For today’s mod, we're got three core pieces of gear: A StewMac ’66 D-Reverb, which is inspired by the classic Fender Deluxe; a StewMac Pre-wired speaker harness; and a ToneSpeak Austin, which is a 12-inch, 50-watt, 8 ohm speaker, but you can do this kind of speaker replacement on any 1x12 or 2x12 combo. And remember, always match the ohm rating of your amp to your speaker. If you don't do this, you could blow a speaker or damage your circuit. No bueno.
Step 1: So, let's start with our D-Reverb amp. Put a towel down on the floor or your work bench or table, to protect the amp’s face, and put your combo face down on that towel. You'll next need to take your wire clippers and cut the wires at about one inch away from the mounting posts on the speaker that they're connected to. That inch will come in handy later if you want to de-solder the wire ends from the speaker, so you can re-use the speaker later, for another cabinet.
Step 2
Step 2: With the wires separated from the speaker, unplug the wires from the 1/4-inch speaker output jack on the back of the amp, and then remove the wiring. You don 't need to have a set of loose, dangling wires in your way when you remove the speaker or install its replacement.
Step 3
Now, using your drill—set to a gentle speed—or using your screwdriver, you'll want to unscrew all the screws holding the speaker to its frame in the speaker cabinet. Be careful to place each screw in a small container as you remove them. And when you've removed them all and placed them in your container, put the lid on it. You don't want to drop a screw and have to hunt for it on your hands and knees, or misplace one, because you're going to need them to put the replacement speaker in.
Step 4
Gently lift out the original speaker.
Step 5
Inspect your replacement speaker—our Tone Speak Austin— one more time to be sure there are no obvious flaws, and then move it into place, aligning its screw holes over the screw holes in the frame.
Step 6
Open your container, and use the screws you saved to screw the new speaker gently and securely into place.
Step 7
Now it's time to wire the Tone Speak Austin speaker up. I like to use a fresh wire harness, because if you're replacing a speaker, there is a good chance the old wire harness has been in place for a while. There's nothing better than a fresh start. So, in this case, I'm using the StewMac harness, which comes pre-wired and ready to go—which saves a lot of steps. There's no wire cutting, no attaching a 1/4-inch jack or speaker post connectors to the wires. Just plug the harness’ 1/4 -inch jack into the speaker out on the back of the combo, and, since the StewMac harness is pre-wired with clips, just slide the clips over the speaker posts. You can solder those in place later, so they don't come loose, but right now you can pick up the amp, plug it into an outlet, and plug in a guitar to test the speaker. And it's gonna fire up and sound good, since the only connections you've made so far are plug and play.
Step 8
Once you know that everything works, just place the speaker back down on its face and start heating up your soldering iron. You'll want to make the joints of the speaker posts and speaker wire harness clips permanent. Otherwise, the wires will shake loose with travel or use. It's also a good idea to put a piece of aluminum foil under the area where you'll be soldering, to protect your new speaker from any drips of solder that might fall.
Austin 1250 Speaker
Balance, punch, fullness, and clarity are at the forefront of this speaker. The mids are tailored and even, enabling the articulation, openness, air, and a nice glassiness to shine through in the highs. The tight, solid, and responsive lows round out the tone and perfectly balance the detail in the highs. A very musical speaker, optimized for the ever so popular Deluxe Reverb, yet suitable anywhere you want pure American tone.
StewMac '66 D-Reverb Amp Kit
Perfect for recording and performing, the D-Reverb produces warm clarity that absolutely refuses to get lost in the mix.
One of the most popular amps ever built, the original AB763 circuit puts this amp in the happy middle between bright clarity and rich distortion. It excels in the studio and on the stage. While capable of crystal clear tones at good volume, you can push this beloved classic into beautifully saturated, touch-sensitive distortion. It's all here: clarity, distortion, and rectifier tube sag.
