If you run into Richard Goodsell at a gear
show—heck, even if you just spend a few
minutes perusing his company’s website—you’ll
soon find out why he’s famous for being a
character who can barely get through a sentence
without a double entendre or humorous
metaphor. (One of his newest amps is called
the Dominatrix, if that tells you anything.) But
over the last six years or so, he’s also become
pretty popular for his line of tube amps. Players
like Sonny Landreth, Peter Buck, Vince Gill,
Gilby Clark, Big Head Todd & the Monsters’
Todd Park Mohr, and Billy Gibbons are digging
them, so you know something cool is going on
inside his boxes.
We first heard the Goodsell Valpreaux 21
1x12 combo at the New York Amp Show last
summer, and we’ve been eager to check it
out ever since. What first piqued our interest
was the fact that the amp is powered by two
6973s—tubes that were used in several 1960s
Valco, Supro, and Gretsch amp circuits, but in
little else that guitar players use. Once we heard
it fired up, that sealed the deal. We knew the
Valpreaux 21 was destined to be put through
the PG paces.
Juke Box Hero
The 21-watt Valpreaux weighs a very manageable
30 pounds—roughly three-quarters the
heft of a blackface Deluxe Reverb—and it’s
available in any covering or grill-cloth option
listed on Mojo Musical Supply’s website. Ours
came in striking red Tolex with a black-and-tan
grill. Top-panel features include a delightfully
simple EQ section with crème-colored Tone,
Volume, and Gain knobs, as well as Reverb,
Depth, and Speed knobs for the three-spring
reverb and footswitchable, bias-vary tremolo
circuit. There’s also a metal vent beneath the
handle to help keep the tubes cool so they
last longer and operate more reliably. Other
Valpreaux features include a 12" Goodsell RGH
speaker modeled after a Celestion G12H, three
12AX7 preamp tubes, and a 5AR4/GZ34 rectifier
tube that runs approximately 390 volts.
Despite the fact that the 6973 power
tube’s historical applications mostly include
now-discontinued guitar amps and some hi-fi
and juke-box applications, the fear of scarcity
need not be a deterrent to guitarists: Electro-Harmonix is manufacturing new 6973s, so
Valpreaux buyers will be able to power the amp
for years to come. (Tube gurus note that 6973s
look like they could fit into an EL84 socket,
but using the two interchangeably is asking for
mucho trouble.)
The 6973 puts out about the same amount
of power as a 6V6—and Goodsell says they can
put out another watt or two if they’re fixed-biased.
But the Valpreaux is cathode-biased,
which means you’ll never have to find matched
6973s for optimal operation. Just plug ’em in
and play—woot!
Sweet Treble O’ Mine
As you probably figured already, “Valpreaux” is
a French-sounding (and looking) contraction
of “Valco” and “Supro” (“‘Valpro’ was already
being used by a European pharmaceutical company,”
Goodsell explains). But while the amp’s
name and power train are reminiscent of those
old designs, its tones are more in the blackface
Fender Princeton and Deluxe Reverb camp. I
tested the Valpreaux with a variety of guitars,
including a ’50s-style Telecaster with alnico 3
pickups, a Reverend Pete Anderson hollowbody
with P-90s, a Schecter Ultra III with mini-humbuckers,
and a Godin Session with two
single-coils and a bridge humbucker.
As I plugged in and twiddled controls, I
thought about how some players will see the
single Tone knob as a limitation—because it
certainly decreases your ability to home in on
exact treble, midrange, and bass frequencies.
However, guitarists who are into this sort of
simple topography love it because fewer knobs
means fewer potentiometers, wires, and other
parts to muddy the signal. I don’t have anything
against amps that facilitate precision tone
tweaks, especially when working with guitars
and pickups of varying character and output.
But when an amp with a single tone control
gets it right, I am totally into it. And with the
Valpreaux, I was there almost immediately.
While I loved the tones almost anywhere
I set that one Tone knob—from the fat and
slightly scooped sounds perfect for Wes
Montgomery-style octave excursions at lower
settings to higher settings that brightened the
Godin’s humbucker and thinned the Reverend’s
corpulent neck pickup tones—it didn’t take
long for me to find the right setting for my
playing: cranked all the way clockwise.
