Chad Weaver gets the show back on the road despite losing nearly everything in the floods
If anyone saw the pictures I sent in place of last month's column, you know why I wasn't able to write. National media didn't talk about the flooding as much as our local news showed it but I've got to (thankfully) say I've never seen anything like that before. On Saturday May 1st, the streets began to fill up with water. As you may have read about in this month's cover story, one of those streets was Cowan Street, the location of Soundcheck rehearsal hall/gear storage and rental. It's located in downtown Nashville and housed storage lockers for more names in the music business than I have space to write in this column. Since the end of Brad Paisley's American Saturday Night Tour, we had placed all of our road gear there but were due to load out of on May 3rd. Unfortunately, it was about 36 hours too late. When I woke up on the morning of May 2nd, Cowan Street was completely flooded and Soundcheck had about 3 1/2 feet of water inside the building.
After breathing a sigh of relief that Brad's Trainwreck and all of his old Voxs were at home, I immediately started thinking of what I had on the floor of the locker, what was stacked high and wondering how I was going to pull off a brand new tour rehearsal that was set to begin the following morning. I called Brad and told him that I was going to assume a total loss until proven otherwise because we didn't have the time frame to wait and see. The first shows of the tour were in three weeks.
It took us several days to find an alternate location for the rehearsals to begin since the original one was also flooded. By the end of the first week we were in a new building and were headed over to Soundcheck to pull our waterlogged gear out. Everyone had to wear rubber boots, rubber gloves and we were all advised to wear surgical masks so as not to breathe in the moldy air inside the building. This water had about anything imaginable in it. Sewage, gasoline, diesel fuel... you name it. The advice was much appreciated. I can honestly say that's a smell I'll never forget.
We loaded our flooded gear up, took it to the new rehearsal hall, and dumped the truck in the parking lot. My guitar vault rolled down the ramp of the truck with water gushing out of the bottom. When the front of the case came off you could see how all of Brad's guitars had floated and eventually sank in the water. The muddy line on the side of the case showed that the water level was just above the neck joints on all of the guitars. They all had strings popped off of them. Some of the finishes were bubbling up and the hardware had already started rusting. The worst loss of that particular case was Brad's '52 tele that was used in the "Alcohol" video. I wound up spraying that guitar down with bleach water and rinsing it with a water hose. I can't begin to describe what an unnatural act it is to have to do that to an instrument, but if I didn't, the bacteria the wood had absorbed would rot it from the inside out. I took it apart to let the drying out phase start, but two days later it had cracked from the rear strap pin up to the neck pickup. All of the Crook Custom guitars were lost, as was the last prototype Gibson had sent for Brad's signature model.
My effects rack looked as though it had been left completely uncovered at the bottom of the Cumberland river. All of my amps and speaker cabinets were soaked and both of my work boxes were destroyed. I lost roughly 30 raw speakers, 12 speaker cabinets, 23 amplifiers, 12 guitars, and the respective road cases. After I had sifted through what could be salvaged, my total "saved" list was this: 3 guitars, 1 amp, 1 tool box, and 1 Pelican case that housed my midi pedals that controlled Brad's effect rack. Every other piece of Brad's personal road gear was gone. At this point I had the large pieces such as the effects rack, cabinets, amps and guitars all on order. Next was the small items, like tubes. 12AX7 and EL84 vacuum tubes can be cleaned by dunking them in bleach water and rising them off. Tubes with large plastic bases on them are much harder to save after water has gotten down in there. After several attempts at cleaning 6V6 tubes, I wound up tossing them all and reordering. It's amazing how many little items in your work boxes that you forget about until you need them. I'll spend another six months replacing all that was lost there.
All of our audio was spared. Sound Image thankfully didn't have any water inside their warehouse. Our lighting was inside the original rehearsal room as the water was coming into the building. The guys fork lifted the truss and lighting cases onto the stage so they were safe. Video and our set carpenters didn't fair as well. They had chest-deep water inside of their warehouses. Most of our video wall and the set were submerged as well.
About six or seven days before we were to play the first show of the tour we started running through the set. I've got Brad using a couple of amps and a few stomp boxes just to get through the rehearsals. The morning before we loaded out of that room the last of my gear came in. Exactly two weeks to the day of pulling flooded gear out of that locker, we played our first full production show of the tour exactly like we wanted to do it. Brad walked toward the microphone at the top of that show and I honestly thought he was going to cry. It meant so much to him that we were able to be show ready and not just able to play a gig.