Made in close collaboration with Slash and the expert luthiers of the Gibson Custom Shop in Nashville, Tennessee and artfully aged by the Murphy Lab to match the original guitar, only 50 of these Collector’s Edition hand-signed guitars will be available exclusively via the Gibson Garage Nashville, alongside an exclusive VIP live performance at the Gibson Garage with the artist this summer. For more details, call the Gibson Garage Nashville (615) 933-6000.
“I used a beautiful and killer sounding 1963 ES-335 Gibson for more than a few songs on Orgy of the Damned,” says SLASH. “Gibson has now built a fantastic replica of this extraordinary guitar. Same dot neck, Bigsby tremolo, and finish. You have to check it out.”
Slash’s original ES-335 is a super clean example from 1963 which proved inspirational when recording his latest solo record, the star-studded blues album Orgy of the Damned, out May 17 on Gibson Records. In celebration of the release of Orgy of the Damned, buyers of the Collector’s Edition SLASH 1963 ES-335 will receive a rare assembly of case candy that includes a hand-signed copy of SLASH’s new album, Orgy of the Damned, a signed copy of the The Collection: Slash coffee table book, and a Certificate of Authenticity. In addition, buyers will be invited to attend a once-in-a-lifetime exclusive VIP experience at the Gibson Garage Nashville, where SLASH and his blues band will treat fans to an intimate live performance and signing event.
Photo by Gibson
For each Slash ES-335 purchase, buyers will receive two (2) tickets to attend an “Evening with Slash & Friends in Nashville, Tennessee” on June 30, 2024. This special evening at the Gibson Garage Nashville includes a live performance with SLASH and his blues band, as well as an intimate, moderated interview with SLASH and Mark Agnesi, Gibson’s Director of Brand Experience, a photo opportunity, receipt of the Slash 1963 ES-335 Collector’s Edition guitar from Gibson Custom, a copy of the new Orgy of the Damned album, and a The Collection: Slash coffee table book, all signed by SLASH. Food and Beverage for the event will be provided onsite.
*Travel expenses for the event are not included, and no cash value has been assigned to the Experience and no exchanges or refunds will be offered or given for those unable to attend the Experience.
Photo by Gibson
Slash announced he will officially release his sixth solo album, a star-studded blues record titled Orgy of the Damned, on May 17, 2024, via Gibson Records (Firebird Music distribution). A collection of 12 dynamic songs that revitalize blues classics, on Orgy of the Damned SLASH reteamed with storied producer Mike Clink and enlisted the album’s diverse guest vocalists, which include Gary Clark Jr., Billy F. Gibbons, Chris Stapleton, Dorothy, Iggy Pop, Paul Rodgers, Demi Lovato, Brian Johnson, Tash Neal, Chris Robinson, and Beth Hart. Rounding out his blues band in the studio and on the road, SLASH reunited with two of his bandmates from his Blues Ball outfit in the 90s, bassist Johnny Griparic and keyboardist Teddy ‘ZigZag’ Andreadis, and brought on drummer Michael Jerome and singer/guitarist Tash Neal.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Mark Tremonti’s relationship with PRS Guitars began in 2000 with his first signature guitar. Eight years later, he had his first signature amp, the MT 15, a successful lunchbox amp that received a Best in Show award at the NAMM show that year. The new 100-watt, 3-channel MT 100 takes Tremonti’s tone concepts to higher and louder heights.
Three Corners of a Colossus
The MT 100 is designed by amp guru Doug Sewell, who built much-revered amps under his name before Paul Reed Smith recruited him. The tube layout includes four 6L6GC power amp tubes—typical enough for a 100-watt amp. But there are eight 12AX7 preamp tubes because each channel has its own preamp section. The clean channel uses one preamp tube (V1) and the overdrive and lead channels each use two. And while the MT 100’s many knobs suggest a complicated affair, the amp is actually pretty straightforward. Each channel has its own controls for presence, master, bass, middle, treble, and gain—that’s it. On the back panel is a tube-driven, series effects loop, where you can patch in reverb or delay as desired. There’s also a very handy panel of bias jacks. A 3-button footswitch is included and there are corresponding LED lights on the switch and the amp’s faceplate (blue for clean, orange for overdrive, and red for lead), so you know which channel is engaged.
