Swing / Pre-Tweed / Octal Guitar Amps (EH-150, EH-185, Valco)

[citizenk74]

Hi Xavier,

Next time I organise an in-person workshop, I'll make sure to have my Nocturne Brain El Pescadoro pedal (which is his Jr Barnyard preamp + a reverb section) and Gibson GA-50T amp there so you can come up and give them a try!

Tavo at Nocturne Brain has just released a version 2 of the Jr Barnyard pedal which is $50 cheaper than v.1.
The JR BARNYARD™ Pre-War Hot Preamp (1930's octal tube amp character p – The Nocturne Brain

Plus one for the El Pescadoro, recommended to me by our friend neatomic. Tavo has knocked it out of the park with this one. Not only retro non-spring delay effects, but also wonderful octal goodness from the Junior Barnyard. Genius!

[murrayatuptown]

Old thread, but FYI...

Uncle Doug is somewhere near Battle Creek, Michigan, which is about 26 miles/42 km from Kalamazoo.

[xavriley]

(even) Old(er) thread but I thought I'd follow up...

In the end, I must have had some kind of octal angel smiling down on me as I've managed to acquire a beautiful clone of a Fender V-front Pro made by Rift amplification in the UK.

The backstory - Chris from Rift had done a prototype of an EH-150 to be featured in a Guitar magazine as a four part series (part 4 is here: Amp FAQ: How do I build a Gibson EH-185 clone from scratch? (Part Four)) back in 2020. A couple of years later it hadn't progressed beyond the prototype stage and he was clearing out his workshop, offering bits out on thefretboard.co.uk (another fine forum for UK based guitarists). A beautiful EH-150 chassis for £150! On seeing this I ran (literally) inside to check my wife didn't need the car but when I got back to the computer 5 minutes later it was spoken for. You can imagine my deep despair at this, but I sent a message to the new owner (the founder of Bluebird Cabs) to say that if he didn't get on with it, I would love to buy it from him. This turned out to be lucky as he tipped me off the next day that Chris had added another prototype to the forum listing, but this time it was a clone of the rare and mysterious V-front Fender Pro. This was the forerunner of the more famous tweed TV front Fender deluxe. This time it was £200 but I wasn't going to make the same mistake and jumped on it there and then.

Chris did a great write up of the prototyping process here: Rift Tweed Vee (formally 'V-Front Super 5B4 Build') - Made in the UK Discussions on theFretBoard The protoype chassis in that forum post is the amp I now own. It needed 3 new tubes and a power cord but that was expertly dealt with by Ewan at Surrey Amp Repairs. I also managed to source a secondhand 1x12 cab that, by another miracle, was exactly 19 and 1/2 inches wide to fit the custom made chassis. This set me back another £80, plus the blood sweat and tears associated with carrying an amp from a flat in Greenwich via London public transport back to Waterloo station at rush hour.

So, for around £350 all in (chassis, tubes and labour and speaker cab) I have an unbelievable, genuine octal amp. I'm using it with a western swing band "The Boot Heel Playboys" in combination with a 1930s Cromwell G4 w/ lollar CC pickup and its immense. I've had several comments from audience members saying it's some of the best vintage guitar tone they've ever heard live. Also, knowing that it's a brand new build with reliable top spec components is the icing on the cake.

There's a little demo of me playing the guitar and amp combo here:

I should also follow up by saying that a Jr Barnyard came up in the UK for £150 and I went for it, so I now feel a bit more qualified to compare. It's a great pedal, the build quality (even on the v2 with PCB) is amazing, and Tavo and co are the real deal but... it's basically a tubescreamer with nice components and some tone shaping. It does the job (warming up an otherwise sterile full range speaker) and the edge of breakup sounds can be dialed in very nicely, but I find that I'm not really using it and choosing to haul the amp with me instead. If you are on a budget my first recommendation would be to play around with a 7-band graphic EQ going into an American sound type pedal as you'll be able to get pretty close. If you have the budget, consider the Jr Barnyard or the JJ-150 from combsguitars.com

[murrayatuptown]

Cool, and thanks for the EH-185 clone build Pt. 4 link. I'll look for 1-3 when I am on a laptop.

(even) Old(er) thread but I thought I'd follow up...

[Mark M.]

While I am not very technically savvy about amplifier types, I did recently pick up this fabulous circa 1938 National Model B. I love it!