Robben on his favorite speakers.

[dogears]

This posted by Daved his longtime tech.

As most gearheads know, Robben’s speaker of choice has been, literally for decades now, the Celestion G12-65, a speaker which was discontinued many years ago.

Thru the years since, as the new 65’s became fewer and further between, we took to reconing the old ones when they wore out.

However, even that no longer worked as the original rebuild kits became extinct and the speakers we had re-coned didn’t sound or perform quite right because of secondary or modified parts.

Often, I would be told of G12-65’s available in Marshall cabs and such, but these would inevitably turn out to be 16 ohm speakers… useless to us as we needed the 8 ohm models.

For a couple of years, we worked with the people at the Eminence speaker company to try to develop something that Robben could like and use consistently. We came close, but never quite nailed exactly the “Robben thing”. I will always be very grateful to Eminence and the folks there for their hard work and continued support.
The upside is that things they learned and developed from the project has lead to some fine current speaker models in their line of speakers these days. Roben liked (and still does) the Tonkers, among others. We still have a few in our stock for occasional use with various recording projects.

At one point, a few years back (edit:more like 4 or 5), Celestion reps contacted me for information on any of the old Celestion 65 models I had around as they were hoping to reissue the G12-65’s mainly on the strength that it was the speaker Robben has always loved most.

After a year of back and forths, they sent us a couple prototypes of what they were getting ready to release. Robben tried them out and immediately gave a thumbs down. There was a whole level of lower frequencies that very noticably were not coming thru.

Then communication with Celestion broke down as I heard there was a lot of reworking going on in the Celestion organization. Having a rep that I could consistently and reliably work with had always been a difficult issue. Those speakers quickly went away and I heard virtually nothing after that.

Well, time passed... until recently when I had been hearing some good reports thru the grapevine about some new 65’s that Celestion had finally come out with. (edit:anything called Heritage G1265)
And then one day, speaking on the phone with Alfonso Hermido, the creator of the Zen Drive pedal, about some speaker cabinets he was designing, he mentioned that he had been dealing with a new Celestion rep in southern California who’d expressed a desire from the Celestion company to get Robben’s thoughts and opinions on the new G12-65 product they had on the market, but apparently didn’t know how to go about reaching us.

Alfonso asked if I was interested, I of course assured him I was, and then he graciously hooked me up with Rick, Celestion’s southern Cal rep. Rick called me back immediately from a snow trip he was on in the mountains with his family and we talked for an hour.

He explained that 2 positive things had happened at Celestion.

One was that they, in reworking the company, had recognized the support problems and that was where he came in, being a readily available artist representative in Southern Cal who was there primarily for artist assistance and reliable access to the Celestion company.

The other was that Celestion had gone back to the drawing board and reworked the G12-65’s to a product that they now hoped was comparable to the original 65’s and that they had been wanting to contact Robben for his evaluation and opinion on the new product as they were eager to hopefully gain his approval and endorsement.

After speaking with Rick, he had some samples sent to me and I invited him to come to one of our techdays to meet and speak with Robben as we tried them out.

The results… Robben loved the speakers and was thrilled to “finally have my sound back”. I, myself, was thrilled to finally have a reliable source of fresh, quality G12-65’s, and Celestion was thrilled that Robben highly approved the new reissued product. A 'win' situation all the way around.

Robben and his management agreed to endorse them, so I sent scanned copies of his autograph and a quote along with promo pictures to Celestion. They will soon be promoting the speakers with Robben’s backing and approval.

Both Dumble cabinets are now loaded with the speakers and, after several months usage, Robben recently told me that they continue to sound great and he is very happy to be using them again.

On the recent Italian tour, using rental Twin Reverbs, I asked Celestion to ship us four 65’s which I installed in the Twins. Robben said they sounded so much better than the Jensens that had been in the amps and was happy to use them for the rest of the tour.

When the tour ended, I pulled the Celestions, re-installed the Jensens, and shipped the Celestions to our storage in Germany to put in our Fender Twins when we return in the October for the European Fall tour.

So, everyone, it is now official... the Celestion G12-65’s are once again Robben’s guitar speaker of choice and he is very pleased to have them back and readily available.

Btw, I spoke with Rick Skillman and any Heritage G1265 is what is being referred too. The prototype stuff was from 4 or 5 years ago. Any reissue G1265 is current design.

[Structo]

Thanks for posting that Scott.
Very informative.

[drz400]

Great Speaker
But it can sound overly dark in the wrong cabinet.
I have them in a closed back 2x12 and they sound great but I didn't care for them in a smaller open back.

[ic-racer]

With respect to the comments by Daved, which cabinet are these speakers being used with the Dumble. He comments on putting them in a Twin, but for Dumbles, is the 'signature sound' with the G12-65 from the 1x12, oval backed combo?

[kleinm]

Interesting article, Scott! I had just seen this a few days ago:
http://professional.celestion.com/guita ... rford.html

IC - I think RF is still using the oval-back 2x12 cabinet with the G12-65s. Or at least, I've seen recent pictures of his rig with that cabinet and speaker configuration. I've never seen him live ( ), but all of the recent videos or pictures I've seen of him are with head and 2x12, or with Twins. I haven't seen the combo in use for a while.

[les_guitar]

Thanks for posting this here Scott. It's refreshing to see that the reaction on this forum is much better than the treatment this thread is getting on the TGP.

Oye!

[Fischerman]

I think RF is still using the oval-back 2x12 cabinet with the G12-65s. Or at least, I've seen recent pictures of his rig with that cabinet and speaker configuration. I've never seen him live ( ), but all of the recent videos or pictures I've seen of him are with head and 2x12, or with Twins. I haven't seen the combo in use for a while.

Does anybody make a cabinet like that oval-back 2x12?

[kleinm]

Does anybody make a cabinet like that oval-back 2x12?

Bludotone, Hermida Audio, Glaswerks, even the Avatar is sorta close. I've been using a "traditional" series Avatar 2x12 oval back for years now....

Of those four, the Bludotone and Glaswerks would be the closest. Even cooler, they're both affordable.

The Hermida is Alf's own take on the oval back design, and the Avatar is a little different overall. Great cab, though. I can post pics, if you'd like to see it. Mine's loaded with the very speakers highlighted in this thread.

[talbany]

I like the G1265's as well.. Sold quite a few on top of it.. My personal rig has origional G-12 65's in an oval back design.....They are 15 ohms but none the less in real good shape I notice a pretty large difference in the tone of the origionals ver's the Reissues.. With the same amp, guitar and very similar cabs..I know the speakers are older and have been worn in and are 25 years old.. Still what a difference.....The reissues have more of a pronounced midrange.. I would say in the 500 to 700 HZ range you know that Vintage 30 frequency.. and I don't have to say smoother...I know obviously from the wear... The origionals are just flat out to me the Cooler.....JMHO..




Tony VVT

[hipbluescat]

Hi

Has anyone compared the Scumbacks and the Celestion Hertiage GH 12 65 models?