Small, low-wattage amps have been an essential
part of the recording and performing
landscape for too long to be called a fad. But
whether it’s the growth of home recording or the
ever-growing group of guitarists that need and
want the best tone they can get out of a little rig
in the corner, the demand for small amps has
not abated. And manufacturers large and small
are still responding to this demand.
Given the competition that’s heated up as
a consequence, it takes a really sweet-sounding
amp—or a really versatile one—to stand apart
from the pack. Burriss, hot off the heels of the
release of their popular Royal Bluesman, packs a
lot of both qualities in their newest little monster,
the 18-watt, EL84-driven Dirty Red. It’s also built
around a cascading preamp design that enables
higher-gain sounds at lower volume, which gives it
the goods to stand tall in the mini-amp crowd.
In the Court of the Crimson King
The Dirty Red is pretty full-featured for such
a tiny amplifier. And it looks built for business,
inside and out. The little 18-watter is
fired by three Mullard reissue 12AX7 preamp
tubes, an Electro-Harmonix EZ81 rectifier
tube and two JJ EL84 tubes in the power section.
The Dirty Red’s all-metal construction
feels rugged, but at just under 13 pounds, the
amp is surprisingly light.
On the front panel, you’ll find a familiar
3-band equalization section consisting of Bass,
Middle, and Treble knobs, along with separate
Gain and Master volume controls. But nestled
between the Middle and Treble controls, you’ll
find another knob called Top Cut. Burriss says
the control is designed to tame the high end and
warm the signal at higher gain settings. Anyone
familiar with a presence control will find it
works in a similar fashion. Finally, there’s a Loop
switch for engaging the effects loop, which can
also be activated using a footswitch inserted into
a rear-panel TRS 1/4" jack.
The Dirty Red’s optional Power Loop
Pedal footswitch sports a Boss-style power jack
designed to run outboard pedals and eliminate
the need for extra cords and power supplies that
can introduce noise and clutter. This footswitch
is capable of delivering 500 mA of juice to as
many as 10 pedals. The Dirty Red has another
unusual trick up its sleeve, courtesy of its 3-way
power switch. The top position turns the amp
on and the middle position is off—no surprises
here. But the bottom position—dubbed FX—
activates a slave mode that effectively lets you
run the Burriss as an overdrive unit plugged into
an external amplifier. In FX mode, you simply
run a shielded cable from the Dirty Red’s effects
send to the second amplifier’s input. Clever
design considerations like these make the Dirty
Red a neat little amp.
Red Hot!
With a name like Dirty Red, it’s a safe guess that
this amp excels at high-gain sounds. It does, but
the Dirty Red’s mid-gain tones are excellent, too.
Using a Diezel 2x12 semi-open-back cabinet
with Hempcone speakers, I set up a rig with the
Dirty Red, a 2008 Gibson Les Paul Studio, a
2009 Fender American Stratocaster, and a 1978
Gibson Les Paul Custom.
With the Les Paul Studio and the amp’s gain
control set to 10 o’clock, the amp was snarling
and growling with every pick stroke. Even when
backing off the gain significantly, it was kind
of hard to dial out the overdrive entirely. And I
had better luck getting a clean signal with the
Stratocaster, but even then I had to drop the
gain to between the 8 and 9 o’clock positions,
and crank the master pretty high to get the amp
to push any air. It may not be the best amp
for super clear, chiming sounds or transparent
jangle, but the mild overdrive tones are sweet
enough to make you forget this limitation.
The Dirty Red has a great, chewy midrange
with just a little grit that makes it a blast to play
lead lines. I’ve always judged great amp overdrive
by how fat and defined each note is in big firstposition
chords. The Dirty Red had those traits
in spades, and retains that quality when using
a guitar with hotter pickups like my Les Paul
Custom with Tom Anderson humbuckers. To
retain note-to-note definition, I sometimes had
to drop the amp’s gain down a bit to compensate
for the added signal, but generally I was able
to do so while retaining the personality of the
hotter instrument. Cranking the gain made it
possible to play around with some pretty aggressive
metal riffing. Though the midrange and top
end are looser than, say, on a vintage Marshall
JCM800 head, the Dirty Red retained the ferocity
and vigor of a bigger amp, even at much
lower volumes.
The range and responsiveness of each of the
Dirty Red’s controls is another impressive aspect of
this amp. The Top Cut in particular provides real
tone-shaping power and flexibility. Most small-wattage
amplifiers don’t have a huge amount of low end,
but the Dirty Red certainly does, and its ability to
shape the bass was invaluable. I dialed the Bass knob
back to noon most of the time, and even when I
was really pushing the amp with an aggressive rock
riff, I rarely set the Bass control much past 1 o’clock.
The Verdict
Burriss Amps’ Dirty Red is a fantastic sounding
and well-rounded amp head by the standards of
any wattage class. The equalization range was
impressive, yet easy to manage. The amount
of volume available was more than enough to
carry through a band practice, and most certainly
enough to carry through a bar or venue
with the help of a good microphone and PA. Its
aggressive nature and voicing made it difficult
to coax out a pure, sparkling clean tone, but its
full-bodied and slightly gritty sound offers the
vintage vibe of late-’60s British amplification. If
you’re a fan of greasy, low-wattage EL84 tone,
but don’t want to have to lug around a hefty
combo or stack, mark my words—you’ll want
to try the Dirty Red.
Video Review:
Buy if...
you’re after a greasy, small-wattage
tone that has mega volume.
Skip if...
you need a rock amp with a fuller,
more guttural response or one capable
of generating crystal-clear tones.
Rating...
