As seen here, Jamie West-Oram has been turning to John Suhr for modified Strats since the Fixx’s early days.
When it comes to influential ’80s guitarists, it’s easy to fixate on the likes of Van Halen, Vai, Satriani, the Edge, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Marr, and Eric Johnson. But the chiming, simultaneously funky and moody rhythm work of Jamie West-Oram, from British synth-rock outfit the Fixx, is similarly singular. He isn’t just a rhythm ace, though. Highly compressed, often drenched in reverb and/or subtly swirling modulation, West-Oram’s syncopated Strat leads and quirky whammy flourishes melded like clockwork with big bass lines and atmospherically bastardized synth pads to define inescapable radio hits of the decade like “Red Skies,” “Stand or Fall,” “One Thing Leads to Another,” and “Are We Ourselves?”
Thing is, he wasn’t even playing a Strat. It was a Schecter “partscaster” (with passive EMG pickups) put together for him by John Suhr during his days at Rudy’s Music in New York City. In fact, until a fateful concert made West-Oram an S-style convert, he was more a fan of Gibson single-cut rawness. The Fixx’s stellar debut, 1982’s Shuttered Room, was largely recorded with a P-90-equipped Les Paul Jr.
Every Five Seconds
But a London-based jazz-fusion guitarist put him on a different tonal path. “There was a guy called Murphy who was just a brilliant guitar player,” he remembers. “I went to one of his gigs and was totally knocked out by his playing and sound. I said to my mate, ‘He’s getting a great sound out of that Fender.’ And he says, ‘It’s not a Fender, it’s a Schecter.’ I thought, ‘If I get one of those, I’ll sound like that.’ But of course, it doesn’t work that way.”
Since then, West-Oram has expanded to similarly equipped koa-bodied Suhr “super strats” with Floyd Rose vibratos and active EMGs, as well as a trusty Fender ’62 Strat reissue with signature pickups by Dave Walsh at Eternal Guitars in Chichester, U.K. However, as evidenced on the band’s 13th full-length release, this year’s Every Five Seconds, he remains a fan of Gibson-built single-cuts. For rawer tones on tracks like “Cold,” he used a two-pickup ’61 Epiphone Olympic (a recent gift from his wife, Bibi) through a couple of “just blisteringly good” early-’60s Vox AC30s that were on hand at Panic Button Studios in West London.
Cy said, “Less U2, more New York Dolls,” and I went, “Ah, that’s it. Now we got it!”
Trans-Atlantic Tone Trades
For many of the Fixx’s early years, West-Oram relied on 50-watt tube combos from another famous British amp brand—Marshall. Then, as now, he was running a stereo-amp rig in order to make the most of the stompbox that’s been a secret weapon since he bought it new in 1981. “When I first joined the band, I had one of the [Marshall] combos, and then I got the [MXR] Stereo Chorus and went, ‘I’m gonna have to get another amp—because this doesn’t sound good with just one amp!’ I used those two combos on the first Reach the Beach [the band’s 1983 sophomore album] tour. The next year, our stage manager took the heads out and put them into a rack, along with various other things. I typically turned the master full up and the preamp up just enough for it to start getting interesting.”
Despite his appreciation for classic British amps, West-Oram has been relying primarily on Fender Hot Rod DeVille combos since Fixx vocalist Cy Curnin turned him on to them roughly 20 years ago. “I like the tone of the Fenders—the clean sound.” He adds, “And I know I can always get the Fenders if we have to rent backline.”
The Fixx (L to R): vocalist Cy Curnin, bassist Dan K. Brown, drummer Adam Woods, Jamie West-Oram, and keyboardist Rupert Greenall.
Photo by Liz Linder
As you might expect, that means he depends on pedals to muck up his tones. Live, he’s recently been using an Xotic SL Drive for dirt—although for the Five Seconds sessions he used an Ibanez Tube Screamer. “Otherwise, I used pretty much the same gear that I use live. I’ve got the Suhr Koji Comp compressor, which is on probably 50 percent of the time. Back in the olden days, I’d have everything on all the time—it never occurred to me to bypass them! [Laughs.] Now, I bypass them so they sound more exciting when they do come in.” A Boss DD-500 delay is another go-to. “It can do a whole whack-crazy amount of things, though my presets are mainly based on tempo and varying the modulation of the delay. So, you can have a straightforward delay, or you can have a slightly seasick delay or change the actual tone of the delay signal. I’ve also got an old Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, which sounds really sick, but it’s too big to fit on my pedalboard. I use that for recording at home.”
