When boutique designer Tony Bruno built the Underground 30—the amp that went on to be his signature piece—it was often lauded for successfully adding something of an American accent to the classic Vox tonality. The appeal of an amp that can live with a foot on either side of the Atlantic is obvious. It’s also easier said than done. But it’s an idea that must have stewed in the brains of Bruno and the folks at Vox alike, because now, 15 or so years after the Underground 30 hit the streets, we have the first products from an official mind meld between these two amplifier legends—the 35-watt TB35C 1x12 combo and the TB35C2 2x12 reviewed here.
For those expecting these latest Voxes to be an Underground 30 lurking in diamond grille-cloth clothing, the TB35C2 may be a surprise. With four 6V6s, it’s unmistakably American-voiced at its core—even with twin, 65-watt Celestion G12-65 12" speakers. But just as Bruno found a way to sprinkle a little California valve flavor on his EL84-driven Underground 30, the TB35C2 has more than a little Vox tone on tap—as well as a lot of very unique and individual tones that make it a worthy canvas for everyone from heavy blues-rock dudes to jangle-pop songsmiths.
Dark Disguise
You’d be forgiven for assuming that the TB35C2 is some kind of custom derivative of the AC30 line at first glance. The dimensions are virtually identical, and the control-panel location and top-mounted handles all are vintage Vox design elements lifted from the company’s most famous design. But there are subtle differences, too: It’s covered in vinyl that’s smoother than the cloth-like texture of the classic AC30 covering, there’s no strip of gold just above the grille, and the grille cloth itself is crises-crossed by diamonds of silver thread rather than Vox’s trademark green, red, and white thread. As a whole, the amp has a more aggressive, get-down- to-business stance—sort of a surly James Bond to the AC30’s more refined John Steed.
Once you begin to navigate the Bruno’s controls, you realize you’re most certainly not dealing with a classic AC30-style circuit. There’s a simple array of six chicken-head knobs for Master Volume, Reverb, Bass, Middle, Treble, and Volume. But there are also three switches that can have enormous impact on your tone. The first is a ultra-valuable master volume bypass (labeled “MV Bypass”), which greatly enhances the TB35C2’s flexibility and headroom. A very self-explanatory and useful Bass Boost switch is located between the Bass and Middle knobs. And the more curiously named (but apt) Macho switch—which can also be activated with the included footswitch—boosts both gain and midrange to effectively give the single-channel amp a separate lead channel, albeit without the benefit of completely different EQ settings.
The guts of the amp look impressively streamlined and built for power, with three 12AX7 preamp tubes, and a 12AT7 and 12AX7 dedicated to the spring-reverb unit.
Bossy in Black
For players accustomed to distinctly Vox or Fender tones, the TB35C2 can confound in the most pleasant way. With tone controls at high noon, Master Volume bypassed, and Volume at about 10 o’clock, the Vox was an agreeable companion to all of my test guitars—a Fender ‘E’ Series Stratocaster, a Rickenbacker 330, and a humbucker-equipped Gibson SG. At these relatively neutral settings, the TB35C2 is more blackface Fender than anything else—harmonically even, but a little bit spongy like a bigger, brawnier Deluxe or even a tweed Bassman, but not as bright as a Twin.
Dial up a little more mids and treble, though, and the TB35C2 comes alive with a brighter, more articulate top end that sounded lovely with ringing R.E.M.- and Smiths-style arpeggios and Heartbreakers-flavored jangling on all three guitars, as well as round-but-biting single-note stabs from the SG. Kicking on the Macho switch gave the same lead lines from the SG an enormously dirty and long-sustaining girth that you could drive to the brink of very controllable feedback with a bump of the amp’s volume. While big and certainly very present, the Macho feature doesn’t facilitate a lead tone nearly as cutting as, say, Paul Kossoff stabbing at a Marshall or Jeff Beck hurling sonic daggers from a top-boost AC30—or a Fender Twin, for that matter. Instead, it ranges between the big, blunted—but still overtone-rich—clout of a Hiwatt or Neil Young’s tweed tones. The Macho switch also does a fine trick of retaining detail for high-gain chording—preserving the chiming characteristics of the Rickenbacker, as well as the Stratocaster’s bridge pickup, while adding an impressively muscular growl that could drive a ’70s-style power trio. Further, whether the Macho function is on or off, the amp always retains a remarkable touch sensitivity.
Given the TB35C2’s impressive bass presence, it struck me as odd at first that Bruno included the Bass Boost switch. If you play in a power trio or duo, it will give you substantially more weight, but it can be a bit woofy unless you dial in a fair bit of high and mid content—and it can swallow a lot of harmonic content from humbuckers. Still, it’s an impressive sound that also sounds great with fuzz or an overdrive geared for Tube Screamer-style midrange, and it could set your bass player free to explore some Jack Bruce-flavored runs high up on the fretboard.
