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Posts Tagged ‘fat tone guitars’

Gear Find: Eastwood Guitars Breadwinner

Posted in buying gear, GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 7, 2009| Leave a Comment »

breadwinner

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I dig writing this blog because I meet a lot of cool people; one of them is Phil Vickman of Fat Tone Guitars. I call him occasionally to hook him up with information on various gear manufacturers, and we end up talking about some kind of gear. Yesterday’s conversation ended with Phil mentioning that he just got the Eastwood Breadwinner in, and is really digging it! So I did a bit of poking around…

Since Eastwood Guitars opened their doors, they’ve created faithful reproductions of vintage guitars of yesteryear at a fraction of the cost of the actual vintage gear. That’s been their shtik from day one. Even though I have yet to purchase an Eastwood guitar, I have played a few, and the thing that I dig about that company is that their replicas aren’t of classic, mainstream guitars (can you say “Les Paul” and “Stratocaster”); rather, they’ve placed their focus on the more avant garde styles of vintage guitars.

Among them is their latest offering, the Breadwinner, introduced at the 2009 NAMM show. I’m usually not moved by avant garde guitar styles, but there’s something about this guitar that really speaks to me. The Breadwinner was originally produced by Ovation, and was their first foray into a solid body guitar. From what I’ve been able to glean about its history, this guitar’s shape was both for form and function, its ergonomic design shaped specifically for playing comfort. That’s totally cool!

This replica and update features some pretty cool things, among them switchable active/passive humbuckers, which give this guitar lots of tonal possibilities. The body is solid mahogany, with a bolt-on maple neck, and uses Gotoh hardware. Very nice.

For more information, check out the Eastwood Guitars web site! If you’re interested in buying the guitar, go to Fat Tone Guitars. Phil’s great to work with, and he’s really knowledgeable about the gear he carries!

Here’s a video demo of the guitar that I found. The guitar is played clean, and the sound quality of the demo is only okay, so I suggest you go to a local Eastwood dealer to see if you can play one of these bad boys…

[youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZFoP8zQOnQ]

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Gear Find: Reason Amplifiers

Posted in amplifiers, amps, buying gear, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, Tone, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 7, 2008| 3 Comments »

Reason SM25 Combo Amp

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!

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