A First … and a Way to Last?
Asked what he attributes the punch and vitality of the new Every Five Seconds songs to, West-Oram says it was a slight tweak to their recent songwriting approach. Whereas the synth-rock quintet had been sending each other song ideas across the miles for other recent LPs, most of the new album’s basic writing was done in person, in real time. “It was more like when we did ‘One Thing Leads to Another,’ where we were all in the room together and we just knocked it out in a couple of hours.”
Five Seconds is also notable for West-Oram because the alternatingly lilting and primal “Woman of Flesh and Blood” marks his first time singing lead on a Fixx track. “We were having rehearsals and one day I showed up and went, ‘I’ve written a song and I’ve done a demo of it. Would you like to hear it?’ One of them probably said, ‘No, I want to hear you play it and sing it live.’ So, I went for it, and they all liked it and thought we should pursue it. I assumed Cy would end up singing it and maybe changing the words completely, but he said, ‘You should sing it,’ and he just added words it needed, because it wasn’t quite complete.”
Jamie West-Oram’s Gear
The guitarist boldly strikes a chord on his green Strat during a June 2022 show at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Guitars
- Suhr koa S-style (“Woody”) replica of ‘84 Schecter “partscaster”
- Suhr Classic T
- Fender ‘62 Stratocaster reissue with signature pickups by Dave Walsh
- 1961 Epiphone Olympic
- Ernie Ball Music Man Axis Super Sport
- Early-’80s Ibanez Blazer (used on original “One Thing Leads to Another” tracks)
- Custom 1991 Ibanez S-style
Amps
- Two Fender Hot Rod DeVilles running in stereo
- 1962 Vox AC30 (studio)
- Suhr Corso (studio)
- Cornell Plexi (studio)
- 1964 Elpico 18-watter (studio)
Effects
- 1981 MXR Stereo Chorus
- Suhr Koji Comp
- Suhr Shiba Drive
- Suhr Riot
- Xotic SL Drive
- Vemuram Jan Ray
- Boss DD-500
- Boss SL-20 Slicer
- Boss volume pedal
- Assorted pedals (studio)
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Burly Slinkys
- Jim Dunlop 1 mm picks
West-Oram says the previous scenario’s humor, openness, and encouragement are indicative of what’s enabled the band to weather more than 40 years together. “I mean, there’s, y’know, five men of a certain age living together on a tour bus for a couple of months—a couple of us with wives or girlfriends—all getting up at different times of the day and crashing out at different times of the day … stumbling through the bus corridor and tripping over shoes and things like that. It’s like any dysfunctional family. We all have a good sense of the ridiculous, and we can make fun of each other and get away with it. That usually overcomes any personal things.
“I think the key to staying together is just being really upfront and honest with each other, and being professional. Show up on time for rehearsals and soundchecks and gigs. Those are the obvious things. But also, just realizing that the whole thing is much bigger than that. What you have to offer as a band is a lot bigger than the minor personal things that come up. The enthusiasm from any one of us is going to rub off on the others. So, if one of us says, ‘I’ve got this experiment I want to conduct and it goes like this,’ and there’s an enthusiasm, we’re all gonna go, ‘Great! You’re really into that, so do it. Let’s all ride that wave of enthusiasm and see where it takes us.’”
Encouraged by vocalist Cy Curnin, Jamie West-Oram stepped into the Fixx’s lead vocal chair for “Woman of Flesh and Blood,” a first for the guitarist.
Still Riding New Waves
To illustrate how this collective openness plays into the band’s contemporary songcraft, West-Oram points to Five Seconds tracks “Suspended in Make Believe,” where gently swinging drums and pianistic bass lines undergird spare, trem-treated open-position chords, ethereal strings, and contemplative lyrics, and “Neverending,” which opens with “acoustic” guitars pounding out an insistent-but-open-feeling groove that’s tightly syncopated with the drums.
Back in the olden days, I’d have everything on all the time—it never occurred to me to bypass them!
