Post by myles on Oct 17, 2006 12:18:53 GMT -7
The other night at an unholy hour I received an emergency call from Cello Studios. Cello has been around since the dawn of time on the recording studio scale and just about everybody has recorded there at one time or another from The Rolling Stones on down the list.
There was a popular heavy rock group recording there. They were attempting one slower ballad-ish tune with the studio's Fender amp that had vibrato that they wished to use. The amp died and I was called.
Rick Huntington is some sort of focal point or engineer or somebody over there and everywhere who I have known for years. He was over there with his 1971 50 watt Marshall. He had been called for the use of his amp. There are some who consider it the best Marshall they have ever heard.
When I found out he was there and the amp was there I tossed the SRZ-65 in the car with my tools and parts.
I fixed the Fender in short order.
I mentioned that I brought a 50 watt amp with me that was a friend's amp and if folks had time it may be fun to do an A/B with Rick's amp. The group said it would be great if whichever amp they liked could be used to cut a few tracks. No problem-o was my response.
With a Radial Engineering head switcher, and both heads running to a early Marshall cab with 15 watt AlNiCO silvers we were on our way.
The fun part was that only one guy in the studio knew which amp was connected to which side of the switcher. The heads and Josh were behind wall.
The intercom was used to relay requests such as raise the treble, drop the bass, less mids please, louder, softer, etc.
In the end it was determined that "amp 2" was more powerful sounding than amp 1. This comment came up early so a sound pressure level meter was used to set the true sound level output anytime anything was changed. Amp 2 always sounded "bigger".
"Amp 1 is sort of constricted". "It does not sound as open or lively as Amp 2". "My amp is more fun to play" was a great compliment from Rick. For almost 90 minutes he knew his amp was amp 2.
The bottom line was that everybody preferred amp 2. One fellow thought it was "one of those expensive purple Ken Fischer amps"? I said no.
In the end I pulled up a website with this link:
www.groovetubes.com/assets/1769_gt_verheyen_large.jpg
I pointed out that the artist spotlight mentions Carl's great amps as in "Fender, Marshall, Vox, Dr. Z". The holy trinity is now a holy quadrangle or something I suppose.
The amps came out of the room and Rick was very surprised. A few of the folks will be talking to TrueTone this week.
I was offered $3000 for my SRZ-65 as a side note. I declined the offer as I learned a while back that it does surpass my own Marshall amps and folks that have compared it for themselves have agreed with me.
Ever since I did the same sort of A/B test with Carl Verheyen and he picked the amp over his own Plexi Marshalls I have loved to do this test whenever I can.
So ... if you are in my area and want to try this yourself you are more than welcome to contact me.
There was a popular heavy rock group recording there. They were attempting one slower ballad-ish tune with the studio's Fender amp that had vibrato that they wished to use. The amp died and I was called.
Rick Huntington is some sort of focal point or engineer or somebody over there and everywhere who I have known for years. He was over there with his 1971 50 watt Marshall. He had been called for the use of his amp. There are some who consider it the best Marshall they have ever heard.
When I found out he was there and the amp was there I tossed the SRZ-65 in the car with my tools and parts.
I fixed the Fender in short order.
I mentioned that I brought a 50 watt amp with me that was a friend's amp and if folks had time it may be fun to do an A/B with Rick's amp. The group said it would be great if whichever amp they liked could be used to cut a few tracks. No problem-o was my response.
With a Radial Engineering head switcher, and both heads running to a early Marshall cab with 15 watt AlNiCO silvers we were on our way.
The fun part was that only one guy in the studio knew which amp was connected to which side of the switcher. The heads and Josh were behind wall.
The intercom was used to relay requests such as raise the treble, drop the bass, less mids please, louder, softer, etc.
In the end it was determined that "amp 2" was more powerful sounding than amp 1. This comment came up early so a sound pressure level meter was used to set the true sound level output anytime anything was changed. Amp 2 always sounded "bigger".
"Amp 1 is sort of constricted". "It does not sound as open or lively as Amp 2". "My amp is more fun to play" was a great compliment from Rick. For almost 90 minutes he knew his amp was amp 2.
The bottom line was that everybody preferred amp 2. One fellow thought it was "one of those expensive purple Ken Fischer amps"? I said no.
In the end I pulled up a website with this link:
www.groovetubes.com/assets/1769_gt_verheyen_large.jpg
I pointed out that the artist spotlight mentions Carl's great amps as in "Fender, Marshall, Vox, Dr. Z". The holy trinity is now a holy quadrangle or something I suppose.
The amps came out of the room and Rick was very surprised. A few of the folks will be talking to TrueTone this week.
I was offered $3000 for my SRZ-65 as a side note. I declined the offer as I learned a while back that it does surpass my own Marshall amps and folks that have compared it for themselves have agreed with me.
Ever since I did the same sort of A/B test with Carl Verheyen and he picked the amp over his own Plexi Marshalls I have loved to do this test whenever I can.
So ... if you are in my area and want to try this yourself you are more than welcome to contact me.