PF's "Little Walter Amp" ?

Rick Schmidt · From: Prescott AZ, USA

I heard some talk about Paul Franklin's cool new tube amp while I was at the Phoenix show last week, so I did a search:

http://www.littlewaltertubeamps.com/page12.html

Has anybody else tried one of these? From what I can tell it's a stereo 50 watts a side amp. Very cool!

Jonathan Cullifer · From: Gallatin, TN

I have not played through one of the stereo amps, but I have played through the 50W mono amps and I was very impressed. Phil and Carol have had several test sessions in Nashville in the last few months and I have been to almost all of them. I don't own one of these amps (yet!).

The stereo amp is literally 2 totally separate amps in one cabinet, so I imagine it would be useful to people that double steel and guitar.

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

If that many Nashville cats are playing this amp there is something going on with the sound quality. Maybe Paul can elaborate.

Ken Fox · From: Nashville GA USA

A lot folks will play free amps. The idea is to get great players using them and the rest of the players will run right after the same amp. Look how many Peavey has given away over the years and it worked well for them. Just my 2 cents worth!!

I am sure however they sound great, most good tube amps do. The trend now is tone, not so much volume as in the old days.

Dan Galysh · From: Hendersonville, Tennessee, USA

I have heard Paul play through his single 50 watt. Great low mids and lows. Tubeliscious. Very simple with just 2 knobs.

Rick Schmidt · From: Prescott AZ, USA

Unfortunately for me, it doesn't look like I'll be able to afford any cool boutique tube amps any time soon. It's really a great thing that Mr. Fox and others are now addressing the need for us steelers to keep up with the 6 string audiophiles out there. (I'd love to just get to play one of your amps sometime Ken!) The stereo tube amp configuration in one rig sounds pretty cool though. I'm curious about the volume level without having to go direct? Every time I play in a small room with a tube amp, I love what I hear and how it feels!

Tim Sergent · From: Hendersonville, TN, USA

I have also heard Paul play thru the 50 watt. At the time he was waiting on a 100 watt version. I have not heard that one yet if he has received it. The low end is wonderful. Sounds like the low end on a piano. It just sings...not muddy at all.

And...I think I know Paul well enough to say that if an amp didn't sound good to him, he would NOT play it. Free or not. I bet Vince is probably the same way.

Dean Parks · From: Sherman Oaks, California, USA

Paul told me about this amp, and he was saying he liked (for me) the fact that is was a steel amp AND a tele amp (Brent Mason has used it as a main-Tele amp recently, and Paul has used it as a main-steel amp, which is rare for a single amp).

However, the chink in the armor of that plan is that Paul uses Black Widow 12's, Brent uses something else, so, you still don't have an everything rig.

Do Tele players use BW speakers ever?

PS, no free amps in the reporting I've heard.

Bruce Bouton · From: Nash. Tn USA

Phil Bradbury had been after me for a year to try a little Walter amp. I was always out of town. I guess he got tired of calling. One day I came into the Union Hall and heard a beautiful steel tone. Lo and behold Paul franklin was in the rehearsal room playing the fifty watt through two black widows. I sat down and played the rig . The sound was really good. It had everything I loved in a fender without all the things I disliked. Rich lows , creamy highs and nice mids. I wrote him a check on the spot and have not looked back.
It's got two controls, tone and volumn and no reverb.
It's been in the studio on every session I've done.It's also a great lapsteel and guitar amp. Black widows work great for me for steel, lap steel and guitar. Most guitar players like the celestions or webers.
Vince and Paul have been experimenting with cabinets.
I'm using a two twelve but I'm getting a single twelve.
I don't think he's giving any away.
BB

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

I have a 50 watt head in a small cabinet which is in transit as I write this. It's the first that Phil has done.

I don't think there are any freebies out there. I'll post some youtube videos when I get it later in the week. IMHO 100 watts is overkill, but then I don't play live with Michael Rhodes without an amp mike every week. Smile

I've got a ton of cabinets with different types of speakers. I tend to like a combination of a JBL type and one or more non-JBLs. I've got a THD cab with an old D-120 and a pair of Celestion 10" speakers which I bet will sound great with this.

