Premier Guitar features affiliate links to help support our content. We may earn a commission on any affiliated purchases.
NAMM '12 - Ampeg Heritage R-12R Reverbrocket Demo
PG's Charles Saufley is On Location in Anaheim, CA, for the 2012 NAMM
Show where he visits the Ampeg booth. In this segment, we get to see and
hear a demo of their newest guitar amplifier -- Heritage R-12R
Reverbrocket.
PG's Charles Saufley is On Location in Anaheim, CA, for the 2012 NAMM
Show where he visits the Ampeg booth. In this segment, we get to see and
hear a demo of their newest guitar amplifier -- Heritage R-12R
Reverbrocket.
Thanks to some key years working at a celebrated music store, this band of brothers has the goods.
The Band Royale, the Chicago-based brotherly “yacht metal” outfit, know a thing or two about gear—guitarists Joel and Zach Bauman, plus bassist Marc Najjar, all worked at Chicago Music Exchange, one of the premier music shops in North America. PG’s Chris Kies traveled deep into the band’s bunker in Chicago for this Rig Rundown with Najjar and the Bauman brothers.
This 1972 GibsonLes Paul Custom was Joel’s first “real” guitar, which he bought from CME. It’s all original except for the tailpiece, and weighs in at a whopping 11 pounds. Joel keeps it in open D6 tuning.
Mock Mockingbird
Someone brought this fake Mockingbird into CME one day, and Joel decided he had to have it. It boasts neckthrough construction with maple and mahogany, a Bill Lawrence dual blade pickup, brass nut, and heftier .012-gauge strings. The original builder must’ve liked the sticker he added to the body; it’s underneath the lacquer.
Warming Up
While Brian Carsten was still an amp tech at CME, Joel bought this Carstens Amplification Warm Machine off of him—the first he ever made. It’s designed around a master-volume, 50-watt Marshall head circuit, with a bit more warmth. Joel has had this one for over two decades now, and runs it through a Fender Bassman 2x12 cab with Celestion Creamback speakers.
He’s also been experimenting with a Quilter Overdrive 200 for a lighter solution, which he runs through a Bergantino 2x12 cabinet—Joel calls the cab and Quilter combo a “game-changer.”
Joel Bauman’s Pedalboard
The jewel of Joel’s board is a 1981 Ibanez Tube Screamer, gifted to him by Josh Klinghoffer. There’s also a Durham Electronics Sex Drive, EHX Micro POG, Xotic EP Booster, Friedman BE-OD, Boss CE-2W, Strymon El Capistan, and Strymon Flint, plus a Korg Pitchblack Advance tuner.
Holesome
Zach Bauman isn’t bothered by the gaping hole in his 1990 Gibson SG; it gives the guitar a whole lot of character. This guitar has a Gibson T-Top Burstbucker in the bridge, and has been modded to have just two pots for master tone and volume. Zach strings it with .011–.052s.
Painted Paul
Zach snagged this 1979 Les Paul while working at CME, and scraped off a nasty previous paintjob with a card before getting to work making it his own. A friend painted the headstock, and another made him this custom pickguard. It’s also got T-Tops in the neck and bridge.
Mig Buff
Zach loves his Sovtek Mig 60 head, which he plays through a cab he built himself at a pipe-organ shop in Denver. Every glue joint is lined with thin leather for maximum air tightness, and it’s stocked with Celestion G12M Greenback speakers.
Zach Bauman’s Pedalboard
On Zach’s board, we find a Klon clone, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Boss VB-2W, Ibanez Mini Chorus, Strymon Flint, and Strymon El Capistan, along with a Dunlop Volume (X) pedal and a TC Electronic PolyTune.
Bergantino’s Best
Najjar has deep love for Holly and Jim Bergantino and their Bergantino Audio Systems products. He plays with both a Forte and Forte HP Ultra—a 2000-watt prototype—through a Bergantino HDN112 cab and special 3x10 cab.
Bass for Babies
Najjar’s Sandberg Forty Eight finished in shoreline gold, nicknamed the “golden baby,” was the first of its kind.
Going to California
This Sandberg California TT4 has ’70s-style J-bass pickups and a 34” scale. Najjar gets a “Geddy Lee-style” vibe from it.
Marc Najjar’s Pedalboard
Najjar’s tone temple is topped off with a Bergantino Super Pre brass preamp into his Neural Quad Cortex.