“For a ‘typical’ Fixx song, you might expect a solid, sync’d rhythm section, chiming guitars, animalistic keyboard sounds, and strong vocals,” he begins, “but I don’t think we dismiss an idea because it doesn’t sound like ‘a Fixx song.’ We might actually lean more towards one that isn’t an obvious Fixx song. There’s a couple on the new album that aren’t what we’d normally do, and because of that, rather than despite that, they made it to the album. On ‘Suspended in Make Believe,’ there’s aren’t any chiming guitars, and I ended up with a very strange sound. I have this Music Man guitar, an Axis Super Sport, with a piezo pickup so you can make it sound like an acoustic. I plugged that straight into a Fender amp and cranked it up. It’s got quite a strange, slightly grating sound. There’s also one called ‘Neverending,’ which almost has this arena-rock thing. It was starting to get a little bit Bruce Springsteen and, I mean, he’s great—but that’s not us. And then it started to get a bit U2-ish and we didn’t want that either, even though they’re great as well. And then Cy said, ‘Less U2, more New York Dolls,’ and I went, ‘Ah, that’s it. Now we got it!’ It’s not really like the New York Dolls, the way it ended up, but little comments like that can knock you sideways in a good way. Then you end up following it down another rabbit hole.”
The Fixx - Live In The USA (The Bayfront Theater, Florida, 27-11-1984)
At 48:00, the crowd goes crazy as West-Oram and crew launch into “One Thing Leads to Another” in this live clip from 1984.
Follow some super-hip players and studios on the cutting edge and you’ll find a host of meticulously crafted boutique amps. And for the various flavors of road-dogs, there’s also the emerging force of modeling units that emulate everything under the sun.
Then there are the players who have to go to the source and are doing the tone-gods’ work by keeping vintage amps in the game. (There are a lot of us, and we take our work seriously.) At the highest level of stage and studio, you’ll find the elite vintage models—the tweeds, black-panels, plexis, and all their pals. Those amps command their fair share of literal and digital ink. Then there are the oddball selections that some new player will bring to everyone’s attention.
But there’s a less-hyped flavor of vintage amp that actually shows up much more often than those rare gems. These are the everlasting classics you’ve seen about a million or so times played by bands in every size of stage and lining the walls of your favorite studio. They’re the perennial workhorses whose reputations thrive because of some formula of tone, consistency, reliability, and—maybe the most important variable—price.
Brooklyn-based amp-repair guru Pat Kauffman operates Patrick Kauffman Electronics out of Main Drag Music, where he also teaches amp-building workshops.
Here are six of these vintage models, all priced to fit in a gigging budget, coming in right around $1,000 or less as of this writing. With a trio of experts on hand, here’s an idea of what makes each of these amps tick all these years after they were first introduced.
Silver-Panel Fender Bassman
A drip-edge era Fender Bassman head.
Photo by Pat Kauffman
The Fender Bassman is, of course, one of the most classic amplifiers. The tweed Bassman circuit is one of the most copied and modified circuits of all, serving as a platform for so many designs to follow, most notably Marshalls, as well as a couple more on this list. By the time the silver-panel era began, first with the drip-edge years starting in 1967, the Bassman circuit had evolved from those early days through the also highly coveted black-panel era.
“The silver-panel is not that different from the black-panel,” notes Brooklyn amp-repair guru Pat Kauffman, “and you can easily modify them to black-panel specs—they’re the same transformers.” Both eras kick out 50 watts—though there are quite a few variations, such as Bassman 100, 135, and more than a few others, we’re simply talking about the “Bassman”—and host a tube set that includes a pair of 6L6 power tubes, a trio of 12AX7s, and an ECC81.
“I think the right person can get their own signature tone from these, and it’s not gonna be one that will come from a Fender, it’s not gonna come from a Marshall.” —Jeff Bober on the Ampeg Gemini
This era of Fender Bassmans deliver plenty of headroom, but unlike the Fender “reverb” amps, Kauffman points out there’s an extra gain stage, which he says “gives it a little more grit that makes them kind of unique.”
Jeff Bober, former PGamp columnist and cofounder of Budda Amplification, adds that the silver-panel Bassmans “compress earlier, which might be a little opposite of what they were going for, so you can push the front end a little easier.”
Even better, Kauffman points out that they’re “easily serviceable. That’s key number one—all the parts are available.”
Ampeg Gemini
This Ampeg Gemini II combo includes a 15" speaker.
