Simple Volume and
Tone control scheme
Low- and
High-gain
inputs
SATELLITE
MUDSHARK
BY JORDAN WAGNER
Few social groups are as resistant to the march of technology than guitarists.
Even while amplifier design has witnessed
drastic leaps in development and we now
have incredibly versatile digital-modeling
units brimming with processing power, huge
sections of the electric guitar-playing populace still cling to the technology that propelled records now 50 years old (or more).
The upside of all this evolutionary reticence, of course, is that great builders are
refining the simple tube circuit like never
before. And few builders embrace the elegant
simplicity of old tube circuits quite like
Adam Grimm of Satellite Amplifiers. Grimm
started Satellite when he built an amp for
the lap-steel player in his Hawaiian band,
and he’s remained restlessly fascinated with
the potential of tube amps ever since. His
ever-evolving line now has 10 models, and
his newest amp—the 20-watt Mudshark—
shows he hasn’t yet surfaced from his deep-dive exploration of great tube designs.
that’s reminiscent of Kustom’s old tuck ’n’
roll cabinets (although Satellite applies the
vinyl directly to the wood). There were
some small air bubbles and divots in the
material that wouldn’t be noticeable to, say,
fans at a gig, but they were apparent up
close and when I ran my hand over the head
cabinet—a small issue, but one that kept
the amp from being aesthetically perfect.
Serious Bite
Knowing the Mudshark was designed
with Jimmy Page in mind, I grabbed a
Telecaster and a ’ 77 Greco EG-700 Les
Paul copy and routed the Mudshark
through a Marshall JCM800 4x12. With
the Volume and Tone controls both at
noon, I dug into the Telecaster and was
rewarded with a bark that made the hairs
on the back of my neck stand up. I expected a tone with vintage vibe, but I hadn’t
anticipated being bludgeoned with it. The
Mudshark is an aggressive predator of an
amp that bares deadly teeth with every
note, remains defined during complex
chord work, and exhibits pick sensitivity that I have rarely experienced in an
amplifier. It’s very honest, with beautiful
grit and nary an ounce of dampening or
over-compression.
Like a Bolt from the Blue
The Mudshark’s design specs owe a lot to
the famed Supro Thunderbolt amplifier
from the mid ’60s. Legend has it that
Jimmy Page used a Thunderbolt combo
from this era as his main studio recording
amplifier for the first two Led Zeppelin
albums. Just like the Thunderbolt, the
Mudshark is built around two 5881 power
tubes, a pair of 12AX7 preamp tubes, and a
5Y3 rectifier tube.
Going for the Kill
Primed to see how hotter humbuckers
would sound, I plugged in the Greco and
explored hard-rock territory. All the sonic