Khruangbin is a band that moves freely in negative space. They don’t deal in negative vibes, mind you, but the spaces in between objects—or in music, between notes and tones. In Khruangbin’s case, negative space isn’t quite as empty as it seems. In fact, a lot of it is colored with reverberated overtones, which is an aesthetic well suited to Mark Speer’s instrument of choice. Because if you want to color negative space without being a space hog, there are few better means than a Stratocaster.
Speer’s signature Stratocaster, is not, in the strictest sense, a classically Strat-like specimen. Its bridge and neck pickups, after all, are DiMarzio Pro Track humbuckers, with a design informed more by PAFs than Fender single coils. Nor is it modeled after a priceless rarity. Speer’s main guitar is a humble ’72 Stratocaster reissue from the early 2000’s. But the Speer signature Stratocaster is a thought-provoking twist on classic “Stratocaster-ness,” and one well-suited to the atmospherics that mark Khruangbin’s music, but also soul, reggae, jazz, and any other expression where clarity and substance are critical.
Mr. Natural Takes It In Stride
I have to admit—and no doubt some of you will disagree—for most of my life, as an early- to mid-1960s-oriented aesthete, an all-natural-finished Strat with an oversized headstock looked flat-out wrong. My opinion on the matter has softened a bit since. And I think the Speer Stratocaster is beautiful, elegant, and does much the flatter the Strat profile. The pronounced grain in the ash body is lovely, and it certainly doesn’t reflect the drop in ash quality that many feared when ash-boring beetles started to decimate swamp ash supplies. It also looks great against the milk-white single-ply white pickguard and all-white knobs (another nice study in negative space).
Elsewhere, many features are authentically 1972. The 1-piece, 3-bolt maple neck with a 7.25" fretboard radius boasts a micro-neck-adjust feature as well as the practical and cool-looking bullet truss rod. The tuners also feature early ’70s-styled machine covers. The neck itself feels great—slightly less chunky, perhaps, than early ’70s Strats I’ve played, and, oddly, not worlds apart from the neck on my Mexico-made ’72 Telecaster Deluxe, which has a much flatter 12" radius. Some of the similarities in feel may have to do with the jumbo frets, which here give the gloss urethane fretboard a slinky, easy touch. Less delicate players (like me) who tend to squeeze when chording should check out the Speer before purchasing to make sure they don’t pull everything sharp. The frets do make string bends feel breezy, though. Other details, apart from the jumbo frets, that deviate a bit from 1972 Fender spec include a bone nut and Graphtec saddles and string trees.
Warmth of the Sun
The DiMarzio Pro Tracks dwell in an interesting tone space. They’re built with ceramic magnets (vintage Strat and Gibson PAFS were made with alnico magnets) with a resistance of about 7.7 k ohms, which is in the range of a vintage PAF humbucker but hotter than most vintage Stratocaster pickups. In terms of tone signature, they sound and respond a little more like PAFs than Stratocaster pickups, too, which aligns with DiMarzio’s design objectives. But in the neck pickup in particular, the Strat-iness is very present. And when I switched back and forth between a Stratocaster and PAF-equipped SG as baselines for comparison, I marveled at how well the DiMarzios retained qualities of both. It’s hard to know how much Fender’s 25 1/2" scale factors into lending the extra bit of Fender color. But the sound is distinctly, authentically, Speer-like. (For the record, I replicated much of Speer’s circa 2018 signal chain for this test, including a Fender Deluxe Reverb, Dunlop Cry Baby, Boss PH-3 and DS-1, MXR DynaComp, and a Echoplex-style pedal).
The PAF qualities of the DiMarzios are most pronounced in the bridge pickup, which is much burlier and thicker than a Stratocaster single coil. The one single coil on the guitar meanwhile, the middle pickup, will sound and feel familiar to any old-school Stratocaster player. It’s also perfect for chasing Jerry Garcia tones if you’re selecting the Speer for its likeness to Jer’s “Alligator.” The real treat among the Speer’s many sounds, though, is the number 4 position, which combines the neck pickup and middle pickup out of phase. It’s snarky, super-focused, and just a little bit nasty, especially with overdrive and treble bump from either a wah, OD, or boost pedal.