Photo by Pat Kauffman
If you feel like you’ve seen an Ampeg combo in most studios you’ve ever entered, you probably wouldn’t be exaggerating. And there’s a good chance that a lot of those were an Ampeg Gemini or Gemini II, offered starting in the mid ’60s, with a few variations over its life, from 22 to 30 watts, with speaker offerings ranging from a single 12" to a 15", and in later eras with more watts and more speaker configurations.
Because of their size, these are less common on stage than they are in studio, but Bober—who is a proud native of Ampeg’s hometown of Linden, New Jersey—says of the Geminis as well as the smaller, and also very cool, 12-watt Ampeg Jet, “They have their own unique sound, they’re not all that loud to start with so if you’re in a situation where you can crank an amp a little bit, these are really good to do it.”
Jeff Bober founded Budda and EAST Amplification and was the author of PG’s Ask Amp Man column.
These full-featured combos have onboard reverb and tremolo, and they use a set of 7591 power tubes. Bober points out these are “more of a hi-fi-sounding, very full-bodied tube” that he describes as “somewhere between a 6V6 and a 6L6 power-wise, but with a different tonality.” He adds, “I think the right person can get their own signature tone from these, and it’s not gonna be one that will come from a Fender, it’s not gonna come from a Marshall.”
While these amps are known for their reliability as well as well as their unique sound, Kauffman points out that the phase-inverter tube, a 7199, has gotten expensive in the modern market: “A lot of times, they’ve been changed out to different tubes, or they have a little converter adapter in, so that’s something to look out for.”
Traynor YBA-1 Bass Master
With two inputs per channel, it’s easy to “jump” channels with a patch cable to extend the voice of the Traynor YBA-1.
Photo by Thunder Road on Reverb
Beloved by both guitarists and bassists, the 45-watt Traynor YBA-1 circuit was the company’s first offering in 1963, when it was called the Dyna-Bass. By the next year, it was retitled the Bass-Master and the title stuck. While the company didn’t have the name recognition of a Fender or Ampeg, they developed an underground reputation that is still going strong. In 1969, Traynor provided the backline to 1969’s Toronto Rock ’N’ Roll Revival concert, where the Plastic Ono Band recorded their Live Peace in Toronto 1969 live album, and which was later celebrated in the 2022 documentary REVIVAL69: The Concert That Rocked the World.
The YBA-1’s simple 3-band EQ control set and 2-knob “range expander” make for easy tone-sculpting, and jumping the channels with a small patch cable opens its voice even wider. Kauffman calls the amp a “Bassman on steroids.” He points out that some models use 7027 power tubes—“basically a beefier 6L6”—and others use 6CA7s, plus a pair of 12AX7s and an ECC83. These amps are easily modified to replicate a JTM45 circuit, which is a popular change for some, but many players prefer to keep them unchanged.
“People who are Traynor fans are Traynor fans. They’ve either owned one and sold it and regret it, or they own three of them.” —Blair White on the Traynor YBA-1
Bober says that the YBA-1 is “built as good as any Fender or eyelet-board kind of design. They have probably the biggest transformers for their power rating of amps being built at that time. They’re very clean circuits, great pedal platforms, and they sound great.”
Blair White, owner of Nashville’s Eastside Music Supply, has witnessed the cult of Traynor firsthand and says, “People who are Traynor fans are Traynor fans. They’ve either owned one and sold it and regret it, or they own three of them.” Despite their reputation as well-made, reliable amps with a great tone, White notes that they’re still easy to get a hold of: “I don’t know if it’s just because it was not Fender or Marshall, but for whatever reason, you can still find those for $600 or $700.”
Sovtek MIG
This Sovtek Mig 100h is the high-gain member of the Mig family.
Photo by Brent’s Gear Depot on Reverb
Built in Russia by New Sensor starting in 1991, this head, which came in 50-, 60-, and 100-watt models, is another spin on the same tweed Bassman formula that begat the JTM45 and the Traynor YBA-1. Running a pair of 5881 power tubes and a pair of 12AX7s, the MIGs featured a solid-state rectifier and a slightly slimmed-down control set from the Bass-Master, with two independent volume controls (non-jumper-able), a 3-band EQ, and a presence knob.
In an A/B comparison with the modern EHX MIG 50, where both sound identical (or close to it), JHS Pedals’ head honcho Josh Scott has gone on the record and called the MIG 50 his “favorite amp in the history of the world.” The modern ones tend to come in a little less expensive than the vintage models, which Bober points out have an “iffy” build quality thanks to their Eastern Block components.
