Gear Review

I got a few new pieces of gear in the past year and i thought i'd share my thoughts.

Amp

About a year ago i picked up a Reeves Custom 50. This is a 50 watt all tube head that will melt your face off! Actually, all kidding aside, it's got quite a unique sound. It's designed to be an accurate re-make of the original hiwatt amps that were common in the late 70's (think Zeppelin, the who, Floyd, etc.). Although you can still buy a new hiwatt amp the construction, sound and quality have deteriorated since the original designer's and builders quit, died etc. Enter Bill Reeves. He builds these down in ohio and they do a good job offering the original hiwatt sound, quality and appearance without paying for an actual original hiwatt.

To the amp itself...awesome. The 2 channel/4 input setup allow for some cool mixing options and the master volume drives the tubes extremely hard producing a great sound with as much (or as little) crunch as you want. The only down side is the tubes (both stages) must be driven hard to sound good. So it'll make you deaf! Enter the weber mass lite!

www.reevesamps.com




The weber mass lite is an attenuator. It allows you to drive the tubes very hard but bring the actual volume back down to a reasonable level (i call this the save the relationship box). It's completely passive and is installed between the amp and the speaker box. It's got some other features like a bypass, headphone output etc. but at it's core it's designed to bring the volume down. It works great. I can get a better sound at the house or while jamming but still maintain reasonable volumes. Amps tend to offer way to much volume to be realistically used. I hardly got past 1 on the volume knob but now i can push it all the way to 10 (or 11)!

http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm




I also picked up an ABY box but it really didn't work as expected. It allows me to switch channels on the amp easier but made things sound very muddy. Unfortunately i tried to return it and the shop i bought it from has a no return policy. I guess i know where not to shop any more (MUSIC CASTLE IN ROYAL OAK!)

I think we've settled on "Hit 'n Run" for the band's name. We played out at a bar in Royal Oak a few weeks ago for the second time and we're tightening up. Hopefully we'll get out some more in the coming weeks.