talbany wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2019 5:23 am
Cool Marcus.
Who were you playin with?
Tony
Tony, I wasn't there unfortunately. These are 2 express type amps my friend Alan Darby got from me. The shot was from Sunday night Crossroads guitar festival with Eric Clapton, I've only ever played with Eric on a recording session.
Alan and I worked a lot together years ago with Artists like Rod Stewart and the big Japanese start E Yazzawa but we sort of lost touch. Then about 4 years ago, he came to a show I was doing and we reconnected again. I mentioned in passing that I'd build an amp...a 'Dumble'.... and he said he wanted to hear it. Now, Alan is a complete anally retentive tone head/geek... to the point of obsession, he has over 50 vintage ,boutique amps in his collection. So I turn up with my very first #102 build you all helped me with and he has his current touring rig set up which was: two blackface vintage super reverbs and two deluxe reverbs, all linked together on '10' !!!! so 8x 10 inch speakers and 2x12 inch speakers in total
So we set up my #102 and 1x12 classic lead 80 oval backed cab next to it and he spent the next 4 hours!!!!! going back and forth....I told you he was anal about this stuff....
So he then said , how much is it? I said it's not for sale it's mine, I built it for myself. He then got his check book out and said I have to have it. It put me in an awkward position, as he's a friend.....but I sold it to him
So of course Alan being Alan, he wanted a 100w version....I had by this time made a Blues master 100w so I said he could try it and see if 100w was what he wanted......same story..... ended up buying that.......
I then built an express....................same story.................
So his main rig now became an ODS and an Express, so when crossroads gig came in he asked me to build a spare express, which is the last build thread I did in August.
His rig gets shipped to Dallas and the set up begins a few days before.
So Alan's rig is between Eric's Dumble and John Mayer's Dumble.........those first amps I built say 'Dumble' on them.......you can see where this is going........
it was decided with world wide TV coverage and Eric and John's amps either side that Alan couldn't use those amps...despite having the name fully blacked out.
So plan B was put in place with the spare Express being used as the Master amp now in the wet/dry type rig. The FX amp was the express and the ODS was dry normally.
So despite a panic and Alan NOT being able to use the rig he's honed in the past 3 years it all went well in the end. We'd gone through every possible scenario but didn't see that one coming, but Alan knew that whatever happened and whatever combination of amps/cabs it always sounded great, so the meticulous preparation he did with his tech before hand in the UK paid off in the end.
Alan also played a set with Bonny Raitt and Keb Mo on Saturday
just thought I'd share that journey with you. Who'd have thought that my first visits here to build my '#102 those years ago might have led to that amp being sat between EC and JM Dumbles and nearly getting me in a LOT of trouble!!!! I never thought that amp would end up where it did as I build it purely for myself.
M