New Amp: Early, Modded, Snakeskin Soldano Hot Rod 50 Plus

Guitar Center recently ran a 10% off used gear coupon for Memorial Day so I perused the listings and spotted this very nicely priced Hot Rod. Even from GC’s notoriously poor pictures, I could tell this was going to be a unique piece, with two additional knobs on the front panel and a clearly visible 6V6 tube in the rear. Sometimes mods like this can be risky, and I never want to end up with someone else’s “rat’s nest” problem, but I figured this was worth a shot.

Well, there’s some good news and some bad. I’ll start with the background: This is an early Hot Rod 50+, probably from somewhere around 1997. The first HR50+’s came out in 1995 and ran until 2006. Post 2006 HR50+’s are easy to identify as they have a factory Depth knob and lack the Slave Out 1/4 jack on the rear panel. There is also the non-plus Hot Rod, which came out as early as 1992 and lasted until the Plus changes around 2006, but finding earlier models is much more common than later ones, likely because the non-plus Hot Rod’s didn’t sell that well once the Plus came out. Very early Hot Rods such as this one came with Schumacher transformers (just like Mesa Rectos!), but later ones like my example from 2004 switched to Mercury Magnetics.

This beauty comes wrapped in a snakeskin headshell which is definitely a cool look, although I sold my snakeskin Kramer Baretta already - too bad, that would’ve been a nice pairing. All of the knobs go up to 11, except for the controls added by the mod. It’s a 2-channel amp, the first channel is called “Normal” and the second is “Overdrive,” and the only way to use both channels is via footswitch.

The Normal channel is not really a clean channel, although you can kind of dial it that way. It lacks headroom and gets pretty crunchy even with the gain around half, and is roughly equivalent in gain to a single channel JCM800 with the gain maxed out, but voiced differently of course. It uses different values, but the basic structure is very similar - 3 gain stages, cathode follower driving the tone stack, but with a tube-buffered effects loop crammed in before the EQ controls. This is somewhat similar to a Marshall 2555 Silver Jubilee, which also has the effects loop before the EQ - and odd choice that some people don’t like, as it can cause level issues. It also means your effects get a louder, raw non-EQ’d guitar tone, and then your amp’s tone controls have an impact on the sound coming from your effects. In contrast, the more standard effects loop design is located after the EQ but before the master volume (or phase inverter), so your effects pedals would see a signal that has already been through the amp’s EQ.

The Overdrive channel shares some of its signal path with Normal, but with the addition of another gain stage which is the famous “cold clipper.” For perspective, the JCM800 2203 also uses a cold gain stage in the 2nd stage (out of 3), but Soldano’s design uses a much more aggressive cold clipper as the 3rd stage out of 4, excluding buffers and cathode followers (note: Bogner Ecstasy Red also does this). This Overdrive channel’s bones are extremely similar to the flagship SLO100 model, but with a handful of different voicing values.

Now on to the mods. So far there are two notable ones, the most obvious being the addition of an Accutronics long-spring reverb tank. This mod adds reverb to the amp, obviously, but the implementation is the most unique I’ve seen in any amp, and it’s the kind of mod I dreamed of doing at various times to other amps as a lover of great reverbs. Basically, this is done in the style of a Fender outboard reverb tank, like the Fender ‘63 Reverb RI. That includes the addition of a single 6V6 power tube and another 12AX7 to drive the reverb signal. The original Fender outboard units used a 12AT7 and a second 12AX7 buffer, but this design isn’t an exact duplicate of the Fender circuit, and the amp already has a tube buffer for the effects loop (which this reverb uses half of). The addition of these two tubes did require the power tube sockets to be moved over to the side and additional holes drilled in the chassis, which you can see in the picture below:

There’s also a transformer mounted to the top of the chassis as well as the standard RCA send/return jacks for the spring tank. Internally, the Schumacher choke was also moved to the side to make room. All of the reverb circuitry is mounted to terminal strips, no PCB’s, and it’s even footswitchable with a 1/4 jack on the rear panel. Also on the rear panel is a “drive” control, this is essentially the “dwell” control on a Fender outboard unit and controls the length of the reverb decay. On the front panel, there are two additional controls added, labeled “level” and “tone.” Level is essentially the mix control, how much reverb signal you hear compared to the unaffected signal, and tone is a very useful control that can be used to dial in just how bright the reverb sounds. The tone turned up high results in a very present reverb sound, extremely clear but maybe a little distracting at higher dwell/mix levels. Many digital reverb pedals allow you to set a Hz or KHz taper where the treble is rolled off, same thing here with the analog circuit, and you can roll that off as much as you need to. It’s very flexible and sounds absolutely fantastic.

