Vacuum Tube Guitar Amplifiers

To hear the very first presentation and recording of the Zachary Amp (Prototype 1), go to the VideFiles page and click on 280705 and 090905

SuperNatural 18W
SuperNatural Reverb 18W

Design will remain consistent but like the guitars each amp will have an aesthetically different theme

Back in 1978 when I got my first guitar. I also got an amp with it. It was the cheapest thing they had, just a kid's toy really. It was nothing more than a transistor radio circuit with a 4 inch speaker. I remember the amp was fair size and it had this very little speaker in the center of the grill. It sounded like crap, as you can imagine. It cost $18 new. My first guitar, the guitar I got together with the amp was a cheap copy of a Les Paul Custom. I later found out it was made of construction grade plywood. Regardless to say, my set up was nothing to envy and it sounded like total shit, as you could imagine. I had no idea what to compare it to and what a guitar should sound like, all I knew is that I did not like it and did not feel like playing it. I started hating eclectic guitars because the sound I got was so unappealing and totally unmusical.

Over the years, I still repeatedly attempted to find a good electric guitar tone. Whenever and wherever I could, I would try out different amps but none of them gave me a warm musical tone. All I got was harsh artificial sounds, nothing like what the guitar heroes had on their records or the radio. I still desperately wanted to be an electric guitar player, even buying a fairly expensive tube amp in the early 80s, from a large Californian mail-order operation. A friend who was in a band asked to borrow this amp soon after I got it. However after using it for only a few days he promptly returned my new tube amp saying that everyone in the band agreed that his transistor amp sounded warmer. That was it for me, I wanted nothing to do with an electric sound.. I sold the amp and went acoustic all the way.

I abandoned the electric guitar and just got a cheap acoustic. The acoustic was made of plywood and had no bottom end to the sound but at least I knew how to get sound out of it and at least I knew what the problem was. There was no knobs to fiddle with and the sound came directly from the guitar. I knew that when I got a better acoustic there would be no problem getting a good tone our of it. A Natural guitar sound would be attainable. So, I played this cheap acoustic constantly for many years, then I got some higher end acoustics and my tone got even better.

My electric guitar experiences totally turned me off from playing or buying any electric guitars or amps. I played exclusively acoustics for many years, until the mid 90s when I started building guitars. The guitars I built were electrics and it was sort of like a challenge to see if I could build an electric that would match the tone of an acoustic and be as Natural and appealing to play. I wanted to create an electric guitar which had great tone and that this tone came through the speaker as soon as you plugged it in without fiddling with any knobs on the amp.. The key was to get a good electric sound as soon as I plugged it in and to have the sound come from the guitar and me, instead of the amp..

The purpose of this story is to mention that it is very difficult to get a good electric guitar tone, unlike an acoustic which will give you its true tone as soon as you pick it up and strum it. Good electric guitar tone is a real challenge and when it happens the whole world goes nuts as if it was a miracle. This is why we admire some players who we consider as having a great guitar tone. We envy them, try to emulate them, try to find out how they are doing it, what equipment they use, what recording gear they use, what signal processors and microphones they use, what pickups they have, etc. We don't usually do this with acoustic guitars. The sound is just there, good or not so good but mostly the sound of a decent acoustic is quite decent. With electrics if you don't have good tone, you usually have terrible tone.

Coming from an acoustic background, I wanted to get the same experience from and electric as I did from my acoustic. My goal was to just plug it in and get instantly good tone. By good tone I mean MUSICAL tone. Tone can differ and I don't really care what it sounds like, be it a Hendrix tone, or Van Halen tone, or AC/DC tone, or whatever, AS LONG AS ITS MUSICAL and HUMAN.

If you analyze why an acoustic has inherently good tone, it is for several reasons. 1. Obviously there are no electronics to bother with. 2. It is by nature touch sensitive and 3. the sound is totally natural, real uncolored and unmodified, just what you hear from the box. Its not trying to sound as something its not.

So why not create an amp like this for electric guitars? So that when you plugged your electric guitar in, you would not even think your sound was coming from a speaker. You could have a so called "acoustic" experience when playing electric.

For this you need the most simplest amp design, with as direct of a signal path as possible. You need a vintage style tube amp, which reproduces your guitar sound as opposed to trying to sound as something other than your guitar or your playing. Modern amps by nature are designed for a specific sounds. This sound changes with the fashion of the day, depending on what music styles teenagers are listening to. It is very interesting to listen to the latest multi-channel, multiple gain-stage tube amps and how different they sound and process the signal from amps we had even as recently as the 80s. They are in fact signal processors as much as amplifiers. Today's modern tube amps really sound more like digital amps and that seems to be the goal of the designers and the marketers. Superficially they also make players sound better than they truly are. These modern tube and modeling amps provide the tone and feel so that a good touch and tone is not necessary from the player. Or is it? The interesting and funny thing is that most players and guitar consumers are totally unaware of this happening, never having been told this before. As with guitars one must have a certain level of experience to appreciate these concepts or to even notice them. Much of the characteristics of modern tube and digital amps aid greatly in the sale and marketing of those products, hence they will continue to be successful in the marketplace. They are a sort of crutch and totally UNNATURAL.

