Fast forward to 2015: I’d been doing string-instrument repair for 15 years at a music store in North Carolina and decided to venture out and start my own lutherie business, Gayle Guitars. While visiting my parents, I found my original drawings tucked away in the attic. Knowing what I know now, I figured, why not? So, I set to the course of making a playable and ergonomic version.
This guitar (dubbed “Snoopy” by my wife) is a 2-piece swamp ash body with a black walnut drop top, a 25.5" scale rosewood neck with medium jumbo frets, three on a side headstock (an obvious homage to the Peavey Wolfgang), HSH pickup configuration with a volume/tone and series-parallel switch for the humbuckers, and 5-way super switch for the “Strat-o-Tele” treatment.
The swamp ash/walnut combo creates a great midrange “bark” that cuts through the mix without being obnoxious. The wiring creates tones for a wide range of styles, and the guitar turned out to “fit” me amazingly! It’s since become my main axe, and catches a lot of eyes at shows.
I’m glad I built this guy. It realizes a vision I always had, and it bridges the gap between my 16-year-old rocker self and the late-30s musician I’ve become. Plus, it makes me laugh every time I look at it, because you can clearly see where my head was at that age.
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As with any fuzz, signal-chain placement is key: Before a J. Rockett Audio Archer (set to clean boost) and with the fuzz’s master volume past 3 o’clock (I preferred cranked), the Raven yielded a delicious array of tones, ranging from envelopingly burly germanium sounds with cello-like sustain to more focused, nasal, and—at higher gain settings—splatty silicon sonics. With a Catalinbread Topanga placed before it, the Raven transformed into a lovely shoegaze dream, serving up all sorts of bristling harmonic textures in the hinterlands between clean tones and overt mayhem. As Pam from Archer would say, “Sploosh!”
Test gear: Squier/Warmoth baritone Jazzmaster with Curtis Novak Jazzmaster Widerange pickups, Jaguar HC50, Goodsell Valpreaux 21, J. Rockett Audio Archer, MXR Reverb, Catalinbread Topanga, Drybell Vibe Machine, Ibanez Echo Shifter.
Ratings
Pros:Stellar germanium (via new-old-stock Russian transistors) and silicon (current production) FF-style tones in one box. Crazy-low price.
Cons:
Takes up a lot of space for such a simple design. Master volume range could be tuned better—it’s uninspiring through the first 3/4 of its throw.
Street:
$130
Red Hawk Effects Raven
Red Hawk Effects
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
WARNING:
All tube amplifiers contain lethal voltages. The most dangerous voltages are stored in electrolytic capacitors, even after the amp has been unplugged from the wall. Before you touch anything inside the amp chassis, it’s imperative that these capacitors are discharged. If you are unsure of this procedure, consult your local amp tech.This particular amp is a 100-watt Artist combo powered by four 6L6s, although these amps were also available in a 50-watt version. As was typical around this time, manufacturers were packing maximum power into a minimal box. That’s not my favorite configuration, but players wanted portability along with the ability to be heard above the band, as sound reinforcement wasn’t quite as advanced as it has become. High power, of course, required a substantial speaker, and while I’ve not been able to officially verify the original speakers used in these 100-watt Sundowns, I believe they might be Celestion G12K-100s. This example has a replacement Mesa 150-watt Black Shadow, which should handle anything this amp can throw at it. Now, let’s talk features, of which it has a few unique ones.
Photo 1
Effects loop. Although effects loops were not really anything new at this point, Dennis had a distinctive approach. Often, we like to use a particular effect or two on our clean sound, but switching to an overdriven dirty sound requires a different treatment. Today there’s no shortage of loopers and switchers, but not so in 1984, so Sundown amps incorporated two passive loops: one for the clean, or “green,” channel and one for the overdrive, or “red” channel (Photo 1).
Photo 2
That feature came from the player side of the designer, I’m sure. And speaking of red and green channels, this amp sports a set of tone controls for each one, making it much more versatile than simply adding an additional gain stage for overdrive. And there’s even a tiny little circuit board on the rear of the green channel controls that contains the channel’s tone components (Photo 2), so if you’d like to tweak the tone of this channel, tweak here!
Photo 3
Power management. As I mentioned before, this amp does have a master volume, which is dedicated to the green channel, but there are additional special controls that allow the user to adjust the overall power and response of the amp (Photo 3). First up is the “governor” control. This is actually a very basic PPIMV (post phase inverter master volume), which—when used judiciously—will reduce the volume of the amp while adding a bit of a compressed feel.
Photo 4
The cool thing here is that it’s assignable to either the red (default) or the green channel, with a simple pull of the governor control, allowing you to give even the green a bit of an overdriven and compressed feel. Then there’s the “RMS” control. This is unique and I’m pretty sure Sundowns are the only amps I’ve seen utilize this design—which makes sense, since I believe Dennis received a patent for it. It consists of a 250-ohm, 5-watt, wire-wound pot (a rheostat) and a bypass capacitor (Photo 4). This is wired to the cathodes of the output tubes and actually electrically lifts the cathodes from ground, in essence turning the amp into a quasi-cathode biased amp and causing a reduction in output power. Cool and ingenious indeed!
Photo 5
This amp came to me with a pretty substantial hum, which was caused by a filter capacitor failure. The first two filter stages each utilize a pair of 80 µF 450V caps in series and are mounted on their own circuit board (Photo 5). Two are on top, the other two on the bottom. When wired in series, each pair becomes a virtual 40 µF 900V capacitor—definitely necessary, as the primary B+ voltage in this amp is just shy of 500V and is even higher when the amp is in standby. Some new caps and a good cleaning and this amp should be ready for some ’80s-style jazz-fusion … or maybe some Wrecking Crew classics.