I’d also like to give a special thanks to my friend Micha, who traced this reverb circuit out for me. It sends just after the effects loop send buffer tube stage, and returns after the EQ just before the phase inverter. Our best guess is that this mod was done in 2001. Now the bad news, as he pointed out to me, it looks like there is a little troubleshooting to be done here as there is a bad cap and clearly burnt resistor as part of this circuit (pictured below). The work never ends!

There is another mod on this amp, which you can barely see in the above picture at the top left, a yellow capacitor and piggy backed resistor. This is a “depth” mod, but instead of a pot to allow adjustments, it is a fixed value. I suppose I’d prefer a knob to turn but I really can’t complain with this value as it sounds great. I did quite a bit of A/B testing between this amp, my 2004 Hot Rod Plus, and my 2004 Avenger. This Hot Rod is much thicker and fuller sounding than my 2004 model, maybe a hair less cutting in the high mids, but overall a bit more pleasing sound to my ear. The Avenger is very similar sounding to this, as that amp has a depth control already, so it can be dialed to be very close. I think the two channels and the very flexible reverb give this amp the edge though, so I suppose this is now my favorite Soldano amp of the three.

New Amp: Orange OR100

This is one of those amps pretty high up on my list because I really wanted to compare with my other Oranges, and the nomenclature confuses me a bit.

What I mean is - is this like an OR50 with a clean channel? Or a more classic OR80/120 with an extra channel? Why does this exist when the Rockerverb runs alongside it, since they have such similar features, and how much circuitry does it share in common?

The Orange standard naming is usually that “OR” series amps are single channel, but that still leaves a huge range. For example, the OR15 (great amp) is basically identical to a Rockerverb dirty channel. On the other hand, the OR50 is possibly one of the best amps ever made in my opinion and if I had to pick only 5 amps to keep that’d be one of them, and it shares absolutely nothing in common with the Rockerverb, Thunderverb, Dual Dark, AD30 or otherwise.

Well here it is, and I can finally compare with my other Oranges. Let’s talk features first. It has two channels, the clean is a volume and 2-band EQ, and the dirty channel is volume, gain, and a 3-band EQ. On the rear panel, it has an effects loop, a switch to drop 2 power tubes from the circuit (front panel also has full/half power mode, which is a pentode/triode switch I’m sure), and three footswitch jacks. The channel switch is obvious, but the other two are pretty interesting. “Boost Global” is a fixed volume boost that can be engaged on either channel that doesn’t add much gain (if any at all). “Gain Boost” however adds quite a bit of upper mid emphasis and gain as a result, and with this engaged it equals a Rockerverb in that area.

Now that I’ve done extensive A/B testing, I can confidently say this does not sound like a Rockerverb. It has a different texture, a little looser on the low end, I’d say a hair more “classic” feeling, though this is still a high gain amp and it is no substitute for a classic Orange if that’s the sound you are after.

Here’s where I’m going to complain a little bit though - yes it is a great sounding amp, no doubt about that. However to me, having the “punch” control (like on the OR50) is absolutely crucial to this type of amp design. This amp being so close to the Rockerverb with the same controls just feels like a missed opportunity to set it further apart, to appeal to a different audience. When these amps were new, the OR100 was much more expensive than a Rockerverb and I’m not sure I’d be able to justify that difference especially buying online. There’s a reason the Rockerverb is still going strong while the OR100 is long discontinued and hard to find used at that.

Another issue is the gain boost requiring a footswitch - I have a pile of footswitches so it’s no problem for me, but since it’s on a separate jack, it’s kind of annoying that you’d have to have something plugged in to trigger that gain boost. It’d be nice if you could set it to be on by default whether something is plugged in there or not.

To end on a nicer note, the EQ section on the dirty channel does feel like it has a bit more range to it than a Rockerverb, and as such adds quite a bit of versatility to what this amp can do.

So maybe I’m dreaming a little bit but if I were making an OR100 at Orange today, I’d be taking these bones and adding that punch knob (or a F.A.C. type knob) and voicing the top end to be a little less modern. Let the Rockerverb stay in its space and push this one towards the classic Orange sound. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll see an OR100 Mk2 - the OR30 sure looks like it’s on the right track.

