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What Was Your First Amp


gardo

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Strictly speaking, my first amp was an SWR LA12 bass amp like this:

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60 Watts SS, 1X12. Phil owns one. I started playing bass while I was strictly an acoustic guitarist so it was my first. $80 used on CraigsList for an amp that sold for $300 new.

 

My first guitar amp was a Roland Spirit 25A like this one:

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25 Watts and reverb. I bought it used for $30 from a pawn shop. Mine had a Crate branded 10'' speaker in it, probably a rebranded Eminence.

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a modified Bogen PA head into a 12" speaker mounted on a board. Looking back, the amp was probably about 15-20 watts. I guess there was likely an impedance mismatch, the magnet on the speaker wasn't very big, but for a home built rig, in 1969, it was loud enough. I didn't have a VOM back then, but I could solder; i'd built some crystal radios, thought I knew enough about electronics [i was wrong, but whatever,,,] and I found the amp head at a rummage sale. One bad pre-amp tube, which I was able to find a replacement for [back then, stores sold tubes and had tube testers...]. Shortly after that I got a BF Princeton Reverb, a Vox AC15, then a Marshall SL100 half stack...which was stolen a few months later. Should have kept the Princeton... :(

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Used my dad's Wollensack reel to reel back when I started in 65.. Had some sort of monitor input, so that had to do until I could scrape together some cash for an amp. Eventually got a Magnatone....

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I did that too, circa 1972, before I made enough money to buy another amp!! Great OD tone on the Wollensack...wish I still had it for a mic pre! It had a 1/4 inch TS mono mic input and a line level input [RCA jack]

Later I used it as the 'cornerstone' of my home made tape delay system...insanity is the stepmother of invention...

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Mine was a Moserite amp with a built in Fuzzrite. It had a single 15" Jensen. It was short lived however. The distortion kept blowing transistors.

 

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I then bought this amp in 67 which I still have to this day.

 

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​GA 19RVT Tweed Gibson Falcon from 1961. I hated it then. I wanted a Brown Showman.

 

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The next one was a Vox Berkely II. I threw away the speakers,I cut out the baffle for 12's instea d of 10's, and put a pair of gray frame JBL D120s in it. Major cool. Wish I still had it.

 

 

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Yamaha JX-40. I bought brand new, I HAD to have an amp with reverb and that's what I could afford. I HATED that thing...but years of reading hi-fi magazines meant I had a near-OCD about keeping my tone controls "flat" :( . It had a master volume, so you could crank up the preamp gain and experience the most horrid SS distortion I can remember. :philpalm:

 

Eventually traded it in on a used 70s silverface Princeton reverb.

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I have an M-80 red knob head I removed from its head cab and installed in a 4X10 cab. The red knobs get a bad rap because the drive channel doesn't sound very contemporary but the clean channel does produce an excellent Fender tone, takes pedals well and its reverb is very good as well.

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My third amp was an Ampeg V2 with a V4 bottom loaded with Altecs. Not as loud as the V4 (mind numbing) The V2 nails the Stones Sticky Finger sound. The three separate mid tone ranges let you get everything from a Fender to a Marshall tone and the amp didn't break up easily. You had to push it up 3/4 to get it to start saturating. Derringer does some of his finest guitar work using these V series on the Edgar Winter Roadwork Album too.

 

 

I used this head when I played three piece blues. The bass player used and SVT and the drummer has oversized drums. You knew there was a band playing when you let these babies heat up. No whip cream lounge band amp here. Even a hot rodded 50W Plexi had a hard time keeping up with this one.

 

 

 

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WRGKMC, that's been my experience exactly. Push the gain and it sound really mushy, fizzy and harsh but the cleans and the reverb are decent. I've gigged that amp many times are it actually sounded pretty good miced though a PA.

 

Dial back the gain below the fizz on channel 2 and the extra tone shaping options on the 185 are pretty cool. Comes in handy in the studio when I want a sound that stands out from my other amps.

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My first amp was a late 70's Yamaha G50 410 similar to this;YamahaG50410.jpgIt was actually a pretty good amp. Very nice cleans, spring reverb, & a usable tremolo circuit too. Horrible distortion setting, but solid otherwise.

I sold it as i stopped playing for about 20 years & it was just too bulky to schlep around every time I moved.

 

I saw one recently on my local craigslist for sale on the cheap & was tempted to buy it, but then the nostalga wore off & decided it's the last thing I need to start hauling around again...

 

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615Ca5NDmAL.jpg

 

:D:facepalm:

 

That's solid state perfection there, folks . . .

 

It now resides at my brother's house . . . When I house-sit for him it waits for me to plug in. To be honest though, if I get the settings right, it has a charming fuzzy sound when used with a neck pickup.

 

:staticphil::D

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