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GALLERY: Nashville Amp Expo 2010

A sampling of the new, cool, and wacky amps at the second annual Nashville Amp Expo

"This is serial #1 of six Spaceboy prototypes, which Satellite builds on their Mudshark chassis. The 20-watt head contains a pair 5881 power tubes, two 12AX7s, and a 5AR4 rectifier, and the 1x12 cab has a single Celestion Gold Alnico speaker. With its Volume and Tone knobs, operation is dead simple. ""The Spaceboy offers a warm distortion reminiscent of an old Chicago-style amplifierяthink early Led Zeppelin tone,"" says Satellite's Adam Grimm. ""An LED light system runs off the speaker voltage. As you play, six blue LEDs mounted in the speaker baffle behind the grill cloth light up in a random pattern. As you continue to play, the lights get brighter and blink in increasingly random patterns. When you stop playing, the LEDs slowly fade. It takes about four minutes for the lights to fade out completely."""

On the weekend of August 21-22, amp builders, musicians, collectors, and tone fanatics from far and wide convened in Music City for the second annual Nashville Amp Expo. The organizers—Creation Audio Labs—reserved the entire Hyatt Place hotel in nearby Brentwood, Tennessee, for the event.

Hundreds of attendees roamed the hotel hallways, stopping at exhibitors' rooms to hear and test drive some of the world's finest boutique amps, and also ogle guitars, pedals, and related accessories. There were seminars too, including a guitar recording workshop led by Michael Wagener (Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Extreme, Metallica, Skid Row, Dokken, Mötley Crüe, Megadeth). Our photo gallery brings you a hint of the wild sounds and beautiful gear that made this year's Nashville Amp Expo such an exciting experience.