Top to bottom: The Mesa/
Boogie Trans-Atlantic 15, Bad
Cat Lil’ 15, 1966 Ampeg B15-N,
and Soldano Astroverb 16 offer
a wide variety of tones for different
applications. Photo by
Paul “TFO” Allen
One year ago, my column
[
“Covering The Tonal Bases,” March 2011] focused
solely on guitars. A year later, I
am continuing the exploration
of the sonic palette—this time
focusing on amplifiers. Like most
guitarists, I own several different
amps. That way, depending on
the style of music I’m playing on
the road, I can achieve the different
sounds I need.
Mesa/Boogie TA-15
Most amps do one particular
sound extremely well and
the rest of the tones are usually
just okay or downright
bad. I think it’s a big part of
the reason that many guitarists
own a bunch of different
amps. The TransAtlantic
TA-15 from Mesa Engineering
is the screaming exception to
this idea. In the same way a
champion triathlete is effective
on wheels, on foot, or in the
water, the TA-15 is a workhorse
in just about any musical
context. Between the amp’s two
channels, I can obtain a lot of
classic tones.
For a ’65 Deluxe Reverb
kind of sound, I’ll set the
TA-15’s green channel to
15-watt mode and switch to
the “normal” setting. I then
move the volume and treble to
1 o’clock, and set the bass and
master to 2 o’clock. To get a
Vox AC-15 vibe happening, I’ll
use the same settings just mentioned,
except I switch to the
“top boost” setting and knock
the treble back to 10 o’clock.
When I need high-gain
tones, I simply flip over to the
red channel. I can get to a tone
resembling a late ’60s, 50-watt
Plexi on the red channel with
the 15-watt setting and dimming
the master and bass.
From there, I set the treble to
2 o’clock and the gain to 10
o’clock. If I need something
more modern sounding, I’ll
utilize the 25-watt mode and
switch the red channel into
the “HI 2” setting. I also boost
the gain to 3 o’clock and add a
little more treble than I use for
the Plexi-type tone.
Bad Cat Lil’ 15
Many of us Nashville guitarists
use the word “spongy” to
describe the tone that lives
right where an amp begins to
breakup between its clean and
overdriven sounds. Listen to
“Days Go By” by Keith Urban
if you want to hear what I’m
talking about. When I need to
get that spongy tone, my Bad
Cat Lil’ 15 is usually the first
place I start. It’s a 1-channel
amp that is sonically similar
to Bad Cat’s Black Cat and is
perfect for getting those rockin’
“in-between” sounds.
The other tonal zip code
this amp can deliver is the
gritty, Jimmy Page sound that
can be heard on Led Zeppelin’s
“Heartbreaker.” The setting of
the cut knob is the key to getting
a clear sound out of this
amp and its placement is heavily
dictated by which guitar I
am playing.
1966 Ampeg B-15 N
Have you ever picked up a
strange guitar and found all
the tones to be weak and
anemic sounding? Whenever
I encounter a guitar with this
thin-type quality, I usually
pair it with my B-15 N to add
some bulk and muscle to the
instrument’s sound. The B-15
N is a really good amp for
trimming out those unwanted
frequencies that bulge out
from certain instruments. For
example, the ringy trebles of
12-string guitars can often
overpower the rest of the frequencies,
resulting in a lack of
fullness to my ear. To achieve
a great, even sound with a
12-string instrument, I’ll run
it into a B-15 N with the
treble set at 2 o’clock and the
bass at 10 o’clock.
An interesting thing about
my Ampeg B-15 N is that
it has three inputs. When I
need to dial-up some aggressive
overdriven tones, I’ll join
channels 1 and 2 with a patch
cable and plug my guitar into
the second input of channel 1.
This allows me to take advantage
of all six of the amp’s control
knobs. I set the volume
knobs to around 3 o’clock and
cut the bass way down on both
channels. Most of the time,
I’ll set the treble pretty high
on one channel and position
the amp’s other treble knob
to noon. This adds a bit more
dimension to the sound than
setting both trebles to the
same position.
Soldano Astroverb 16
This is the most unique amp
of the bunch. After I’ve tracked
a heap of different guitar
parts for a song, it sometimes
becomes difficult to get a new
guitar part to poke out and
speak through the existing
parts. When this happens, I
plug into my Astroverb 16 and
my problem evaporates. This
amp truly has it’s own original
character, making it hard to
lump it into the typical Fender
or Marshall comparisons that
are often used when discussing
amplifiers. The Astroverb 16 is
a great amp for power-chord-driven
rock and for solos. And
the amp’s reverb is excellent for
Santana-like leads when paired
with a gain-saturated setting.
You can get plenty of amps
to resemble the sound of
other amps—it just depends
how hard you want to work
with pedal combinations and
speaker options. I find that
it’s best to use an amp for that
one, killer sound that it excels
at producing. Asking an amp
to be something that it’s not
will usually lead to frustration.
Just be sure to do your
due diligence by researching
and testing the many amplifier
options until you find that one
that best suits the job you need
it to do.
Paul “TFO” Allen
is a multi-instrumentalist
who has worked with
Big & Rich, Sebastian
Bach, 112, Jake Owen,
Montgomery Gentry,
Larry the Cable Guy,
and many others. He also has his
own project called Ten Finger
Orchestra, and can be reached at
tenfingerorchestra@yahoo.com.