The Steel Guitar Forum

Martin,

I use a Mesa Boogie Triaxis tube preamp and a Mesa Boogie Simulclass 2:90 stereo tube power amp into 2 EV-12 single cabs; Alesis Quadraverb II for light reverb and subtle echo, sometimes a little chorus. I realize my choice is fairly well out of the mainstream, but the palette of tones is just absurd, really; I've never not been able to find the tone I was after with this kit.

Old Fenders are the bomb. I'd love to hear Hoffner's rig. And Dan Tyack has got some truly monster tone. VHTs, Matchless, it's all good. It all depends what kind of sound you're looking for. I've got a 1972 100 watt Ampeg V-4 half stack that still amazes me. So many amps, so little time... Good luck!

Cheers, Robert

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Robert Hicks - Fessenden S12U

Home Page: http://www.members.home.net/tonejunkie
Email: rhhicks@home.com

Thanks, Robert! If your are talking about my album, that's all either a THD class A amp (old fenderish) with a 6L6 or a THD amp with 2 X EL84 tubes, which is probably more 'voxish' (it actually was based on an old Supro steel amp).

I'm going to have to try an Ampeg v-4 one of these days.

But I'm an oddball in terms of tone, for a steel player.

If I were a steel player in Europe looking for a 'standard' tone, I would look for a decent preamp and efx unit which has been built for european certification, find a good power amp, and use a couple of speakers with JBLs or Peavey Black Widows.

SOme preamps I'm pretty sure are CE certified include the Roland GP-100, the Boss GX-700 or VF-1, the various Mesa tube preamps, the Furman, the Almebic bass preamp, the Kern bass preamp (it has a wall wart, they had better have chosen that design because of CE issues). For a straight efx unit, I believe all the Lexicons are CE certified.

My favorite power amps are the VHTs, which are CE certified. The VHT 2/90/2, which as Bob mentioned was designed for metal heads, is the bomb for clean steel guitar. Absolutely the best I have ever played. The Peavey tube power amps are nice. I'm sure there are any number of good transister amps out there.

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