Your opinion would be valued...

[s4wgb]

The amp Paul & the TVS team use is custom built amp by Paul.
Ask for pictures as i would need his permission to put them on here.
Maybe Spike of Paul can comment further?

[JimN]

I haven't!

Awww, come on, Iain! This is my favourite sort of Shads-related discussion.

Justin: don't confuse "Top Boost" with "Brilliant" (and if someone else has done so, don't perpetuate their error).

JN

[roger bayliss]

Justin

I enjoy the debate just like you and yes the only people that really know the right answers are the Shads and the studio people themselves.

As far as Paul Rossiter's amp goes I understand he self built it and it has two channels a bit like the AC15 Heritage with a separate TB channel as well as the AC15 normal channel but Paul would probably be the one to offer comment as he built it. Nice job !

Some of this therefore is conjecture and yes the amps and guitars in use live and in studio would vary. I do accept that when they received new versions of the amps they would still have had access to the ones they had already used.

The Shads of course played a big part in the development of the Vox and as I understand it had made requests for changes both for a louder unit for live use and also were keen to match the American sound that the Fender amps put out. So was born the AC30/6 TB circuit and although they were in possession of one by the time Wonderful Land was recorded I believe that the Shads would have had access to some of the first prototypes to try out just as they did with the Burns guitars for a while. That would make sense to me.

I believe if the American sound was what they wanted they would move to it straightaway with the arrival of the AC30/6 or AC30/4 with TB add on. That is what they were striving for with the sound ... the American guitar sound of rock and roll !

I myself have an ef86 channel and it is a firm fav and I too believed that much of the early stuff was done with an ef86 amp but I am firmly now in the AC30/6 being used earlier and that studio eq was added to maintain the original sound somewhat so that earlier momentum was not lost by changing the sound too drastically.

Long live the healthy debate though !

[Gary Allen]

According to wikipedia there is something like 11 months between the recordings of Apache to Wonderful Land,How many prototypes could there be?,It seems Hank had a different sound compared to the sessions with Cliff and the Shads so maybe they used different amps on purpose, Ive always linked the ef86 thing to ropey harmonics that can be heard on MOM/Stranger/Midnight. BTW...Wonderful Land stayed at No.1 in the charts longer than any other single in the 60s (8 wks).

[MeBHank]

Justin: don't confuse "Top Boost" with "Brilliant" (and if someone else has done so, don't perpetuate their error).

I think Paul must genuinely mean "Top Boost", Jim, as he refers to bass and treble settings in addition to the cut control. A third circuit amp automatically provides the sound, though, despite it only having one basic tone control.

Justin

I enjoy the debate just like you and yes the only people that really know the right answers are the Shads and the studio people themselves.

As far as Paul Rossiter's amp goes I understand he self built it and it has two channels a bit like the AC15 Heritage with a separate TB channel as well as the AC15 normal channel but Paul would probably be the one to offer comment as he built it. Nice job !

Some of this therefore is conjecture and yes the amps and guitars in use live and in studio would vary. I do accept that when they received new versions of the amps they would still have had access to the ones they had already used.

The Shads of course played a big part in the development of the Vox and as I understand it had made requests for changes both for a louder unit for live use and also were keen to match the American sound that the Fender amps put out. So was born the AC30/6 TB circuit and although they were in possession of one by the time Wonderful Land was recorded I believe that the Shads would have had access to some of the first prototypes to try out just as they did with the Burns guitars for a while. That would make sense to me.

I believe if the American sound was what they wanted they would move to it straightaway with the arrival of the AC30/6 or AC30/4 with TB add on. That is what they were striving for with the sound ... the American guitar sound of rock and roll !

I myself have an ef86 channel and it is a firm fav and I too believed that much of the early stuff was done with an ef86 amp but I am firmly now in the AC30/6 being used earlier and that studio eq was added to maintain the original sound somewhat so that earlier momentum was not lost by changing the sound too drastically.

Long live the healthy debate though !

From the videos, Paul's AC15 does sound good. As I said, though, the latter stages of the amp would colour the sound of the Top Boost differently to the circuit of an AC30/6 (providing Paul replicated a third circuit AC15).

Regarding the American sound, we know Hank tried both Fender and Vox amps before settling for the richer Vox, though he was impressed by the volume of the Fender. Interestingly, I've recently spoken to an owner of one of Hank's customised AC30s, though, who says the alterations to the circuit essentially transform the amp into a Fender. We didn't spend long discussing it (it was prior to this "leg" of the thread), but my guess is that this is a slightly later amp, made/customised after the Shads had given their full endorsement to Vox amps (therefore they had to be seen to be using Vox amps, no matter what was inside). Perhaps the AC30s were still breaking up and distorting too much (maybe even Hank's Top Boost). Hank must have asked Dick to copy the Fender circuit so he could drive the amp louder yet avoid overdriving it. We know he liked the tone of the Vox, so I guess that this altered amp was again intended mainly for live work.

