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I admit that I have never been a fanatic about my guitars and gear. Every single guitar, amp, pedal and cord I have ever had, has some kind of damage or issue that I can look at and not feel the need to restore. It may be an illness, or maybe just a diary of all the hell I put my stuff through.

My favorite guitar, my ‘61 Epiphone Casino has never had a hard case and I have had that guitar for 30 years. I am bad about not using a guitar stand even though one is literally within reach. Sometimes I lean my guitar against the outside of the guitar stand because putting it in its cradle seems like too much effort. It has been knocked over more times than any instrument of that caliber should ever endure. My dog was really happy to see me once and he wagged his tail so hard, my guitar was ejected from its stand and tossed across the tile floor like a rag-doll. My son Nate, also a guitarist, chewed on the neck when he was teething as a baby, and when I play a “B” chord I can feel the teeth marks on my palm. I don’t want to fix that.

Just recently, my friends and I were disrupting the local King of the Blues competition for our own pleasure and my ’61 got slammed again. I know my limitations as a guitarist and had no visions of winning the King of the Blues whatsoever. So I entered with the sole intention of just having some fun. When it was my turn, the singer from my band grabbed the MC’s mic and my son Nate had another guitar staged up unnoticed. We did “King Bee” for the crowd and got a great response from the judges and audience; however against the rules it was. Afterward, a little kid running through the store caught his foot on my cord and the old Epiphone (on a stand) was airborne again. Whatever. I have the disqualifying stunt on video… no detectable new damage to the guitar either.

I am not a string freak either. If I break a string, I put off doing anything about it like it was time to change the wallpaper in grandma’s bathroom. I loathe it. My Casino has a broken string now. Been that way for a month. I just play up the fifth string to hit those notes or I just use another guitar. Once I did that for a whole year. Sometimes I take my guitars to the local mom and pop store to have them restrung. That’s how much I hate changing strings.

Amps are another thing to feel my abuse. The cover blew off my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe while in the back of my truck on the way to a gig recently. You know what that means don’t you? That amp no longer has a cover and never will. I will remember the wild gig that night every time I think about that cover… a good trade off.

I play a lot of gigs with friends and friends of friends so it is really common to go do a gig with a bass player or a drummer who has never played the songs we are about to do in front of an audience. For that reason I keep a Roland Micro Cube handy. It’s battery powered (optional), and I can pull it out in a venue parking lot or backstage and do a quick run through of the breaks and tempo of stuff the fill in guy doesn’t know so we can pull off some 12 bar 1-4-5 blues on the fly.

My Roland Micro cube disappeared and I feared the worst-theft. Fast forward 5 months-not 5 weeks-not 5 days, but 5 long months. I go to a farm where I had played a gig at night for a big “weed” fest and protest thing. Not Woodstock but we are talking acres. It was pitch black out there behind the stage. Guess What? There on the ground by a bush was my Micro Cube. Mind you it had been sitting outside in a field for 5 months. I walked up to it and pushed the power button and the red power light came on. I took it home and plugged in my sons Godin Artisan ST and the amp cranked! Roland, thanks for building anything that can take being mine. Many types and brands of gear can’t survive F.A.T. (the Frank Abuse Test). Drove hard and put away dirty old Epiphones and Roland Micro Cubes can.

The Little Giant Half Stack guitar amp from Blackheart consists of the BH5H amp head and BH112 speaker cabinet. The name implies monster sound contained within a small half stack style package.

FEATURES: The front of the amp head features an ON/OFF switch, 3W/5W selector switch, bass, mid, and treble controls, and input jack. This hardware is heavy duty – there is nothing that feels cheap and it inspires confidence in the overall quality. My only minor complaint is the input jack. I like to feel a nice positive ‘ka-chunk’ to make me feel like I’ve got a solid lock into my gear. With this input jack the cable slides in a little too easily and I feel like the slightest tug will pull it right out. But hey, call it a safety feature. The back features 4, 8, and 16 ohm speaker outputs. Driving this Class A amp is a 12AX7 preamp tube and EL84 power tube. The closed back cabinet houses a 12” Eminence speaker and has two 16 ohm parallel speaker jacks on the back.

