Month: January 2019

New Gear Day: Ampete 88S

UPS guys are heroes! They delivered my long time lusted for Ampete 88S! YES!

GOPR0883.jpegHow German can it get: 88S? …Really?  It is not a Skinhead thing or an Oi artifact, it‘s an amp switcher.   This fine piece of German engineering is the quintessence of switchboxes. Forget your Radial or Lehle dual switches, this is the Goliath among the amp selectors. It switches between 8 guitar tube amps and 8 speakers or speaker cabs! Any combination of your tube amp and cab by the simple push of a knob. Save your back and never unplug a jack, here is the Ampete 88S.

Winter Namm has just ended and If you are a gearhead like me, you probably have watched hundreds of Youtube gear flics. Ever wondered how they change amps so easy at the Friedman Booth? This is the secret weapon.  The Ampete 88S is also a load box. It provides the non-active amp with a speaker load (impedance) thus preventing you from frying your precious tube head.

I can’t wait for the Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander to land into the stores. It would be a great combination with the Ampete. The Boss Tube amp Expander is an attenuator like the Ox Box only slightly less expensive and with a dual speaker output (in parallel). The Boss TAE also includes a reverb and delay in the loop, effects you often can’t find on vintage tube heads.

Stay tuned, soon I will post some demo vids of my vintage Marshall and Orange amps. Nothing sounds better than a cranked up 1969 Marshall SLP… Deaf by Audio! For those about to Rock, we salute you!

Blueberry Burst

2019 barely started and yet a second addition to the stash this year. An eye-catching Gibson Les Paul Standard in blueberry burst! Me so happy, … me love it long time!

It is very hard to catch the triple-A flame top in a pic and it screams to be played. Equipped with Burstbucker Pro pickups and an innovative wiring to benefit from a vast array of tonal options.  Alnico V magnets capture the subtile variations of the tone and with the slim taper asymmetrical neck and fast-action rosewood fingerboard this guitar becomes a genuine rock-machine.

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The electronics are versatile. Unmatched bobbins for true humbucker tone. Push-pull control knobs for coil split, coil tap, highpass filtering and out-of-phase sounds. The 2019 Standard features 5 internal dip switches for more tonal control. I haven’t tried them out yet and I wonder if I ever will… enough options already.

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I matched this tone monster with a Marshall Astoria combo and an Alec Bradley “American” cigar, P-E-R-F-E-C-T!  Even the neighbour came knocking on my door and asked me to be less loud so he could sleep. I said  “no”!   Poor neighbour, he came by bike all the way … for nothing!IMG_7729.jpeg

Stay tuned, I will be posting demo vids with the Gibson Les Paul Standard soon.

Keep rockin’, stay smokey!