I could accept that the AC30/6 was used on record earlier than 12th April 1962, but not with the Top Boost. It's a far more subtle change in amplifier sound and a lot more difficult to detect. On that date, though, an obvious change to Hank's sound occurs (for the recordings of Perfidia and South of the Border). To my ears it signals a change of channel at the very least, and that's when I think the Top Boost finally began to be used in the studio.

According to wikipedia there is something like 11 months between the recordings of Apache to Wonderful Land,How many prototypes could there be?,It seems Hank had a different sound compared to the sessions with Cliff and the Shads so maybe they used different amps on purpose, Ive always linked the ef86 thing to ropey harmonics that can be heard on MOM/Stranger/Midnight. BTW...Wonderful Land stayed at No.1 in the charts longer than any other single in the 60s (8 wks).

For live work I've heard there was a lot of experimentation. I believe Dick Denney spent time on tour with the Shadows, to help develop the amplifier Hank wanted. I expect there was plenty of amp tweaking going on, at the very least.

I think that any harmonic problems with the EF86 valve were solved quite quickly. That first TV-front AC15 (the two-tone one) was the second Vox circuit, which is far more basic than the third. Maybe that's the amp which had problems. I've never known of any recurring problems with third circuit amps, even though the EF86 does have a reputation for being unreliable. Unjustifiably so, IMO: I've owned my 1960 AC15 for some years now, and I've never had a problem with the EF86.

Now I've said that, what are the odds that the EF86 will give me jip the very next time I switch on my amp?

J

[roger bayliss]

Now I've said that, what are the odds that the EF86 will give me jip the very next time I switch on my amp?

Lol

I think overdriving the front end of the amp is fairly easy anyway by boosting input levels a bit say from the tape echo. Look at those videos of the Catlinbread echo I put up recently for an example of how this is done by players looking for a natural bit of overdrive. When you do this it does change the output sound somewhat and again I believe this could be an angle as to why a TB could sound different and a bit like an ef86 channel which of course has more overdrive than the TB channel and a different sound character. The only real answer is record some tunes that are in dispute on both channels and see what results are given.

Wished you lived near here I could sort a recording session out for us to see what we find.

Jury is still out !

[rogera]

At the risk of taking this thread even further from its roots, when looking for something on the 'net I noticed this ridiculous
advert by Music Ground Inc :-

http://www.gbase.com/gear/vox-ac15-tv-f ... two-tone-t

I feel sure that Bruce has no knowledge of this and I wonder what flimsy provenance they are putting forward.

[Amanda]

Hi Roger A,

Quoting the Vox book:

"Few were made, but one of them was seen on an AC15 Used by Bruce Welch"

That is obviously their 'provenance' also given that Justin's 1960 AC15 has a silver G12 without the bell cover,
I can't imagine that the Clestion Blue in this amp is original, the Vox book also states that the Blue T530 did not appear
in the celestion speaker list until January 1961..

Anyone who pays £11,500 for a Two tone AC15 must need their head looking at...

I bet you'd build another one for someone to buy at that price Roger, I certainly would.

[MeBHank]

Now I've said that, what are the odds that the EF86 will give me jip the very next time I switch on my amp?

Lol

I think overdriving the front end of the amp is fairly easy anyway by boosting input levels a bit say from the tape echo. Look at those videos of the Catlinbread echo I put up recently for an example of how this is done by players looking for a natural bit of overdrive. When you do this it does change the output sound somewhat and again I believe this could be an angle as to why a TB could sound different and a bit like an ef86 channel which of course has more overdrive than the TB channel and a different sound character. The only real answer is record some tunes that are in dispute on both channels and see what results are given.

Wished you lived near here I could sort a recording session out for us to see what we find.

Jury is still out !

I think it always will be, Roger. Nothing will ever be conclusive enough. We may be able to get together to try it one day, you never know. It's certainly fuelled the most enjoyable thread that this website has seen for a long, long time, so I almost don't want to find a definitive answer. If the Holy Grail was ever found, everyone on the trail would have nothing to do. Likewise with our quest.

At the risk of taking this thread even further from its roots, when looking for something on the 'net I noticed this ridiculous
advert by Music Ground Inc :-

http://www.gbase.com/gear/vox-ac15-tv-f ... two-tone-t

I feel sure that Bruce has no knowledge of this and I wonder what flimsy provenance they are putting forward.