Construction: The materials are rugged and feel like they can take a real beating. It’s also damn good looking. The head and cabinet feature black-and-white checkerboard style fabric outlined with thick white binding that is implemented as actual material rather than a low cost paint job. Black tolex covers both pieces. The cabinet seems to have a smoother covering on it whereas the head has a stickier almost rubber-type feel. I wouldn’t call this a significant feature, but I actually appreciate this texture as it puts a little grab on my guitar when I lean it against the amp head.

The Blackheart logo adorns the front of both the head and cabinet. This is totally subjective but while I do think the logo is pretty cool, there’s something about it that takes away from the perception of the amp as a serious ass-kicking piece of gear, almost like it’s trying to be cool for cool’s sake. But like the attention to detail in construction, the parts providing the base for the logos are cut in three levels which is added attention to detail. Both pieces have heavy duty carrying handles on top.

SOUND: This amp is like three amps in one. At 3W with the volume set midway or below, it’s very clean. Beyond midway to full volume the amp begins to break up naturally providing tasty crunch. Switching over to 5W and dialing the volume back to midway maintains similar crunch but with more ‘oomph’. Finally, going whole hog with the volume cranked at 5W pushes crunch into distortion.

The 3-band EQ is very effective in dialing in a variety of tones. Given the size of this amp and the fact that it’s powered by one preamp and one power tube, I’m impressed by how warm it sounds. I found myself experimenting primarily with the bass EQ to dial in the amount of warmth and roundness. The amp sounded great until I thrashed around at full volume in the 5W setting. That’s when lower frequencies started to warble and growl. But by turning the bass EQ down and adjusting my pickup selection I was able to tame the beast.

Volume-wise you can get enough good character out of this Little Giant at lower volumes for practicing at home without terrorizing your neighbors (unless you want to) and it’s also loud enough that you can get your jam on and rehearse with it with a band so long as you’re not trying to compete with full-sized gear at full volume. The key is in understanding at what levels the amp breaks up into various degrees of distortion. If you want to distort at neighbor-friendly levels, you’ll likely have to turn to pedals for this.

THE ROUND-UP: This is a great sounding amp in an attractive conveniently sized package. I’m impressed by its versatility in consideration of its basic features. My wish list would include a gain control to get a handle on the overdrive, a standby switch if only to make it feel more “legitimate”, and a headphone jack because I want to crank this sucker in my apartment at odd hours. For right around $300 this is a great buy!

THE UPS: High quality construction. Attractive, Great organic sounds from clean to crunch and beyond. Great value.

THE DOWNS: Full volume at 5W gets growly. No gain control.

THE ALL AROUNDS: A very cool package that won’t bust your budget or your ear drums while still allowing you to rock like a star. A fun amp all around that inspires playing.

Great tone is a very subjective thing that is unique and personal to every person. Let me begin this article by saying that. Let me also say that tone is caused by many things which all go into a blender so to speak and as a result you have a “tone.” While I freely admit to being a guitar geek when it comes to gear, this article is not going to dive into whether Seymour Duncan or EMG makes better pickups or whether you ought to use Ernie Ball or GHS strings. We have harmony central message boards for that, but what I am hoping to accomplish is more so a broad or general how to, on how to get a great tone for you and your needs.

The Guitar: Between your hands and the guitar are three vital things. The pick, the strings and the guitar’s pickups. Each item is worth looking at.

Do you use a thin, medium or heavy pick? Each pick is excellent at causing a certain tone and vibe. If you’re playing hard rock, I would suggest you use a heavy pick. If strumming chords on an acoustic, it’s preference, but lighter picks often sound beautiful in that application. Also for finger picking you can buy finger picks.

What gauge strings are you using? This should depend on what you tune to, and what your style is. Light gauge strings are brighter and give more when played. With 8 or 9 gauge strings player can do 2 whole step bends and playing and vibrato are very easy. With heavy strings, 10s or 11s, the player can dig in more and the guitar plays heavier with more resistance like an acoustic guitar. Also, if you drop tune think of this equation. If you use 9s in standard tuning and want to tune down to Eb use a higher gauge string like a 10. The resistance will feel similar and strings wont be too easily bent or feel loose.