Why? I favor a full, fairly bright amp sound
because I tend to use my bridge pickup and
shape my tone by varying picking-hand attack.
For instance, I love being able to use one amp
and pickup setting to really lay into a taut
E-string riff that works for punk and hardcore
or lean “Helter Skelter”-style rock, switch to
hybrid picking for twangy Junior Brown- or
Danny Gatton-style licks, or sandwich the
pick between my index finger’s first and third
knuckles and use the rest of my digits to
fingerpick Brian Setzer-approved chords or
rhythms where I use the edge of my picking
hand for percussive syncopation. With the
Valpreaux, I was able to do all that and more
with Tone all the way up.
What’s interesting about the Valpreaux’s
Tone knob isn’t just that maxing it removes it
from the circuit and yields a full sound with
plenteous treble and a midrange that’s present
but not strident—it also brings in glorious texture,
character, and gain.
Speaking of gain, after a few weeks of playing
the amp with my band, Goodsell emailed
me to mention that he felt the Valpreaux really
shines with the Gain control near 3 o’clock.
He also said the amp was “consistently remarkable”
with old Teles that have brass saddles.
Interestingly, I had already arrived at both
conclusions on my own. Though I enjoyed
playing all my test guitars through the amp, I
have never heard my Tele sound better than it
did through the Valpreaux with Tone maxed
and Gain and Volume a hair under 3 o’clock.
The treble response was among the sweetest I’ve
ever heard, and I really can’t imagine a better
gamut of tones being available using the various
picking techniques I mentioned earlier. Even
when I was thrilling to meaty chord inversions,
the Valpreaux and Tele somehow sounded
scathingly mean and gorgeously refined—not
unlike Page’s tone in the middle section of
“Carouselambra.”
Likewise, the Tele’s middle-position tones
sounded lusciously bell-like, while neck-pickup
tones sounded fat and juicy—perfect for anything
from bluesy bends to Tom Morello-style
riffery. With the Godin’s humbucker and the
Reverend’s fat-sounding P-90s, the Valpreaux
had a little less of that sparkling magic, but
both still sounded quite good. I preferred splitting
the Schecter’s mini-humbuckers to decrease
the midrange and get a little more spank.
How about the tremolo? In a word, it’s
incredible. My Demeter Tremulator pedal has
been the one constant on my pedalboard for the
last 11 years, and I’ve owned a vintage Vibro
Champ and Twin Reverb and Deluxe Reverb
reissues—all of which have fantastically lush
tremolo. But I’ve never encountered a warble
that sounded so fat and three-dimensional. One
of my favorite sounds was the Reverend’s soloed
neck pickup with Speed at about 10 o’clock and
Depth cranked—it was like Hendrix playing
“Machine Gun” through a Leslie!
The Verdict
The Goodsell Valpreaux is one of the most
enjoyable amps I’ve played in years, and I’ll
probably cry when it leaves our office. That said,
it wasn’t without its shortcomings: The delightfully
long power cord never fell out during use,
but it was loose enough that I lost power a few
times when I adjusted amp position. And though
the reverb was beautiful, it couldn’t touch the
depth and sloshiness of a classic Fender tank.
Reverberations sounded distant and subtle
even when it was all the way up. I preferred my
Strymon Blue Sky Reverberator, which sounded
like liquid heaven through the amp.
Even with these slight niggles, the
Valpreaux earns huge kudos. A lot of
affordable 6V6 designs are coming onto the
scene these days, so it’s easy to look at this
box’s price tag and think its steep. But when
you compare the Valpreaux against the more
accessible 6V6 options—and I have, side by
side—you quickly hear the difference. It’s like
fast food vs. a spread cooked by an Iron Chef:
Both fill the empty space, but only one incites
ecstasy that stays with you forever.
Buy if...
you crave delectable blackface
tones, amazing tremolo, and
ecstatically sweet high end.
Skip if...
you prefer more precise EQ-ing and
surfable reverb.
Rating...