New Guitar: GKG Custom 2

This is a lesser known Kramer “Kousin,” coming out of the Gary Kramer Guitars operation around 2009. Let me set the background a little here - around this time there was a renewed interest in Kramer, at the tail end of the MusicYo era (owned by Gibson) which was kind of an experiment with buying “factory direct” guitars online from overseas - a relatively new concept for 1999. They weren’t the best guitars but the price to quality ratio was pretty good and they must’ve sold decently well because it led to the USA made Baretta 85 reissues and Jersey Star’s around 2004 and culminating in the excellent 2008 Pacer Imperial reissues, also made in the USA.

In 2006, Gary Kramer, who was one of the original founders of Kramer guitars proper, started his own line of guitars. It’s worth mentioning that Gary Kramer was instrumental for the late 70s aluminum necked guitars, but left Kramer fairly early on to move back to California - kind of funny but all of those black and gold pointy headstock Kramers of the 80s hair metal days had his name on them but he wasn’t part of Kramer at that time. Anyway, after a nearly 30 year break, he returned to guitar manufacturing starting with some very unique designs like the Turbulence. If you’re interested in more of this, I’d highly recommend reading either this article from his website or this interview. Side note, the title of that interview (“Don’t call it a come back”) is the opening line for LL Cool J’s hit “Mama Said Knock You Out” - you could say I’m a bit of a hip hop fan too so I thought that was kind of funny.

Ok, preamble out of the way, let’s get to the guitar itself:

What we’re looking at here is a “Custom 2,” which is one of the later models before GKG stopped making guitars. It predates the Russian Roulette and RR2, which I wrote about a few months ago. The original GKG Custom came out sometime in 2007 and featured a HH pickup configuration, block inlays like a Les Paul, and had a very interesting body shape with some neat carving in the top along with a painted neck.

This Custom 2 is much more straightforward, with a flat front of the body (no carving) and a more standard unpainted bolt-on neck. A single direct mount humbucker, volume knob, and OFR are the only things on the face of the body so it has a really great clean look, but the back of the body still has some very interesting contouring and is very comfortable to hold. It reminds me a little bit of an Ovation in a way, where the back is rounded off but the front flat.

The highlight though has to be the neck, which very closely emulates a 1980s era Kramer claw neck - called “Sabertooth” by GKG. It’s very glossy, with aged white binding that matches the body color almost perfectly. Interestingly, the body has black binding (but these were also available in black with white binding, same neck). The neck isn’t a 3-piece maple like an ESP-made claw neck though, it’s actually a one piece with a scarf joint. Banana headstock Kramer necks from 83-85ish also came with this style so it’s kind of a cool hybrid of those two eras.

I feel I need to mention that part of the reason I find this guitar cool is unlike some of the more recent Gibson/Kramer guitars, it’s not trying to pretend to be something earlier. Ok - GKG Custom 2, the name evokes some similarities with 80s models (Pacer Custom 2), the neck inlays, pointy headstock, and floyd all call back to that time but it’s really doing its own thing. Maybe I’m a little “old man yells at clouds” here but I really dislike this trend with modern Kramers being named after a year or model from the 80s but then diverging from it so much. If you call a guitar “1984 Baretta” I want it to be as close as reasonably possible to a real 1984 Baretta. If you make a guitar with 2 humbuckers and a beak headstock, don’t call it a Baretta because it isn’t one, ya know? I guess I could say the same for MusicYo era stuff though.

Phew, well tangents aside, this is a really fantastic guitar. I’d have a hard time believing this is an aughts Korean made guitar because the quality is top notch - great fretwork, finishing is great, binding is meticulously well done, and it sounds great. According to the GKG site, this has a real OFR on it but I suspect it’s a Floyd 1000 before that model distinction existed. I have to search my memory a bit but I recall when the Korean made Floyd’s first started showing up people were a little upset that they were called them OFR but manufactured outside of Germany, even if the quality and metal used is theoretically the same. Next time I change strings, I’ll take a peak and update this post.

Anyway, I’d certainly buy another and I’d love to get my hands on a regular Custom one of these days. Prices for these things are all over the place, they were not that expensive to begin with but it seems they sold so few they aren’t exactly easy to find, and the Custom 2 is even less common. A great addition to my collection.

New Guitar: Ibanez RG752LWFX

I’ve been sort of looking for a 7-string guitar to add to the collection, but it hasn’t been a huge rush for me. For a little while, I had a couple of 6-strings tuned down as if they were 7’s just without the top string and that was good enough, but I knew I’d eventually want the real deal in some form.

