Vox has entered the low power tube amp market with the introduction of the Night Train. The amp features two 12AX7 preamp tubes and two EL84 power tubes which deliver 15 watts of power. The amp is switchable to deliver 7.5 watts in trio mode.

The preamp is pretty cool and has Treble, Middle and Bass control along with a switchable Bright and Thick mode. I haven’t seen a schematic but I imagine the bright and thick modes are accomplished by modifying the stock tone stack.

The amp is pretty nice looking and Vox has a matching 1-12 cabinet with a custom VOX Celestion ‘greenback’ speaker.

I haven’t had the chance to hear one in person. Vox has posted some excellent clips on their web site.

This is a pretty review on Youtube.

Overall I kind of dig how this amp sounds. To me it seems to have that Vox vibe (duh) and can get pretty snarly too.

A few years ago Lori Linstruth made available her Behringer V-amp library. I still use some of her presets. They sound really great for a thick solo tone. You can download them here.

Lori rhythm
Lori Solo 2 wet
Lori Solo 3 wet

Lori Linsruth

This is my latest addition to the house, a Fender Stagemaster. To be honest I wasn’t very familiar with the stagemaster. The stagemaster is no longer in production and it was made from the mid 90’s till about 02 (i think). Almost all of the stagemasters have a licensed Floyd Rose trem and a reverse headstock and at least on humbucker. There are different levels from the standard to the deluxe series. Most were made in China Or Korea. According to the serial number mine was made in 1999.

Some of the stagemasters are wicked nice with neck-thru maple necks with basswood bodies and a quilted top finish. There are seven string models too. The neck on mine os one of the thinnest necks I hace seen on a Squier strat.

I like the fact that these are somewhat similar to the HM Strat at a fraction of the price. The stagemaster sells all day long on ebay for $150-$250.

One thing I have been interested in is to use the OSP DD502 electronic drums to play Guitar Hero or Rock Band. My hopes were raised when I read the Rock Band World Tour kit included a midi jack.

I fianlly had a chance to try to connect the DD502 to the Rock Band kit and it was a partial success. The rides and toms seemed to work ok. The cymbals, floor tom, bas and snare did nothing.

It seems like the rock band kit is expecting specific midi notes from each pad of an external kit. Unfortunately I can’t find a way to change the note the DD502 send out on. I even tried to change the sounds assigned to the pad but it doesn’t seemne to effect the midi note.

I also have a Yamaha DD65 which I was able to use to play rock band with through the midi port. I had to adjust the sounds assigned to the pads to find the right notes. Unlike the DD502 the Yamaha kit seems to change the midi note when you change sounds for the pads.

I suppose I could connect he DD502 to my computer and somehow remap the midi notes and send it back out the rock band kit. I probably won’t cross that bridge until the rock band kit starts to break.

The Bugera line of amps have been out for a while now. I wrote a little overview of the 6262 here. I went to my local Sam Ash and luckily they had a 333xl head in stock. The head was connected to a Bugera 4×12 cabinet.

I’ll start out by saying that the clean channel is what impressed me most about this amp. I started out on the clean channel just to dial in some volume levels and I didn’t expect to spend any time on the clean channel. But to my surprise the clean channnel sounded really great. It was about as clean as a tube amp could get with lots of headroom. It is a very dynamic channel that was a lot of fun to play with.

My next stop was the crunch channel. At the lower settings you can get a classic rock crunch tone like AC/DC. As you increase the gain you move more into an 80’s metal gain. The built in reverb sounds really nice.

The tone controls are active and very responsive. You can really hear a difference just by moving the tone controls a little bit. The lead and crunch channels have an “XL” button. I think it’s Bugeras attempt at a loudness control to make the amp sound fuller at lower volumes. I can’t say I heard that much of a difference with it in or out. I will say that this amp sounds perfectly fine at bedroom volumes though unlike a lot of other tube amps.

Another cool feature of this amp is a noise gate. It works well and the model I tried was pretty quite even with the noise gate turned off.

I really enjoyed the crunch channel and I would probably spend most of my time on it.

My next stop was the lead channel and it has more gain on tap than even I knew what to do with. Let’s just say it is teh br00talz.

Overall I am really impressed by this amp. The clean channel is excellent and the crunch and lead channels deliver in spades. I don’t think I would gig with it if I was a working musician due to an unproven reliability track record. However it is a no brainer for the home musician.