Bilt and Milkman collaborate on a tweed Deluxe-style amp that adds tone options and enticing styling.
Responsive with an impressively wide range of tones. Bass knob is a welcome addition. Super sleek. Successfully sags at high volumes.
Only available to Bilt owners. Expensive. Cabinet finish might not hold up to heavy gigging.
$2,999 base price (available as add-on to Bilt order, or to current Bilt owners)
Bilt Amp
biltguitars.com
There’s a good chance your first electric guitar came in a packaged set with an amp, case, cable, some picks, a tuner, and maybe even an instruction book. Mine did—and I still remember the excitement I felt while opening it on that fateful Christmas morning. The Bilt Starter Pack is a chic, high-end, customized guitar/amp combo package designed to re-capture that thrill for players with fancier tastes. And while the Starter Pack isn’t exactly designed for budget-conscious newbies, unless you already own a Bilt guitar, it’s the only way to get your hands on the new Bilt Amp.
Bilt’s first amplifier is a modern love letter to the 5E3 tweed Deluxe circuit created in collaboration with Milkman’s Tim Marcus. One interesting twist is that each Bilt Amp is made using the same tonewood and finish as the Bilt guitar it’s paired with—at least if you’re a new Bilt customer opting for the Starter Pack package. But whether you buy the Bilt Amp as part of a matched pair or to go with the Bilt you already have, it’s a great sounding take on the tweed Deluxe circuit.
The Bilt Amp Review by premierguitar
All clips recorded using Shure SM57 into an SSL 2+ interface.
- Recorded using a Bilt Relevator with Lollar JM pickups, neck position. Amp tone at noon, bass at 5, then cycling through bass knob settings (4, 3, 2, 1).
- Recorded with Creston T-Style with Lollar Gold Foils, middle position. Amp tone at noon, bass at 5, bright off, down, then up.
- Recorded with Creston T-Style with Lollar Gold Foils, neck position. Tone off, then noon, then cranked. Bass knob at 5.
- Recorded with Creston JM with Lollar JM pickups, middle position. Amp tone cranked, then lowered to noon. Bass at 5, full volume.
- Recorded with Creston JM with Lollar JM pickups, neck position. Volume at 4, then 6. Bass at 5, tone at 6.
Made To Match
The Bilt Amp cabinet design is sleek, with rounded corners and a large C-shaped cutout with white piping that recalls many vintage Valco-made Gretsch amps. Sitting next to a matching guitar—which for our demo Starter Pack was an alder, shoreline gold Relevator with a bedazzled birds-eye maple fretboard—the pair make a major statement.
The Bilt Amp is a top-quality piece of work. Our Amp’s alder cabinet was crafted at the Bilt factory in Iowa and loaded with a 12" alnico Celestion gold speaker. The electronics are handwired by Milkman in San Francisco using Jupiter capacitors, Mercury Magnetics transformers, and JJ tubes. Twelve to 15 watts of cathode-biased, class AB tone are generated via a 5Y3 rectifier tube, two 6V6 power tubes, and two 12AX7 preamp tubes. The controls include high- and low-impedance inputs, a 3-way bright switch, a power switch with a standby setting, and three oversized RCA-style knobs for volume, tone knob, and bass contour.
Click for Bass
As a hopeless tweed Deluxe enthusiast excited at the prospect of any good 5E3-style amp, I’ll admit I gave a side-eye to the Bilt’s bass knob. The single tone control of an original 5E3 is, after all, an essential part of its sound and operation. But the Bilt’s bass knob, which clicks into its five pre-set positions proved to be an asset—not least because the Bilt Amp tends to be stronger in the low end than a typical tweed Deluxe-style amp, which could have something to do with its larger enclosure (24" x 9 1/2" x 18 1/4").
Even without additional gain, the Bilt easily achieves the hallowed sagging compression that makes tweeds so legendary.
When I fired up the Bilt with relatively neutral settings to start—low volume, tone at noon, bright switch on middle/off setting—I immediately recognized the relatively fast, mid-focused response of a tweed Deluxe at lower volume. At that setting, the clean tone is warm and clear with well-rounded highs. It’s such a natural tone that particularly low volumes almost feel acoustic. It’s a cozy, organic experience. At moderate volumes, the Bilt’s Deluxe-ness still shines. There is noticeably more treble to my ears, but the mids are just as robust.