I spent a lot of time narrowing down my search and I originally wanted an early 90s Ibanez 540S7 or S540-7, since I’m such a big fan of the S series guitars. The idea of a 540S with an extra string sounded just perfect, but these guitars were very difficult to find and I really just didn’t want a plain black guitar (the only stock color these were available in for the US market). Later S-series 7-strings lacked some other feature I considered important so I had to expand my search a bit.

I settled on a few RG’s, specifically the RG752AHM in Plum Burst was my most wanted (and still is). I love maple fretboards and that purple is such a great color. By extension though, I also looked at RG1527’s, RG7620’s, and the other RG752 models. I spotted this RG752LWFX for a steal and figured this was my chance.

As my first, and currently my only, 7-string instrument, it really checks a lot of boxes. The fixed “Gibraltar” bridge routes the strings through the body and allows me to change tunings easily - a nice plus compared to a floating bridge especially since I’m still not sure exactly what songs I want to play with this yet. It has locking tuners as well so it should be absolutely stable.

Pickups are Dimarzio PAF-7’s which is the lowest output Dimarzio 7-string humbucker available. It’s a quality pickup and sounds great on my first play test. It’s bright and punchy, and helps keep things crystal clear in the lower register even with a lot of gain (I used an ENGL Savage for my first tests). I will admit that I will have to experiment at some point with a higher output pickup, so maybe I’ll try something like a Crunch Lab 7 or Tone Zone 7. I can always swap back if I find it too muddy for what I’m playing.

The switch is also a 5-way, what I call a “super switch” (Jackson/Charvel terminology there). It gives a few extra tonal options and honestly if I ignored that extra string this would be a great sounding guitar for all of the other stuff I play… I think that’s a good sign.

Both the neck and body are fully bound, and so is the headstock (unlike my old RG550DX, still not sure why they did that). This is a Prestige model Ibanez after all, the top of the line production models made in the famous Fujigen Japan factory. The top wood is a limba with a black burst, while it’s not the most exciting color to my sensibilities it’s a lot more interesting than solid black to me. The rest of the body is basswood like most RG’s, and the neck is a 5-piece maple with two wenge stripes. The fretboard is apparently something called “Marbled Rosewood,” which I’ve never heard of before, and was only available 2016-217 (mine is a 2017 model). Standard Rosewood was used 2014-2016 and 2018, and this model was discontinued in 2018.

My only gripe so far is that it did not arrive with the standard red plush prestige case - or any case at all for that matter. For the price I suppose that’s fair but first order of business will be to put it in a case, and based on the near mint condition of the guitar, I’d be really surprised if it wasn’t kept in the case before I got my hands on it.

For those who aren’t aware, there is an excellent Ibanez Wiki page with tons of details about every model going back for years. It makes buying and collecting Ibanezes a lot more straightforward than some other makers, or especially Kramer and ESP which didn’t seem to document almost anything. Here is a link to the RG752LWFX page on that wiki.

More pictures available here.

New Amp: KSR Ares

I was scouring the Guitar Center used listings and I spotted a picture of a KSR Juno for a ridiculous price - $1250. The listing title said Ares but lets face it, Guitar Center’s listing titles and pictures are both equally unreliable, so I figured I’d risk it. I already have an Orthos 2 which is a very good amp, but the Juno is appealing to me with the separate EQ’s for the two lead channel modes. Once my order shipped and I saw that the package was only 31lbs, I knew it was going to be an Ares to my disappointment.

Of course, that’s not to say this isn’t a great amp. In this space of smaller amps, although this doesn’t quite count as a “lunchbox” amp, it’s very appealing. It’s kind of like a slightly more serious portable amp, sporting a full 50w power rating and very large transformers, with a choke, and high end components.

This particular amp is technically an Ares “II,” although I don’t think that is an official name. The difference is that this version of the amp has the two 6-way “feel” controls in place of the earlier version which just had 3-position “fat” switches like the Colossus. The Lead channel is the standard KSR/Rhodes style drive, which is gainy and saturated, but extremely polished and I’d say polite sounding, perhaps too smooth. I had the same critique of the Orthos, I felt like the amp was going for an “already mastered” type sound and lacked a little bit of personality and character. Still, these are superb amps if that’s the sound you are after.

This amp basically has the Lead section lifted right out of the Orthos, with a switchable effects loop and two master volumes. When you engage the 2nd master, it also uses the bottom row of voicing configurations, so that does add some versatility to the amp.