A huge THANK YOU to Bill Crook, Charlie McVay, Peter Florence, Chris Klein, Brian Nipps, Tony Dudzik, Tommy Rosamond, Mike Zaite, David Friedman, Rick Skillman, Ryan Smith, Tony Bruno, Kelly Vaughn, Tyler Ham, Luke Ziegler, Riley Vasquez, Armi Iglesias, Gregg Hopkins, Matt Ali, Brian Wampler, Robert Keeley, Tim Godwin, Bruno Pirecki, Derek Brooks, Adam Hudson, Mark and Leslie Morell, and Michael Doran. Without the people listed here I'd have never made my deadlines and this tour couldn't have gotten off to such a great start. Thank you all for your time, your efforts and your friendships. I am indebted to you all.
Classic tricks to use common pedals to their fullest
Greetings, fellow gear gluttons! Welcome
back to Stomp School. In last month’s column
we discussed matching pedals to the rest of
your rig, and we discovered that the various
components in your setup, such as the type of
pickups and amp you’re using, can influence
how a particular pedal will ultimately sound.
With this better understanding of the way
each individual piece of gear interacts with the
others, let’s next look at some popular ways
to combine them to achieve specific sounds.
Part of our discussion here concerns overdrive
and dirt tones and the interaction between
your pedals and amp. But before we get into
that, I’d like to take another look at using the
controls on your guitar to elicit different tones
from the same pedal.
Germanium Fuzz Face Clean up Trick
This one may already be pretty widely known,
but I still think it’s worth a mention because it
works so amazingly well. I had actually been
playing for quite a while before I discovered
that you can get a surprisingly useful, totally
clean tone from a good germanium Fuzz Face
pedal simply by rolling back the volume on
your guitar. In comparison, most other fuzz
pedals, including a Fuzz Face with higher
gain silicon transistors, won’t quite get totally
clean. Again, this is nothing new, dating all the
way back to early Hendrix, but it’s a good one
to keep in your bag of tricks.
Roll Back Tone on Neck Humbucker with
Fuzz Pedal Trick
Here’s one of my favorite fuzz pedal tricks.
This isn’t really a big secret either, and I’m
always surprised that more players aren’t
aware of it. Ready? Use a pedal with thick,
saturated fuzz tone and play the neck pickup
on your guitar with the tone control rolled all
the way back. This works especially well on
a dual humbucker guitar, such as a Les Paul.
What a great sound! Think early Santana, or
Robert Fripp with King Crimson.
A Big Muff-type fuzz is ideal to use for this
effect, but most any fuzz pedal with enough
gain will work reasonably well. Steve Hackett of
Genesis employed this technique to great effect
using the neck pickup of his Les Paul Custom
through a Colorsound Supa Tone Bender. This
was also the method Eric Clapton used to create his infamous “woman tone” on the Disraeli
Gears album by Cream. Clapton rolled back
the tone on the neck pickup of his psychedelic
Gibson SG. The fuzz of choice this time was a
Tone Bender MKII, which was then run into a
100-watt Marshall. Strange Brew, indeed!
It’s a super-simple trick, and it works like magic
every time. Rolling off all the high frequencies
eliminates any noise and hiss created by the
fuzz, which results in a singing, violin-like tone
with super long sustain. It’s also the best way
to coax a more prominent upper octave out of
an Octavia. And it works just as well on other
octave-fuzz type pedals, such as a Super Fuzz,
a Tone Machine, or an Ampeg Scrambler.
OK, moving along to the other side of the
signal chain, let’s discuss some tried and true
classic pedal and amp combinations.
Tube Screamer with a Blackface Fender Amp
The smooth, medium-gain overdrive sound
of the Tube Screamer (and its variants) is a
well-loved classic. Though it gained its initial
notoriety as the OD of choice for blues legend
Stevie Ray Vaughan, this ubiquitous green
wonder has withstood more stomping than
nearly any other pedal. A Tube Screamer-type
OD can work with just about any amp, but it
has a distinct midrange “hump” that perfectly
compliments the scooped mids of the Fender
Blackface amp. Classic combination!
The Vox AC30, on the other hand, is quite a
bit more mid-heavy. So a Tube Screamer, while
not necessarily a poor choice, might not be
the best fit for that amp. That’s okay, we can
address that with our next classic combination.
Germanium Treble Booster with a British
Combo Amp
In the early 1960s, many British made amplifiers, such as the Vox AC30, were considered by
players to be rather dark sounding, especially
compared to the American-made Fender amps,
which were considered more desirable at the
time. Thus is the origin of the treble booster. The
concept was simply that a murky-sounding amp
could be brightened up using a single transistor
“treble boosting” device. The happy, if unintentional, byproduct was the tone that resulted from
pushing the front end of the amp into overdrive.
The Dallas Rangemaster stands as the quintessential example of this type of treble booster,
and is rumored to have been the secret
weapon used by Eric Clapton with a Marshall
JTM45 combo to achieve his legendary
Bluesbreaker tone. A much better documented fact is Brian May’s use of the Rangemaster
and other treble boosters with his Vox AC30.
