Make mine MAGNATONE! Vintage ad.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 29 Jun 2021 4:35 am

Shared on FB by Graham Tichey ...

Nic Neufeld · Post by **Nic Neufeld** » 29 Jun 2021 4:42 am

Great pic! Barney looks so young there!

Nic Neufeld · Post by **Nic Neufeld** » 29 Jun 2021 4:52 am

Oh great. Now there is this unreasonable, foolish voice in my head whispering "aha! you need a late 50s Magnatone Custom 260...that's the missing thing that will make you sound like Jules...no, not practice, you dolt, its the amp!"

Glenn Wilde · Post by **Glenn Wilde** » 29 Jun 2021 4:55 am

Love it! I'm a big Magnatone fan, they were kinda sleepers for years but i think the word's out.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 29 Jun 2021 5:50 am

I love my Magnatone varsity steel and the crisp single coil sound of Magnatone pickups in general. I am entirely ignorant about Maggie amps but they sure seem to be hot and desirable over the last few years.

Glenn Wilde · Post by **Glenn Wilde** » 29 Jun 2021 8:28 am

Andy Volk wrote:I love my Magnatone varsity steel and the crisp single coil sound of Magnatone pickups in general. I am entirely ignorant about Maggie amps but they sure seem to be hot and desirable over the last few years.

The amps are definitely special, ive got a '58 Custom 280 and a '63 213 Troubadour and they sound spectacular.
Guitar wise i have two six string G70s and a eight string G65.

Nic Neufeld · Post by **Nic Neufeld** » 29 Jun 2021 10:31 am

I've got a D8 (dual pickup, like what Jules used...I think Barney more often used the single pickup one with the clear plastic tuner heads). I like its tone more than my Stringmaster, feels like it has a bit more mids. The tone pot is weird and I still don't understand it, doesn't work like any tonepot I've used before...and the necks are not balanced in output. That said, love the guitar and I feel a bit of a connection to that era playing it.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 29 Jun 2021 11:53 am

Some Magnatone history and info ....

https://www.magnatoneamps.com/history.html

https://www.vintageguitar.com/?s=Magnatone

https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/the- ... that-could

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=137881

Jack Hanson · Post by **Jack Hanson** » 1 Jul 2021 2:10 pm

I remember those Maggie/Estey tube amps in the molded plastic cabinets kicked some serious hind-end back in the mid- '60s. Sleepers in the vintage amp world. Ours had some oddball power tubes -- don't remember what they were, but they definitely weren't common 6L6s. They were heavy mothers; wouldn't wanna have to carry one today. The models with the brittle molded cabinets did not travel well in below-zero Minnesota winters -- ours was eventually held together with epoxy and duct tape. But it was powerful for the day, and it sounded awesome. If I remember correctly it had four 12" Jensens. It definitely had multiple channels, because we regularly ran both guitars and a Farfisa through it, and often one or two vocal mics to boot. Cool old amp.

Don Kona Woods · Post by **Don Kona Woods** » 2 Jul 2021 11:04 am

I had a Magnatone Lyric D8, but I could never make it sound like Jules. He was the greatest at the tone. I have never heard anyone come close to his sound.

Butch Pytko · Post by **Butch Pytko** » 17 Jul 2021 4:54 pm

That Magnatone poster/ad--if someone could lay it perfectly flat, align it correctly, and scan it for us fans, we could make a copy and frame it. I copied the one that's on Magnatone.com--but, it's slightly cropped on the right side--not perfectly intact like this one.

Tim Whitlock · Post by **Tim Whitlock** » 17 Jul 2021 6:19 pm

My â€˜57 Troubadour.

Nic Neufeld · Post by **Nic Neufeld** » 18 Jul 2021 4:37 am

Butch Pytko wrote:That Magnatone poster/ad--if someone could lay it perfectly flat, align it correctly, and scan it for us fans, we could make a copy and frame it. I copied the one that's on Magnatone.com--but, it's slightly cropped on the right side--not perfectly intact like this one.

Yeah, I actually hunted on ebay to see if I could find one...I would totally put that one up in my lockdown project basement tiki bar...

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 18 Jul 2021 7:17 am

I found a version on the web that I cleaned up a bit in Photoshop, saving it as a 300 dpi, CMYK tif file for printing. It seemed to survive the up-res to 300. Seems better with a slight bit of warmth rather than straight grayscale.

You can download my version here: https://spaces.hightail.com/space/eVbM3z5QyF

And here's the source file (RGB, 72 dpi): https://i.imgur.com/CuRiG.png

Glenn Wilde · Post by **Glenn Wilde** » 18 Jul 2021 7:37 am

Tim Whitlock wrote:My â€˜57 Troubadour.

Great amp, i have a '62 Pac Amp version thats always been one of my favorites. I really like it better than any tweed Deluxe ive tried.
Here is a match for your 213, my '58 Custom 280.

Butch Pytko · Post by **Butch Pytko** » 18 Jul 2021 1:36 pm

I had a sudden urge today to try and correct the available Magnatone poster/ad from Magnatone.com. I was able to extract the right side of the distorted Magnatone photo given here, and combine it to the Magnatone.com photo. Had to resize, color balance, use bits and peices, cut and splice, etc.--I even amazed myself, that I can get so much out of my Paint program, which pales against Photoshop. I also used my Nero image editing software. It was a lot of work, but I love doing image editing.

Here's the before and after photos.....

Nic Neufeld · Post by **Nic Neufeld** » 18 Jul 2021 4:27 pm

Thanks guys! I might have to frame this one for my tiki bar. I also have a framed magazine ad for the Alfred Apaka show at the Tapa Room as well as a few other fun bits of novelty in my little shrine to the era (it was a fun project during the Covid lockdown).

Funny thing, on rereading, my brain sees "22 1/2" and immediately thinks, scale length? Got steel on the brain, I guess.