Alex Lifeson’s signature 30-watt, 6L6-powered combo offers tones from clean to scorching, that offer much more than just Rush sounds.
A powerful grab-and-go tube combo with gutsy lead and rhythm tones from an admirably simple control complement. Nice construction quality.
Independent lead and rhythm gain controls would be a plus.
$1,999
Lerxst Chi Combo
mojotone.com
In addition to being one of the world’s most-accomplished rock guitarists, Alex Lifeson is, it seems, a dab hand at product conceptualization, too. The latest evidence is the CHI Combo, a new addition to the Lerxst amp series, which is Lifeson’s collaboration with Mojotone of Burgaw, North Carolina.
The CHI was designed as an easily portable amp that Lifeson can reach for when a last-minute show pops up. It’s ostensibly “Marshall-y” in attitude, though it’s also very much a modern-voiced circuit with footswitchable clean and lead channels. It generates 30 watts via two 6L6EH output tubes and three 12AX7s in the preamp and phase-inverter stages. It’s a straight-ahead amp, wonderfully free of excess features to throw you off course. And while it's perfect for the diehard Rush fan (manual-suggested settings for several Lifeson signature tones, including “Limelight,” “Fly by Night,” and “Working Man,” confirm as much), there’s plenty here to satisfy guitarists outside the Canadian prog-rock obsessives club.
Greek to Me
The CHI exudes a businesslike demeanor, but it’s also stylish enough to stand apart from the scores of lookalike classic clones out there, dressed up as it is in race-grey levant vinyl, red-garnet piping, and black-matrix grille cloth. The logo panel sports a striking red font inspired by the text on the iconic Moving Pictures album cover, and the control panel carries an etched Starman graphic that lights up red when you flip the power switch (there’s no standby on this model). The 24" x 20" x 9", 49-pound amp, with its Baltic birch cabinet, feels solid and substantial, too. Mojotone’s reputation for quality cabinets extends back further than its amplifier business, and the company has supplied many top boutique amp builders. It’s easy to imagine why.
“Access to the fluid, singing tones that define much of Lifeson’s playing with Rush is easy.”
Controls include input gain, lead master, output master, treble, middle, bass, and presence, and there’s a pull switch for a “rhythm clip” function on the input gain, which adds a little dirt to erstwhile clean tones. Around back, you’ll find a jack for the single-button footswitch, a send and return for the effects loop, two 8-ohm speaker outs, and a single 16-ohm out. Inside, the CHI’s circuit is wired across a primary printed circuit board. Three smaller boards host output-tube connections, effects send/return and speaker outs, and the LED array that lights up the Starman. Workmanship is tidy throughout, with neat wire runs and tube sockets that are bolted to the chassis for support in addition to their connections to the respective PCBs.
The CHI’s 30-watt rating comes courtesy of cathode-biased 6L6s. The configuration slightly reins the power from these tubes, which can produce around 45 watts in a fixed-bias configuration, but they can often sound a little juicier and more harmonically complex when cathode biased. The setup also means you can replace the output tubes without having to reset their bias. (We will say, though, be careful when removing or reaching behind the amp’s upper-back panel: A sharp edge on the roughly cut protective screen left this reviewer with a slice on my index finger.)
A Ride in the Red Barchetta
Tested with a Gibson ES-355 and a Fender 1956 Stratocaster Reissue, the Lerxst CHI swiftly revealed itself as a versatile performer—able to do far more than the expected Lifeson-alike tricks that would appear to be its raison d’etre. Going straight to the gained-up lead channel with input gain set at 2 o’clock or more—a route that’s hard to resist on an amp like this—accesses a boatload of muscular grind, sustain, and sizzle. Attaining the fluid, singing tones that define much of Lifeson’s playing with Rush is easy. Dial down the input gain to noon or below, though, and you can tap into plenty of earthy, rootsy rock ‘n’ roll tones. A little tweak here and there delivers everything from gritty classic rock to dirty blues to gnarly garage-rock tones.
Rhythm channel tones will stay relatively clean at pretty hot settings, so you can play loud without sounding muddy. This capability will be a boon for texturalists who need headroom for detailed time-based and modulation effects. But the rhythm channel also works great with overdrive pedals (a TS10 Tube Screamer and Wampler Tumnus Deluxe both sounded excellent). Pulling out the input gain knob for rhythm clip is also an effective tool for adding dirt to the rhythm foundation. The overall level drops slightly, too, but since it’s not a footswitchable function you’re more likely to use this very practical mode with its own gain settings.
With that in mind, it’s worth noting that the CHI’s gain staging, and the knobs that control it, take some getting used to. Since input gain controls the drive level for both channels, you’re tied to finding a compromise between them, then balancing the lead output via the lead master control, and the overall volume of both channels at the output master. Including just one more knob to allow for both rhythm gain and lead gain controls would be more intuitive. As it is, the setup certainly works once you get the hang of it, and both channels can sound great, but it sometimes requires a little deviation from your ideal tone on one channel or another.
The Verdict
The Lerxst CHI combo is a convenient, versatile amp with more than enough punching power to keep up with a heavy drummer, and still sounds great when reined in to basement practice levels. While saturated rock sizzle is very much its forte, the medium-grind overdrive tones are appealing, and both cleans and clipped settings on the rhythm channel are useful and satisfying. Independent rhythm and lead gain controls would have been a plus, but the CHI combo has much to offer just as it is, whether you’re a Rush fan or not
Alex Lifeson Lerxst Chi Amp Demo by Zach Wish — Run the range of Rush riffage! | First Look
It might not be perfect, but if you give your all you'll get closer to where you want to be.
