A few pics from the Austin Amp Show
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We journeyed up Highway 290 to Austin, Texas this past weekend for an all-too-brief stop into Loni Specter’s Amp Show. We got their fairly early on Saturday (read: before the crowd) and were able to visit with a few builders prior to having to cut and run back to Houston for the John Mayer concert. We spoke with Ozzie at 3 Monkeys about their new high gainer, the BW 119. We talked to Adam with Satellite Amps about his distain for digital processing and FX loops. We also had a brief lesson in C&D letters from Joe Kelemen of Kelemen Amps/JoMama Music. Oh yeah… there were swans there too! Pics or it didn’t happen? Ok, check ‘em out after the jump!
Greg with SolidgoldFX had a new custom shop line of pedals on display at NAMM last week. Airbrushed by a local artist, the pedals shown included four new prototypes and three custom shop models. Among the prototypes shown was a new optical compressor in the lightning storm design, the delay proto with FX loop and warp switch in the blue skull design, an optical tremolo prototype featuring the flying eyeball and a new reverb pedal prototype in reptile green. From the custom shop, Greg showed his Superdrive pedal in true flame, Superduperdrive featuring the skull design and a custom germanium Formula 69 in green water spots. Release info coming soon!
In the spirit of the recent pedal gallery we published from last week’s NAMM show, here is the follow-up amp gallery. As we have just added boutique amp coverage full time to our site (Did you check out our first amp review?), we did our best to stop in and chat with most of the smaller builders that set up at the show – Jaguar, Cornford, Carr, etc… Those we didn’t get a chance to talk with, we did our best to get pics of… but we know we missed a few. Check out the gallery after the jump, which includes some pretty interesting stuff from the likes of Budda, Rivera and the latest developments in ‘plexi’ style amps!
NAMM is a huge show. Huge. So it was not a surprise to us that we missed a few things on the pedal front… like the new WMD and Jet City pedals. We did however take a lot of pedal pics… more pedals than we had stories for. With that in mind, and not wanting all our shutter finger work to go to waste, here is a little miscellaneous pedal gallery for you. You’ll notice some stomps from Dwarfcraft, Fuchs, BBE, Rocktron, Whirlwind and many more. We will follow this pedal gallery with an amp gallery and guitar gallery later in the week. For now, enjoy the pedal goodness after the jump!
One of the more interesting pedal makers we ran across at NAMM was Levana Audio. The circuits in the Levana line of pedals are Israeli-born and American made. From a facility in Las Vegas, Levana (and distributor Studio Blue) are creating some high-end, studio quality stompboxes. The current pedal line includes the Scale Distortion, Studio Box, The Bunker Booster, EQ Booster, True Fuzz, CT’s Rough Rider overdrive and more. While some look like wood boxes, they are actually all high strength metal enclosures. A cool line to be sure, but a pricey one. Most of the Levana pedals sell for over $400. Check out the gallery from their show display… after the jump!
Harri at Mad Professor told WTDP? that a prototype bass overdrive was due to be on full display at the NAMM show last week, but the postal service lost it. Hopefully the stomp, which we have little detail on just yet, will make it back to their shop in time for the naming ceremony, which is expected soon. The pedal is due to be released a little later this year. After the bass drive, the Mad Professor crew is said to be working on a reverb stomp that is expected to hit the market in 2010 as well. Again, no details… just confirmation that is being worked and coming soon! Stay tuned!
Saturday was a celeb-heavy affair at the Winter NAMM show… but oddly, we missed a bunch of them! And Sunday… well, we did say ‘Hi’ to Guthrie Govan and Stanton Moore, but that was pretty much it. We understand that the likes of Gene Simmons, Jason Mraz, Julianne Hough and others were around the convention center on Saturday, but we… of course, were busy gathering up the pedal and amp news for you! We did however see a few folks… so we thought we’d share an abbreviated Part Two to our Sightings gallery with you. Journey to Paradise City, after the jump!
Houston-based Diamond Amplification, in collaboration with Blankenship Amps, is producing a line of Class A tube amps geared towards blues/rock market. Included in the new line is the Del Fuego, a 22-watt British-styled fire-breather that uses three 12AX7s, two EL84 power tubes and one 6CA4 rectifier – available in both combo and head. Another is the Balanese, a classic Tweed style combo amp that can run with matched paris of 6V6 or 6L6 power tubes. The Immortal is a 50-watt head that offers up vintage clean and crunch with three 12AX7, two EL34 power tubes and a full range of tone controls. Check out the pics after the jump!
California-based Jaguar Amplification debuted their new low-watt combo amp at the NAMM show this week – the Jaguar 7. The 7-watt, single channel amp sports one 12AX7, one EL84 and one GZ34. The amp has just two controls – Volume and Tone. The amp has two inputs – one standard, the second offers more gain. A half power switch on the back panel cuts the wattage down to three. It comes stock with a customized 10″ Celestion speaker. The 7 joins the line of Jaguar Amps that includes the 17-watt Junior, the 200-watt Jaguar 200 and the award winning Jaguar Twin. 
DAR Amplification showcased a multi-faceted high gain monster at the NAMM show this week – the Forza Quattro. The California company’s flagship, the Forza Quartto boasts 100-watt Class A power, auto-bias four 6C33 power tubes with replacement indicator lights, series/parallel channel assignable loop, slave out for paralleling power amps, full MIDI control, preamp send and return via both balanced XLR and TRS jack, buffered instrument send and return, recording mode, loudspeaker simulation, headphone out, tuner out and much more. The amp has four channels – clean, crunch, rhythm and lead. Pics after the jump!
Dutch builder DooDad Guitars brought their Check-A-Board Red overdrive/boost pedal to the NAMM show this week. The pedal is based around some of the dirtboxes and boost circuits popular in the 1970s. Both the drive and boost effects are independent true bypass switchable. The Drive side sports three knob controls – Drive, Tone and Volume. The Boost side has Volume knob that adds volume without compromising the rest of your tone. The stomp runs on either 9v battery or a regular 9v power supply. The pedal retails for around $140. Word is that there will be new Check-A-Board pedals later this year!
Modtone Effects showed off a pair of new pedals at the NAMM show this week, including a prototype of their new Lemon Squeeze compression and sustainer. The pedal sports three knob controls – Level, Sustain and Attack. Roll up the sustain for more muscle to single notes and lead lines. The stomp also compresses without diluting your original tone. Also at the Modtone booth was the new StutterKill dual purpose kill switch. First, it is a kill switch that comes in hand when switching guitars during a gig… and second is a momentary kill switch that allows the player to perform the guitar on/off toggle stutter with his/her foot. Check out the pics after the jump!