Top Finds of 2010: Nace Amps

It is no secret I am a sucker for a great sounding stompbox. But even greater than my desire for guitar pedals is my love for superbly built, great sounding amplifiers. Like the world of stompboxes, today just like yesterday exists a wide variety of boutique and commercial amp companies - all there to tempt us into snagging up one of their creations. For those of us who have been around long enough we know finding those few golden pieces of gear is not an easy task. But the gift one receives when he/she finally comes across that keeper of an amp is something that cannot be compared to anything else. Growing up I was fortunate enough to spend some time with some real heavyweight song writers and studio hounds. The one thing all these cats had in common?.... Their knowledge in amp tones and amp history. And the one piece of advice that all these cats had to give was "Play, collect, and hang on to as many good sounding amps as possible." Boy has this been truer than true. These last 5 or so years has shown us a steady come back in low and mid watt amplifiers, and for good reason too. With many players cutting their stage volumes in half, the need for great sounding low watt amps is a must. Well once again I have been blessed with another spectacular discovery - one that has shown me once again that deep rooted passion for building and designing musical gear still exists. For those of you who have experience with Nace Amps you know the magic they possess. And for those of you new to the Nace name hold on to your picks, cause here comes a doozy.

Nace

M2-7R

Specs/Features

• Class “A” 5 watts average power clean, 7 watts average power rock distorted with a 6V6 power tube.
• Cathode biased: uses proprietary “phase invariant cathode biasing” which reduces resistor/capacitor cathode biasing phase distortion.
• Power tubes: EL34, 6L6, or 6V6
• Pre-amp tubes: 12AT7, 5751, ECC83, 12AX7
• Controls: volume, treble, bass, reverb
• Input: ¼ mono
• Output: ¼ mono – plug into one of two outputs 16 ohm, 8 ohm
• Reverb on/off 1/4 mono - external switch pedal to turn on or off the reverb
• Built in power conditioning: proprietary “trans flux power module” which enables the above specifications to be valid for the following input profile: 117vrms +/15%,48 Hz to 1 KHz or from 100VDC to 180VDC. Specifications shall not change over the specified input voltage/frequency range. Ideal for those “out of the way” gigs.
• Very low noise: better than -60db. Studio/stage quality ideal for micing or recording. 120 Hz amp hum is gone. Note: guitar and pedal hum is a separate issue.
• Also available in 1x12 combo with 12” Celestion Greenback - or - 1x12 combo 12" speaker ready

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If I had to put into just a few words I would say "Giant monster in a  little box." This was the character that this little amp put out from the get-go, and from there it would onyl get better and better. For me (like for many of you I'm sure) there is nothing better than a simple, great sounding and elegant, well built amplifier. The Nace M2-7R is all of these things and nothing less. I found this little beast to be the perfect go-to amp for both live and studio applications, a great little amp for practicing and writing, and a stunning amp for incorporating into it stompboxes of all types. The M2-7R got along beautifully with speaker cabs of all sizes, guitars of all makes, and playing styles of every color. I found the amp to be very versatile for it's size and very quiet at it's highest levels (no unwanted noise here folks). Quality wise the amp is right on the money - all the way from it's cool knobs and clean tolex work to it's guts. For the price you couldn't ask for a better amp. At the end of the day though, when all was said and done, it was all about the amp's tone. Here is where amp guru Art Nace really put his talents and soul into this design.

