A lighter, more flexible take on a British-voiced ’60s stalwart: The PG Victory VC35 "The Copper" review.
RatingsPros:Great AC30 tones. Light, portable design. Cool modern options. Cons: No spring reverb or tremolo. Street: $1,399 Victory VC35 “The Copper” victoryamps.com | Tones: Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value: |
Okay, imagine you’re designing a modern amp based on a vintage model. Would you cling as closely as possible to the original sound, or try to update it for current tastes? Would you mimic the original appearance exactly or create something free of visual associations?
There’s no right answer, of course. We’ve seen magnificent clones of vintage amps, and equally magnificent amps that have only tentative ties to the old designs that inspired them. U.K. amp builder Victory’s take on Vox’s AC30, "The Copper," manages to walk both sides of the traditional/new-school divide. Simply put, the amp sounds like a fine old AC30, even with the addition of a few welcome updates. But cosmetically, it’s a big, bold departure. Or maybe it’s a little bold departure.
A Lighter Shade of Wail
The first thing you notice about Victory’s VC35—even before unboxing—is how light it is. The head-only unit weighs roughly 18 pounds, which is less than half the heft of an equivalent modern Vox head. It’s petite, too: roughly 13.5" x 7.5" x 7.5". It comes with a cute padded canvas gigbag with a shoulder strap. Ask anyone who’s ever earned a hernia from hoisting a heavy Vox (me, for example): An AC30 you can sling over one shoulder is a lovely concept.
The concept isn’t all that’s lovely here. The VC35 head resides in an all-metal enclosure—there’s not a splinter of wood. Most of the housing is perforated, facilitating tube-cooling air circulation and lightening the load. The seven chicken-head knobs are one of the few nods to traditional Vox style. Removing a couple of screws provides access to the tubes. Removing a couple more reveals the inner workings. It’s a neat, attractive layout, mixing traditional through-hole components with modern parts. Tubes and sockets are board-mounted. The transformers are from England’s Demeter Windings, while the caps are from South Korea’s Samwha company.
We tested the Copper with Victory’s V12-VB, a vertically oriented 2x12 cabinet housing a Celestion G12H and a G12M Greenback. (You hear a close-miked G12H in the demo clip.) A fabulous-sounding cab in a matching copper color, it does a magnificent job of supporting the Copper—in both senses.
True vs. New
Like an AC30, the Copper employs four EL84 power tubes, plus two 12AX7/ECC83 preamp tubes. But the VC35 has no rectifier tube. It is solid-state. There’s also an EF184 pentode driving the preamp’s tone stack. Unlike a vintage-style AC30, the Copper is a single-channel model minus a tremolo circuit. Meanwhile, the reverb is digital—one reason the amp weighs so little. The splash comes from a Spin FV-1, the same chip used in so many current digital reverb pedals. It doesn’t sound very spring-like, but it’s an attractive sound that gets the job done. There’s also a mono effects loop.
Another departure is the amp’s biasing scheme. The Copper’s low-power switch drops the wattage from 35 to 12. According to Victory, “In low-power mode, which uses lower plate voltages, the amplifier runs entirely in cathode bias, which is effectively Class A operation. This mod produces very natural and sparkling tones reminiscent of early British amplifiers.” But in high-power mode, the amp employs both cathode and fixed bias. “Many EL84 amplifiers exceeded the recommended plate dissipation,” explains the manufacturer. “This can lead to early valve failure and the output stages running extremely hot, even when they are not being played.” (Huh. Maybe that’s one reason vintage AC30s tend to require frequent service.) The Copper requires biasing when installing new power tubes. But Victory eases the process with external biasing points and an excellent bias walkthrough in the manual.
Chime and Grime
Despite those departures from AC30 orthodoxy, the Copper sounds like a fine original. Most sounds exhibit a crackling presence, while low-gain tones are luscious and smooth. At higher gain, you get that uniquely Vox distortion, with its violent upper-mid breakup. Check out the first riff in the demo clip, played on the bright bridge pickup of a 1963 Stratocaster. Hear that spattery sizzle on the riff’s highest notes? To me, that’s Vox in a nutshell. It’s not a “pretty” sound, but man, the energy! Hearing distortion like that always makes me wonder why the hell the guitar community describes this property as “chime,” since bells ring clear and pure at high frequencies. Sounds more like “crackle” or “shatter” to me! (Reviewer dismounts hobbyhorse.)
The Copper dispenses a wealth of authentically ’60s-sounding tones. Meanwhile, several modest but meaningful additions stretch the amp’s range. A bass-cut switch filters out the lowest lows at the amp’s input. The result isn’t terribly dramatic with clean tones, but at high-gain it can be the difference between focus and blubber. (Not that there aren’t many uses for blubber tones!) Meanwhile, the mid-boost switch expands the treble control’s bandwidth so that cranking the knob gooses more upper mids. Finally, there’s a separate low-pass tone control in addition to the bass, mid, and treble pots. Situated in the circuit after the phase splitter, it can help tame excessively bright sounds. These features don’t compromise the retro-sounding tones, but they help you get louder and dirtier than a traditional AC30 without crapping out.