Here's a picture of mine:

Franklin · Posted 4 Feb 2011 2:26 pm

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

Great comments, Paul.

I'll have a youtube review out this weekend, but now that I've played out with my Little Walter, I completely understand why Paul wanted the 50X50 amp. At sane volume levels, 50 watts stays as clean as you would want, but with the kinds of volumes that Paul deals with, I would want more.

Probably the biggest surprise to me was how great the amp rocks, especially in the class A setting. The amp had the fat clean sound I was expecting, but it sounds *killer* when dimed or pushed with a Zen Drive or something similar. Great natural power tube compression, but with complete balance and clarity when playing more than one string.

I love Phil's design philosophy (two knobs). We both agree that if you need a bunch of eq. (e.g. sweepable mids, outboard eqs.) then you should go back and get a different amp. If the amp doesn't give you what you are looking for, there's no amount of EQ in the world that will 'fix it'.

IMHO, of course. Smile

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Paul,

thanks so much for the honest and detailed reply. I talked to Bouton and Phil a bit about the Little Walter, and it sure seems like Phil nailed something real friendly to steel & Tele with these 50-watters (and the double 50). What I'm getting a big kick out of is the fact that these are 1-knob tone control amps. This old 1-tone-knob Tweed Fender approach doesn't have the midrange scoop that so many steel players go for. Most players are used to either the Fender Twin or Bassman style tone section with big midrange dip, or a Peavey with a big dip, or Evans or Sho-Bud or Webb with its huge dip. The Little Walter is ALL big and full midrange and the tone knob basically dials up or down the treble. This strong midrange presence is a testament to what a well designed tube circuit does to the midrange harmonics. Often it seems that the midrange and mid-treble from a steel pickup can really be harsh and dense, but in this case, that content gets delivered very musically. I've been playing guitar thru a small Tweed Deluxe style amp that I built and it's undergone a number of tweaks and experiments, but currently I've settled in on this very same 1-knob tone circuit. It seems that when the mids are musical and rich, there's no need to scoop them away. This Little Walter circuit is not at all unlike the Fender Pro that Jimmy Day did so much of his golden work with, and most of us here know that beautiful sound. Phil says he did extend the bass response in his Little Walter, but mostly the amp is fairly true to a classic Tweed Fender and WITH the cathode-biased power tubes which some steel players have felt wasn't clean or stiff enough. Apparently the cathode bias approach is just right.

I'm a huge fan of Leo Fender's classic amps, and this is a great testament to why amp makers like Phil and Ken continue to breathe life into these classic circuits and sometimes are adding their own twists and tweaks.

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

You hit the nail on the head, Brad. There's no reason to get rid of the mids unless they sound harsh. I'm looking forward to trying this amp with your Earth Drive pedal in Dallas, that sounds like a great match (this amp is really pedal friendly).

Ken Fox · From: Nashville GA USA

Thanks for the kind comments Brad. I myself commonly use a simple 1955 Deluxe clone with just a tone knob only for the Tele. It works very well. The amp is about 14 watts with a mod to allow symetrical clipping. When I need a bit more power I team it up with a 1955 Tweed Pro clone that uses a 12" speaker. I like the 12" speaker for that cabinet, nice tight low end and great warm tube mids.

I find the tweed era amps have a different mid tone than the Blackface and Silverface era amp. The mid scoop point tends to be around 750 hertz or so as opposed to 450 hertz in the Blackface and Silverface era amps. A common mod for both amps is to change the mod scoop to around 750 with a simple resistor change. That resistor is the same resistor (56K) that is in the tone stack of the 1959 Bassman and the High Powered Tweed Twin of that same era.

Franklin · Posted 5 Feb 2011 11:04 am

Brad,

To be perfectly clear...I'm not a circuit guru.....I know what I like when I hear it........This amp does not sound like a clone of the Fender sound even if the circuitry is similar........For my tonal desires, Phil got it right......To my ears, as Bouton stated earlier, the Little Walter captures the best elements from the early Fenders and to my ears he solved the elements from those old amps that always bothered me....such as muddy or harsh mids and early breakup distortion when its not desired.....Ofcourse this comparison analysis depends on which tweed model is compared...Some old tweeds had less or more of those elements......Simply....The Little Walter is voiced differently. In my opinion this amp is a perfect marriage to my pedal steel......It sings the way I want it to with a lot of harmonic character and clarity without piercing anyones ears.