Irish blues guitarist Rory Gallagher used the
Rangemaster/AC30 combination with a Fender
Stratocaster to create his signature sound, and
many have since discovered the magical tones
of a treble-boosted British combo.
That’s about all we have time for now, so
we’ll see you next time. Until then, keep
on stompin’!
Tom Hughes
(a.k.a. Analog Tom) is the owner and proprietor of For
Musicians Only (formusiciansonly.com) and author of
Analog Man’s Guide to Vintage Effects. Questions or
comments about this article can be sent to:
stompschool@formusiciansonly.com.
Matchless'' Avalon incorporates partial PC-board construction for more affordable boutique sound
At the beginning of the boutique amp boom
in the late 1980s and early ’90s, one of the
biggest names being bandied about was
Matchless. Original designers Rick Perotta,
Chris Perotta, and company co-founder Mark
Sampson were huge Beatles fans, and that
jangly AC30 sound drove them to start analyzing
and repairing vintage Voxes imported
from the UK. Eventually, they took the next
logical step and began building handwired,
roadworthy interpretations of the iconic AC30.
Sampson, Rick Perotta, and John Jorgenson
(who would later go on to gain acclaim for
his work with Will Ray and Jerry Donahue in
the Hellecasters) came up with the company’s
most famous designs—the now-legendary
DC30, Chieftain, and Lightning—which became
staples for artists as diverse as Jimmie
Vaughan, Hank Marvin, Alex Lifeson, and Toad
the Wet Sprocket’s Glen Phillips.
But by 1998, the company had serious
financial troubles and had to close shop.
Amp nuts everywhere lamented Matchless’
demise and the original amps skyrocketed in
value overnight. Just prior to Matchless MK I’s
implosion, they hit on an idea that might have
saved the company, given time. The idea: offer
more affordable amps that incorporate the
same quality components as other Matchless
models, but in a circuit with limited PC-board
construction, channel switching, and footswitchable
reverb.
So, they gave it a whirl. The Superliner series
was supposed to include three models, but
only the 40-watt, EL34-powered Starliner
Reverb 2x12 and the 15-watt, EL84-powered
Skyliner Reverb 2x10 ever got off the
ground—and in extremely limited numbers.
According to Phil Jamison—who became
Matchless’ production manager in 1994 and
helped get the company back on its feet in
2000—fewer than 10 Starliner and Skyliner
amps were produced, and several of them
were returned due to faulty operation.
For more than a decade now, Jamison
and current owner Geoff Emery have kept
Matchless going steady and strong by offering
most of the original amp designs and
coming up with innovative new models for
a wider array of players—including those
with high-gain needs. They also recently
began offering more affordable amps, first
the EL84-powered Avalon 30 and now the
EL34-powered Avalon 35, that incorporate
top-shelf components in a design with partial
PC-board construction. It’s a move many
boutique builders have made since the beginning
of the recession.
Forging Excalibur
Consumer products in general often have
names that convey a gross inflation of their
true worth, and guitar gear is no different.
But sometimes those lofty-sounding names
aren’t far from the mark. Look up “Avalon”
and you’ll discover that, in Arthurian legend,
it was the island where King Arthur’s magical
sword, Excalibur, was forged. I don’t know if
that’s what Matchless was going for, but I like
the possible comparisons the name suggests.
For a lot of players, acquiring the Avalon
35—which retails at $2629 (with reverb, $2599
without)—isn’t going to be as easy as lifting the
amp from an enchanted stone, but compared to
the similarly featured SC-30 combo, it’s a relative
steal. Likewise, despite having a feature set that’s
rather primitive by modern standards, the amp
isn’t without its magic. Inside, the Avalon combines
two EL34s, five 12AX7s (three for the preamp,
two for the reverb), a 5AR4 tube rectifier,
and the same quality components used in other
Matchless amps—including robust transformers—
in a class-A, cathode-biased hybrid circuit
that uses both point-to-point, turret-style construction,
and cost-cutting PC-board elements. The front panel features Hi and Lo instrument
inputs, Standby and On/Off rocker switches,
and six “chicken-head” knobs—Volume, Bass,
Treble, Cut, Master Push/Pull, and Reverb. Like
the front panel, the rear panel is simple and
intuitive. It features jacks for an extension cabinet
and the built-in 30-watt Celestion G12H
speaker, a three-position Impedance selector,
jacks for the series effects loop and optional
reverb footswitch, a fuse receptacle, and a
standard IEC power-cord receptacle.