The Verdict
For those players who fall in love with the comfort, feel, and looks of a Stratocaster, only to find it a bit thin-sounding for their purposes, the Mark Speer Stratocaster is an intriguing option. The humbuckers deftly thread the needle between Stratocaster and PAF tonalities, with a distinct lean toward the latter, and the out-of-phase number 4 position is a cool sound that lends the Speer Strat expansive smooth-to-nasty range. Like so many Mexico-made Fenders, the quality is superb. And while the $1,499 price tag represents a Signature Series bump compared to the similar $1,209 Vintera II ’70s Stratocaster, the Speer’s extra tone range and ash body do a lot to soften any sticker shock. If the options here fit your style, it could be well worth the extra dollars.
Darkglass Electronics is a bass player’s company. And like many bass-centric brands, they sometimes seem determined to ensure that guitar players aren’t the only ones having fun when it comes to amps and effects. If that’s true, the DSP-driven Anagram may be their most impressive form of revenge yet.
All The Things, All So Small
The Anagram is a sleek unit with just three footswitches and six knobs above the touch screen. Plug in the unit (there’s no on/off) and the screen lights up, welcoming you to your journey. It’s an inviting interface, and it’s hard to avoid the impulse to just start tapping and scrolling.
Connection options are plentiful: There’s a send and return that can be configured as a stereo effects loop or a mono loop and expression pedal input, a 1/8" headphone jack, and a USB-C port along with two 1/8" MIDI ports for connecting an external MIDI controller and sending MIDI. Four outputs take up half of the back panel, with two XLRs and two 1/4" jacks.
Looking Through the Darkglass
There are 19 pages of tutorial you can scan on the touch screen after the initial power up, but that shouldn’t be discouraging. The Anagram is, in general, easy to grasp. There are three modes that can be used to navigate its many features. Preset mode uses footswitches to move between presets, though there will be an audible gap when you switch between them. Stomp mode allows you to use the footswitches to toggle between three virtual stompoxes within a preset, so you can, for instance, use the chorus on a bridge and overdrive for your bass solo. The deeper scene mode enables you to seamlessly switch between scenes, which can include completely different groups of pedals and settings. Think of it as an octopus switching multiple stomps and turning knobs for you all at once.
Three screen views are available: chain, bindings, and name. Chain view provides the most pedalboard-like representation of the signal path. This is where you can manage and route your preset’s effects in an efficient, more “analog” way. It’s intuitive and the most direct way to create a preset from scratch or reshape an existing one. Bindings mode allows access to parameters within a preset and enables you to assign the most critical controls to the six knobs at the top of the Anagram. Name mode displays—you guessed it—the name of the active preset. It’s the easiest readout to see in a low-light stage setting. But if any of the individual views don’t serve your purposes, the modes can be combined in multiple configurations.
The Anagram makes editing global settings a breeze. Hold down the sixth knob to enter mixer mode, where you can control the L/R and XLR outputs—either individually or linked for consistent volume—as well as the headphone and master outputs. Tapping the “EQ” box in this screen takes you to the very precise global EQ, where you can adjust gain, width, and frequency in a range from 25 Hz to 16.0kHz.
Ana-tons of Tone
With more than 50 effects (Darkglass says that thousands of additional effects and amps are available via integration with the Neural Amp Modeler), Anagram's factory presets are a great place to begin exploration. I jumped down the rabbit hole starting with Factory preset 01—“harmonic booster.”In this preset, there are six elements in the chain, and when one of the six knobs along the top row are pressed, the corresponding effect goes dark, signaling that the effect is off. The same six knobs also control user-defined parameters within the effect, or a virtual speaker cab, if you switch one into the chain. Once you’re happy with your tweaks, you tap the three dots on the touch screen and save the preset. It’s really simple. Swapping effects within a preset is just as quick—tap the pedal icon you want to change, and you’ll jump straight to its edit screen.
While the sounds are superb, the Anagram truly shines in its ease of programmability and the precision with which you can switch things up.
Paired with my passive, J-bass-style Bluesman Vintage Eldorado, the harmonic booster preset was enough to make my day. Though there are 12 effect blocks available—or 24 in parallel—in that preset, only five are used in its factory preset form, permitting me to add rich chorus and octave to the already satisfying tone. The depth of familiar effects and amps is impressive. With searing overdrives, signature Darkglass pedals, and a super-wide range of bass-centric effects, I was like a kid in a candy store. And there are also 20 cab options and a boatload of mic options that can be situated in different positions relative to the cab. The options are seemingly endless.