More Tone, More Volume
The Bilt’s tone knob offers plenty of range. It works dynamically with the volume control, and at low and moderate volumes, adding treble also adds bite that can push the amp to overdrive. At high volume settings, that treble is an essential part of the signature, wide-open, overdriven tweed sound. And while I could fulfill all my treble needs with the tone knob alone, there is a 3-way bright switch if you need to go that extra mile.
Cranking a tweed-style amp is a raggedly glorious feeling and the Bilt delivers on that promise. There’s a bit more body in the Bilt’s voice than a tweed Deluxe. That’s a good thing, though— especially when pedals are involved. Paired with overdrive and reverb, the Bilt turned into a saturated rock ’n’ roll monster. But even without additional gain, the Bilt easily achieves the hallowed sagging compression that makes tweeds so legendary.
Although the wattage rating is the same as a Deluxe, the Bilt feels like a louder amp, which could have something to do with the cabinet’s bigger-than-tweed-Deluxe size, alder construction, or the 50-watt speaker. Uninitiated players might be concerned about the low wattage, but the Bilt will give most players all the volume they need to soar above a band—any louder might actually be too loud.
The Verdict
There’s some danger in making an amp look this good. I’m not precious with gear, so I’d be concerned about scratching the finish on the Amp at gigs—even though it comes with a sturdy padded nylon case. And with an amp that sounds this good, I’d want to play it anywhere. I’d also want to be able to buy it—whether or not I was in the market for a Bilt guitar. So, yes, there are some obstacles to practical ownership of the Bilt Amp. Hopefully, Bilt will consider a more flexible purchase plan in the future.
Purchasing limitations aside, the Bilt Amp is a finely crafted boutique amp. It sounds amazing and does an excellent job at manifesting the essence of a tweed Deluxe—an impressive feat in itself— while adding more tone-shaping flexibility. Do matching amp and guitar tonewoods sound better together? Sure, playing the matching Relevator felt cool. But every guitar I played out of the Bilt sounded equally fantastic. That said, I won’t mind watching tone-nerds hash out that discussion in forum threads.
A gift from Gary Holt, a bastardized Jazzmaster, a Squier baritone, bountiful boards, and stacks of amps litter the rocker’s tone bunker.
The 2000s were an odd period for music sales. The decade was a tale of polar opposites. Songs and albums never exchanged hands faster (thanks to file-sharing services like Napster and LimeWire), and thus the industry's sales plummeted.
During the aughts, one of the few acts growing through the free-streaming floodwaters, were the dark, theatrical rockers My Chemical Romance who melded punk, post-hardcore, indie, and glam. Singer Gerard Way started the band in late 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. He recruited drummer Matt Pelissier (replaced by Bob Bryar in 2004), lead guitarist Ray Toro, his brother Mikey Way for bass, and in early 2002 Frank Iero joined.
As a result of their skyrocketing success, the quintet went from opening dive bars to selling out arenas in eight fast years. 2002's debut for Eyeball Records, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, was a scorcher (and sold over 3 million copies). The follow up, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, had the fist-pumping hooks for TRL, but still retained the edge for the pits. 2006's soaring anthemic concept album, The Black Parade, learned from past classics (A Night at the Opera, Sgt. Pepper, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness), became a triple-platinum smash with the title track perching them on top of two charts (Billboard's U.S. Alternative and U.K. Singles Chart). And 2010's Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys dialed back the rage and ramped up the fun producing a rushing ride.
While the band did release new music (collection of singles eventually becoming a compilation, Conventional Weapons), they took a hiatus. Iero took this an opportunity to step out from just rhythm duties and added frontman to his resume.
First releasing Stomachaches as frnkiero and the cellabration in 2014. He followed that up by forming Frank Iero and the Patience who produced Parachutes (LP) in 2016 and Keep The Coffins Coming (EP) in 2017. After surviving a harrowing accident where he was drug approximately 10 feet by a passenger bus in Australia, he found catharsis in music and created Frank Iero and the Future Violents. So far, they've dropped Barriers (LP) in 2019 and earlier this year Heaven is a Place, This is a Place (EP).
Just after putting out his offbeat, stirring 4-song collection (complete with a ghostly cover or R.E.M.'s “Losing My Religion"), the good-time guitarist virtually welcomed PG's Chris Kies into his Jersey-based home and gear haven.