What pickups are in the guitar? Are they the stock pickups that came with your guitar, or are they higher grade makes from companies that only are know for making pickups. I would tell you to go for pickups made from manufactures who only make pickups. In general they are just better and often time great pickups in an inexpensive guitar can sound just as good as average or stock pickups in an expensive guitar. Also, are your pickups passive and use magnets, or are they active and use a battery? Again this difference is enormous. Passive pickups allow the guitar’s tonal character from the wood and glue to be heard more so than active pickups. Please remember that pickups are a key in getting certain tones from your guitar.

The Amp: If I had to have a great guitar and a so so amp, or a so so guitar and a great amp I would take the latter. An amp has so much to do with your tone. If you plug into a Fender Twin and expect high gain rock sound you won’t like what you find. You really need to search for what it is that you are looking for tonally from an amp. Do you want a beautiful clean channel? A searing metal lead sound? Think of what sound you are really going for, and then do your research. In general I think of amps in families for lack of a better idea. If I want a nice clean channel for blues, or jazz, or some pop I would go with a Fender-type amp. These amps typically stay clean even when very loud and do not distort very easily. If I want a rock or hard rock sound I would go with a Marshall-type of amp. These amps distort and have a vocal mid-range that lets you cut through a rock-type rhythm section. If I want a more metal sound, I would go for a Mesa Boogie-type of amp. These amps sound punishing and very aggressive with a heavy low end sound.

When looking at an amp you need to know a few other things as well. Are they tube or solid state? Tube amps are know to “sound better,” and are often preferred over solid state. That being said, solid state amps such as Randall have amazing metal sounds and Roland Jazz chorus amps have amazing clean tones. If you decide to buy a tube amp, know what tubes they use. Marshall-type amps usually use EL34 tubes which break up and distort right away. On the other hand, Fender-type amps use 6L6 tubes which do not break up much even at high volumes preserving their clean tone. There are many tubes on the market so again do your research.

Do you want an effects loop? Often times people run certain effects into an effects loop so that the effect(s) perform at their best. An effects loop comes between an amp’s preamp and power amp section. Think of it as a cup holder between the front seat and passenger seat in a car. Here people place effects like delay or effects that they do not want before their amp’s preamp if they run it with a lot of gain.

Lastly with amps, do you want a combo or a head and cabinet? Combo amps are usually seen in amps like a Fender Twin while Marshall stacks are a head and cabinet. Remember to look into what speakers are in your combo amp or cabinet. Changing the speakers or using different speakers can cause very different tones. For example low watt speakers like Celestion Greenbacks distort at lower volumes than say Celestion vintage 30s which break up or distort at higher volumes. Often times blending speakers in your cab (using multiple different speakers) can cause cool results since you can get a wide array of tones in one cab or combo.

I hope that this helps anyone out there trying to get a basic idea of your tonal options in guitars and amps. Of course I could go into more detail but this is an excellent starting point for anyone who isn’t a guitar geek like me. One last tip though, play your guitar!

Listen Up Amp Manufacturers! Your amps sound great, but that is not good enough.
You know, I have been through a sea of amps over the years and I never had the one I really liked. I mean really, really liked. There was always something that bugged me about the one I was lugging around from gig to gig. That list of grievances has been getting longer the older I get. Somebody needs to come to grips with what guitarists really want their amp to supply.

My gripes today include but in no way engulf my amp psychosis as follows:
Most cabinets are built with low grade particle board. I know you manufacturers went out of your way by covering them with simulated vinyl “leatherette,” but stop building the boxes out of roof sheathing. Just stop it. Its’ heavy for one, and now that I brought it to everyone’s attention, it is just plain unacceptable, starting now. No wait….here it comes…NOW!

Currently, I have a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe that is close to meeting my whining list, but it is in no way completely satisfactory. I find myself in the position more frequently than I would like, of having to use someone else’s amp during a show, in the dark, because I let another player come up and do a couple of songs with my rig, and I end up playing someone else’s guitar and using their amp when they need to leave the stage to break up a fight or hide from somebody. That amp always has the mystery power and standby switch. Being a blues player, tube amps are almost exclusively on stage, hence the standby switch. Sometimes its on the back, or the top or front, or sometimes I can’t find it period. From now on, no – make that NOW, all tube amps are to have the power switches on the upper right top of the amp, and the power switch WILL be red AND lit, and the standby switch WILL be blue AND lit.