Five Years in the Making
f you only know Mark Tremonti from Alter Bridge and Creed, you’d probably assume the MT 100 is a high-gain flamethrower. It’s much more than that, though. Tremonti is an amp fanatic, and his stage setup has traditionally been pretty complex, ranging from Dual Rectifiers for dirty sounds to Twin Reverbs for clean ones. The MT 100 impressively covers much of that turf via a single amplifier.Initially the MT 100 was going to have a 2-channel design like the MT 15, but Tremonti wanted to add an overdrive channel. When I interviewed Tremonti in 2012, he talked of his love of Dumbles. The MT 100’s middle channel is inspired by his favorite Dumble, and took five years of back and forth before the design was finalized. Dumble-style amps are typically extra expensive, so the MT 100’s $1,849 price feels like a bargain for an amp that does Dumble and then some.
With Ears Wide Open
I plugged a couple of guitars into an MT 100, including a semi-hollow and a dual-humbucker solid-body with split-coil options, with the amp hooked up to a Celestion-equipped cabinet. It was easy to find sweet spots for each instrument I tried. With the clean channel’s tone controls at noon and the presence a touch lower than that, the MT 100 sounds bright and a lot like a Fender Twin, with more warmth and copious bottom end. The clean channel brings small details to life. Fingerpicked open chords laced with hammer-on and pull-off embellishments, for example, sound especially pretty. And while the clean sounds are full-bodied, they leave a lot of space for effects like delay and reverb. I do wish that the MT 100 had built-in reverb. Almost all of us have loads of effects at the ready, but it’s also nice when an amp—and clean channel—this fundamentally good enables you to plug and play with a reverb option.
The overdrive channel is a delight, particularly when I use my semi-hollow. With the tone controls all around noon, the presence at 9 o’clock, and the gain at 2 o’clock, I could cop Robben Ford and Larry Carlton fusion sounds in a jiffy. But the overdrive channel isn’t just smooth and heavy. With a bridge-position humbucker and the gain control all the way up, it was easy to tap Brit-style metal and hard rock tones.
For Tremonti fans, the lead channel is probably the MT 100’s main attraction, and it definitely lives up to expectations. Lead sounds bloom with sustain, and notes would ring forever whether humbuckers or split-coils drove the front end. Palm-muted rhythm figures felt massive—floor-shakingly massive. And though you could fairly categorize the lead channel as dark and heavy at times, it’s far from muddy. You’ll hear a lot of detail in these zones. What’s also cool is that the tone foundation of the lead channel is distinctly different than that you hear on the overdrive channel. It really comes across as two different amps rather than the same basic sound with different gain variations on each of the two heavy channels. Factor in the use of effects and you’re looking at a lot of tone possibilities. Switching between channels, incidentally, is smooth, organic, and free from the jarring pops that some channel-switching amps exhibit.The Verdict
In a lot of ways, PRS was brave to build the MT 100. One hundred watts is a lot of power to wrangle, and to get the amp to really move air it needs to be cooking at a volume level that may not be practical in a lot of gigging situations. Obviously, an attenuation option might have been a nice touch (though you can argue that’s what the lunchbox-sized MT 15 is for), and if you use a load box/speaker simulator like UA’s OX, you can still get in on the fun. In larger environments that can handle it with a big cab, though, it is at its most beastly.
PRS and Tremonti should be commended for choosing a streamlined design path, too. Sure, it has three channels, but it forgoes power-scaling capabilities, graphic EQ, the option to use different types of power tubes, a foot-switchable effects loop, or direct recording/speaker cabinet cloning outputs like so many modern amps. And while it eschews bells and whistles, the MT 100 dominates in terms of tone—each of the MT 100’s three channels is dripping with it. If an amp that offers delicious Fender Twin Reverb-meets-Bruno Underground clean tones, a dead-on Dumble-sounding overdrive channel, and a hellacious lead channel that can stand head-to-toe with the Dual Rectifiers, Uberschalls, and 5150s of the world sounds cool to you, you’re probably not going to think once about the lack of gimmicks.