One of the biggest gripes I have about this amp (and the Orthos) is that the Master 1 mode has a crunch switch which heavily reduces the gain of the amp, and wow does it sound like absolute garbage. I don’t know what is going on behind the scenes here, but it really feels like it just chops the gain off about halfway between two stages and doesn’t do any other shaping. It’s not really usable to me, the bass is all cut to voice the amp for metal, so the crunch mode is incredible thin and bright sounding, but it also never gets clean sounding or dynamic with the guitar volume like I’d expect from an amp more dedicated to mid-gain tones. Obviously this is not the focus of the amp so I won’t complain too much. I did notice that on the KSR website, you can select a “clean mod” for an extra $250 which makes the crunch switch knock the amp down to an even lower gain level, so I really wonder how effective that actually is.

While I’m complaining, I also did a lot of A/B testing of this amp against my Orthos 2, which is the 100w version. They both have nearly identical core tones, as expected, both get plenty gainy and overall sound very good for heavier styles, almost akin to a 5150/6505 but with less grit. However, through the same cab and at the same volume level (measured by dB meter), the Orthos is just so much wider sounding. The Orthos has more extended lows and highs, so in contrast the Ares sounds a little… less than it could be. I was surprised because the Ares is pretty heavy for a small amp with plenty large transformers. For someone like me who doesn’t mind playing a 50w+ full size amp at home, I’d rather have the Orthos here, and if I wanted a lunchbox style amp, the Ares is still too large and high wattage. Again, I know I’m being too particular here and I’m sure this amp has its fans, but it just doesn’t speak to me.

Money is a little tight right now so I think this one will have to be returned to GC. Too bad it wasn’t the Juno, now I’m wondering how the 50w Juno would compare with the 100w Orthos…

More pictures here

New Amp: Ashdown Peacemaker 50

This is one of those deep cut amps that really deserves a lot more recognition. Many times when I buy amps, I sort by “price: high to low” when hunting. I don’t always have time to keep going all the way down and I have a tendency to stop once I start to see the same amps over and over (how many 50w EVH 5153’s are there around $800? Must be hundreds at any given time…). Anyway I had some spare time one day and I spotted this Ashdown amp all the way down in the $300-ish range on MusicGoRound. I had no idea what it was so I did a little research - hand wired, turret board construction, maybe some Matamp connection… ok, interest piqued.

Before I get into it, I want to give huge props to the Littleton CO MusicGoRound store, who originally did not have this amp available for shipping and took a little bit of convincing to do so. They did a great job packing it up and it arrived perfectly. It’s a very heavy amp and I appreciate the risk they took shipping it.

It’s a single channel amp with a very interesting story behind it. Ashdown Engineering is a relatively well known UK-based manufacturer of bass amplifiers, although they never seemed to really break into the US market. The Peacemaker series was a (largely unsuccessful) attempt at both breaking into the guitar market and the US market.

The Peacemaker series actually consists of two separate lines of amplifiers, and the naming is a bit confusing. The Peacemaker 20, 40, and 60 are all standard production line, multi-channel, tube, PCB amps. I haven’t played one of these but they are very inexpensive and not all that well regarded. I’d still like to try one for myself though.

On the other hand, the Peacemaker 50 and 100 are both hand-wired amps, designed by Dave Green of Matamp fame, with transformers by John Page. I don’t really know who John Page is and I couldn’t find hardly anything about him online, but he is mentioned both in the release announcement and the sales copy for website listings. These amps came out in 2001. Sometime around 2004, a Peacemaker “Custom” 100 appears on the Ashdown website, but I couldn’t find any more information about this model other than it looks quite a bit different, with a single input and separate master volumes for the high and low modes. I gathered up a lot of information on these amps which I’ll put at the end of this article, but keep reading for a review of this individual amp.

The Peacemaker 50 has two gain controls which are both active all the time, your standard treble/middle/bass/presence EQ section, and a master volume. There are two inputs, the first is a “normal” input, while Input 2 is a “bright” input. Both sound fantastic. It also has a Character Switch on the rear panel, which engages some additional gain stages and adds a lot of cut - it’s still very vintage sounding to my ear. The rear also includes an effects loop and a pentode/triode switch for the power tubes. The Peacemaker 50 as shown here is equipped with KT88 power tubes, while the Peacemaker 100’s came with a quad of EL34’s.

It’s clearly in the same vein as an early Orange or Matamp type design, incredibly thick and full sounding, and fuzzy when gained out. The two gain controls really help in adjusting the sound, something you wouldn’t normally get on an amp like this, so you can keep the amp a little tighter than those traditional designs and with the character switch, much higher gain too. Of course, it does the authentic tones spot on, and playing it through a Greenback equipped 4x12 is a hell of an experience, I half expected to see that all my leg hair had vibrated off at the end of my first session with it.

