and I figured out that it was one of the preamp tubes. So instead of replacing the bad one, I decided to replace all of ’em. Not knowing what was best, I called up The Tube Store because I knew they’d know what would work best in my amp. After a nice, long conversation with Paula, I got two Tung-Sol 12AX7 and one Jan-Phillips 12AY7 – all three for about $49. I put one TS in my first stage, put the JP in the second stage, and the other TS in the phase inverter. What are the results? A lot more clean headroom in my clean channel, and a much smoother distortion in my drive channel. I had already tamed my drive channel a bit by getting THD Yellow Jackets and using EL-84’s in place of the 6L6’s I put in last year. But combined with the JP, we’re talking sweet, beautiful sound!
I’d heard of the virtues of NOS (New Old Stock) tubes, but I’m now a true believer! If you’ve got one of the Hot Rod series amps and are looking to tame your drive channel, and get a sweeter clean sound, do yourself a favor and replace your preamp tubes. You’ll welcome the change!
Posted in amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear, performing, recording on March 3, 2008| 17 Comments »
You really don’t get a taste for how well gear actually performs until you use it in a performance or recording situation. After all, doing tests is one thing; mixing it up in a band or recording a track with it are entirely different animals. This past weekend, I had the chance to put my new Champ 600 through its paces in both a recording and performance situations. Before I go into specific details, let me just sum up for those who don’t want to read on: In my book, for what the Fender Champion 600 has to offer, it is an absolute champ! Don’t let the diminutive size fool you. Even in stock livery, the Champion 600 produces beautiful tone; that is, it produces the natural tone of your guitar. As long as you don’t expect it to be more than what it is and what it offers, this little amp will make you very happy! I’m very tickled by this amp and the experience I just had with it.
Let’s dive into how I actually used it, shall we?
Into the Studio
As some of you may know, I have a home studio, and if you’ve read my past articles, I’ve written several articles centering on gear that could be used in low-volume/small venue applications. I purchased the Champ specifically for this purpose. From the standpoint of volume, the Champ is a dream come true! It’s quiet when idle (some people have mentioned that it hums and cracks – thank goodness I didn’t get one of those), and amazingly enough, it’s a very expressive amp, despite its tiny six-inch speaker. With the single knob to control volume, this amp is meant to produce the natural tonal character of whatever guitar is plugged into it, and it does this incredibly well. But because it has zero bells and whistles such as reverb and EQ, those are things you have to provide, but it takes to pedals quite nicely.
Obviously because of its small size, there are some limitations. You lose a lot of the bottom end you’d normally get from a larger speaker in a bigger cabinet. But if you’re looking to record a high-midrange, ringy tone, the Champ performs like an ace in this range! The tone is gorgeous! Which actually puzzled me when I recorded with it this weekend because I read several reviews where people swapped out the stock speaker because they felt it was too flat. I recorded with it and absolutely loved the tone it produced – and the speaker’s not even broken in yet! Maybe my ears just aren’t as sensitive (which is a huge possibility) as the other reviewers…
Now addressing the lack of bottom end in the Champ, I decided to drive my Hot Rod’s speaker with it, using an extension cord. This is where the amp really shined, in my opinion. You still get the ringy tone, but with a larger speaker, the tone is oh so very rich.
Click here to listen to the song I recorded using just the Champ with three different guitars:
Of course, no sound engineer – amateur or pro – would be worth their salt without some mastering tricks. But truth be told, the ONLY thing I did with the guitar tracks on the song was to adjust their volume levels, and add just a touch of reverb (about 7%) to the Strat track. That’s it! I’m very pleased.
Live Performance
As a test, I brought the Champ to play at my weekly Church service. I figured that I mic my amps anyway, so it would be a great test to see how it performed. In this venue, I’m not worried about cutting through the mix – just having enough volume so I can hear it. Since we employ active mixing, our sound guy knows to pump up my house volume when I do leads or play the main rhythm parts for a song. So how did it perform? Well… a lot better than I expected, but I did miss the bottom end in my output signal. It wasn’t that I was dissatisfied, but in a performance situation, this amp will sound A LOT better driving a large speaker in a bigger cab. Other than that, I was generally pleased with how it sounded.
So to sum it all up, the Champ is a dream in the studio, and with the help of an extension cab, will perform great in small-venue/low-volume performance situations.
Posted in amps, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, tubes on February 29, 2008| 2 Comments »
Want to replace tubes in your amp? Look no further. The Tube Store is THE place to go for tubes. They have great prices, and more importantly, have tons and tons of knowledge about tubes. What’s even more amazing is they also know how a particular tube will sound in a lot of different amps. I’ve purchased tubes from these guys twice so far. Being a bit dense as far as tubes and electronics goes, I need a lot of help in choosing what to buy, and I’ve called them directly. In both cases, they’ve take a lot of time to explain and educate me on how a particular tube or combination of tubes will sound in my amp. We’re talkin’ old skool customer service here, folks! So with their permission, I’m giving them a plug here GuitarGear.org, and will also be displaying their logo on the site!
Great service needs to recognized!
Guitar Gear 