I had an epiphany the other day. It’s something that I’ve been vaguely aware of for years, but it was crystallized the other day at a jam session with Mike Diaz. Mike is a great guitarist with some really amazing vintage gear. My van was in the shop, so I was using his amps. He put me in a ‘63 Vox AC30 (dry), and a ‘62 Brown Pro with a Fulltone Echoplex set for a mild delay. I was in Heaven. It was the best tone I’ve ever had in my life.
I was using a Baja Tele, and a DeArmond Starfire (basically a 335). I went through the entire gamut of tones from the bridge pickup on the Tele to the neck pick up on the Starfire with the tone rolled off. With no adjustments to the amps, every tone was fantastic. Now admittedly, I was playing through almost $8,000.00 worth of gear. But, here’s the thing.....I was using really cheap guitars. I could have been using a thirty thousand dollar guitar, or a quarter of a million dollar guitar, and it wouldn’t have sounded any better. So the point is...we put way too much emphasis on the guitar when the real magic is in the amp.
Time has passed most of us by as far as ever owning one of the classic guitars, but you can still get the amps. And, I would further argue that they are making guitars today that are just as good as the classics. You’ve got to pick through them, just like you did in the old days, but they are out there.
By contrast, for me, the amps aren’t quite making it. The new Vox AC30, even with the Celestion Blues (which I think are really great speakers) is a good amp, but when you A-B it with a properly tuned old one, I promise you, you’ll hear the difference. Big time!! Same with the Bassman, the tweed Twin, the Deluxe, and the Super Reverb.
The LA Amp show had almost nothing but Marshall clones, and some of them were pretty good...especially the 18 watters, but if anyone is making anything that even approaches an old JTM45 combo, I haven’t heard it. So what all this means is We’re Not Out Of The Game!!
The other day I was in the Platinum Room at Guitar Center and they had a wide panel Deluxe (They said it was a’48) for $2,200.00. With any guitar I ran through it, this thing sounded better than anything else in the room. Pure Magic!! It made the reissue ‘57 Deluxe sitting next to it sound anemic. And it was the same price!!
I’m playing in a band with three horns, guitar, bass and drums. I’m using a ‘57 Gibson GA40. I paid $900.00 for that. Those are still affordable. I predict that vintage amps are going to start taking off just like the guitars did. I know many of them are already moving, and some are pretty high, but I guarantee they’ve got a lot further to go. In a few years, they will probably all be out of reach, but, for now, I’m grabbing as many of them as I can. I remember when I thought $5,000.00 for a '59'burst was ridiculous.