The subject line here is: Dr.Z. Route 66 Amplifier, is Good News!
What a pleasure; to emerge from a bout with the Computer Gremlins, to find your files of the Route 66 Amp, samples were all saved. Yaay!
Many lower gain guitar Amps sound quite similar. Some have one classic tone, and many of their differences don't exactly jump out at us. However; many purists point out: lots of botique amps; covered with switches dials, cuts, and boosts; for a host of preamp tubes, seem to lack character, or a distinct identity of their own.
Have a seat, then, the Doctor is in. Here's an interesting offering, that updates circuitry based on reissued, long-gone power tubes, (the KT-66), combined with a high end HiFi tube, (EF-86), and a gain boosting 12 AX7, in the front end. The mix also features a GZ-34 rectifier, which helps make tube amps sound, and feel so alive. So, what other tubes does it have? Ain't any, that's it. The controls in front, are: Volume, Bass, and Treble. What other boosts, shapers, or knobs does it have? Ain't any, that's it!
Getting ready to record the Route-66, we took a fleeting glimpse at a two sided sheet of instructions, and suggested settings, supplied to protect us from ourselves. We followed "Initial Settings", then a promptly lapsed into impulse. We're finding more involvement, and interaction of tone controls now, than in scores of earlier amplifiers. Lots of those employed simple reduction of highs, or lows. When we later, had more than a few minutes to play with the tone controls, we started finding changes in the distortion, we found some tones with an edge to them, some totally thick settings, and some fine for cunning Strat rhythms...remember: just Treble, and Bass, that's it.
At the center of this design is a sound, that's just about incorruptable, by any sane player with good intentions. OK, so why is it it unique sounding? The Route 66 has substance, a very real sense that it's big somehow, yet won't allow any unplesant tone to be created, (short of intentional abuse). The Amp's rated at 32 Watts, by the Doctor, and takes 4/8/16 Ohm speaker loads. More than enough volume/mojo here for the club circuit.
In it's initial setting, and far beyond, it's the antithisis of countless Amps we've all played, which squeeled microphonic laser tones, were thin, distant, vibrating when turned up...as if ready to explode! With the Route-66: Ain't none of that!
Now for the fun part: Below are five samples of the Amp; with over six minutes of audio. These represent a variety of sounds, styles, and popular range of "player" quality, to "higher end", guits.
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