It’s a beautifully built box too. The Buffalo FX Ram’s Head uses the same enclosure as Painter’s last fuzz, the Germanium. It’s taller than most pedals, which may take some getting used to. One reason for the unusual enclosure is a quick-release 9-volt battery drawer, which might remind Muff fanatics of Pete Cornish’s famous clones. No need to fuss with wires or connectors—just slide the battery into place. (You can also power the pedal with a center-negative 9-volt barrel adaptor.)
The straightforward controls mirror the original: sustain, level, and tone. Input and output jacks are at the crown of the box, and there’s a small blue power indicator LED next to the footswitch.
Ratings
Pros:
Excellent Muff-style leads with extra midrange to cut through the mix.
Cons:
Enclosure can be a bit awkward/blocky on a crowded pedalboard.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$205
Buffalo FX Ram's Head
buffalofx.com
Stepping Out of the Shadows Because the original Ram’s Head is so closely associated with David Gilmour’s tones from Animals and The Wall, I hooked up a Stratocaster and an Orange OR50 with EL34s to approximate Gilmour’s classic rig. Running a clean output on the amp, I engaged the Ram’s Head with sustain maxed. This setting was a bit aggressive for most of Gilmour’s leads, but dialing back the gain to 3 o’clock let me nail the sustained bends from “Dogs.” However, the maximum-sustain setting proved excellent for mining Tony Iommi’s Vol. 4 lead tones, especially after adding a slight tone bump and switching to a Les Paul with humbuckers. The extra dirt lends a gritty bite to metal-tinged solos without inducing overwhelming feedback.
In a full-band setting, the Buffalo was a revelation. You sometimes need an extra overdrive or EQ pedal to make a Muff heard within a raging band, but not with the Ram’s Head. Painter’s tweaks provide a hot edge that cuts through dense band arrangements with output to spare. Even paired with a dark, reverb-drenched Fender Twin Reverb, the Ram’s Head easily finds a toehold for lead work or rhythm riffing. I performed an A/B test between the Buffalo and several other Muff-style pedals lurking around my rehearsal space, and the advantages of Painter’s mods shone brightly. The Buffalo usually sounded slightly cleaner, with greater midrange clarity.
The Verdict This is the second Buffalo FX fuzz box I’ve reviewed, and my expectations were high. Steve Painter hand-wires, assembles, tests and screen-prints each box, and his dedication shows. The Buffalo FX Ram’s Head’s added midrange presence increases the circuit’s versatility without sacrificing the power you want from a Muff. It’s equally happy with single-coils and humbuckers, and sounds great through both American- and British-style amps. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a rig this Ram’s Head won’t work with.
One respected company that’s diving into this sort of bass gear is North Carolina-based Port City Amplification. Builder Daniel Klein’s Wave guitar cabinets are on the road with the likes of Keith Urban, Greg Howe, and David Ryan Harris (John Mayer band), and his boutique amps are gaining ground, too. Klein also makes Wave cabinets for bass, and he has just added the Orleans preamp to his growing line of bass products.
Straight, No Chaser
The handwired Orleans is a no-nonsense preamp without the compressors, DIs, flashing lights, effects, and other bells and whistles we’re accustomed to seeing in a lot of bass gear these days. This fact—along with the Orleans’ minimalist aesthetics—will initially be seen as a shortcoming to some bassists, but a breath of fresh air to others.
The Port City’s solid-aluminum chassis helps keep the preamp light—4 pounds—which is a good thing, since you’ll also be using an external power amp. The front panel has a vintage feel with its pie-piece knobs for controlling the volume, 3-band EQ, and master volume. The Orleans’ back panel is about as simple as it gets: The aluminum plate anchors a hardwired power cable, a fuse receptacle, and a single, unlabeled output jack.
Dance with Me
To test the Orleans, I paired it with a QSC QX3 power amp and an Eden 115XLT cabinet. My test basses were a Sandberg California TM with active electronics, and a passive ’75 Fender P. The Port City’s simple layout and clear-cut controls make it very easy to navigate, so dialing in the Orleans was not difficult at all. I set the EQ at 12 o’clock across the board and was immediately enveloped in warm low end with a bit of midrange bark—a great ’70s punk tone. When I backed off the mids and ever so slightly decreased the treble and bass, the Orleans gave me a vintage fliptop-type tone that made my P bass sound very much at home—it was a sound I would really dig for studio work.
When I initially flipped the thick toggle, I wasn’t very happy with result—my bass suddenly sounded muddy. The thick switch doesn’t behave like a typical exciter, where you set your tone and then thicken it with the exciter circuit afterwards. With the Orleans, I found that you have to think of the thick switch as another part of the EQ and carefully adjust the knobs to complement it. Once I rolled off the bass a little and a dialed in a slight mid boost, the Orleans took a new liking to my P, making it sound even more like they were made for each other. I preferred playing the P without thick engaged, however, because it allowed the bass’ nuances to shine brighter.
Ratings
Pros: Variety of studio-quality tones—from vintage to modern.
Cons: Pricey. Lacks features many players are accustomed to finding in other similar gear.
Tones:
Playability/Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street: $1,299
portcityamps.com
One of the things I liked most about how the Orleans sounded with my ’75 Precision was how it seemed to add 10 years to its lifespan, giving it a truly vintage sound. I wouldn’t necessarily call the Orleans a miracle worker, but if you have a bass that needs a little help, this preamp will color it up very well.