Although you made the comparison with Ken and Phil to Fender circuitry, to be clear to all reading this, Ken's amp does not sound like Phil's amp......Once you play through each as I have, I'm sure you will come to the same conclusion.

Paul

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Very cool.

Thanks Paul. I was only making the tweed reference because Phil told me that he was generally working off the classic Tweed tone circuit but with extended bass bandwidth. I'm sure there are plenty of his own personal tweaks as well that make it unique, and obviously with the crew that's jumped on board with these Little Walters, there's definitely something special going on there. I was just commenting on how these vintage Fender designs still live today in various forms.

Here's a bit from Phil's email to me:

Jamie Lennon · From: Nashville, TN

Paul what recordings have you used the amp on?

Thanks
_________________
Mullen Guitars, Little Walter Amps, Benado Effects, D'Addario Strings

www.georgettejones.net

rodger_mcbride · From: Minnesota

Paul,
I have been blown away by your solos on Easton Corbin's tune " I Can't Love her Back" Those high neck tones are the best I've ever heard out of a steel guitar.
rodger

robert kramer · From: Nashville TN

(Just a quick tip of the hat to Little Walter)

The “Little Walter” amps are well named because when you think of tone you think of ‘50’s-60’s Chicago blues great Little Walter and his must-have Chess recordings. Little Walter was the first to play the harmonica through a microphone plugged into an amplifier and to this day his playing, singing, songs and sound have never been topped. All his recordings are essential. Also, check out his work on “The Best of Muddy Waters.” Walter used the best guitarists of his day and their work on his recordings is also the ultimate in playing and tone.

Listen to the sound of these recordings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRJTJi7bi2Qv

Little Walter with Muddy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k49xHTff4mk

Tim Sergent · From: Hendersonville, TN, USA

For Paul to say that this is the tone he's been searching for for 40 years is about the best endorsement an amp company could ever hope for I would imagine.

p.s.
I know what I want for Christmas this year! I have nearly a year to save up for it.

Tommy R. Butler · From: Nashville, Tennessee

Man I wish I'd heard about these test sessions? I am sure Mr Bradbury got some good input and a lot of returned emails. I see these amps are head units. So it looks like you could use any combination of speakers. Seems to me since this is a head unit there's probably some tonal difference in a head and speaker set up vs a combo amp. Probably be hard to compare one amp to another unless I had an array of speaker cabinets and a couple of different head only style amps. Neat idea kinda like the rack set up. I guess guitar players call it a STACK?
Really nothing for me to compare it to since no one else is making a head only steel tube amp. In my past dealings with Nashville 400's I had Ken Fox mod a Nashville 400 and I put it in a head cab built by Rick Johnson. It sounded great and compared to the Stereo Steel I liked the Nashville 400 better. Of course that was just my PERSONAL PREFERENCE. I'm not saying one is better than the other. That would be like saying an Emmons is better than a Sho-Bud. Both have their sound and in capable hands they are both great. I use two of Ken's combo amps. I have a 2x12 and a 1x15. These amps made a believer out of me. I gave up a lot of my road work to stay in town and mainly do sessions now. My clients are loving the tube tone. When it comes to TONE tubes do make an over whelming difference especially when you hear it played back to you on tape. Glad to see TUBE popularity on the rise. I played transistor amps a long time and now that Ken turned me on to tube tone I'm hooked. Variety is the spice of life. We don't all hear the same thing the same way. Kinda like passing a rumor around the room, time it gets back its nothing like it was to start with. I am sure experience, age, interest, & price has a lot to do with it. I sure love tube tone. It's 001

Franklin · Posted 6 Feb 2011 12:14 pm

Tommy,

Phil also makes a 50 watt combo amp that sounds just as killer as the head, which is what Vince often uses with the Timejumpers.......

Paul

Jay Ganz · From: Out Behind The Barn

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