finally... a tube amp to call mine

  • Thread starter Thread starter cstockdale
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cstockdale

cstockdale

supafly killa homey
After 6 months of testing out amps, looking at ebay, etc etc, I have my own sweet baby:

Garnet Mohawk.

what, you say?

a Garnet Mohawk. Maybe 20 of them ever made, a couple of years ago, hand made by Gar Gillies, the man behind Garnet amps.

15 watts, that is it. 2 knobs: tone and volume. Footswitch for treble boost. 1* 12 inch speaker.

And holy shit does this baby sing, and growl and lay out the thickest, warmest, fattest tone I have ever heard, and when I put the tone on full, play on my bridge pickup, it peels the paint off my walls. When I take the tone off, play on the neck p/u, it just is thick like sonic molasses.

After 2 years with a Fender Frontman 25R, and a J-station, all I can say to the hold-outs: a tube amp will blow your fucking mind. search for the right one, but just like a wife, you will know the right one the moment you see it.

I can't believe that somethign with only 2 knobs on it can have such a wide variety in tone. I am blown away.
It is so damn sensitive. If I use teh pad on my index finger and tap the string, it sounds sweet, if I pluck it and mute it, it just fucking pops, if I dig in with my pick, it roars. Jeez. I am in love.
 
Congrats!

I'm sure you and the Mrs. will be very happy. :)
 
I'm probably not alone in kicking myself in the ass for trading, destorying and throwing away all the obscure little 60's tube combos that passed through my hands as a kid!!!!
I remember one called a "Kalamazoo" it had a spring reverb foot switch and was just wonderful.

I'm SO STUPID!! :(
 
I'm an old guy so when I first started playin' tube amps were just about all there waz except for a few piece o' junk SS amps that you wouldn't let your dog play thru. Bought my first real amp in '71, it was a used silverface Super Reverb, I guess it was built before a lot of the post CBS changes were made, no master volume...sold it in about '73 (still trying to figure out why) and bought a used blackface Bassman head for about $90. and mated it with a 2x12. Have never played thru any modelling device or SS amp that is even close to being as satisfying as the real deal. I kinda feel sorry for the generation(s) of guitar players that have learned on, gotten used to, and accept modelling, SS amps, mega-super distortion pedals, etc. without knowing what a real amp FEELS like...not to mention how much better technique one can develop when you can hear and feel the individual notes in every stroke of the pick, and can't hide poor skills behind a mushy sound.
That Garnet sounds like a sweet amp - must be EL84 power tubes (or maybe 6V6's?) I have an old Peavey Bravo 2 EL84 amp on which I have performed a lot of experiments and several mods - it is now a totally different amp, sounding very much like a Vox. EL84's rock, I think they are the sweetest sounding power tubes used in guitar amps.
Tube amps are kinda like women, once you've had your first one, you're hooked. Both are expensive habits too...Congrats!!
 
i know this guy that is convinced his fender rocpro head sounds good........i told him that you have to be willing to pay for your tone......good tone isn't cheap even when ur buying used.........he said that he likes his solid state cramp (combination of amp and crap) and that i was a tool for thinking that you had to pay for your tone.

ridiculous

oh yeah. i bought a used rivera knucklehead55 about a year and a half ago...for those of you who don't know what/ who rivera is......it's a company started by paul rivera. he designed some fenders amps

anyway, since buying my knucklehead i haven't looked back. I wouldn't buy another solid state amp and now i don't even use a distorton pedal because tube distortion is so badass
 
so far I have only played an hour on it, as it is still in the store. Tomorrow afternoon I take down my Fender solidstate amp for trade and put my last $50 on it, and it will be mine to bring home. I can't wait to play more, and I have to agree with some of the aforementioned posters. I am learning to stop playing with FX (sometimes a little delay, and a sweet verb are nice), flange, chorus, phaser...all things I have used in past years to cover for the fact that I couldn't really play. Now I have the real deal, and it is amazing to hear how different notes sound with just hte slightest variation in how you hit the string
 
Major Tom said:
I kinda feel sorry for the generation(s) of guitar players that have learned on, gotten used to, and accept modelling, SS amps, mega-super distortion pedals, etc. without knowing what a real amp FEELS like...not to mention how much better technique one can develop when you can hear and feel the individual notes in every stroke of the pick, and can't hide poor skills behind a mushy sound.
Click to expand...
i was one of those kids until about a year ago. i had a fender M80 SS head and i thought it sounded good until i played my first real tube amps. i was gonna go drop some money on one of the fender modeling amps, and right next to it was a real twin, so i tried it out...long story short, i bought the twin because it blew the cyber stuff away.

i now own a few tube amps, and i'm never looking back . . .

good decision cstockdale . . .
 
cstockdale said:
After 6 months of testing out amps, looking at ebay, etc etc, I have my own sweet baby:

Garnet Mohawk.

what, you say?

a Garnet Mohawk. Maybe 20 of them ever made, a couple of years ago, hand made by Gar Gillies, the man behind Garnet amps.

15 watts, that is it. 2 knobs: tone and volume. Footswitch for treble boost. 1* 12 inch speaker.

And holy shit does this baby sing, and growl and lay out the thickest, warmest, fattest tone I have ever heard, and when I put the tone on full, play on my bridge pickup, it peels the paint off my walls. When I take the tone off, play on the neck p/u, it just is thick like sonic molasses.

After 2 years with a Fender Frontman 25R, and a J-station, all I can say to the hold-outs: a tube amp will blow your fucking mind. search for the right one, but just like a wife, you will know the right one the moment you see it.

I can't believe that somethign with only 2 knobs on it can have such a wide variety in tone. I am blown away.
It is so damn sensitive. If I use teh pad on my index finger and tap the string, it sounds sweet, if I pluck it and mute it, it just fucking pops, if I dig in with my pick, it roars. Jeez. I am in love.
Click to expand...

So, enough about your wife, what about the amp?
 
Congrats dude. I know exactly how you feel. I got my Budda Superdrive 30 2x12 a few weeks ago. Man this thing sings. I like it more every time I play it. All the stuff you mentioned about sensitivity and pick attack is what I love about the Budda. My amp produces these harmonic overtones that I've never heard before. I've seriously thought I was hallucinating several times because this amp is producing sounds I've never heard before (not noise-like sounds, very pleasing musical sounds). I've owned an all-tube amp before (it was a Crate head), but this is my first high-end tube amp and it was worth every penny.

As for effects... haha. I used to run a Rocktron Intellifex through my Marshall Valvestate... not anymore. The effects in the Rocktron are nice and transparent but putting it in the effects loop of my Budda is like adding tape hiss to my guitar tone... I can't stand it!
 
how hard is it/how much money would it take to get an amp modified to include an effects loop?
 
cstockdale said:
how hard is it/how much money would it take to get an amp modified to include an effects loop?
Click to expand...

Its not even worth it.

Just put them infront of it.
 
thanks for the comment. I just noticed that when I put my J-station (no amp models on, no cabinet imaging, just for delay and reverb) in front, even when I turned the effects off, in other words, supposedly running straight through with no signal modification, it was altering the tone.
 
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