Which only brings me to another point. Unless the light crew dedicates a flood to the control side of the amp, it is in the dark. Now, my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe has a red light which lets you know when the power is on – but that is it. The rest my friends, is Braille 101. My cell phone gives me 1000 times more information from a tiny light than my expensive amp does. Crate has some nice amps that have lit panels on them, but the one I used in a studio the other day was not a tube amp and all the lights were red. Once again, manufacturers, throw me a bone here. Make the gain knob Green and LIT, starting, you guessed it—NOW!

Let’s not just blindly paste things here and there, how about a little thought and practicality?
My vision is going. I wear reading glasses. The writing on the panel of knobs is so small that I have to get on my knees to see what settings I am at. Not on some amps, but every friggin’ amp I touch. Manufacturers “ALERT”. Use the biggest font that will fit on the newly LIT panel, you know when that is to start. I am done saying it.

Other than that, casters will be mandatory and if the foot switch jack is on the back of the amp, I will kick my foot through the speaker right in the store. VOX is already hip to me and put a kick-proof speaker cover on their amps. On the front, close to the floor line will work for me. Left or Right, I will live with it. A pick dispenser would be cool. Maybe the tweed can be “pre-ripped” too.

Since this article has been unleashed on the internet, you can bet your competitors are re-tooling as you read this. Print this on paper and take it to the boardroom now. You might make V.P.

Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Guitar Amplifier

Peavey Windsor Guitar Amp

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Alright, who doesn’t want maximum sound coming out of their guitar at all times, night or day, regardless of who complains? People in apartments are at the scourge of their landlords, and others are at the scourge of their half-deaf family. Let’s be realistic people, maybe the half-stack isn’t necessarily the best thing to be playing through at two am… for other people. I personally think its ok all the time, but I’m in the minority, along with the rest of guitarist players.

This is what led me on my road to find some vibrations that make me smile wide without angering my neighbors. You could call this a coming-of-age journey. My first mini-amp. So, what do I have to balance? First things first, I’m dirt poor (it’s the nature of being in college) so price was a big issue. Also, I’m picky when it comes to quality. Last of all, and likely most important, is sound. If it doesn’t sound good, I won’t use it, because I hate when my guitar sounds like a dying cat. I know, I’m weird that way.
Research is key whenever you’re purchasing a new piece of equipment. Don’t go by what your half-cousin tells you; figure it out for yourself. For me, the beginning of my project was endless reviews of mini amps. The Internet, like some sort of web the stretches over the whole wide world (creative metaphor, huh?), was my one stop shopping center of information. The problem is that there are no straight answers when it comes to amps. What some people love more than their own life can also be what others think is the most poorly made piece of equipment on the market. While taking each review with a grain of salt, I decided that, cumulatively, the Danelectro Honeytone Mini Amp was the one for me.

I bought for the very comfortable price of $22.00 (ish), and I brought it home. If I may interject for a moment (and I may, because its my article), no, I did not expect an earth shattering sound to come out a $22.00 amp. I realize that I get what I pay for, now. Anyway, I plugged in and a surprisingly loud sound came out of it. Everything that it had in volume, however, it lacked in tone. I sounded like I was playing through a telephone, down a long hallway, with a Squier… a bad Squier.

Well, after about a half hour of playing, I was feeling a little bit better about it. The clean tones actually worked pretty well, and as long as I kept it low, the overdrive started to sound better. I thought that maybe it wasn’t a regretful purchase afterall. 31 minutes into playing: dead. Silence. A few jitters of sound after trying to fix it, then it completely stopped. While yes, I may have been unlucky enough to get a defective one; I have a sneaking suspicion that this is just a poorly made amp. If it comes alive again, and stays working than maybe it was worth the $22.00, but if not, I’m going to have to cut it out of my setup. In the end, I’m left with a once-lively amp that has since been silenced indefinitely. Honey? hardly.