110 PREMIER GUITAR FEBRUARY 2012
BUILDER PROFILE > TOP HAT AMPS
that we mix the alnico Blue and a G12H
in. Mixing ceramic and alnico speakers
helps fill out the bottom end and other
parts of the spectrum that the Blue doesn’t
have as much of.
A lot of players—even those who’ve
played for a considerably long time—
haven’t given much consideration to
the affect of cabinet construction,
either.
It’s not something players always think
about, but it really does have quite an
influence on the sound. Actually, part of
why we moved from California in ’05
to our current shop in North Carolina
was to be closer to our cabinet supplier,
Mojo, which we switched to at the time.
What they’re doing that the folks in
California weren’t is finger-joint corners,
which makes a stronger box and allows
you to do a single baffle in front, as
opposed to two pieces that are double
thickness. Two pieces can stifle it a bit
more, and with the single, you’re making
it more exactly how real Vox and some
of the Marshall stuff was actually made.
This did make a difference in how those
old magical amps sounded. Even the
wood and thickness of wood used for the
baffle does, too. For instance 3/4" birch
plywood makes it crazy heavy and more
dead than 5/8", which is still dead but
at least has some life left in it because it’s
not so thick. That super-dead kind of
baffle is good for a hi-fi [stereo speaker]
cabinet, but not as much for guitar.
Tweed amps were the epitome of a real
thin baffle, where it woofs and breathes
because of the softer pine wood—which
I experimented with, too, but ultimately
went in favor of birch. But everything
has a different sound.
Most guitarists can relate to the pro-
cess of hearing a sound in their head
and then searching for a vehicle to
bring it to fruition. How does that pro-
cess works for you when you’re design-
ing amps?
Well, I can tell you that sometimes what
you think would be the holy grail doesn’t
turn out to be the holy grail, and you
find out why nobody ever did it before
[laughs]—although on paper it may seem
like a great idea. Another thing I always
say is that there’s inevitably one presiding
personality at any company, and everybody
has their fortes and their weaknesses. Some
guys are much more technically based
engineers, and some are players more than
others. Different companies have differ-
ent kinds of people, and that’s going to
affect the kind of amp you build. Every
nut behind the wheel is slightly different.
I think I had good ear training in my early
days of being a hi-fi guy—I tuned my ears
that way and by playing in orchestra and
jazz band, in addition to the classic-rock
stuff. That tends to give you a more diver-
sified sonic portfolio than being bent too
far this way or that way.
So how do you merge the more technical stuff with the more artsy approach
you get as a musician with good ears?
There are a lot of hats you have to wear,
and a lot of the guys are good at some of
the hats but not at the others. Some guys
make decisions based on a scope rather
than their hands and their ears. There are
all kinds of personalities with different
opinions about good distortion versus
bad distortion or how you figure that
out when you compare different types of
capacitors that are all the same value but
different mediums that sound different.
Or how different output transformers
breathe—there’s another whole world
right there, depending on whether they’re
normal, oversized, or undersized.
As far as the art and experience of
knowing, amongst real vintage amps,
what they were good for and what their
shortcomings were, it pays to know the
difference between which ones were good
and which ones were bad. Take Marshalls,
for example: Some Marshall-copy companies do umpteen different styles. But, to
me, you can tell whether they know what
the good ones were in their choices—do
they make a ’ 67 100-watt, or a ’ 68, or a
’ 69? I know which ones are the standouts
as the holy grails. All these choices inform
the art. And when you’re trying to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, being a player and being able to feel
the response in your hands rather than
just what an engineer might see on the
scope lends itself to different choices than
a purely technical builder may make.
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