Rest assured, the TB35C2 has a place in more civilized environments, too. It’s very sensitive to volume adjustments on your guitar, and it can be dialed back into zones where the amp retains its full and impressive harmonic spectrum without taking on a bullying presence in a band mix. Roll back your guitar volume, and it remains chiming and rich, again, provided you’ve dialed up enough mid and high end. And the Master Volume is effective for scaling back the amp’s burlier characteristics— even though you do sacrifice a little of the clarity you get in bypass mode.
The Verdict
Versatile, beautifully designed, and relatively affordable, the Vox TB35C2 is an intriguing intertwining of the Bruno and Vox tone and design philosophies. The fundamentally American voice of Bruno’s 6V6 circuit is rangy enough to flirt with very Vox-like performance, but it also has a personality all its own—inhabiting a kind of ideal tone zone where the rounded edges and give of a Bassman live alongside the sharp clarity and grit of an AC30. There are lots of in-between-and-beyond tones at your fingertips, depending on your pick attack and how aggressively you dial up the mid and highs. And it loves pedals too, especially fuzzes and boxes with pronounced midrange. Those hoping for a Vox-branded Underground 30 will be better served opting for a Top Boost AC30 or one of Bruno’s own amps, but if you’re interested in covering a lot of stylistic ground with a single amp that retains a distinct character and color, this impressive collaboration will make a solid cornerstone for your sound.
Buy if...
you’re after a 6V6-powered, do-itall tube combo with a foot on the British Isles.
Skip if...
you believe anything other than EL84s in a Vox amounts to blasphemy.
Rating...
Street $1399 - Vox Amplification - voxamps.com |
Onstage, Tommy Emmanuel executes a move that is not from the playbook of his hero, Chet Atkins.
“My biggest decision every day on tour is, ‘What do I want to start with? How do I want to come out of the gate?’” Emmanuel explains to me over a video call. “A good opener has to have everything. It has to be full of surprise, it has to have lots of good ideas, lots of light and shade, and then, hit it again,” he says, illustrating each phrase with his hands and ending with a punch.“You lift off straightaway with the first song, you get airborne, you start reaching, and then it’s time to level out and take people on a journey.”
In May 2023, Emmanuel played two shows at the Sydney Opera House, the best performances from which have been combined on his new release, Live at the Sydney Opera House. The venue’s Concert Hall, which has a capacity of 2,679, is a familiar room for Emmanuel, but I think at this point in his career he wouldn’t bring a setlist if he was playing Wembley Stadium. On the recording, Emmanuel’s mind-blowingly dexterous chops, distinctive attack and flair, and knack for culturally resonant compositions are on full display. His opening song for the shows? An original, “Countrywide,” with a segue into Chet Atkins’ “El Vaquero.”
“When I was going to high school in the ’60s, I heard ‘El Vaquero’ on Chet Atkins’ record, [1964’s My Favorite Guitars],” Emmanuel shares. “And when I wrote ‘Countrywide’ in around ’76 or ’77, I suddenly realized, ‘Ah! It’s a bit like “El Vaquero!”’ So I then worked out ‘El Vaquero’ as a solo piece, because it wasn’t recorded like that [by Atkins originally].
“The co-writer of ‘El Vaquero’ is Wayne Moss, who’s a famous Nashville session guy who played ‘da da da’ [sings the guitar riff from Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’]. And he played on a lot of Chet’s records as a rhythm guy. So once when I played ‘El Vaquero’ live, Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’” Emmanuel says, laughing.
Atkins is the reason Emmanuel got into performing. His mother had been teaching him rhythm guitar for a couple years when he heard Atkins on the radio and, at 6, was able to immediately mimic his fingerpicking technique. His father recognized Emmanuel’s prodigious talent and got him on the road that year, which kicked off his professional career. He says, “By the time I was 6, I was already sleep-deprived, working too hard, and being forced to be educated. Because all I was interested in was playing music.”
Emmanuel talks about Atkins as if the way he viewed him as a boy hasn’t changed. The title Atkins bestowed upon him, C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player), appears on Emmanuel’s album covers, in his record label (C.G.P. Sounds), and is inlaid at the 12th fret on his Maton Custom Shop TE Personal signature acoustic. (Atkins named only five guitarists C.G.P.s. The others are John Knowles, Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed, and Atkins himself.) For Emmanuel, even today most roads lead to Atkins.
When I ask Emmanuel about his approach to arranging for solo acoustic guitar, he says, “It was really hit home for me by my hero, Chet Atkins, when I read an interview with him a long time ago and he said, ‘Make your arrangement interesting.’ And I thought, ‘Wow!’ Because I was so keen to be true to the composer and play the song as everyone knows it. But then again, I’m recreating it like everyone else has, and I might as well get in line with the rest of them and jump off the cliff into nowhere. So it struck me: ‘How can I make my arrangements interesting?’ Well, make them full of surprises.”
When Emmanuel was invited to contribute to 2015’s Burt Bacharach: This Guitar’s in Love with You, featuring acoustic-guitar tributes to Bacharach’s classic compositions by various artists, Emmanuel expresses that nobody wanted to take “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” due to its “syrupy” nature. But for Emmanuel, this presented an entertaining challenge.