In this episode, Iero introduces us to his oddball offsets and sentimental single-cuts, he explains how unusual tunings and pinky rings give his “broken" riffs an extra off-kilter sound and extra gunk, and we witness how a pandemic turned his basement into a pedal warehouse.
D'Addario XPND Pedalboard:https://www.daddario.com/XPNDRR
One of Iero’s newest guitars is this Fender American Professional II Jazzmaster finished in dark knight. (Iero calls this 6-string “Batman.”) His two favorite appointments are slight tweaks on the classic design—the responsive Panorama Tremolo and the sculpted neck heel improving access and comfortability.
Depending on the instrument and tuning, Frank will go with Ernie Ball Slinkys in various configurations of .011s to compensate for lower tunings and looser tension.
For My Chemical Romance, they’re typically tuned to standard for Future Violents stuff he rides in Eb standard.
Here’s a signature guitar owned by Iero, but it’s not his namesake instrument. He and Gary Holt become fast friends and the thrasher for Slayer and Exodus offered a guitar swap. So Iero got Holt’s ESP LTD GH-600 sig and Holt requested his Ampeg Dan Armstrong AMG100 BK reissue featured in the video for Iero and the Future Violents’ rollercoaster “Young and Doomed”.
When touring with his first solo band (Frank Iero and the Celebration), they visited a guitar boutique in a Canadian mall. He picked up a Squier Vintage Modified Baritone Jazzmaster and quickly began coming up with fresh ideas on the spot. Not wanting to deal with customs, he went online, ordered his own Antigua model and it showed up to his New Jersey doorstep before he finished the tour. Tuned to A#, the baritone was workhorse for his last full-length release, Barriers, and his just-released EP.
Always on the lookout for something unusual and different, Iero was on tour in Cincinnati scooped this Frankenstein Fender offset that has a ’50s body matched with a ’90s neck.
During My Chemical Romance’s rise, Iero’s main guitar was a white Epiphone Les Paul nicknamed “Pansy.” He’s since retired it from the road and was tired of playing similar same single-cut, humbucker-loaded guitars. As seen in this Rundown, he’s got instruments of many shapes, sizes, and configurations, but he’s always loved a white Les Paul. Wanting to bring one back into the fold, a serendipitous phone call from Thunder Road Guitars’ owner Frank Gross put this 1992 Gibson Les Paul Custom into Iero’s growing collection.
“If you’re looking for something affordable that you can rip on, I don’t think you can beat this one,” says Iero when playing this 2020 reissue of the Epiphone Coronet.
With touring plans still up in the air for 2021, Iero is unsure if he’ll go fully digital, full tube, or a hybrid approach, but he did admit that this Fender Twin Reverb will for sure be the clean tone. (And for those keeping track at home, this is the amp he played during the Rundown.)
The last Future Violents tour saw Iero bring out the aforementioned Twin Reverb and the above Supro Black Magick.
Like most of us, during the pandemic, pedalboards became fluid and tone hunting was a mind-saving pastime. Iero was no exception as you’ll see in the next few slides he has some mainstays, but nothing is permanent.
Here’s his closest gig-ready stomp station that has time-based effects and modulation on the left side (Fender Marine Layer Reverb, vintage Pearl CH-02 Chorus, old Boss DM-2 Delay, Ibanez CF7 Chorus/Flanger, and Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail). The right side is home to menace (Marshall Blues Breaker, SNK Pedals VHD Distortion/Preamp, Keeley-modded Boss BD-2 Blues Driver, and Klon Centaur). Everything is controlled by the Carl Martin Octa-Switch MkII. Utilitarian units include a TC Electronic PolyTune 2 Mini, Ernie Ball VPJR volume pedal, and a Strymon Zuma power supply.
Here’s his mess-around-the-house board (with a fine tribute to EVH) that has a pair of Strymons (BigSky and Volante), an Ibanez DE7 Delay/Echo, gold Klon Centaur, Fuzzlord Effects Drone Master, Bowman Audio Endeavors The Bowman (company ran by Rig Rundown alumnus and Against Me! guitarist James Bowman), and a Ernie Ball VPJR Tuner Pedal.
His recording board is made up of versatile staples including a 4-pack of Strymons (Ola, Flint, El Capistan, and Iridium), Bowman Audio Endeavors Fortune and Glory, and a Templo Devices Model 33 Supa vibrato.