The first couple weeks I had the amp I used it only with a 1x12 cab. This was really all I needed. The amp made it so easy to dial in desirable tones that I found no reason to plug into it anything else. Having the 1x12 cab was nice for dragging around to shows and setting up in recording sessions. I was able to get tons of different tones on the fly and able to blend in a handful of my favorite stompboxes (which all sounded and played fantastic!) For those of you fellow pedal junkies you will absolutely love this amp. First thing I wanted to hear when I plugged into this amp was it's clean tones. My experience with pulling sweet sounding clean tones from low watt amps hasn't been all that great to tell you the truth - but here things were different. The Nace M2-7R was able to produce clean tones sweet and powerful enough to rival some of my favorite classic blackface and tweed amps. Getting overall clear and sparkling tones was easy, getting the amp to kick and punch was a cinch, and taking those tones to the next level a piece of cake. On it's own the amp kicked out plenty of spank and clarity. Each pickup I played through the amp whether it be single coils or humbuckers all did something very special. What stood out from the beginning was how well the amp let each pickup project it's own special tone. Rocking the tone controls from their lowest to their highest settings all sounded great. And fine tuning those controls to fit the room or guitars being played sounded even better. Through my semi-hollow guitar I was able to get everything from beautifully dark jazz tones to jangly chiming classic rock sounds. With the M2-7R's reverb at hand I was able to add in more character and size - making my guitar sound just bigger than life! The amp was very touch sensitive when needed and barked out with plenty of growl when pushing my strings to the limit. Playing quick riffs and runs up and down the neck bloomed and blossomed with precision, making the amp's tone blend in perfectly in band situations and recording sessions. I played a few blues and funk gigs with this amp and it's clean tones definitely hit the mark and then some. At medium gain levels the amp is capable of producing huge sounding rhythm tones. In fact, the amp was much louder than I expected it to be, and very very quiet on the excess noise side of things. Getting the amp to give up some slight grit or mellow crunch was very very easy. With it's volume at about 10'o'clock things can start to get pretty crunchy, depending on what pickups you got on hand. With the semi-hollow's buckers all I had to do was a little bit of digging into the strings and wahla! One pickup that really stood out with the amp at a medium gain settings was the filtertron, and the P90 now that I think of it. This isn't to say others sounded bad, I just mean for me this are the two pickups types that I usually have the tuffest time dialing in - because of either noise issues or otherwise. I was able to get these insanely aggressive clean tones through my buddy's Grestch - those rockin' clean tones that seem to be hanging on to their last inch of clarity. Good stuff for blues, all around rock, and rhythm work. At medium gain levels the amp also pushed out killer alt-rock and punk rock tones. The P90 proved a great pup for this. Later when plugging into bigger cabs I found the power of this amp transfered over perfectly. Not all low watt amps sound good through all cab sizes, something I have had to learn the hard way. The amp's treble and bass controls proved versatile enough to match to plenty of gigs, rooms, and plenty of musical styles. The sweep within each tone control rolled beautifully and covered more ground than I expected them to. Going from zero to ten wasn't harsh or extreme, instead subtle and pronounced. This goes for the reverb circuit as well. I was able to get small bouncy verb tones, medium and large room verbs, and haunting good hall sounds. A real treat for amp of this size. Going into it's higher gain settings I discovered the M2-7R was able to hold it's own with much larger much more powerful amps. My Eminence Red Fang equipped 1x12 cab proved a great match for the Nace's wide range of sounds - but time did come to plug into my buddy's 2x12 Vintage 30 rosewood handbuilt cabinet. Never have I heard such a loud, chest punching guitar cab. The Nace matched up with this cab was like voodoo! I don't know if it's the wood, the build, or the speakers - but the combo of all these things stacked up with the M2-7R was quite epic! My 60's build Strat was able to get me a world of big'n'bright rock tones which brought me instantly into Hendrix heaven, and I mean proper authentic Hendrix tones, not wimpy wannabe sounds. On it's own the amp was able to kick out some pretty impressive rich distortion. And it seemed the louder and louder I pushed the amp, the more it would come to life. When I finally did put a clean booster in front of the amp everything came to life ten-fold. The booster help me to achieve these crisp and clean lead tones which accented the amp's natural tone and filled the air with mojo. This was also true of overdrive pedals in line with the amp's dirt. Everything from Tube Screamer type pedals to more aggressive dirt boxes did a wonderful job in bringing out more from this amp. Even when I pushed huge stompbox levels through the amp I didn't find it to sound flimsy or overpowered. At full blast the M2-7R was very usable and capable of further tone shaping. If you've played low watt amps and have ever cranked them you've noticed that one problem that many of them share is that they can't be manipulated or tamed once you got them full power. Things start to get muddy, too mid-rangy, and just overall too damn harsh. The M2-7R can more than hold it's own when cranked way on high, and beautifully take on the might of any dirt box. I was even able to push fuzz boxes through the amp and still get good string articulation and clarity. Getting the amp to clean up was as easy as rolling back my guitar's volume control - and all without loss of the amp's character. The really cool thing was that this amp was able to go from blackface type tones when setup clean, to plexi-ish sounds when cranked loud. Very cool stuff if you ask me. Gotta give it up to Art for that one, very very clever indeed my friend. In the end the M2-7R was able to pull from me inspiration and the drive to play. Which is more than anyone can ask for. If you're looking for an easy to use workhorse boutique quality amp - you must try one of these puppies.  What more can I say?