This is not what you want if you want to have that "acoustic" experience. Or shall I say, HUMAN experience. Much of the vintage tones we like and much of the classic recordings we admire are examples of this "Natural Acoustic" experience. Adding analog effects pedals to your signal chain does not effect this acoustic experience because the pedals only color an already Natural sound. The key to a great Natural sound is a great Natural amp tone. A Natural sounding amp reproduces and amplifies your pure guitar sound and you get the true sound of your guitar even with a distortion and overdrive pedals. If you have a very good simple circuit in your amp the pedals simply work together with the natural fundamental sound which the amp produces. In fact your guitar will sound totally Natural as if it was played through a reference monitor, any break up will be the natural result of tube saturation and from a pedal which will work as one unit with the amp. You will notice that through a good simple tube amp your pedals will sound totally natural as well. A great tone fundamentally starts with a great guitar and then a great Natural sounding amp which presents your true guitar tone. Again, the opposite goal of modern tube and digital amps.

What does your guitar really sound like? Do you even know? Do you even care? Many don't. This is where the modern tube amps and digital amps come into play. They will make you sound like your amp. They will make your guitar sound like the amp. You will then be playing the amp. Not your guitar. Many don't mind or don't even realize it. In fact the amp will be playing you since these modern amps give a totally different feel to your guitar. Plugging into a Natural sounding tube amp or plugging into a modern amp is a whole different world, not just in terms of tone but also in terms of touch sensitivity, dynamics and the way it makes the guitar feel in your hands. You may have noticed that plugging your guitar into various amps, one after the other, will make your guitar feel different. It has to do with how your amp reads and processes the signal from your guitar, more specifically how it processes the signal from your fingers. Interesting phenomena but this shows you that amps can take over your playing and your tone considerably.

With a Natural sounding amp, there are no lies, just the truth, good or bad. You will find out quickly how good or bad your guitar and playing really is. On the other end of the spectrum, diametrically opposed, are digital modeling amps which take over your playing and truly will determine how you and your guitar will sound. The drawback is blandness which stems from the fact that you are not sounding like you. Amps can make you sound INHUMAN. Like a robot. You are not sounding Natural, you are not sounding like You. The experience can go from having a boring tone to a totally lifeless sterile and artificial tone which sounds very much like its coming from an electronic device and not a human. In fact, in certain settings you really don't have to be a great player to sound superficially impressive with a Digital Amp. They actually help nonexistent or poor technique and mask sloppiness greatly. The drawback of course of digital amps is that they get boring very fast, you loose control of your own playing and consequently you are not inspired to play and you may not even know why. You loose feel for what you are playing, you loose touch sensitivity you loose control of your playing since the amp provides your tone, thus your character. Its created for you, and you are not the one creating your sound and feel. Its not your tone, not the sound of your guitar, not the true feel of your guitar and consequently not your playing.

The choice is yours, what direction you want to go in. Here is an amp created for that "Natural Acoustic" experience, to showcase the Natural sound of your guitar and your playing. I call this Zachary amp the SuperNatural

The amp sounds way better than I could have hoped for, especially given that it's your first production model out of the gate. Crystalline tone, is how I would describe it. It sounds like a combination of some of my favorite low wattage amps all at once, including Blackface Princeton, Ampeg Jet, early Vox AC15, etc. You did a tremendous job, Alex. I'll bet it really sings when pushed. I have pretty good ears, and right off the bat my hearing tells me that this amp is not cluttered up by a ridiculously complex tone stack like many of the boutique builders seem to have been using lately. Clearly, the signal path is very direct because the transient response is very quick for a tube design and the acoustic sound of the Z2 is very evident. There is not "Tone Suck" in the signal path, so to speak. And I haven't even heard it in person!!!

I think your amps will truly wind up being the best match for a Zach, and I look forward to what you are doing in amp development very much. In 3 or 4 years time, when I will definitely have some money again, I am going to give you an unlimited budget to have you make me a guitar and let you go completely nuts to make anything you think I'll like. Plus, maybe you could make a Zach amp with matching Wood cabinet and hardware to the guitar. THAT would be the coolest thing ever, and one way or another if you can/will do it then I think it would be the single greatest guitar-related thing in my lifetime. Robert Frankel

I am thrilled that you have used 2 6V6's in the power stage - Most players are so brainwashed into wanting 6L6 or EL34 variants that they never get to experience the supremely dynamic and rich tones that can be coaxed from these tubes in the right circuit. As you know, I have always loved the early Fenders that use these tubes. Give me a Champ, Princeton, Harvard, Deluxe, etc. any day of the week and I'm happy. Just wish I could afford a few more - Hey that won't be necessary, cause my next amp will be a ZACH!!!