I usually don’t have much to say about the physical features of an amp, but it’s also a very slick, practical design. There is no top handle, instead there is a handle on either side. The chassis itself doesn’t extend very wide, so you can easily fit large hands on the sides to pick it up, and this is how I carry most amps I own anyway rather than using the top handle. It’s a lot easier on the back. I know there are other amps that do something similar now, like Wizards or the EVH 100w’s, but for 2001 this was pretty innovative.

One of the other eye-catching features of this amp is the front panel VU Meter, which not only works, but is extremely useful. The rear includes a control which allows you to select each power tube and measure the bias right on the front panel. The rear panel is simply held on by velco like a front-loaded speaker cab, and there is a pot and fuse for each tube that you can turn to adjust the bias right there, no multimeter necessary. If you’re happy with the bias, you can then set the VU Meter to show volume… and watch the needle spike up and down as you play. That’s just awesome.

The design of the chassis is also just gorgeous, with a heat shield between the power tubes and the preamp tubes. It has enormous heavy transformers along with a choke. Interestingly, the mains transformer is marked for a Peacemaker 100, but the output is the 50w version. This is normal as all of the Peacemakers were staged as if they were 100’s, then some set up as 50’s near finishing. Interesting that there are even tube sockets for another pair of power tubes, you’d think they’d just leave empty holes there or use a simple plastic cap.

I actually emailed Ashdown to ask about the transformers, as well as request a schematic, and that leads to another interesting discovery. I actually got a reply back from Dave Green himself, who still works at Ashdown Engineering, and while he says there is no schematic available, he had an interesting anecdote about the design of the amp:

it was made specifically for a certain artist wjho had an “appetite for destruction” and tuned whilst we were in the states

I don’t mean to be dense, but does he mean the amp was originally designed for Slash? If that’s the case, there is zero online information about that. Perhaps it was one of those deals that they couldn’t say for a while. I’m not a huge Slash fan but I do know he was playing his own signature Marshall 2555SL’s around that time, and this Peacemaker definitely sounds nothing like a 2555. Then again, he’s with Magnatone now so I have no idea, maybe he wanted a different amp for studio use or some other purpose - it’s not like professional players just use one amp forever or anything. Either way, very interesting and if anyone knows more, please let me know.

Alright, I have a couple more loose ends to tie up, for those who care about little details. I’m going to put all of the pictures into galleries at the end to save space because this article is already far too long.

First, very early Peacemakers had slightly different knobs than mine. Promotional material and some pictures I located of another for sale with serial number 0006 have silver color with 8 small dots on the face. For comparison, my amp is serial number 0016… no idea how many were made in total but I’d be amazed if it was more than 50. Here are some photos of that SN 0006 Amp:

Second, I have photos of what appears to be a prototype or very early Peacemaker 100, dated 2001, without a silk screened rear panel and a different internal layout. I found these on an amp repair shop’s facebook page (sorry, I have forgotten exactly where now). This one also appears to be in the “birdcage” cabinet instead of the traditional wooden cabinet, which was optional. Photos of that amp:

Third, these amps were actually spun off into another brand name called “Hayden.” The Peacemaker 20/40/60 also made this transition, but I have never seen a Hayden Peacemaker that wasn’t the “custom” version which is different from my amp. There are quite a few other very cool looking Hayden amps, with a whole series of UK made hand wired amps. The Hayden website existed from 2005-2020, but sadly I can only get useful info out of the archive from around 2008, and by then the hand wired Peacemakers are long gone. The Custom is the one with the two master volumes, but interestingly the Hayden versions have both high and low inputs, while the Ashdown version only has the single input. Here’s a photo of the Ashdown version of that amp compared with two Hayden’s I was able to find from old Reverb listings:

Final bits here, the official announcement of the amps from NAMM 2002, a screenshot of the Ashdown website circa June 2004 of the Peacemaker Custom. I was not able to find the original Peacemaker website page, it looks like the site used some now unsupported discussion board back then, so I wasn’t able to locate the peacemaker page. I did scour over an hour of footage from a 2003 Beyonce concert at Wembley to find a shot of her guitarist Shaun Carrington using one in that show (the bassist is also using an Ashdown amp at this time). The last photo is of Stevie Salas, I think with his band The IMF’s here.

Here is the manual for the Peacemaker series amps, prior to the “Custom” version.

And a Brochure for the Peacemaker Custom series circa 2004.

Here are more photos of the amp itself.