“They have a cascading input, so there is an extra gain stage like the JCM800s.” —Pat Kauffman on the Sovtek MIG
Kauffman agrees, “They’re a little awkward to service. A lot of the hardware is kind of cheap, so you’ll often find the jacks busting and the pots busting.” You might want to look out for a deal if you’re considering a vintage model, which could be well worth your time. Kauffman adds that the MIGs have their own cult and calls them “fantastic-sounding amps. They have a cascading input, so there is an extra gain stage like the JCM800s, so they kind of have this Marshall sound but a little more rounded.” If Scott’s comparison tells us anything, the modern version is also worth checking out.
Music Man HD-130
The powerful Music Man HD-130 in its oddball 2x10 form—that’s a lot of power to push through two little speakers!
Photo by Main Drag on Reverb
When Music Man amps hit the scene in the mid ’70s, they were unlike anything Leo Fender had set out to do with his previous designs. Gone was the simple, efficient circuitry of his earlier work. Instead, Music Man amps featured a hybrid solid-state preamp and tube power amp, with the clear target of maximum headroom.
The HD-130 was the most extreme of Music Man’s offerings, delivering a sizzling 130 watts via four 6CA7 power tubes and available in both head and combo form. (If that sounds too extreme, you could get it shrunk down to a small 2x10 combo… but with no less wattage!) The master-volume control set features two channels each with a 3-band EQ and a bright switch, plus combo models and some heads included reverb and tremolo.
Blair White, co-owner of Nashville’s Eastside Music Supply, is so passionate that he spoke to PGwhile movers were loading the store’s gear into their new location!
“Those amps are punishing!” says White. “They’re probably the most bang for your buck that you’ll get as far as power and wattage. Their unique formula certainly got the attention of some major players, and Mark Knopfler, Robbie Robertson, and Johnny Winter all counted on them at some point.”
These days, Kauffman says they remain quite reliable, but issues can arise with modern tubes. “They use high plate voltages, which tends to eat new tubes,” he explains. “If you get the electrolytic caps replaced and have the tubes biased correctly, they really should be reliable. But if you’re having a problem, it’s usually cooking power tubes because they’re a new set.” He adds that, while tube supply changes, he currently finds JJ EL34s to hold up well against the HD-130’s high voltage.
Peavey Mace
The 160-watt Peavey Mace promises extreme volume with high clean headroom plus onboard distortion and phaser.
Photo by Free Lunch on Reverb
No list of great-value amps is complete without a Peavey. Of course, their broad range of models over the years made it hard to decide which to include. At a whopping 160 watts, the Peavey Mace made the cut, if only for sheer power. It’s another hybrid amp, combining a whopping sextet of 6L6s in the power section with a solid-state preamp in both head and 2x12 combo form. Their clean headroom puts them in a class with the HD-130 and also put them onstage with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gary Rossington.
The Mace is less common than most of the others on this list, but late-’70s models are fairly easy to track down. Bober says, “If you want loud and clean, those are great amps.” But he notes that the Mace is “not the most accurate pedal platform. Drive or overdrive pedals tend to try and push the front end to get more juice, but things that have IC chips in the front end don’t respond the same way, they don’t agree to being pushed to their limits, and they don’t generate the same harmonics as a tube does.” The Mace has both a normal and effects channel, which includes distortion and reverb, as well as an onboard phaser.
Kauffman reports from his work bench that the Mace is “great and reliable.” He explains that these amps were built on a printed circuit board, and he tends to see bad solder joints when they come in for service. That’s nothing to be afraid of though. “If you have one,” he says, “you could get it cleaned up, change the electrolytic caps, and have it resoldered, and you should be fine.”
At 160 watts, you’ll want to make sure you have your earplugs handy.
We love “Cult of Personality” because it’s one of the hardest hitting riffs in the classic rock canon. Catch it on drivetime radio and it’ll get your heart pumping faster than an extra double-shot of espresso. But we also love it because it launched Vernon Reid’s guitar into the mainstream. We’re unpacking Reid’s playing—from his early days in the NYC jazz underground through his work with Living Colour and into supergroup superstardom—and his longstanding gear-acquisition-syndrome.
