What Next for Hamfist?

[martinw]

I see the Orange is for sale Alan, what have you got lined up to replace it?

What haven't you had?  :)

[Twinfan]

I was wondering what was up next.  He did buy that old valve amp recently, maybe he's going to stick with that and free up cash selling the Orange?

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=13797.0

[kevincurtis]

Have to say I chuckled when I saw the Orange was on the way out as well! Alan, you are an amplifier MONSTER   :P 

My money is on a module based system... with all the modules plugged in together :)

[hamfist]

Hmmmmmmm. I love the way you all make fun of my "problem".  :?

  The Orange is a great, great amp, but somehow just not doing it for me in my current band situation. If it was the only amp I could ever have in the world, I'd be very happy with it, but as you all know, I am on a constant tonal quest and I just love changing amps !

I bought the vintage "Miles Platting" actually as a backup amp to replace my Cube 60, which was a bit cr@ppy really.
But as the MP is a very, very clean amp, I needed a great dirt box to base my distortion tones on (as my current dirt boxes were all best at boosting already dirty amps). So I ordered a Blackstone Appliances Mosfet Overdrive 2S - http://www.blackstoneappliances.com/ - as I'd read a lot of very nice things about it.
  The Blackstone arrived 2 days later (from the USA !!) and literally blew my mind. What a great, great box.  Now this pedal is not easy to get a great sound out of. It is very, very tweakable, but there are some awesome sounds in it. And I knew that this pedal through a clean amp was actually doing more what I wanted than the Rockerverb. THis has been confirmed to me at band rehearsal yesterday, when my new rig just cut like a knife (but not in a harsh way at all - its all in the mids).
  I think this Blackstone is the best £120 i've ever spent - didn't get any customs charges either ! Oh, and my Miles Platting was the best £200 I've ever spent !!

   But, in reality, I'm not totally happy using a 34 year old amp as my main gigging amp. I just haven't yet got the skills to maintain and troubleshoot the thing to the standard that I would be happy with.
  So I'm looking for a big clean beast of an amp, to use as my main amp, with the MP as my backup. Tone comes from the Blackstone !
  If the amp can also do some nice distortion, then that is a bonus, as I could have the option of using the amp's distortion if I wanted to.

 Current amps in the running are :-

- a used, power-scaled Matamp GT-1. Fractionally over my budget, but a possibility.

- a Ceriatone 2204 clone, with added PPIMV, FX loop and Kleinulator (FX loop buffer box)

Both will do very loud cleans, but also some great distortion if I choose to use amp distortion.

Any other suggestions for about £700 ?

[Twinfan]

Something HiWatt?  Fender Twin?

[Kilby]

Twinfan beat me to it with the Hiwatt suggestion.

Excellent cleans and gets dirty in a nice way (and fecking loud too)

[MrBump]

Fender DeVille?  THe 4x12 is a really great amp...

[hamfist]

Definately something Hiwatt would be very much considered. It might be a struggle to fit in my budget though, and they don't come up too often.  Also, I don't want to get anything too ancient, as reliability of 30 yr old amps surely does decrease.

The other consideration is that it HAS to be hand-wired. I want something I can maintain myself, or at least have a fighting chance of being able to maintain it.

Martin, you may be able to advise me on the GT-1 - how well might the amp's FX loop play with a DD-20 ? (The DD-20 does -10dB or +4 dB BTW).

[martinw]

Martin, you may be able to advise me on the GT-1 - how well might the amp's FX loop play with a DD-20 ? (The DD-20 does -10dB or +4 dB BTW).

If the amp in question is the one I'm thinking of (Is it Rob's?) then bear in mind it's cathode biased one and lower power. Not a bad tone though, but be sure you like Matamp distortion, which has a flavour of it's own.
The EPS fitted to Matamps is not true Power Scaling as you'd understand it, it's a preamp scaling which is a bit different, although it still produces good tones.
I've used simple effects loops like that for Boss delays with no problems, and the level control on the DD20 will help, however they do seem to vary and if it's critical to you I'd suggest you try it first.
A chap came up to the factory a while back, very fussy about his cleans and compared the GT1 with an old Fender Twin. The GT1 was way better for cleans, to his surprise.

[hamfist]

Martin, you may be able to advise me on the GT-1 - how well might the amp's FX loop play with a DD-20 ? (The DD-20 does -10dB or +4 dB BTW).

If the amp in question is the one I'm thinking of (Is it Rob's?) then bear in mind it's cathode biased one and lower power. Not a bad tone though, but be sure you like Matamp distortion, which has a flavour of it's own.
The EPS fitted to Matamps is not true Power Scaling as you'd understand it, it's a preamp scaling which is a bit different, although it still produces good tones.
I've used simple effects loops like that for Boss delays with no problems, and the level control on the DD20 will help, however they do seem to vary and if it's critical to you I'd suggest you try it first.
A chap came up to the factory a while back, very fussy about his cleans and compared the GT1 with an old Fender Twin. The GT1 was way better for cleans, to his surprise.

The amp is Rob's one. I didn't know it was cathode-biased. Does that mean it's going to generally run the power tubes a bit colder than a fixed bias might ?
  I find it difficult to assess Matamp distortion.  The only viable clips I can find of a GT-1 are the 3 youtube demo vids by some guy who just widdles for minutes, on a strat (neck p'up), sound quality is awful, and it's virtually impossible to tell waht the amp really sounds like - I do believe that is the actual amp available to buy.
  Alternatively, there are some much better quality mp3 clips on the Matamp forum, but they all seem to be downtuned doom style - difficult to see how that will translate to me playing Thin Lizzy or Free or whatnot.
  Thank for the info on the EPS - it doesn't sound anywhere near as useful as the PS that you implement on your amps.

  The more I think about this, I think the more risk it would be for me to go for the GT-1. There are a lot of unknown's about it.
The Ceriatone 2204 is much more a known quantity.  I've owned a "real" 2204 before, which I liked a lot, I also know Ceriatone build quality is v. good, and I'm already familiar with the layout of Handwired Marshalls. I think it would be more accessible for me to tweak and to maintain.

Hmmmm, decisions, decisions.

[Twinfan]

The 2204 isn't a big clean amp though is it Alan?  Sounds like you're not sure what you want?

So I'm looking for a big clean beast of an amp, to use as my main amp, with the MP as my backup. Tone comes from the Blackstone !

If the amp can also do some nice distortion, then that is a bonus, as I could have the option of using the amp's distortion if I wanted to.

Based on this, I still say I still say Fender Twin (or clone) or a HiWatt.

There are new HiWatts available so you don't have to buy old and used.  Not sure how good they are though, but they're there.  The Custom 50/100 Heads would be the ones to look at:

http://www.hiwatt.co.uk/

[sgmypod]

Ask Horsehead about Hiwatts he has the custom 100

[martinw]

The amp is Rob's one. I didn't know it was cathode-biased. Does that mean it's going to generally run the power tubes a bit colder than a fixed bias might ?

No, just that it will produce less power (about 50 watts clean IIRC) and have a very slightly different tone.
I'd recommend a JTM45!

[Twinfan]

Not loud enough mate, and doesn't do big cleans!

The JTM45/Bassman is the best amp ever though for all round use.

[martinw]

Not loud enough mate, and doesn't do big cleans!

Not strictly true. Firstly define "loud" (or "big"), then define "clean".
Al English in Youthmovies seems to manage, as do many others.

Of course, it's not as loud as a Hiwatt or a Fender Twin, but not everybody needs that volume.