The Verdict
The Anagram is ideal in a lot of settings. For fly dates, it’s compact and easy to re-program if, say, you add a new song to the set on a whim. Provided there is a proper P.A., the unit is truly all you need to get the job done. Able to run the gamut of vintage and modern sounds, it could be a cover-band bass player’s best friend. And while the sounds are superb, the Anagram truly shines in its ease of programmability and the precision with which you can switch things up. From an economic standpoint, the Anagram is the equivalent of purchasing several traditional floor pedals … and then getting hundreds more for free. At just under $1,200, that’s math that makes sense.
After their Covid-delayed, smash-success reunion tour a few years back, My Chemical Romance plotted the Long Live the Black Parade North American stadium tour this past summer.
PG’s Chris Kies joined the run at Soldier Field in Chicago, and before the show, he rendezvoused with techs James Bowman, Josh Schreibeis, and Joe Saucedo—who handle Frank Iero, Ray Toro and Mikey Way’s rigs, respectively—for a look at the axes, amps, and effects the heavy-hitting emo titans are using these days.
After Iero got this Castedosa Marianna Semi Hollow, it became the show starter for this summer’s tour. This, and all other guitars, are tuned down a half step with Ernie Ball Paradigm strings (.011–.052).
Bury Me in White
Iero favors Ernie Ball StingRays like this one, in matte “Stormtrooper” white. The only mod on this guitar is the addition of Luminlay dots on the side of the neck.
One and Done
This 1992 GibsonLes Paul gets played only for the title track off the band’s 2006 record, The Black Parade.
Under Pressure
This tiny, light Abernethy Guitars electric takes Bowman forever to string. If anyone has tips, send them his way.
Purple Reign
After using Marshall Super Lead heads with the Dookie mod on the previous tour, Iero found these slick purple heads and brought them to Dave Friedman to match the Dookie specs and add some EQ tweaks. These two, a main and backup, are responsible for the bulk of Iero’s sounds.
A Fender Twin Reverb onstage is responsible for “small-amp sounds,” while a Twin Reverb Tone Master underneath it sends a clean DI signal for the mix in Iero’s in-ear monitors.
Welcome to the Rack Parade
Iero’s backstage rack includes three main racks of effects, all powered by Strymon Zumas.
The first carries a Mesa Boogie 5-Band Graphic EQ, Amaze by Analogman Prince of Tone, Bowman Audio Endeavors Bowman Overdrive, JHS Hard Drive, and Hayashi Craft Trick Gain.
Drawer two is about modulation, and includes a Boss TR-2, MXR Phase 100, Boss DM-2W, EarthQuaker Devices Ghost Echo, EHX Micro POG, and EHX Holy Grail.
The last drawer bears a Jackson Audio Twin Twelve, EHX Deluxe Memory Man, Ibanez Tube Screamer Overdrive Pro, and Bowman Audio Bellyacher.
Toro’s Top
Toro plays this 1978 Les Paul to start the show, including tracks “The End.,” “Dead!,” and “House of Wolves.” He runs .011–.052-gauge strings on all his guitars.
Second Fiddle
This sunburst Les Paul has been outpaced by the black ’78, but it still comes out for “Welcome to the Black Parade” and “Famous Last Words.”
Super 6
This 2005 Fender Custom Shop Telecaster sees action on six tunes in the band’s set.
Ray Toro’s Amps
A head combo of a Marshall JMP and Metropoulos Amplification Metro (both running into Fryette PS-100s) comprise Toro’s main tones, while an Amplified Nation Wonderland Overdrive 1x12 combo is used for solo sounds, and a Fender Deluxe Reverb handles cleans. Toro’s signal is pumped through two 4x12 cabs—one Marshall, one Bad Cat.
Ray’s Really Rockin’ Rack Rig
A Shure Axient wireless system sends his guitar’s signal to this system backstage, where it hits a Radial JX44 and a pair of RJM Effect Gizmos.
One drawer holds an MXR Duke of Tone, MXR Custom Badass ’78 Distortion, Boss GE-7, Boss CH-1, Kernom Moho, Kernom Ridge, and Wampler Gearbox.
In the next are two Boss GE-7s, two Bowman Overdrives, a Death by Audio Fuzz War, a Source Audio EQ2, a Bowman Bellyacher, and a Keeley Compressor Mini.
The third shelf is home to an EHX POG2, 1981 Inventions DRV, Chase Bliss Preamp MK II, Boss TR-2, MXR Carbon Copy, Keeley Loomer, and MXR EVH Phase 90.
A fourth level hosts a Strymon TimeLine, Strymon BigSky, and Source Audio EQ2.
