There are many great guitar amplifiers out there. At our shop, Schroeder Guitar Repair, the amps coming in range from found-on-the-side-of-the-road freebies that donât have a heartbeat to boutique amps worth five figures. Many of these amps are old. Vintage amps, like any other piece of vintage equipment, often need updating to function safely and properly. This early â60s blonde Fender Band-Master is just such an ampâbeautiful, glorious tone, but in need of some maintenance to fully appreciate what the amp is capable of.
For years Iâve had an internal struggle. On one side, Ilovevintage amplifiersâthe designs, the tones, the vibe, often the quirkiness and yes, even the musty smell. What I donât like about old amplifiers is the regular maintenance necessary to keep them in top running order and the noise (both electronically and, in combos, the box crackle).
For the past couple of months, Iâve found myself acting as bass player for a new band. Itâs been a bit of a change of gears for me as Iâm usually playing guitar or lap steel. In playing bass, I found myself with aneedfor feeding my desire for headroomâa need that can only be satiated with lots of big power tubes and stacks of speakers. I purchased an Orange AD200 bass head with their matching 4x10 and 1x15 bottoms.
Premier Guitar: The Vintage Supro Clone (well, kind of) February 2009 by Tim Schroeder. A couple of months ago, I checked in a pile of amps for repair/freshening up for a band that was going into the studio to record another album. While reviewing this pile, I found that I was in possession of the main recording amp for the front man. It was a little vintage Supro that had certainly been around and through the ringer. While it definitely had a fantastic tone, it had noise and reliability issues due to its age. I decided to surprise the fellow...
Amplifiers have always been close to the electric guitar playersâ heart. Itâs often a love/hate relationship. Love, when your amp is performing as it should, never letting you down no matter how hard you push it. Performing night after night without hesitation, giving you the exact tone and feel that you ask of it. And hate, when your amplifier is doing things that you would never ask it do, often, totally on its own. From a faint crackling sound reminiscent of a distant fireplace at your grandfathers cabin on a wintry night to the blood chilling screeching that a harpooned pterodactyl might make in the troughs of death.