Next I tried the Orleans with my active-pickup Sandberg—again starting with the Orleans’ controls at noon—and the amp handled everything I threw at it. The tone was mostly accurate, although slightly pointed. With the active bass, the amp seemed to react better with the thick switch engaged, enhancing the active tone enough to delight any slap player. The preamp stayed even and true, even when I dug in hard at high volumes, and only broke up when I dimed the volume and lowered the master.
The Verdict
With their first entry into the realm of bass preamps, Port City has produced a well-constructed unit with a straightforward approach. It sounded equally impressive with both passive and active basses, too, yielding everything from warm, vintage-flavors with my Fender P bass to taut, powerful slap tones with my Sandberg. With its spartan features, the Orleans isn’t for everyone—but Port City isn’t building it for the masses, either. This boutique, handwired preamp is sonically rich and will fit in with just about any genre of music, so it is going to appeal to some serious tone hounds out there. The price is certainly boutique, but if you’re passionate about your sound and prefer separate amp-and-preamp rigs, there’s a solid case to be made for reaching past the ordinary and making a visit to Port City.
Channel Linking without the Fuss
Like Dr. Z’s Remedy amp, the Antidote achieves much of its versatility via creatively configured volume controls. Decades ago some inspired tone seeker found you could link two input channels on Marshall plexis and Hiwatts to blend the high and normal inputs. Dr. Z modifies the equation (and eliminates the need for that little 1/4" cable) by offering one input and utilizing two volume controls to mix channels. The high input knob adds top-end shine, while the normal channel has a darker personality.
The Antidote’s power section uses an ultra-linear output transformer and runs two Genalex Gold Lion KT66 power tubes (reissues of the clear glass originals). Purists may scoff at anything short of new-old-stock, gray-glass Genalex KT66s, but the reissues are powerful as hell and don’t cost a fortune. The preamp section utilizes three 12AX7s, and there’s a 5AR4 rectifier.
Another important feature is the front panel’s modern/vintage toggle. The vintage voicing tends toward tweed Fender Bassman rumble—fat with ample low end. Flipping to the modern setting focuses the midrange, enabling everything from Blue Cheer-style rage to more ’70s-style flavors. You control both voicings via a single tone section (3-band EQ plus a presence knob). You can also use a footswitch to bypass the EQ section for savagely loud high-gain lead sounds. There are separate outputs for 4 , 8 , and 16 cabs.
Like all Dr. Z amplifiers I’ve played, the Antidote is expertly crafted. It’s handwired at the company’s home base in Cleveland, Ohio, and my review model is covered in blonde vinyl. (Black and red are also available.) The 27-pound head is constructed from 1 1/4" birch. Its corners are reinforced with metal brackets, and it rests on four extra-large rubber feet. In addition to a jagged metal “Z” nameplate, this model is emblazoned with a serpent-entwined caduceus, a clever play on the amp’s medical-sounding name and an elegant match for the Antidote’s clean, uncomplicated aesthetic.
The Volume Man ComethFirst off, this thing is “holy $#!t” loud. If you seek bedroom levels with serious crunch, forget it. With no master volume, you need to crank the Antidote to get its 45 watts cookin’. That said, lower volume levels are more than suitable for clean tones, though you’ll still need to give the amp a fair bit of gas to get the fullest low-end tones. Pegging the normal volume at 10 o’clock with the high volume around 8 o’clock produces a clean-ish Marshall-type tone, albeit on the darker end of the spectrum.
The KT66 power tubes are often associated with Clapton’s Model 1962 “Bluesbreaker” sound, and the Antidote mimics that classic Marshall combo well. The picking response is exemplary—punchy with a resonant, bell-like attack that gets dirtier the harder you dig in. Keeping the toggle in vintage mode opens up room to explore these sonic regions, and pairing the Antidote with humbuckers helps nail those Clapton tones. Switching to a Fender Jaguar, I found myself rolling back the amp’s presence to accommodate the brighter single-coils. Setting both volume controls to noon summons tones akin to a driven JTM45 or Bassman. Expect crunchy clarity with well-defined bass heft.
Flipping the character switch to modern provides a significant mid boost that usually requires some EQ tweaking for both humbuckers and single-coils. The amp’s overdrive capabilities blossom in this setting, where you get an extra spoonful of output.
Ratings
Pros: Handwired, high-quality machine for fans of old-school amps. Simple and versatile control layout.
Cons:Live at Leeds tones require Live at Leeds volume.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street: $1,899
drzamps.com
Paired with humbuckers, the Antidote is a heart-stopping, Thin Lizzy-style hard-rock machine, rich with sustain and natural compression. Dirtier settings also yield smooth, singing sustain, but remain airy in the upper-mid frequencies, with an elastic picking response.
Both closed and open-back cabs work great with the Antidote, though I preferred the gloriously sharp snap of a 4x12 paired with the KT66s. Adding pedals to the mix showcases the Antidote’s clarity. Fuzz pedals are especially effective—even the chainsaw buzz of an EarthQuaker Devices Hoof Fuzz retains its unhinged but harmonically rich voice.
The Verdict
Dr. Z amps aren’t exactly cheap, but they’re beautifully built. Take care of the Antidote, and it’ll probably take care of you for a very long time. This 45-watter isn’t for high-gain freaks, but it delivers aggressive hard-rock tones and enough volume to sail over the loudest band. It will capture the hearts of vintage-Marshall and tweed-Bassman lovers. It rewards old-school overdrive methods—namely, working your guitar’s volume knob. The prismatic cleans turn on a dirty dime if you give it gas, with humbuckers providing a heavier crunch at lower volumes. If vintage Marshall tones have eluded you, or if you like the idea of JTM tones plus a little something extra, Dr. Z does indeed have the Antidote.