The Copper sounds stunning through its optional companion cabinet. But given the amp’s meager weight, I imagine some players will pair it with something smaller than the 47-pound V12-VB. For example, I connected the Copper to a Universal Audio Ox, a combination load box and speaker emulator. Pretty much every virtual speaker pairing was lovely.
The Verdict
I seriously dig the Copper. It offers a fantastic rendition of the classic AC30 formula with such modern refinements as bass cut and mid boost switches, digital reverb, half-power mode, and an effects loop—all in a light, compact, and attractive package. The Copper is also available in a 1x12 combo model for $2,499, and a deluxe head-only version with true spring reverb and a tremolo circuit for $1,749.
Watch the First Look:
Selenium, an alternative to silicon and germanium, helps make an overdrive of great nuance and delectable boost and low-gain overdrive tones.
Clever application of alternative materials that results in a simple, make-everything-sound-better boost and low-gain overdrive.
Might not have enough overdrive for some tastes (although that’s kind of the idea).
$240 street
Cusack Project 34 Selenium Rectifier Pre/Drive Pedal
cusackmusic.com
The term “selenium rectifier” might be Greek to most guitarists, but if it rings a bell with any vintage-amp enthusiasts that’s likely because you pulled one of these green, sugar-cube-sized components out of your amp’s tube-biasing network to replace it with a silicon diode.
That’s a long-winded way of saying that, just like silicon or germanium diodes—aka “rectifiers”—the lesser-seen selenium can also be used for gain stages in a preamp or drive pedal. Enter the new Project 34 Selenium Rectifier Pre/Drive from Michigan-based boutique maker Cusack, named after the element’s atomic number, of course.
An Ounce of Pre-Vention
As quirky as the Project 34 might seem, it’s not the first time that company founder Jon Cusack indulged his long-standing interest in the element. In 2021, he tested the waters with a small 20-unit run of the Screamer Fuzz Selenium pedal and has now tamed the stuff further to tap levels of gain running from pre-boost to light overdrive. Having used up his supply of selenium rectifiers on the fuzz run, however, Cusack had to search far and wide to find more before the Project 34 could launch.
“Today they are usually relegated to just a few larger industrial and military applications,” Cusack reports, “but after over a year of searching we finally located what we needed to make another pedal. While they are a very expensive component, they certainly do have a sound of their own.”
The control interface comprises gain, level, and a traditional bright-to-bassy tone knob, the range of which is increased exponentially by the 3-position contour switch: Up summons medium bass response, middle is flat response with no bass boost, and down is maximum bass boost. The soft-touch, non-latching footswitch taps a true-bypass on/off state, and power requires a standard center-negative 9V supply rated at for least 5 mA of current draw, but you can run the Project 34 on up to 18V DC.
Going Nuclear
Tested with a Telecaster and an ES-355 into a tweed Deluxe-style 1x12 combo and a 65 Amps London head and 2x12 cab, the Project 34 is a very natural-sounding low-gain overdrive with a dynamic response and just enough compression that it doesn’t flatten the touchy-feely pick attack. The key adjectives here are juicy, sweet, rich, and full. It’s never harsh or grating.
“The gain knob is pretty subtle from 10 o’clock up, which actually helps keep the Project 34 in character.”
There’s plenty of output available via the level control, but the gain knob is pretty subtle from 10 o’clock up, which actually helps keep the Project 34 in character. Settings below there remain relatively clean—amp-setting dependent, of course—and from that point on up the overdrive ramps up very gradually, which, in amp-like fashion, is heard as a slight increase in saturation and compression. The pedal was especially fantastic with the Telecaster and the tweed-style combo, but also interacted really well with humbuckers into EL84s, which certainly can’t be said for all overdrives.
The Verdict
Although I almost hate to use the term, the Project 34 is a very organic gain stage that just makes everything sound better, and does so with a selenium-driven voice that’s an interesting twist on the standard preamp/drive. For all the variations on boost and low/medium-gain overdrive out there it’s still a very welcome addition to the market, and definitely worth checking out—particularly if you’re looking for subtler shades of overdrive.
You may know the Gibson EB-6, but what you may not know is that its first iteration looked nothing like its latest.
When many guitarists first encounter Gibson’s EB-6, a rare, vintage 6-string bass, they assume it must be a response to the Fender Bass VI. And manyEB-6 basses sport an SG-style body shape, so they do look exceedingly modern. (It’s easy to imagine a stoner-rock or doom-metal band keeping one amid an arsenal of Dunables and EGCs.) But the earliest EB-6 basses didn’t look anything like SGs, and they arrived a full year before the more famous Fender.
The Gibson EB-6 was announced in 1959 and came into the world in 1960, not with a dual-horn body but with that of an elegant ES-335. They looked stately, with a thin, semi-hollow body, f-holes, and a sunburst finish. Our pick for this Vintage Vault column is one such first-year model, in about as original condition as you’re able to find today. “Why?” you may be asking. Well, read on....