As I dig down into some of the other Ashdown/Hayden amps, I have to say I am very interested. The Classic Lead looks and sounds great, and so does the Vanquish/AGM30 and Speakeasy. Thanks for reading!

New Guitar: Another... yes ANOTHER '82 Kramer Pacer Bent Pipes graphic

Well, I’ve done it again. This is now my third “Bent Pipes” graphic Kramer Pacer. This time, a friend and fellow Kramer Forumz member Dave sent me a message because he had tabs on another Bent Pipes (a really sweet custom order with black hardware and a Floyd) and he didn’t need two. I found that funny as I already have two and here comes a third but I really love these guitars and this is a very cool graphic.

And maybe I’m just looking for reasons to justify it, but this is technically different from the other two. This is a two humbucker Imperial model with a Rockinger bridge (the “EVH” tremolo). My other Rockinger-equipped Bent Pipes is a Special (single humbucker). The first Bent Pipes I got is also an Imperial, but with a brass fulcrum trem. Ok, I’m stretching a little bit here.

It originally arrived with a double cream Dimarzio bridge humbucker, probably a Super Distortion, but for some reason one coil seemed to stop working. So in the spirit of all the early 80s “EVH” stuff, I decided to put in a Seymour Duncan SH-5 Custom, wired by Lidia Daniel. For those that aren’t aware, the Duncan Custom was originally called the Van Halen pickup and was used in advertising material circa 1979.

As expected, the guitar is fantastic. Nicely built, great feeling neck. It’s a vintage feel, glossy lacquered and with small frets by modern standards, but plays great especially for classic rock stuff. I’m very partial to these guitars and this is a great example.

One noteworthy detail, later Rockinger systems like this one only have 5 allen screws on the locking mechanism just after the brass nut. The highest two strings share one lock, while earlier Rockingers would have a separate screw for each string which resulted in the high E/B strings breaking more often. Later Rockingers also had saddle height adjustment directly on the saddle, as opposed to earlier models where you had to remove the saddle to adjust the height.

More pictures here

Site Updates: Additional photos

As part of maintaining this site, I occasionally go through and find typos, update missing or incomplete information, or find things I think could use new photos or details. I’m always learning new bits of historical or technical information and I try to add things like that too.

It’s a pretty time consuming task as it now constitutes a bit over 500 pages - enough to trigger a warning from my host about size - so it’s more of a “rolling” approach, where I update one page at a time with big gaps in between. Occasionally though, I make an effort to make some larger scale updates and today I wanted to mention that I’ve added additional photos for a large number of guitars. Check out the list below for updated photos:

• 1996 Fender Telecaster 50th

• 1988 Hamer Chaparral Sustainiac

• 1986 Kramer Pacer Deluxe Champagne

• 1986 Kramer Pacer Imperial CAR Matching Headstock

• 1986 Kramer Pacer Deluxe FF Pink

• 1986 Kramer Pacer Custom II CAR

• 1989 Kramer Sustainer FF Red/Maple

• 1989 Kramer Forum II Bass

• 1975 Ovation Custom Balladeer

• 1997 Rickenbacker 360/6 Jetglo

• 1987 Charvel Model 4 Platinum

• 1985 Ibanez XV500

And a few minor updates, mainly the main photos (top of the page, front/back profiles) were poor on these pages so I took new ones:

• 1991 ESP Horizon

• 1988 Kramer Stagemaster Deluxe II Flat Top

Here’s a quick example of the old vs new profile pictures. I’m not sure what I was thinking with the red blanket hanging back there… fixed now. The amps make for a much prettier backdrop.

Thanks for reading!

New Amp: 1999 Brunetti 059

Thanks to a friend of mine located in Europe, I was able to get my hands on one of these amps. Brunetti is fairly unknown here in the US but I’ve been lucky enough to play an XL and own a (still partially broken) XL-REVO II, and both of those have been fantastic amps.

The 059 is a more classic voiced amp, aimed a little more at vintage hard rock tones than the XL or XL REVO which are both fire breathing metal monsters out of the box (not that they can’t do great vintage tones too of course).

The panel looks a little complicated at first glance, but it makes sense once you are up close. The first three knobs on the left near the input are the gain controls - one for each channel, Clean, Crunch, and Solo. Then each channel has a 3-band EQ and a master volume control, and these are cluster together in this “stairstep then drop” pattern - bass, middle treble, then the one towards the bottom is the volume control right next to the push-button channel select switch. Each channel also has some addtional tone shaping options I’ll cover individually.