I was pretty sure that I was hearing 6V6's in your online demo, the amp was "breathing" just the way it ought to. I still judge all guitars by whether they can pass the "Tweed Champ" test. Whenever someone comes over to play, I just plug his guitar directly into the Fender Tweed Champ. It is a very harsh reality to alot of guys who have spent $3k-$5k on some guitar (Custom Shop or Historic job) when they are forced to confront the tonal inferiority of their instruments through a single-ended, Class A circuit. Not to mention their inherently sloppy playing - Two decades of multiple cascading gain stages has made for some very sloppy guitarists, eh? All my best - And hey, take a break once in a while - you deserve it. Rob

You had confirmed my findings of how revealing an amp like this can be of both the guitar and of the player. I walked into some music stores recently and I see these young guys doing all this acrobatic stuff on these modeling amps and these modern tube amps with 25 tubes and 25 knobs in them and I just laugh at them because its all artificial. They actually believe they are good players, while using the artificiality of these modern tube and digital amps. Even Fender when doing a promotional video of the Cyber series of digital amps admitted and actually emphasized (as a marketing tool) the fact that you do not have to be a good guitar player to sound like you are playing in a "Coliseum" and like a "rock star". Even myself, whenever I played through vintage tube circuits, the simple ones, I seemed to play like crap. I said, Wow, I am worst than I thought I was. This makes sense now Rob. You have confirmed my findings as well. You need to be on your toes and play well when playing through these archaic and simple tube amps. No masking, no artificial tone, no endless sustain to hide your flaws, no chance of the amp taking over your playing and your tone, no elimination of your guitar's natural tone, no elimination of your poor dynamics and inaccurate playing. Those guys playing these modern tube and digital amps are not playing their guitar, they are playing the amp, or more accurately the amp is playing them.

This Zachary amp makes an electric guitar act, behave and sound like an acoustic guitar. You only hear your guitar and your playing, not the amp. The amp becomes one with the guitar. Whereas with the modern amps, they take over so that it really does not matter what guitar you have. For that application one would be smart not to spend over $200 for a new guitar because it would not make any difference. Nothing matters about a guitar when playing through those amps. The thick plastic finish, thin gauge strings, type of wood, type of pickups, placement of the pickups, switching options, hardware, None of it matters. Nothing of these nuances is ever revealed by those amps. None of it comes through.

On the Zachary amp all that is displayed in shocking reality. The Zachary amp brings out only what you put into it, nothing more and nothing less. It truly reveals the tone of any guitar you plug into it, good or bad. It also will not mask your playing. The first thing that came to mind when playing these Zachary prototypes is that I felt like I was playing an acoustic flat top guitar. It totally feels like you are re playing an acoustic guitar. Its like a reference monitor more than an amp as known by the average player.

So these guys doing their acrobatics on those new modern amps should plug into one of these and see what they can do then. What a shock it would be for them. Rob you speak of your "Champ Test". That is exactly what I am talking about. These amps will put any guitar and player to the test.

How is this for a promotional material? Can you imagine reading this in a full page guitar magazine ad. "Buy this amp and see how crappy you sound and how badly you play". Not exactly the greatest promotional slogan. It makes me laugh because you will never see this line in any ads for amps by any other company. It seems to be all "smoke and mirrors" and "snake oil" when selling amps. The other thing to remember is most guitar consumers have no clue of the phenomena we are talking about here. I am happy to see that several Zachary guitar owners are fully aware of this but then again, they are not your typical guitar consumers.

This amp is totally natural sounding, so much that you are forgetting that you are actually plugged in. The best way to describe it is that Its like you are playing your electric guitar acoustically. In a good way the Zachary amp is invisible. You are totally focused on your guitar and your playing and your tone comes totally from the guitar, not artificially created by your amp. This is why I say it sounds as if you were playing an acoustic guitar. When you are playing an acoustic guitar your are one unit with the instrument. You are not focusing externally, its a feeling of inwardness. This is not the experience usually when playing electric but it is when plugged into the Zachary SuperNatural amp. With an acoustic all the tone is there for you, good or bad, depending on the acoustic guitar you got. Its the same with eclectics if you play it through this amp. The tone is totally Natural. "Super Natural" in fact. So, I came up with an appropriate model name for it. It will be the Zachary SuperNatural.