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All-righty!...My guitar and amp collecting twang banger in my band 'loaned' me one of the extra amps he had laying and here's what I think of it. All ya'll who know this one, chime in.

Amp: Gibson Super Goldtone.

Heres my review.

O-My_GAWD.

Its a really nice sounding amp. (holy crappollie)

I suspect you could get any tone you want outta this thing and at talking volumes. Truly it has all of the dynamics and tone at a whisper and it will peel the paint .. For you crunchers, this thing stops on a dime...like all the air in the room leaves for a second...you know what I'm talking about...!

More later I gotta go mess with it some more.

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Comments

moonbaby Fri, 01/06/2006 - 08:10

I have their "little" GA-5 Les Paul Jr. Couldn't go with the "bigun"...It's wild! A regular little screamer. Beats my 65 Kalamazoo, 65 Supro, and 64 Princeton. And it's built tough enough to handle bein' thrown into the car without scarin' the piss outta me. I think I'm in lust. Now I want one with 'verb...

Davedog Mon, 01/09/2006 - 14:34

Sorry fellas...this is the Big Dog of the Gold Tone series. 60 watts of EL34's..single channel but TWO preamps tubes and all....Switchable and theres a drive for each setup..This thing weighs in at 85lbs. Its got pentode/triode switching....an effects loop with drivers on both ends...30 watt vintage greenies...2-12's...Made in England! Looks just like the chassis of an old old Blues breaker with the power tubes facing forward in a top-loaded head...cool.

I had the SG on it the other day...1991 w/buckers...all stock...just thunderous and NOISELESS..I had it up in the main room...mind you this a pretty dead area and sound doesnt get out all that well and the neighbor across the street heard it! I tried the Strat with it....Stock Strat...62 RI....chimes and bells...sweet. Its gonna sound real good on the next record. I cant wait to get the writing partners 69 Tele Deluxe with a P90 and a Texas Special on it...

I STILL love the Blues Jr. however. Tonewise on a recording it'll keep up quality wise....Just not as much CRUNCH.

anonymous Fri, 01/13/2006 - 09:58

I have one of the Goldtone 1x12" (non super, the GA-15RV) which has reverb. Its an awesome amp. Gibson bought Trace Elliot and rebranded the Velocette line as the original goldtone. I think the super goldtones were a different Trace line that Gibson redid. Awesome amps. Mine is an EL-84 amp and is kind of Vox-ish in sound, but still its own style.

Any favorite mic-ing configs for recording these? I have a pretty budget setup, just one mic right now (a Rode NT-1a) but was thinking of picking up a dynamic mic (perhaps just an SM-57).

Davedog Thu, 01/26/2006 - 18:02

GoldTone UPDATE.....

(The only reason I post this stuff is cause I KNOW all you wankers love this kind of porn)

The Goldtone went into the vocal booth the other day. I like to record amps in there as its real 'intimate' and you can crank em a touch. Its not real big but its currently open to the control room so you can get a combination of sounds from the two environments.....ANYwhooo....it allows me to play along with cd's and tracks without phones and I get to really hear things upclose and personal through the console and the Genelecs.

I was able to dial up ANY frikkin sound I wanted. Really. For reference, I love the Dire Straits 'Making Movies' record.....

I got that guitar sound...no compression...straight in. Just a wire.

Another great player whos tone is incredible is Dan Huff. Premier Nashville sixgun and he used to have the band Giant. Great stuff and great player. With the right delay I'm there. I've got two old Roland SDE 1000's sitting in the rack so I'm breaking those out this week for more EXPERIMENTS WITH THE GOLDTONE.

Another update.

My classic rock band Dixie Wrecked, plays almost every weekend. Its a lot of fun. I am the bass player but I do get to play some guitar (which I am one of also)...Last weekend we played a place big enough to breakout some of the old cool gear...Guitar player Troy has a crapload of gear hes collected over the years...so this weekend it was the 1976 JMP Super Lead 100 watt and the old slant cab. This is an EL34 head so it breaksup really sweet and I had forgotten just how nice an old Marshall thats been well-cared-for sounds. Both of the guitar guys love playing the bass ...so I get to use both rigs on gigs. Usually its the Carr Hammerhead but this week the Marshall. Hes got a very nice condition 50 watt JCM800...also..

The other rig is just some old piece of crap combo amp.....uhhhh oh yeah, its a Bogner Metropolitan. I'm gonna rave about this thing in a couple more weeks...It is definately the SHIT!

Thats it for porn this week. Have fun! Always wank in tune...please.

Davedog Sun, 01/29/2006 - 14:32

Still using the Jr. Especially if I'm travking a demo with everyone playing at once. The Jr. has a bit more of that AC15 sound to it. I've never thought it sounded like a Fender amp. At least not in the traditional 6V6/6L6 kinda vibe. Its the Seymour Duncan Convertible thats gone to the bottom of the closet.

So, The Dixie Wrecked Band was out and about this Saturday night. A lot of regular friends and several birthdays so the house was-a-rockin. Troy had gotten this little hand-made 10 watter amp off of Ebay. Nice little chassis, hand wired point to point, tone knob, volume knob, stand-by switch, EL34 power tube and a EF86 pre tube...Bob's yer Uncle.

He used the speaker in the Carr and played through it all night.

I gotta say this thing is very very good. The seller called it the Skylark/Valvetronix/Champ amp killer, and he was right. Another massive tone monster in the band.

Sick isnt it.

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