The amp weighs a hefty 62 lbs. and measures
21 ¼" W x 23 ¼" H x 11 ¼" D. My construction
niggles are very minor. First, though the
Avalon’s dimensions are comparable to the
original SC-30 1x12 combo, the unusual height
may be an awkward schlep for shorter players,
who may have difficulty carrying it straigh-tarmed
without bumping or dragging it on the
ground. Second, though there are labels above
the front-panel controls, they’re hard to read
without squatting. Otherwise, there’s almost
nothing to fault in the Avalon’s construction.
The black covering is virtually flawless, the
silver piping is cleanly cut and applied, and the
salt-and-pepper grillcloth looks fantastic. And
let’s not forget the badass rear-lit logo—one of
the most iconic looks in all of ampdom.
The Matchless Avalon 35 features a hybrid circuit with both PC-board-mounted components and point-to-point-wired, chassis-mounted
tube sockets and controls.
Wielding the Blade
I tested the Avalon with a nice variety of guitars,
including a ’60s Strat reissue with Custom Shop
Fat ’50s pickups, a PRS Ted McCarty DC 245
with 57/08 humbuckers, a Schecter Ultra III
with splittable mini-humbuckers, and a Gretsch
G6118T-LTV with TV Jones Classics. With each
axe, the tones were dynamic, detailed, and
varied. The key to the variety is the Master
Push/Pull knob, which enables you to go from
needling AC30 glory to higher-gain, Marshall
plexi-type sounds at less problematic volumes.
For the former, you’ll want Master Push/Pull
disengaged (pushed in) so you can experience
the open, airy feel that comes when you let the
Volume knob control both gain and output. For
rock and hard-rock sounds, turn Master Push/
Pull to a lower setting (so you don’t get blasted
in the face) and crank Volume toward its upper
regions for rich distortion. As with most master-volume
amps, this convenient feature is very
practical, though it slightly darkens the timbres
and decreases some of the to-die-for dynamics.
With Volume and Master Push/Pull nearing their
limits, things can get splatty and fizzy, but the
same can be said of a lot of classic amps.
The Avalon’s EQ is remarkably interactive,
too. As with classic Vox and Matchless
circuits, Cut shaves off high-end frequencies
as you turn it clockwise. When it’s completely
counterclockwise, you get those glassy
sounds made famous by the Who and the Fab
Four. With it maxed, you get a thick, scooped-out
tone that could accommodate jazz cats
or rock guys looking for notched mids. While
jazz cats won’t be the first to gravitate to an
amp like the Avalon—and the same probably
goes for hardcore rockabilly guys—I got fat,
neck-pickup jazz tones and bristling rockabilly
bombast with the Gretsch.
The Treble and Bass knobs work like they do
on other amps, and the latter in particular
has much more impact than many other tube
amps. Dime it, and you get more mids for a
honkier sound—but in a musical, absolutely
usable way. Bring it back a bit, say, to three or
four o’clock, and you get muscular, in-your-face
tones. My playing runs the gamut from
heavy-handed rock/rockabilly riffing and
chording to a lot of hybrid picking, so I eventually
settled on Volume at two or two-thirty,
Master Push/Pull off, Bass at two o’clock,
Treble dimed, Cut off, and Reverb—a three-spring
unit that adds nice dimension but less
depth than I’d hoped—at two o’clock. This
let me get the broadest array of tones, from
all-out brashness and crystalline detail to full,
rounded notes by going from a heavy pick
attack to curling the plectrum under my index
finger and strumming with my thumb. With
the Strat, I got deliciously detailed quackiness
in the in-between positions—perfect for
Southern rock flavors or funky chording like in
Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.” With
the Schecter, I got raw, in-your-face indie-rock
sounds using the bridge pickup. The PRS
yielded everything from Zeppelin-esque PAF
sounds to fat neck-pickup tones that would
make SRV proud.
The Final Mojo
Like a lot of aficionados of high-end anything,
guitarists can get pretty hung up on certain
details before they’ve even tried a product.
They might dismiss an amp for even minimal
PC-board construction or because it wasn’t
designed during a certain period of the company’s
history. There’s a kernel of wisdom in
some arguments over such minutia, because
the longer you play, the more you realize your
sound is the sum of all the little things—from
your pick gauge to how hard you fret and
what kind of tubes are in your amp. But we
all know such obsession can be crippling, too.
The trick is to do your homework and find
great equipment, and then focus more on
your playing and your ear than on your gear.
That’s what most of our heroes did (or do).
And that’s why I really dig the new Matchless
Avalon 35. It offers an excellent balance of
flexibility, durability, and quality tone.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/v/tceX_DyDcLI&hl=en_US&fs=1& expand=1]
Buy if...
you revel in bristling, dynamic EL34 tones and simplified flexibililty.
Skip if...
you want more sophisticated control of surf-able reverb.
Rating...
Street $2500 - Matchless Amplifiers - matchlessamplifiers.com
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