When the EB-6 was introduced, the Bass VI was still a glimmer in Leo Fender’s eye. The real competition were the Danelectro 6-string basses that seemed to have popped up out of nowhere and were suddenly being used on lots of hit records by the likes of Elvis, Patsy Cline, and other household names. Danos like the UB-2 (introduced in ’56), the Longhorn 4623 (’58), and the Shorthorn 3612 (’58) were the earliest attempts any company made at a 6-string bass in this style: not quite a standard electric bass, not quite a guitar, nor, for that matter, quite like a baritone guitar.
The only change this vintage EB-6 features is a replacement set of Kluson tuners.
Photo by Ken Lapworth
Gibson, Fender, and others during this era would in fact call these basses “baritone guitars,” to add to our confusion today. But these vintage “baritones” were all tuned one octave below a standard guitar, with scale lengths around 30", while most modern baritones are tuned B-to-B or A-to-A and have scale lengths between 26" and 30".)
At the time, those Danelectros were instrumental to what was called the “tic-tac” bass sound of Nashville records produced by Chet Atkins, or the “click-bass” tones made out west by producer Lee Hazlewood. Gibson wanted something for this market, and the EB-6 was born.
“When the EB-6 was introduced, the Bass VI was still a glimmer in Leo Fender’s eye.”
The 30.5" scale 1960 EB-6 has a single humbucking pickup, a volume knob, a tone knob, and a small, push-button “Tone Selector Switch” that engages a treble circuit for an instant tic-tac sound. (Without engaging that switch, you get a bass-heavy tone so deep that cowboy chords will sound like a muddy mess.)
The EB-6, for better or for worse, did not unseat the Danelectros, and a November 1959 price list from Gibson hints at why: The EB-6 retailed for $340, compared to Dano price tags that ranged from $85 to $150. Only a few dozen EB-6 basses were shipped in 1960, and only 67 total are known to have been built before Gibson changed the shape to the SG style in 1962.
Most players who come across an EB-6 today think it was a response to the Fender Bass VI, but the former actually beat the latter to the market by a full year.
Photo by Ken Lapworth
It’s sad that so few were built. Sure, it was a high-end model made to achieve the novelty tic-tac sound of cheaper instruments, but in its full-voiced glory, the EB-6 has a huge potential of tones. It would sound great in our contemporary guitar era where more players are exploring baritone ranges, and where so many people got back into the Bass VI after seeing the Beatles play one in the 2021 documentary, Get Back.
It’s sadder, still, how many original-era EB-6s have been parted out in the decades since. Remember earlier when I wrote that our Vintage Vaultpick was about as original as you could find? That’s because the model’s single humbucker is a PAF, its Kluson tuners are double-line, and its knobs are identical to those on Les Paul ’Bursts. So as people repaired broken ’Bursts, converted other LPs to ’Bursts, or otherwise sought to give other Gibsons a “Golden Era” sound and look ... they often stripped these forgotten EB-6 basses for parts.
This original EB-6 is up for sale now from Reverb seller Emerald City Guitars for a $16,950 asking price at the time of writing. The only thing that isn’t original about it is a replacement set of Kluson tuners, not because its originals were stolen but just to help preserve them. (They will be included in the case.)
With so few surviving 335-style EB-6 basses, Reverb doesn’t have a ton of sales data to compare prices to. Ten years ago, a lucky buyer found a nearly original 1960 EB-6 for about $7,000. But Emerald City’s $16,950 asking price is closer to more recent examples and asking prices.
Sources: Prices on Gibson Instruments, November 1, 1959, Tony Bacon’s “Danelectro’s UB-2 and the Early Days of 6-String Basses” Reverb News article, Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars, Tom Wheeler’s American Guitars: An Illustrated History, Reverb listings and Price Guide sales data.
Some of us love drum machines and synths, and others don’t, but we all love Billy.
Billy Gibbons is an undisputable guitar force whose feel, tone, and all-around vibe make him the highest level of hero. But that’s not to say he hasn’t made some odd choices in his career, like when ZZ Top re-recorded parts of their classic albums for CD release. And fans will argue which era of the band’s career is best. Some of us love drum machines and synths and others don’t, but we all love Billy.
This episode is sponsored by Magnatone
An '80s-era cult favorite is back.
Originally released in the 1980s, the Victory has long been a cult favorite among guitarists for its distinctive double cutaway design and excellent upper-fret access. These new models feature flexible electronics, enhanced body contours, improved weight and balance, and an Explorer headstock shape.
A Cult Classic Made Modern
The new Victory features refined body contours, improved weight and balance, and an updated headstock shape based on the popular Gibson Explorer.
Effortless Playing
With a fast-playing SlimTaper neck profile and ebony fretboard with a compound radius, the Victory delivers low action without fret buzz everywhere on the fretboard.
Flexible Electronics
The two 80s Tribute humbucker pickups are wired to push/pull master volume and tone controls for coil splitting and inner/outer coil selection when the coils are split.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.