He explains, “I thought, ‘Okay, how can I reboot “Close to You?’ So even the most jaded listener will say, ‘Holy fuck—I didn’t expect that! Wow, I really like that; that is a good melody!’ So I found a good key to play the song in, which allowed me to get some open notes that sustain while I move the chords. Then what I did is, in every phrase, I made the chord unresolve, then resolve.
Tommy Emmanuel's Gear
“I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head,” Emmanuel says. “So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever.”
Photo by Simone Cecchetti
Guitars
- Three Maton Custom Shop TE Personals, each with an AP5 PRO pickup system
Amps
- Udo Roesner Da Capo 75
Effects
- AER Pocket Tools preamp
Strings & Picks
- Martin TE Signature Phosphor Bronze (.012–.054)
- Martin SP strings
- Ernie Ball Paradigm strings
- D’Andrea Pro Plec 1.5 mm
- Dunlop medium thumbpicks
“And then to really put the nail in the coffin, at the end, ‘Close to you’ [sings melody]. I finished on a major 9 chord which had that note in it, but it wasn’t the key the song was in, which is a typical Stevie Wonder trick. All the tricks I know, the wonderful ideas that I’ve stolen, are from Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Diamond. All of the people who wrote really incredibly great pop songs and R&B music—I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a -half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
I share with Emmanuel that the performances on Live at the Sydney Opera House, which include his popular “Beatles Medley,” reminded me of another possible arrangement trick. In Harpo Marx’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks, I preface, Marx writes of a lesson he learned as a performer—to “answer the audience’s questions.” (Emmanuel says he’s a big fan of the book and read it in the early ’70s.) That happened for me while listening to the medley, when, after sampling melodies from “She’s a Woman” and “Please Please Me,” Emmanuel suddenly lands on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
I say, “I’m waiting for something that hits more recognizably to me, and when ‘While My Guitar’ comes in, that’s like answering my question.”
“It’s also Paul and John, Paul and John, George,” Emmanuel replies. “You think, ‘That’s great, that’s great pop music,’ then, ‘Wow! Look at the depth of this.’”
Often Emmanuel’s flights on his acoustic guitar are seemingly superhuman—as well as supremely entertaining.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
A trick I like to employ as a writer, I say to Emmanuel, is that when I’m describing something, I’ll provide the reader with just enough context so that they can complete the thought on their own.
“You can do that musically as well,” says Emmanuel. He explains how, in his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” he’ll play only the vocal melody. “When people are asking me at a workshop, ‘How come you don’t put chords behind that part?’ I say, ‘I’m drawing the melody and you’re putting in all the background in your head. I don’t need to tell you what the chords are. You already know what the chords are.’”
“Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’”
Another track featured on Live at the Sydney Opera House is a cover of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” (which Emmanuel then jumps into an adaptation of the Australian bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda”). It’s been a while since I really spent time with There GoesRhymin’ Simon (on which “American Tune” was first released), and yet it sounded so familiar to me. A little digging revealed that its melody is based on the 17th-century Christian hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which was arranged and repurposed by Bach in a few of the composer’s works. The cross-chronological and genre-lackadaisical intersections that come up in popular music sometimes is fascinating.
“I think the principle right there,” Emmanuel muses, “is people like Bach and Beethoven and Mozart found the right language to touch the heart of a human being through their ears and through their senses ... that really did something to them deep in their soul. They found a way with the right chords and the right notes, somehow. It could be as primitive as that.
Tommy Emmanuel has been on the road as a performing guitarist for 64 years. Eat your heart out, Bob Dylan.
Photo by Jan Anderson
“It’s like when you’re a young composer and someone tells you, ‘Have a listen to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,”’ he continues. “‘Listen to how those notes work with those chords.’ And every time you hear it, you go, ‘Why does it touch me like that? Why do I feel this way when I hear those chords—those notes against those chords?’ I say, it’s just human nature. Then you wanna go, ‘How can I do that!’” he concludes with a grin.
“You draw from such a variety of genres in your arrangements,” I posit. “Do you try to lean into the side of converting those songs to solo acoustic guitar, or the side of bridging the genre’s culture to that of your audience?”
“I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a-half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
“If I was a method actor,” Emmanuel explains, “what I’m doing is—I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head. So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever. I always think it has to have that kind of orchestral, not grandeur, but … palette to it. Because of the influence of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Elton John, especially—the piano guys—I try to use piano ideas, like putting the third in the low bass a lot, because guitar players don’t necessarily do that. And I try to always do something that makes what I do different.
“I want to be different and recognizable,” he continues. “I remember when people talked about how some players—you just hear one note and you go, ‘Oh, that’s Chet Atkins.’ And it hit me like a train, the reason why a guy like Hank Marvin, the lead guitar player from the Shadows.... I can tell you: He had a tone that I hear in other players now. Everyone copied him—they just don’t know it—including Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, all those people. I got him up to play with me a few times when he moved to Australia, and even playing acoustic, he still had that sound. I don’t know how he did it, but it was him. He invented himself.”
YouTube It
Emmanuel performs his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” illustrating how omitting a harmonic backdrop can have a more powerful effect, especially when playing such a well-known melody.
