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Demos > New
Effects > Torres Engineering, Dual Marshall Custom Amp |
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At one point I was lamenting the absence of my old modified Marshall Amp. It was too big, too loud, and too heavy for my needs, but it had a great sound. I wanted to find something with that kind of tone, that was small, light weight, and sounded similar toan old Marshall. A tall order. Check it out:
By wheels, by the Net , and by phone, the quest began by contacting numerous stores, suppliers, and designers. Mostly I was told no, can't be done. While talking to one "name" designer/builder; he announced, "hey man, I use BIG transformers.that's how I get my sound"! There were also experiences of guys yawning in my face, once they realized they wern't about to sell their biggest Amposaurus. More tacit invalidation, came from a few companies offering to send literature on their smaller Amps/preamps, that never sent a thing. Ladies, and gentlemen: it was blues time! :-(
Very late into this extensive "hard target search", I found Torres Engineering on the Net. Agnes Torres indicated that some guy named "Dan", could build anything I wanted, and they would send me some info. I received the equivelent of a small newspaper of newsletters/articles etc. the next day. Even more ironic was, that their shop wasn't located in Tibet; or the Sahara, it was just a short drive away!
After listening to a few different Torres "flavors", I was particularly impressed with a larger Amp, but mentioned that I was in need of a small, lightweight rig. Of course I assumed this was a deal buster; but no.Dan said to think over what kind of tone/features I wanted, and he'd build them into an Amp head, with a little power section to drive it! Then he'd get a small ported enclosure made for one 12 inch speaker, to help emulate the sound of our forefathers. (This information came out effortlessly, very matter of fact, no hype, and with a little smile)!
Knowing Dan better at this point, I've witnessed that details, and problem solving don't seem to stress him, he thrives on it. And wild ideas: as you rap your most deeply crazed Amp fantasies, he's seeing it in his head. If you get "stuck", on how you imagine something should be, he'll gently feed you options. Once you've got your ballpark conception fairly clear, he offers you multiple approaches, like when the doctor checks you for glasses. You know; when he's flipping the lenses on that machine asking you: better this way, then he flips a different lens, or better this way?And at the end it's your vision, simple, or complex, it's as clear as it can be.
I went back a week later; like a school boy, with the following notes. I had read parts of his book, "Inside Tube Amps", and realized, he'd figured out how to accomplish numerous things, some folks said couldn't be done. Steering clear of electrical engineering terms, I felt he'd probably be used to translating from the subjective, to the technical.
Now, this Amp doesn't have a load of A/B switches. Here's what it does have: Lead channel: both a lower, and higher gain, (more modern) Marshall voicing, push/pull-switch. Next door, you can select either a seperate Vox AC-30 preamp, or separate Fender Deluxe preamp via a push/pull-switch, on the rhythm channel; naturally, separate tone controls for both sides. It's terribly close to having a trunk full of Amps in one small rig.
The sound of this design; actually, you'd have to say sounds of this design, are everything that was hoped for. The four sounds, maintain a remarkable amount of their individual character, seeing that they share the same power section. There's more of a change in the overall characteristics, sound, and feel of each setting, than flicking the bright switch, half/full power switch, pentode/triode switch, pull/shift switch, or gain switchs experienced on Amps this reporter has owned. Yet the sounds blend together well.
Both channels are totally independent, and there's a master gain, and master stage volume; a beautiful set & forget reverb, and a parallel effects loop. There's also a THD, "reactive rectifier" circuit that was special ordered. This is also an "abnormally" quiet design, hissing is damn near non-existant, on all but the most extreme settings. Due to the small size of the head, the line out had to be built into a separate outboard box, and the six position, tube driven midrange switch, just wouldn't fit. If needed, a couple of little Boss GE-7, EQ pedals can go in the line, set for scooped Mids, or big bottom EQ. (David Gilmour uses several of these, in addition to a TC Electronics rackmount, in his live set up, they're quiet, small, cheap & work well. (All of the above, and more; as they say on TV, is available in the standard sized Torres Amp head. It goes without saying, that materials, and workmanship are top notch. You can hear, see, and feel that nothing was skipped, left out, or compromised here.
This rig; with its ported cabinet, and 25 Watt vintage greenback speaker, produces a full sounding midrange; however, it's bass response is limited. At some point there will be a second speaker box, with a different speaker voicing. This will bring out the punch, and "knock" of multiple speakers processing transients, minutely out of Synch with each other, and more bottom.
The original; largely unedited, Amp notes below, represent certain personal desires. You may like other sounds better:
Torres Amplifier Notes: Prefer an older Marshall Amp tone & EQ: this would include the Mayall/Clapton Bluesbreakers sound, to something a bit more modern, with a higher gain output, (but not like with six 12AX7s). At the other end, am seeking more grit/ bite in the overdrive than a Tube Screamer played through a clean Amp.
Here's my wish list Amp: @ Lower volume: A big, warm, harmonically rich sound withdistinct bite; sensitive to variation in picking technique, will crunch on chords before ¾ of max volume. I'm not seeking a surgically precise clean sound. Speaker selection will be a factor here.
@ Higher volume: I hope the Amp can develop an aggressive Blues edge with moderate compression, causing notes to sustain/sing: not super distortion, but "a driving, hundred pound, blues/rock, violin tone"! Hopefully, fast single-note leads will articulate, and not smear together. I would love it, if the Amp would be able to feed back more easily than usual, as long as it was controllable with sustain techniques: guitar volume & proximity. (Maybe there's a stability switch in here somewhere, based on appropriate lead style for the material).
Overall Amp character: Since you've found that much of this can be accomplished with tone caps, I'd like to have the tone set more like an older Amp/"brown sound", but also have a switch that would substitute a few of the subject, critical Caps, for a more contemporary, brighter sound. I'm looking for a practical option that would create more contrast than just a standard bright switch. If this is a time consuming pain to accomplish, 100%, let's go w/ the best sane option.
Power Amp size: (decided on 20 real watts) & Tubes in power Amp: (EL-84), any options? The Dual Preamp sounds like a great idea! The six position mid switch for variety, and to help to lessen the high mids on the El-84 Vox tone. (Note: only the Vox preamp setting has a lot of highs on this Amp). It seems almost like this could be a powered preamp set up, that could be run through a larger amp on occasion, (perhaps a direct out, to beat ground loop hum and tone drain)? Also, channel switching, and effects loop make sense. Will all these options degrade the tone, and character of the Amp? If so, what would you suggest not be done?
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