Following the success of Victory’s V4 all-valve preamp pedal line, designer Martin Kidd decided to pack the same preamp into all-in-one mini amp versions of the Jack, Sheriff, Copper, and Duchess. The V4 The Copper Guitar Amp reviewed here pairs a 4-tube preamp with a solid-state, 180-watt output stage—all in a package small enough to fit into your gig bag’s accessories pouch. Whether used on the floor alongside your pedalboard or at the backline with remote switching, it offers a boatload of flexibility.
Essential Elements
The Copper Guitar Amp is a true, stand-alone tube/solid-state-hybrid amp with surprisingly deep functionality. The unit includes six built-in Two Notes cab sims, which can be routed to the XLR output and balanced line out, or the XLR exclusively. There’s also a headphone output. And any of these outputs can be used without plugging into a traditional guitar speaker cab (the amp is load-protected). The six Chris Buck-created sims can be edited via Two Notes’ Torpedo Remote software, with the unit connected to your computer via USB, or the software can be used to load other Two Notes or third-party sims.
Controls include gain, tone (a voicing control for the upper-mids and highs), master, TB (treble boost) master, reverb (digital), bass, middle, treble, sim preset, and sim level. The treble boost is engaged via the switch on top of the amp, but it can also be activated, along with the reverb, via an optional footswitch. Curiously, the boost is governed via an output-stage control, which, as we’ll see, diminishes the amp’s flexibility a bit.
Extra connectivity includes guitar input, effects send and return (for a loop between preamp and output stage), line out, footswitch, XLR cab sim out, and speaker out (suitable for loads of 4/8/16 ohms at 180/100/50 watts, respectively). Victory also thoughtfully included a 9V DC/500 mA output to power external pedals, and there’s an on/off switch for the internal fan.
The V4 The Copper amp is rugged. It’s built into an aluminum chassis with a metal carry handle on top and vents at either end. The tube complement eschews traditional 12AX7s in the preamp. Rather, it includes three CV4014s (aka EF91s, a 7-pin preamp tube most commonly seen in a popular headphone amplifier) and a one 7-pin EC900 (6HA5).
Police Squad
I paired the V4 The Copper Guitar Amp with an open-back 1x12" cab with a Scumback J75 speaker, as well as a recording interface, studio monitors, and Audio-Technica studio headphones. How did it fare? The short answer is that this little box delivers a dynamic, articulate, authentic tube-amp-playing experience, and a wide range of moods within the Vox tone family.
Many makers chasing Vox-like voicings via alternative amp architecture are let down by flat, muddy, or brittle-sounding results. But this effort from Victory sits comfortably in the “proper tube-amp camp.” Ironically, The V4 Copper amp achieves its most accurate Vox-like performance—at least to my ears—through headphones or studio monitors and the built-in cab sims, which include an element of power-amp modeling. With a traditional guitar cab, the unit still sounds very good, but the amp’s hybrid nature is more easily belied by the absence of an EL84 output stage’s harmonic complexity and the compression you hear when pushing an AC15 or AC30 to the edge of breakup and beyond. For many, the compromise will be a fair trade for portability and convenience.
Undercover With the Vice Squad
The Copper V4 Amp boasts one of the better amp-loaded digital reverbs I’ve heard in a while. It’s got a nice taper from subtle space to lush cathedral-like atmospherics, it’s warm, and the decay is realistic. The EQ section is less obviously powerful. The tone control is effective but subtle (“mood” or “color” might be better names for the function). The treble boost certainly adds more hair and drive to the output. But from my perspective, the treble boost’s adjustment via the TB master control—there is no boost gain control—is counterintuitive, because it means both top boost gain and output level are tied to a single knob that also interacts with the gain control in the first gain stage. There’s also no independent adjustment available for crunch- or lead-gain settings.
Given this configuration, you can’t easily dial in an edge-of-crunch tone from the standard gain control and push it over the edge with the boost without getting pretty hairy and fuzzed out. Adding an independent lead channel of sorts would have provided far more flexibility. But these options would also mean more space and weight, which is at a premium here. In spite of that, the treble boost function is still a real bonus that a lot of amps lack. And there are many good sounds to be found by putting it to use.
The Verdict
The V4 The Copper Guitar Amp is a cleverly designed bundle of Vox-voiced jangle and chime in an impressively compact package. The general tone is lively and dynamic, and onboard Two Notes cab sims increase its usability dramatically. The controllability of the boost/lead function is a little compromised with just one control, but there’s a lot of power and potential to tap into in the V4 The Copper Guitar Amp—especially when you factor in the size and fair price.
V4 The Copper Hybrid Guitar Amplifier Pedal
- Fully fledged hybrid guitar amp in a pedalboard-friendly format
- Features a tube-powered V4 preamp section with a Class D power section
- 180W at 4 ohms, 90W at 8 ohms, and 45W at 16 ohms
- Delivers the sparkle, chime, and grit of a full-sized The Copper amp
- Footswitchable treble boost adds high-end shimmer
- Bass, middle, and treble controls shape your sound to perfection
- Digital reverb adds varying levels of ambiance to taste
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Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
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