Out onstage at his feet, Toro keeps a pedalboard with a TC Electronic PolyTune, a custom RJM Mastermind PBC/6X, Ibanez TS808, Bowman Audio Bowman Overdrive, EHX Micro POG, Boss TR-2, MXR Carbon Copy, and Strymon BigSky.
Strymon Zumas keep everything chugging along.
Comeback Kid
This silver-sparkle Fender Jazz bass was built for the band’s reunion tour, intended to mimic Way’s earlier signature model. It’s since been treated to more affordable Mexico-made production runs. Way runs Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky strings (.045–.105) and plays with Clayton triangle picks.
Red!
This eye-catcher was made by Fender’s Brian Thrasher, and is equipped with pickups from the Adam Clayton signature bass. Way relies heavily on this one, then switches to an identical one for down tunings.
Dodger That
Way secured permission from Major League Baseball and the Los Angeles Dodgers to use the team’s exact hue of blue on this custom instrument.
Mikey Way’s Amp
Way runs through a Fender Super Bassman head into matching 8x10 cabs, with a DI signal also running to front of house.
Mikey Way’s Effects
Way keeps things simple. Along with an Origin Effects DCX Bass and Cali76 set to push his Super Bassman, his setup includes a pair of Aguilar Agros, an MXR Sub Octave Bass Fuzz, and a Malekko B:assmaster.
The aptly named Kali distills elements of the Fortin Cali—a Plexi-inspired amp—into a 2-channel pre-amp and distortion pedal. Each channel has three gain modes—vintage, raw, and saturation—which are selectable via a mini toggle. And each mode has a very distinct vibe, which could be loosely categorized as low-end-heavy, midrangey, and high-gain-centric, respectively.
Charging right into Kali’s arms, I selected the vintage mode on Channel 1, and set the gain 2 knob to 9 o’clock. The gain 2 knob, which controls the gain level that hits the circuit’s front end, is the default gain knob for both channels. The gain 1 knob, which adds additional gain stages, only works on channel 2. But even at this modest setting, I was already into toothy distortion that was very touch-sensitive.
Wide Range of Rage
Without changing any other settings, things got significantly filthier by merely switching over to the saturation mode. And even at this lower-gain setting, the output is tailor-made for heavy rhythm in a classic metal jam. Pumping the gain 2 knob to around 3 o’clock, meanwhile, makes the Kali a very in-your-face proposition, with sounds rooted in Sunset Strip/Jose Arredondo Marshall-mod energy.
Interestingly, even though saturation mode has the most aggressive gain structure, it doesn’t feel especially compressed. It’s also the quietest of the three modes when tested across identical settings. This was especially noticeable when I switched between vintage and saturated modes at high gain 2 settings. It follows, then, that raw mode—the pure sound of the pedal without any extra gain stages and essentially the preamp only—is the loudest of the three modes.
Well Put Together, With a Bright Personality
Channel switching is handled by one of the two footswitches (the other
is for bypass) and it enables you to cascade one channel into another. In cascaded-stage mode, gain knob 1 is active and serves as a pre-gain (hence the gain 1 designation). In saturation mode, with both gain knobs at noon, switching between the channels sounds organic. Channel 2 is generally thicker and sustains bends for a tad longer. But the two channels definitely do not feel haphazardly thrown together. They are clearly cut from the same cloth.
“[It’s] a very in-your-face proposition, with sounds rooted in Sunset Strip/Jose Arredondo Marshall-mod energy."
In general, the Kali is bright, but if you need brighter, there are a pair of 3-position bright switches for each of the two channels. At low output volumes the changes offered by these bright switches are noticeable but not too dramatic. They are much more pronounced at high output volume. The active +/- EQ knobs actually have much greater impact on the Kali’s personality—particularly in the zones between 9 and 3 o’clock, where minor tweaks yield very different tonal realms.
The Verdict
The Kali comes across as a cohesive whole, yet its interactive controls and powerful EQ unlock a wide range of Plexi and modded-Plexi tones. No matter how you set it, it sounds impressive.
Zach loves his Sovtek Mig 60 head, which he plays through a cab he built himself at a pipe-organ shop in Denver. Every glue joint is lined with thin leather for maximum air tightness, and it’s stocked with Celestion G12M Greenback speakers.
![Devon Eisenbarger [Katy Perry] Rig Rundown](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/youtube.jpg?id=61774583&width=1245&height=700&quality=70&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
