Guitar Noize - guitar news, crazy guitar designs and cool guitar videos

Marshall have been posting a number of updates over at the AFD100 site including a set of video interviews between Slash and Marshall’s Santiago. If you don’t know about this projects Marshall are trying to recreate the amp that was used on the Guns n’ Roses album Appetite For Destruction. Check out the AFD100 site for more info about this project and subscribe to the Inside Marshall YouTube channel.

I received the following press release which I thought you would find interesting:

Storming into the New Year, Orange Amps are giving their range of guitar amps a boost with the launch of the new Thunder 30 combo and head. This replaces the Rocker 30 and will roar into the shops spring 2010.
The new Thunder 30 is an all valve class A 30 watt, twin channel amplifier, powered by four EL84 power valves (two more than the Rocker 30). It will be available in head and 1 X 12 configurations and includes an F/X loop (not featured on the Rocker 30) and the 1x12 is front loaded.
A brand new design incorporating the best of the Rocker and Thunder series, the new amps have two channels. The first is a classic vintage channel which has crystal clear clean sound and when turned up delivers a thunderous vintage power amp overdrive. The second overdrive/distortion channel, features a shape control as seen in the Thunderverb models and has a British tone crunch of numbing proportions!
The Thunder 30 combo offers the perfect balance between power and portability and is ideal for regular gigging. It’s small and light enough to be portable whilst also offering a phenomenal tonal range for use in the studio environment.
Delivering more punch, more features and more power, the Thunder 30 will blow you away when you here the sound!

http://www.orangeamps.com

Check these cool videos out by Brian Wampler of Wampler Pedals, Brian knows a thing or two about tone as he makes some of the coolest effects pedals on the planet so when he has a recommendation to improve your amp’s tone I would suggest taking a look. Brian recommends using Warehouse Guitar Speakers which you can see in the Fender Bassman comparison video at the top and the Vox AC30CC2 video below it. In Brian’s own words “If you like Celestion Blues, you are going to flip your lid over these!”, and lets face it who doesn’t love Celestion Blues? The tone in the Bassman comparison has a much rounder less brittle sound which I definitely prefer and the Vox sounds great, I would like to hear a comparison for this Amp too.

If you want to learn more about Warehouse Guitar Speakers head over to their website: http://warehousespeakers.com

If you want to check out Brian’s excellent assortment of effects head over to http://www.wamplerpedals.com

I received the following press release today:

The Rockerverb series has long been regarded as a masterpiece of guitar amplification and Orange amps are proud to announce the launch of the new Rockerverb II, which builds on the classic proven Rockerverb formula and improves the specification and range available.
Over the years Orange has listened carefully to feedback from their endorsers and players around the world and they are now ready to launch the next generation of world class guitar amps.

The New Rockerverb II series includes the following new specifications and changes:

Enhanced valve F/X loop offering a totally transparent sound
Improved reverb tone which delivers an unforgettable sound across all levels
New middle control on the clean channel
Re-designed combo’s with new front mounted controls
Range now includes new Rockerverb 50 watt 1x12 model with new spec 2xEL34 valves

All models and built using tried and tested top quality components and deliver the legendary orange sound. From Chiming tube driven reverbs to sparkling tube driven effects loops and ultra high gain distortions these are rightly regarded as the most versatile guitar amps on the market delivering some of the purest guitar tones in the business.

The Rockerverb 50 head, Rockerverb 100 head and Rockerverb 50 (2x12 and 1x12) combo’s will be launched in March 2010 with the new upgrades.

For further details and to see these great new amps check out http://www.orangeamps.com

I’ve owned my Genz Benz Black Pearl 30 112 Combo Amp for quite a while now so this demo is well overdue but seeing as I had the excellent Audix CabGrabber in place holding an Audix i5 Microphone I thought what better time!

The Black Pearl is a single channel Class A tube amp loaded with 5 12AX7 preamp tubes, 4 EL84 power tubes and a tube rectifier. It has a tube boost which is footswitchable and has its own level control so this can almost be thought of as a lead channel. It has a Passive 3-Band EQ and Five-Position Voicing Circuitry so you can tailor the amp to a particular guitar. It has a 12” Alnico Red Fang™ Speaker by Eminence which sounds great and is modelled on a classic Blueback Celestion speaker. It also has tube driven reverb which is definitely usable but not to everyone’s taste. It is the perfect amp for blues and rock, you can use this amp for heavy metal but it has more of a classic tone like Angus Young when cranked rather than a high gain amp.

You can see on my video yesterday on how to install the Audix CabGrabber and Audix i5 used for this demo. I plugged my Ibanez JS1000 directly into the amp using an Armor Gold cable and ran the output from the Audix i5 into a Tapco Firewire Audio Interface using a GigGear Microphone cable. Finally the Audio Interface connects to an iMac running Abelton Live and iMovie.

Genz Benz site
Audix USA site

Egnater Amps generated quite a buzz at NAMM 2010 when they leaked news of their new amp “The Tweaker” and you can check out the specs here. You can hear the Tweaker in action in the video below. However, what nobody seemed to know about was the release of the new metal amps, the Armageddon and Vengeance models. So far I haven’t seen any videos of the Vengeance yet so I’m assuming it wasn’t quite ready for the public but as you will see from the PremierGuitar.com video above the Armageddon certainly was ready and this amp looks like a monster. Aside from the fact that it is a 100 watt head with 1 Clean channel and 2 Overdrive channels and a built in ISP Decimator noise reduction pedal as recommended by Rob Arnold of Chimaira in my recent rig rundown video. The Armageddon also has a master midrange control (cut or boost) which I’ve never seen before and you can turn it on and off with the footpedal or assign it individually to any of the channels. I’d certainly like to get my hands on one of these amps, I recently tried an Egnater Rebel 20 which with the Tube Mix set to halfway, so using the 6V6 and EL84’s it sounded nice and thick and warm.

Egnater Amps NAMM 2010 - The Tweaker demo.

Egnater Amps NAMM 2010 Booth tour: