Friday, December 28, 2007

Tasty Vintage Tones . . .

When players are talking tone, vintage gear will undoubtedly work its way into the conversation at some point. True, that which is vintage is certainly not the "end-all" to god-like tone - - but I'd have to say its damn close.

There are a bunch of cool tone clips featuring killer vintage gear at Cam's Riffs. Cam's gear arsenal is a veritable treasure trove of highly sought-after gems, as you will see when you check out his site. One item of note - - you'll need to have an Apple Quicktime player installed to listen to the clips. A link to a freeware version of Quicktime is provided on the website. Sorry for the name drop - hopefully the clips are worth it.

If you're into the Marshall thing, David Bray Amps has a bunch of killer clips, too. Check out the 1959HW 100-watt Plexi w/ custom EVH p'ups about 1/3 of the way down the page. Nasty, nasty tone.

The clip / sample page for the Time Machine Boost is another great source for vintage Marshall, Fender, and Vox tones. The Fender amp featured on this site is a 1967 "Blackface" Super Reverb - guaranteed to put a smile on any tone-lover's face.

ClassicAmplifiers.com has several pages of excellent color photos (*and a few schematics) featuring a number of 60's era vintage amplifiers, as well as several mid-70's models. I like the fact that several Fender "Silverface" amps are featured in this collection, as I feel that they are often overlooked in lieu of the more popular "Blackface" models. I have a '68 Silverface Super Reverb myself, and totally dig it!

Also - be sure to check out the vintage Fender Instrument catalogs at the bottom of the Classic Amplifiers page. I browsed through the '69 version, and noted their featured artists section: Sonny & Cher; The 5th Dimension; The Union Gap; Charley Pride; Faron Young; Paul Butterfield; etc. Conspicuously missing is perhaps one of the greatest Fender guitar players ever: Jimi Hendrix. Somebody at Fender Corporate HQ must've missed the goings on at the Monterey Pop Festival back in '67? Lighter fluid, anyone . . . ?

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