Nice spot, Roger. It's funny that they don't explicitly say the amp is the very one owned by Bruce. They can't prove it. It's a rare piece, but it should stand up as an item of interest in its own right. Slapping Bruce's name all over the advertising, suggesting it might be the one he owned, is cheap and does the amp no justice. It should be special no matter who has used it.

That is obviously their 'provenance' also given that Justin's 1960 AC15 has a silver G12 without the bell cover,
I can't imagine that the Clestion Blue in this amp is original, the Vox book also states that the Blue T530 did not appear
in the celestion speaker list until January 1961.

It actually states the speaker is a "Goodmans Alnico", Amanda. I assume that's a Goodmans Audiom 60, which would be correct for the period.

The price is high, but as with the Model 2 Meazzi, if someone forks the money out, that's the value. The price is in US dollars, which currently converts to just over £7,000. I wouldn't suggest it's too unreasonable a price to ask, to be honest. Phil's TV-front AC15 is probably worth about that, if not more, and I admit I'd pay that sort of money if I had it as I've seen and used that amp and it's exquisite. Bringing this thread full circle, further to the conservative figure I suggested in my very first reply, if I had the funds, I'd pay about the same price for the Model 2. Unfortunately, I don't. Few people do, though. Ideally, the echo deserves to be paired with an equally rare, Shadows-related amplifier, to be used publicly so that others can see and hear both pieces together. That would be one aspect of the "Grail Quest" achieved, IMO, and it's probably something that none of us ever thought we'd see. It's spine-tingling to think there's still a possibility it might happen.

J

[fenderplucker]

Hi Everyone,

I have just returned from a nice holiday cruising down the Rhine and Moselle rivers and am starting to slowly catch up on the various discussions. Fascinating thread this one!

My amp has a number of modes of operation. One channel of the preamp can be switched between the various AC15 versions (2 and 3) and it then goes into a standard AC15 output. It also has a separate channel identical to the top boost AC30, but that output then goes to the AC15 output. I also have an AC30 box with a conventional AC30 output stage and so can get very close to an AC30/4, 30/6 and Top Boost configurations by use of the appropriate pre amp and tone control settings. Yes, I do use an EF86 in the AC15 configuration but I have posted sound files on a number of occasions that compare the sound of an EF86 channel and an identical one but using a 12AX7 and with their gains carefully matched, and the difference is extremely small and probably not significant. This is probably because the guitar signal is way too small to push the tubes much into their non-linear regions where the differences would be expected to be larger. As Roger mentioned, boosting the input will change this, but most Meazzi's I have seen are set up to have little if any overall boost. I think that the main difference between the EF86 channels and 12AX7 channels in Vox amps is the different tone control configuration, particularly the pronounced dip in response at about 800Hz in the top boost configuration (provided that the bass and treble controls are not both at zero, and even then the different gains of the two configurations can have an effect).

However, the preamp configuration is only one factor in the overall sound.

I found that the output transformer has a significant impact on the sound (probably more so than expected due to the lack of feedback). I first used a relatively cheap Chinese transformer but it had a nasty harshness in the top end and a rather loose bass. I finally got a nice sweet sound using a Vox repro from Mercury Magnetics. An original AC15 transformer may sound different again.

The loudspeaker also has a major impact. There is quite a difference between the various incarnations of the Alnico Blue, with an original Blue sounding smoother than the later units (even those with the English cones) and the latest Chinese ones that a bit too aggressive in the top end for my ear. The Audiom 60 fitted to the early AC15's has a different sound again and is more solid in the mid range but lacking a bit of the chime in the top end of a good Blue. Then there are all the other incarnations of the G12 (Silver etc etc).

I haven't played around with different cabinet/baffle materials, (I used pine for the cabinets and ply for the baffles), but those I know that have claim that also has an affect on the sound.

It is thus not surprising that a vintage AC15 or AC30 may have a different sound to its modern counterpart.

Finally, on the records there is addition tone shaping that may have been used in studio 2 with the Pultec-type equalizers, compressors/limiters etc, and we will never know what was used on any particular track. However, it could have had a significant impact on the final sound.

While we don't know when Hank changed for one amp to another in the studio, I found that the core sound I got on tunes like Wonderful Land was closer to the original when I used the top boost arrangement compared to the normal AC15 (or AC30 pre top boost) one. This tune was recorded earlier than the documented commercial release of the top boost add-on and it raises the intriguing question of whether Hank used an early top boost prototype on the original. Or it could have just been the different sounds of the vintage amps and/or effect of subsequent equalization. Again, we will never know. The core tone we got on the earlier tunes was definitely closer to the original with the AC15 (i.e. non top boost) channel.

Regards,

Paul.