Our columnist shares a love story about his longtime passion for the 1965 heavyweight that’s his No. 1.
Let me tell you the story of my first vintage Fender amp, which I call “No. 1"—the 1965 Super Reverb that I consider the greatest guitar amp I've ever heard and played.
When I was a teenager, in the late '80s, I had a 25-watt Fender Sidekick and a bigger, 2x12, 40-watt Marshall Valvestate. They worked well for the Gary Moore and Jeff Healey blues-rock licks I was into then. When I moved to Trondheim, Norway, in 1998 to study at the university, I went back in time and listened to classic blues from Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Albert King, B.B. King, and Freddie King. I learned they all played Fender amps, at various times, and when I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan's legendary Live at the El Mocambo concert film, where he played a Vibroverb and a Super Reverb, I knew I had to get a black-panel Super Reverb. So I got in touch with a local guitar shop called Tre45, and they helped me find a Super Reverb in the U.S.
A few months later, I paid €1,400 for a beat-up Super Reverb dated January 1965 that came via boat. The amp looked real rough and had large cuts in the aged brownish grille cloth. It had replacement Mojotone speakers with weighty ceramic magnets and large speaker coils. The shop installed a heavy-duty step-down transformer in the back to cope with 230V, making the amp extremely heavy. Despite the weight and rough looks, I loved it. It played twice as loud as my brother's 1968 transition-era Super Reverb with original square-magnet CTS alnico speakers. Back then, volume and punch meant everything, and I hadn't yet developed an appreciation for the CTS alnicos, which later became one of my favorite speakers. Neither did I have much experience with how speakers affect tone. My No. 1 sounded louder, more mellow, and creamy compared to a typical black-panel Super. Because of my amp, my brother sold his precious, vintage-correct '68.
Twelve years later, in 2010, I started trading Fender amps on a larger scale, finding them on U.S. eBay and importing them to Norway, where I swapped power transformers and did basic service like tubes and cap jobs. I eventually developed a taste for vintage-correct tone and pursued amps in original or mint condition. I was eager to learn, and systematically A/B-tested all black- and silver-panel Fender amps, with all possible speakers and circuits. I also experimented with newer replacement speakers from Weber, Jensen, Eminence, Celestion, and WGS, and tried all kinds of circuit mods.
"Because of my amp, my brother sold his precious, vintage-correct '68."
I decided to replace my Super's Mojotones with a set of vintage-correct speakers for an authentic pre-CBS sound. I found a 1965 Super in really poor technical condition and swapped the grille cloth and the factory-original CTS ceramic speakers into my No. 1. Now my amp was restored to original condition, with speakers with matching manufacturer date codes, and, more important, it sounded better! The new-old speakers added more clarity and crispness, which I particularly enjoy with a Strat's out-of-phase, quacky tone in the in-between pickup positions.
Other amps have caught my affection, too. Not surprisingly, I find the narrow-panel Fender Bassman a great amp, but unfortunately it lacks reverb, which is a big deal to me. Same goes with the Marshall JTM45 and JMP50 amps from the '60s. They have great crunch but lack some transparency and clarity when used with closed-back 4x12 cabinets. I've also had the pleasure of owning and playing some popular boutique amps, like the Two-Rock Custom Reverb, Victorias, Headstrongs, Bad Cats, and others. Compared to vintage amps, they are more robust and have high quality materials and components that survive longer on the road. I also like how the solid, thick cabinets in some modern amps produce a tight low end. All the boutique amps I've tried sounded good, different, and had more tone options than my Super Reverb, but when I played those amps for a long time or at gigs, I found myself confused with all the tonal options and I end up dialing in a sound as close as possible to a Super Reverb. I can't help it. That is how a guitar is supposed to sound, in my ears. And nothing sounds more vintage Fender than a black-panel Super Reverb, in my humble opinion.
If you haven't played one, try the huge tone and dynamic response within the big and airy 4x10 speaker cabinet of a Super. It offers a pure, natural, and transparent tone and connects with your guitar in a physical way when you crank the amp a few meters behind you on a larger stage. If you need a little more crunch and early break-up, add an Xotic RC Booster and see my April 2020 column, "How to Get Big Tones on Small Stages."
[Updated 9/3/21]