Fuchs Audio Technology may be on the
verge of becoming the next “must have”
amp company. Andy Fuchs has stated that
his early amps were based on preexisting
designs (such as Dumbles and Trainwrecks),
but the new Clean Machine is the first amp
he has designed from the ground up—and he
had several concepts he wanted to explore.
First, he wanted to design an amp that was
based on 6550 tubes, because of their great
low end, wonderful articulation and the musical
quality of their midrange. Second, taking
what he had learned from the well-regarded
Tripledrive Supreme and Overdrive Supreme
models, Fuchs wanted a platform to explore
his love of reverb units. Last but not least,
he wanted to design an amp for people who
were overdrive pedal du jour players.
Hey, What Do You Say
The Clean Machine’s look is all business. While
custom Tolex is available for a $125 charge, my
sample came wrapped neatly in a 20″x12″x10″
black and white formal suit. Hidden underneath
its classy exterior were four fan-cooled
6550 power tubes, three 12AX7 tubes (input
preamp, FX loop and pre-driver) and a 6FQ7
power tube cathode follower/driver tube,
a couple of massive transformers, and an
Accutronics 6 spring reverb unit.
A quick glance at the 150-Watt version of the
Clean Machine control panel reveals a few
surprises. While some of the amp’s controls
are self-explanatory, such as the 3-band tone
stack and the Dwell and Level settings for the
reverb unit, others, such as the EQ-1/EQ-2
switch, the two reverb “Tone” knobs, and
“Accent” knob, deserve a little more attention.
To further enhance the player’s control,
each of the EQ knobs has a push/pull option.
The EQ-1/EQ-2 option enables the player to
change the voicing of the amp with the flick
of a switch. In the EQ-1 position, the regular
tone stack settings are used; activating the
EQ-2 setting produces a midrange boost and
an increase in gain.
Fuchs says that he’s treated the reverb unit
as if it were an off-board effect being run
through an effects loop, so the first “Tone”
knob affects the signal input, while the second
“Tone” affects the output. Last, the
“Accent” control acts as a global presence
setting. The effects loop itself can be run
in either series or in parallel, depending on
what effects are being used and how much
wet/dry signal blending is desired.
Batter Up
For its inaugural run, I plugged the Clean
Machine into a Tone Tubby 1x12″ wide-body
cab with a single 40-Watt, 8-ohm Alnico
speaker. Next, I set the all of the EQ knobs at
noon and left both the “bright” and “deep”
switches off, and let it rip. The first man up
was the Bastardcaster: a one-piece swampash-
bodied Tele variation outfitted with
two of Dave Stephens’ X Set P-90 Zephyr
pickups and a Bigsby. Instantly I was hit by
a fat, classic, American-voiced clean tone.
Andy Fuchs is a self-described reverb junkie,
and his efforts shone through. Unlike some
company’s reverb setups that seem like a last
minute addition, the Accutronics 6 felt like
part of a unified whole.
Like a lot of guitars that have non-potted
P-90s, the Bastardcaster has a fair amount of
inherent hum. For a 150-Watt amp, the Clean
Machine was remarkably quiet. When brought
up to a good playing level, the Clean Machine
150 helped pull out some nice woody tones
from the Bastardcaster that were absent when
I plugged it into other amps.
Playing with the EQ’s push/pull tone pots
opened up surprising aspects of the Clean
Machine. Pulling out the Treble knob
added a subtle but noticeable amount of
dirt into the signal. Granted, it was just a
touch of hair, but it gave things a nice sort
of hard, twangy bite. Country players will
love this feature.
The “Deep” feature became particularly helpful
when I moved the amp from a room that
had a concrete floor to one with a wooden
floor. With the deep feature activated on
the concrete floor, it added some nice lowend
resonance. With the same settings on
a wooden floor, the bass frequencies practically
shook the room apart. I then popped
the deep switch off, and the earthquake
rattling came to a halt. When I wanted just
a tad more bass, I just pulled out the Bass
knob, and the Clean Machine 150 produced
a focused, articulate bass without needing to
seismically retrofit my house.