Diezel Amps Coming to America and Unveil New Models for NAMM 2009
January 8, 2009 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
Diezel Amplification has some major news to announce for NAMM 2009 . . .the creation of Diezel USA. Coming to America will help make the legendary high tone monsters accessible to the America public. Diezel USA has decided to launch the branch due to, “increasing product demand and heightened consumer awareness.”
Diezel amps are played by legendary guitar players from Metallica’s James Hatfield, Tool’s Neal Schon, from Journey, the talented Adam Jones of Bon Jovi and Mike Mushok of Staind. The VH4, Herbert and Einstein models have been in demand and searched out by professionals and mental heads alike. Read more
Peavey High-Gain Amplifiers
For years, Peavey has been building amplifiers that have cranked out some of the most influential riffs in music history. With signature amplifiers co-designed by artists such as Edward Van Halen and Joe Satriani, it’s no wonder that Peavey remains at the top of many aspiring rock star’s wish lists.
Peavey amps are known for dependability, affordability, and monstrous tone. The combinations of these factors make Peavey a great choice, regardless of your skill level. Read more
Kustom Double Cross Guitar Amp Head
November 15, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
Kustom got metal? Remember back in the day when you might recall those kind-of-weird yet kind-of-cool colorful car seat-like padded tuck-and-roll jobs? You know, the colorful /sparkly padded amps Creedence Clearwater Revival were known to use back in the late Sixties and early Seventies…
Much has changed since then. Behold Kustom’s newest world-class all-tube, 3-channel, 100-watt guitar amp, the Double Cross. This is one mean animal, and laughs at the inane thought of padding. The Double Cross platform consists of three uniquely voice channels: Rhythm, Lead I and Lead II. You can tweak each channel via four separate function switches, the four switches are located at the four end points of the “Cross” displayed on the control panel (stylin‘, huh?). What’s more, these switches work more than simple EQs; rather, they allow you to blend additional 12AX7 tube stages and alter the gain/EQ/attack structure of the preamps. The amp’s four functions can be activated, omitted and blended in any combination to your personal taste. So, not only does this amp have style, it has flexibility. Nice, we like that!
The two lead channels are voiced fundamentally different, with Lead I catering to a modern heavy tone, and the Lead II is shaped more towards a traditional, high-gain “cranked” sound. Even though the Double Cross offers massive amounts of gain and distortion, the amp also blends in the extra preamp tubes in an innovated way so that it doesn’t change the tonal dynamics or sacrifice the touch sensitivity, regardless of the amp’s settings.
All three channels of the Double Cross provide separate Gain, Volume and Presence controls as well as an independent EQ (Bass, Middle, Treble). There is also a global Master Volume and a Boost Volume control that can be activated with the Double Cross’s rugged 5-function metal footswitch (included with head).
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Special features of the Double Cross include an all-tube, footswitchable effects loop, a EL34 / 6L6 bias switch for changing output tube types, a Tight input jack that tightens the attack response of the entire amp, and a 5-function footswitch that activates each channel, Boost function, and the effects loop.
A speaker cabinet-emulated direct out, drawn from Kustom’s Coupe Series amplifiers, has evolved into two signal options: (1) the tonal coloration provided by a slant-style 4 x 12, or (2) the distinct sound of a straight-style 4 x 12.
Damn straight this rig can blow the roof off any venue. The Kustom Double Cross online price is $1,599.99 U.S., which doesn’t make this unit the cheapest head on the market. However, on the other hand, what price would you pay for monstrous power and flexibility?
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PRS CE Alder Guitar Review
November 3, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
PRS presented the CE line in 1988 as a high-quality, yet, less expensive bolt-on alternative from their pricier set-neck guitar models. PRS have gained quite a following fan base in the past 20+ years for their familiar feel and superior driving tone as well as for their competitive price point. Read more
Elvis Presley
November 2, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
On June 5, 1956, signing “Hound Dog” on national primetime TV, Elvis Presley served the white man his notice. In a burlesque performance full of hip-swiveling gyrations and erotically charged yelps, Elvis turned a nation of middle-class teenagers onto the libidinous power of black rock and roll. He also shook the status quo to its foundations. “An aborigine’s mating dance,” wrote one reviewer. Another critic—a duly elected congressman—was less indirect: “Rock and roll has its place,” he offered, “among the colored people.”
