FIELd REPORT
Let Them Build It
Joe Coffey spends 48
hours with Bruce Egnater
and learns how to build
his own tube amp. Kind of.
Bruce Egnater explains the effects loop circuit
BY JOE COFFEY
One of the most exciting trends moving
through the industry is the increasingly
open-door attitude of manufacturers, making it obvious that they’re more interested
in connecting with customers than hiding
company secrets. At a time when some
manufacturers are disguising components
under gobs of silicon, it’s refreshing to
know that some people will actually share
their craft with you.
I recently attended an Egnater amp building seminar to experience the gearhead’s
version of fantasy camp. People have been
raving about the experience in forums
across the net, and I was curious to answer
the question, “Why would Bruce Egnater
do this?”
With a solid following of tone connoisseurs,
Egnater is no stranger to the boutique
world; fortunately, his secret is beginning to
spread among the masses. Since his days
with Rocktron (remember the Vendetta?),
he has collaborated with Randall (his proprietary modular design is featured in the
MTS series) and more recently designed
two foreign-made, but custom shop-sound-ing Egnater amps sold exclusively at Guitar
Center – the Rebel and the Tourmaster.
These amps are just starting to show up in
stores across the country, helping the chain
attract the elusive boutique player with
some serious street cred.
Bruce’s modular design allows you to pop
modules – essentially small circuit boards
modeling classic amp tones – in and out
of an amp, just as you would cartridges in
an old-school video game console. Many
a designer would sacrifice a digit, Yakuza-style, to invent that kind of slap-on-the-forehead breakthrough, which is why Bruce
ranks somewhere between genius and
celebrity among the people who flock to
his amp-building seminars. Any of us can
buy the components to make a tube amp;
new ideas separate your average solder
monkey from a true tone artist.
Located just north of Detroit, the Amp
Lounge in Berkley, Michigan, is easy to
miss. The converted coin shop is smaller
than you might expect but it transforms
from a snug, professional amp-building
setup to an instructional setting quite
nicely. The first day of the two-day seminar
is when the actual build takes place; the
second day is reserved for lectures and
eureka moments. Having previously conducted seminars with the theoretical load
on the first day, Bruce claims that the current framework is much better. Expecting
to grasp everything before soldering every
resistor and capacitor in place tends to
hang people up.
