The Risen Legacy amplifier is a 50-watt salute to the high-wattage non-master volume tube amps of yesteryear. In their heyday, amps like the Marshall Super Lead were often the top choice for rock guitarists who needed stadium-filling power to overcome underpowered PA systems. With today’s efficient sound systems, such immense power may seem impractical—which is what makes the Legacy a genuinely special amp.
Those old non-master volume amps were more than just loud—they were unruly, even brutish, and their wide sound and organic feel are nearly impossible to replicate without such immense power. Instead of attempting to approximate those tones in a low-wattage package, Risen met the challenge by equipping the Legacy with the copious headroom and power needed to accurately produce those tones, along with separate preamp channels for American- and British-style tones.
White Lightning
The Legacy concept originated with a 100-watt bass amp custom-ordered from Risen by a blues guitarist. Risen electronics guru Drew Tooley tweaked the circuit to better handle a guitar’s frequency range, added a second channel, and halved the wattage for softer top-end response.
dig into the strings.
The Legacy is an eye-catching head that oozes vintage vibe. Its ply enclosure, white Tolex covering, black piping, and illuminated logo are flawless. Also, Tooley and business partner Lucas DeShong are committed to using locally sourced materials and labor, and most Legacy parts are built near Risen’s Indiana home base, including the custom hand-wound transformers, faceplates, and chassis.
While the Legacy’s controls resemble those of a Marshall Super Lead or a Vox AC50, Risen says the circuit is an original design. The interior components are beautifully hand-wired on turret board. There are two independent preamp channels, each with its own tubes, controls, and high- and low-gain 1/4" inputs.
The first channel uses a pair of 12AX7s and has a three-band EQ and volume controls. The second channel, fueled by a single EF86 preamp tube, has a volume knob and a single tone control. The 50-watt output section relies on a pair of 6L6GC power tubes and a GZ34 rectifier. The features are strictly traditional—there’s no effects loop, channel switching, or onboard power attenuation, though you can switch channels via an A/B box connected to both inputs.
Ratings
Pros:
Big, bold clean tones. Headroom for days. Rich, articulate overdrive. Superb build quality.
Cons:
Channels not footswitchable. Pedals needed for overdrive at low volume.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$1,875
Risen Legacy
risenamps.com
Big ’n’ Rich
The Legacy captures the best qualities of coveted non-master volume amps. There’s massive headroom, making this an excellent amp for squeaky-clean country, blues, and rock tones. With a Gibson Les Paul Custom and a Marshall JCM800 4x12, the 12AX7 channel sounds clear and articulate, with a glassy old-school plexi vibe. Clean notes and chords have buttery sustain that becomes seemingly endless at higher volumes. The treble, midrange, and bass controls have fairly wide ranges and greater effect on the tone than the controls on some now-legendary non-master volume amps, such as the Super Lead. The touch responsiveness is off the charts—the amp growls softly or barks with fierce high end depending on how hard you dig into the strings.
The EF86 channel sounds similar to the first, but with rounder body and even more headroom. Much of this is due to the unique design of the EF86 tube. This cool-sounding tube actually has more gain than a 12AX7, but in the right preamp circuit it can remain clean even with strong input signals. As a result, this channel’s bold, brash tones hit you in the chest harder and faster, and with a decidedly British upper-midrange presence. The tone pot acts as a combined high-/low-pass filter, providing an enormous range of colors despite being the sole tone control. The channel also takes pedals (especially overdrives and fuzzes) extraordinarily well, letting them expand and breathe without noticeable coloration or congestion at gig-level volumes.
The amp’s stellar overdrive tones blend a Marshall plexi’s midrange roar with the warm, supple lows of a Fender Bassman pushed to the brink. They’re also extremely touch-responsive—you can go from ripping Powerage-era Angus Young crunch to slightly gritty tones perfect for blues leads and broken chords. The overdrive tones come at a price, though: You must crank the amp’s volume to push the output section into overdrive, and the Legacy is really loud at volume settings above 11 o’clock. Remember, amps of this ilk were originally designed to not distort, which let them produce wide-open clean tones with fast attack and plenty of volume. You might want to invest in an attenuator if you want to enjoy the Legacy’s overdriven tones without pissing off your neighbors.
The Verdict
There’s nothing quite like the response, feel, and sheer muscular power of a healthy non-master volume tube amp, and the Legacy earns top marks in all three categories. It offers a wealth of outstanding clean and overdriven tones, and has an exceptional ability to handle stompboxes without muddying up. Players demanding modern features such as master volumes, channel-switching, and effects loops can probably find more appropriate amps within the Legacy’s price range. But for those of us who can’t resist the thrill of pure high-voltage rock ’n’ roll, the Legacy is downright killer.
Watch the Review Demo:
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.
Once the news of the Oasis reunion got out, Sadler Vaden hit YouTube hard on the tour bus, driving his bandmates crazy. The Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit guitarist has been a Noel Gallagher mega-fan since he was a teenager, so he joined us to wax poetic about Oasis’ hooks, Noel’s guitar sound, and the band’s symphonic melodies. What are Sadler’s favorite Oasis jams? And if he ever shares a bill with Oasis and they ask him onstage, what song does he want to join in on?