The clean channel is really fantastic for a high gainer, with a lot of lively character that makes it interesting to listen to - it’s not flat or sterile at all. The gain control has a bright switch attached which has a very strong impact on the tone especially with single coils and adds a lot of sparkle. It’s not a feature heavy channel, but the tone is superb.

The Crunch and Solo channels are similar looking, but they do have a clearly audible difference in their basic structure. The Solo channel is much looser and thicker by default, but not in a metal-amp saturated kind of way, which might put some players off. It’s really aimed more for your thicker, flowing, 70s era solo tones - I hear Highway Star solo tones in it.

The Crunch channel on the other hand has a much more defined low end for rhythm riffing, and still has plenty of gain on tap, but won’t satisfy for the most extreme metal styles without a boost. I do find this channel to be a bit anemic until the yellow “Shift” button is pressed, which adds a ton of low mid chunk to the sound. For my playing style, the Shift stays on all the time but I can see a use case with lower gain tones without it, or especially as a variation on a clean or “edge of breakup” type tone. Basically, you can get that type of sound with the gain turned up on the clean channel, or with the gain turned down on this channel - very nice.

Both channels have a “mellow” switch, and this cuts some of the high end and tapers it off more quickly. It interacts well with the presence control, and you can get some unique tones by arranging them opposite to each other (ex high presence but mellow on, or vice versa). And the last interesting feature is the “crunch/solo tone reverse” which simply swaps the tone stacks between the two channels. This lets you use the Solo channel’s higher gain but with the tone settings (and tighter low end) of the crunch channel. It’s not a perfect channel clone or anything, and it’s not intended to be, it’s just a nice feature for giving some versatility to either channel because you effectively have two different sets of EQ with different circuit values you can use for whatever you need.

Other features include an effects loop with send and return controls, a line out, and has many functions that are MIDI controllable. It also has the very cool feature of a 1U rack space underneath the chassis, something I’ve only seen from Brunetti and is a great home for my Yamaha SPX90.

I did have to rewire this to 120V, but the transformers still had the wires all ready to go and taped off. I sent a quick email to Marco Brunetti (who has been very responsive to my emails!) who confirmed I had the right wires, so it was an easy job.

Of course, this keeps fueling my need to acquire more Brunetti amps. There is a second edition of the 059 with some different features I’d love to compare with, and I’m also really wanting a Pirata 141. The Pirata 141 “valvemix” has a knob that allows the user to adjust the amount of two different power tubes in the circuit - by default a pair of 6L6 and a pair of EL34. This is similar to the Egnater Renegade (which I had, and sold) but I’m interested to hear Brunetti’s take on this idea, especially since the Pirata seems geared a little more towards high gain sounds than the Egnater was.

Either way, I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for more of these great amps!

New Guitar: Kramer Stagemaster Transparent Blue

I’ll spare you all the usual “I should not be buying more guitars” talk here, even if it is true. I am at a point though where I’m starting to focus on only buying and keeping the really good ones - and any Stagemaster to me is one of those good ones. I spotted this one online at GC and missed it… it popped up again and I didn’t wait and bought it immediately. It was well priced but didn’t include the case, so I was very worried it would show up damaged or otherwise mistreated.

While awaiting delivery, a fellow Kramer collector posted about it on the kramerforumz, and he had returned it due to some shipping damage on the lower side of the body. I gave up hope at that point and figured I’d be taking it straight to return, but I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived - yes it has a sizable spot of damage through to the wood which is really regrettable, but this is still in excellent shape and at the price I decided I’d keep it.

The bridge humbucker has been replaced by a Dimarzio, I haven’t pulled it but there are only 3 possible options with this pole + bar arrangement: the D-Sonic, Crunch Lab, and now discontinued MegaDrive. I feel fairly certainly looking at the age and appearance that this is a MegaDrive, which I’ve actually had several of in the past and it is a great pickup. It has lower output but more mids than those more recent pickups… although I may end up swapping it and putting another Seymour Duncan in here just to make it all match up. We’ll see, I’m not in a rush.

It plays great, and has a very flat back of neck feel similar to my champagne colored Stagemaster (interestingly, my other 3 have much more rounded off necks). If the serial number decoder is correct, this guitar was very late, November of 1988, and the champagne one was July. All of the others are earlier in the year (April-June) so perhaps the neck shape was modified at a certain point, or maybe it’s just classic Kramer where the neck shape varied week to week depending on how they felt that day.

The finish is absolutely glorious of course - I love these transparent colors and the wood grain is especially cool on a neck-through instrument like this. All of my Stagemasters are firmly in my “keepers” list so I’m glad to have another.

More photos here