I heard Matthew McConaughey say in a YouTube clip recently: "Don't half-ass it. If you're going to do something … whatever it is, easy or hard, if you give it your all and you don't half-ass it … whatever the outcome is, at least you're not going to have to wonder, 'What if?'"
McConaughey is so damn handsome and charming that I can't help but want to believe him. Even factoring in my bias, I still must admit he's mostly right. Although I don't regret a lifetime of half-assedly making my bed or brushing my teeth for only 15 seconds per day, I do regret my half-assing in music.
I probably wasted half of my first 10,000 hours of playing music. In the beginning, I was all in, but I was born and raised in sparsely populated Montana, long before the internet (or even cable TV in my home). I didn't know how one went about getting to the next level other than copping what I heard on records. I didn't work at it; I just played. Mostly out of ignorance, I skated rather than pushed myself.
When you are half-assing, you are half-living.
When I moved to Nashville, everybody was light years ahead of me. Getting to that level seemed like something you had to be born with. It felt impossible, like painting like da Vinci, so I just played well enough to get work and continued to half-ass. At gigs, my fingers were moving by rote, more like a typist than a musician. It was a lot of repetition of clichés. Safe and not very satisfying, but when you're making a paycheck touring, it's easy to coast. When I played at home, I wasn't there, either. I'd replay what I already knew, mind drifting, not even really listening. A lot of the time, my fingers were moving silently over an unplugged electric as I mindlessly watched TV. My growth as a musician was slow and stunted, giving me back what little I put in.
I recently demo'd the new Alex Lifeson Epiphone Les Paul Axcess. To prep, I rewatched the documentary, Rush:Beyond the Lighted Stage. There's a fascinating chapter where Neil Peart discusses going back to school, taking lessons from the Yoda of Drums, Freddie Gruber. Although Peart was the gold standard of rock drumming, routinely winning all the polls for "best drummer," he felt his own playing was too stiff and robotic from all those years of locking with a click. Gruber told Peart, "You can have a beautiful body, but if it's not breathing, it's not alive."
Gruber took Peart back to the basics, which got him thinking of drumming more like a dance: not focusing on the hit, but the motions between the hits. Peart totally retooled, even changing to traditional grip, which had to be incredibly awkward after roughly three decades of using the powerful matched grip. It takes huge cajones and humility to start over, but to do that hard work when you're on top is almost unheard of. The irony is that after all this work, frustration, time, and expense, maybe .001 percent of those who heard Peart could tell any difference. But Peart didn't do it for his audience. He did the work and made sacrifices for himself and for his art.
"The pull of habit is so huge, and that's what makes kids so beautifully creative, is that they don't have any habits, and they don't care if they're any good or not." —Ethan Hawke
The truth is practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Peart was getting farther away from where he wanted to be the longer he played the same way. It reminds me of something Ethan Hawke said in his TED Talk: "The pull of habit is so huge, and that's what makes kids so beautifully creative, is that they don't have any habits, and they don't care if they're any good or not, right? They're not building a sandcastle going, 'I think I'm going to be a really good sandcastle builder.' They just throw themselves at whatever project you put in front of them—dancing, doing a painting, building something: Any opportunity they have, they try to use it to impress upon you their individuality. It's so beautiful."
It feels safer to set limitations and pretend like you don't care. What's the point in climbing Mount Everest when you're safe and warm, staring at your phone from your couch? But half-assing steals the full experience of life. Keep in mind, the full experience always includes frustration, failure, and the torture of self-doubt, but you gain a lot even when you don't succeed. When you dig deeper into anything, hidden layers of subtlety and nuance are revealed to you, and you gain compassion and humility.
As far as I can tell, the meaning of life is just to be alive. When you are half-assing, you are half-living. May we all whole-ass our way through this painfully blissful, miraculous catastrophe, make loud mistakes, and hopefully stick the landing now and then.
U2’s The Edge and producer Bob Ezrin, Co-Founders of Music Rising, (musicrising.com) have announced Guitar Icons: A Musical Instrument Auction to BenefitMusic Rising to take place December 11th, 2021, starting at 10:00 a.m. PST. Hosted by Van Eaton Galleries (vegalleries.com) in Los Angeles, the live and online auction will offer a significant collection of guitars and other music memorabilia by some of the world’s most prominent musicians and friends of Music Rising. The auction will take the charity back to its roots and help support the musicians of the NOLA region after a long period being without income.
Guitar Icons: A Musical Instrument Auction to Benefit Music Rising includes an exclusive collection of important instruments donated by friends of the charity. All of the instruments have a unique and special story and provenance and together make up an extraordinary example of some of the greatest moments in music history.
“The music of New Orleans has influenced various styles of music borrowed from early traditions. It is the birthplace of jazz and represents a musical culture which bears great significance to most every genre today. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to lose my ability to do what I love – making music. Unfortunately there are many musicians and crew members who continue to struggle since the pandemic. If this multigenerational chain is broken, we lose more than just a few concerts we lose an entire culture that stretches back centuries. Some of the world’s greatest musicians and friends of Music Rising have generously donated their personal instruments to raise money for Music Rising. We hope you have a chance to bid on one or more of the beautiful instruments in the auction. The monies raised goes to musicians and crew. Your support continues to be invaluable to Music Rising.” - U2’s The Edge
The auction will take place at Van Eaton Galleries located at 13613 Ventura Blvd in Sherman Oaks, California beginning at 10:00 a.m. PDT on Saturday, December 11, 2021. The auction will also stream live and be online via various auction platforms all available through https://vegalleries.com/musicrising. A public exhibition of the collection will begin Monday, November 22, 2021 at the gallery and can be visited by collectors and fans by appointment. Proceeds from the auction will be administered by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation on behalf of Music Rising.