What is obvious in retrospect is not that Elvis was the greatest rock singer of his time—that would be Little Richard—nor even its most brilliantly innovative artist—that would be Chuck Berry. Where rock and roll was concerned, Elvis Presley’s true gift was being white.
As quickly as he arrived, he was gone. By the end of the Fifties, the dangerous Elvis gave way to sanitized Elvis, fueled by the easy success of mainstream acceptance. As rock music advanced into bolder territory, Presley stayed on familiar ground, showing occasional flashes of brilliance during his late-Sixties Memphis period before settling into the zombie kitsch of his Las Vegas years.
On August 16, 1977, he was gone for good. Overweight, and punished by years of drug abuse, Presley died on the bathroom floor at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, just 42 years old. His remains are interred on the mansion’s grounds.
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Even as Elvis died, the rock music he helped create was experiencing it last moment of consequential fury in the punk music rising out of England. Within two years, black musicians in New York would begin brewing up rap, an insurgent music more potent than anything white rock could muster. Today, Presley’s legacy is kept alive in the confrontational rock-rap hybrid of groups like Beastie Boys, Korn and Limp Bizkit. In crossing the great racial divide, they got white American culture all shook up, much as Elvis did one hot summer night in 1956.
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AXL Guitars Faultline Bass Heads and Cabs
October 30, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
AXL Guitars, San Francisco-based company, take another leap forward in the quest to create earth-shaking tones, releases their FAULTLINE series of Bass Amplifier heads and cabinets. Read more
Bugera 6260 - 412H-BK Half Stack
Behringer is known for its wide range of amazingly affordable and primarily solid-state music equipment. The Behringer crew decided it is time to enter into the heavyweight tube-amp arena, and they didn’t come quietly, they came in blazing with a new brand to grace upon us. Meet the budget blaster … the Bugera tube amp! Read more
Crate DX-212 Guitar Amplifier Review
With its brushed copper front panel, big black knobs and jellylike, illuminated keypad, Crate’s digital Dx-212 looks like a Sixties vision of the future. The knobs (Master, volume, gain, bass, mid, treble. Channel level, effects adjust, reverb level, and reverb depth) are arranged as on any amp. Read more
HIWATT Custom 400 Bass Head
September 12, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
When Robert Trujillo (Metallica) wants to make noise, he plugs into his HIWATT amp.
With that comment, the rest of this article could be left unsaid, and you could rest assured that HIWATT makes excellent quality bass amplifiers.
Of course, that would be letting the uninitiated readers down, wouldn’t it?
The HIWATT Custom 400 bass amplifier head unit is constructed using the same timeless technique as all other fare which bears the HIWATT nameplate: completely hand-built utilizing military specific point-to-point wiring, giving you nothing but purely awesome tonality.
The HIWATT Custom 400 is a relatively simple machine on the surface. It features two inputs, normal and brilliant, with separate volume controls for each channel, your standard 3-band EQ with presence control, and a master volume.
And of course, it couldn’t truly be called a ‘HIWATT’ amp without packing a brutal 400-watts of all-tube power, now could it?
The Custom 400 is built to the same specifications as the DR201 and the DR405, but the Custom 400 varies in that it utilizes six KT-88 tubes in the power section, four ECC-83’s in the preamps with one ECC-81, and Partridge transformers. It also features adjustable output impedance (4, 8, or 16 ohms).
If you are looking for warm bass tones and enough power for The Who, check out the HIWATT Custom 400 bass amp heads. http://www.hiwatt.com/
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Frank Zappa Unsentimental Guitarist
Frank Zappa never had much use for sentimentality. As a lyricist, he could be sly, silly or bitingly sarcastic, addressing anything from groupie sex to the perils of yellow snow. Read more