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Art Nace also lends his talents to the world of Trillium Amps, which if you haven't seem I highly suggest you also check out. The M2-7R also comes in combo form (which is pictured here). Nace also produces their own matching cabs for those of you needing the whole package. For more info on these killer little amps go to www.naceamps.com Or click on the direct links on our sidebar. You can see one of these bad boys in action by typing Nace Amps in our Youtube search engine below. Stay tuned for more. 

Cooking Up Something Real Nice

With vintage amps becoming as scarce and expensive as they have, boutique amplifiers have really been a breath of fresh air. More and more players are becoming tone conscience and aiming for all around better sound these days. Whether it be the session cat, major artist, up & comer, or bedroom rocker. For me it's always been about versatility married with great tone. This is exactly where Audio Kitchen comes into play. By paying great attention to detail and incorporating immaculate build quality, Audio Kitchen has been able to produce some of the most superb sounding amps I have ever plugged into. Audio Kitchen is as dedicated an amp company as one can get, and their work shows this quite clearly. I have always been a huge fan of the boutique and low watt amp scene, and in one way or another have always incorporated this type of amp into my live or record rigs. It has been tuff to find something that has worked though. Again, this is where Audio Kitchen has been awesome, designing a collection of amps that help us and not confuse us in our quest for the ultimate tone. This is all thanks to their secret weapon builder/amp designer Steve Crow. I had a chance to dig deep for a couple weeks into Audio Kitchen's 7 watt Little Chopper model. I'll just say this; If ever I was devastated to see a piece of gear go it was this one. The Little Chopper was able to show me an entirely new breed of low watt amplifier and the true meaning of boutique.

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Little Chopper

7WSE

TECH/SPECS

• ECC81/ECC83 Preamp design
• EL84 Power amp section
• Nominal power output
• 7 Watts single ended - 8ohms
• Built with the finest components, parts, and techniques
• Huge range of tones
• 320mm x 210mm x 205mm
• Mains power requirement:
• 240V @ 50HZ, 200mA or 115V @ 60HZ, 400mA
• Voltage switch fitted as standard

CONTROLS

• Gain: Dishes in the goodness
• Bass: Delivers tasty low end
• Middle: Delivers world of possibilities
• Top: Crisp it up or roll or roll it back
• Stack: Counter-Clockwise= normal EQ use/Clockwise= EQ is cut leaving Top as high-end roll off
• Power:Clockwise= Standard non-master volume amp Anti-Clockwise= Decreased headroom, more harmonic content
• Bright Switch: Introduces jump in sparkling beauty
• Hi Switch: Give more of everything

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Where to start oh where to start? This little beast handed more flavors than I knew what to do with, and did it all in spectacular fashion. I really gotta give it up to Steve once more for knocking out such a killer design. I plugged my small collection of guitars and pedals into the Little Chopper, and when I was done with my gear went looking for more stuff to run it with. This thing just sounded awesome with everything I stacked it up against. I ran it through a bunch of different cabs with different speakers, gigged with it, and recorded with it. Each time the Little Chopper came through with flying colors. I can only imagine what the Big Chopper is capable of :^)

The first setup I hooked the Little Chopper up to was a 1x12 open back cab with a 30 watt Eminence Red Fang speaker, my Hagstrom Viking, and a high quality cable. I set the amp's bright and hi switches off, EQ at noon, stack knob in it's normal position, power at full clockwise, and gain control at 15%. The tone came through clean, but thick and meaty at the same time. A perfect canvas for building on top of. The eq projection was spot-on, and response quick and on-point. The combination of the bottom, middle, and top's controls created a hefty clean sound that just poured out from the speaker as if pulled from pickups and strings. I introduced a bit more gain and felt everything become boomier. I could literally feel the amp yearning for more, as if the signal were alive. I plucked down on some blues licks with the treble pickup and got defined rich notes that rang and sang like midnight wolves. I then threw a clean booster into the mix and was able to get slightly gritty tones, brushy overdrives, honking good mellow distortion, and killer blues and hard rock lead tones. All with my pick attack. The amp's tubes soaked up the booster's output and spit out what was some of the most desirable crunch tones I'd ever heard. This is exactly what a good tube amp is supposed to do; Take everything that's going into it and everything it's going out of, and take them to their fullest potential. My Hagstrom and little 1x12 cab never sounded so good. Next I flipped the Little Chopper's gain knob to about 75%. Here I could hear and feel exactly how the amp's design was meant to function. As I began to play with different eq and power settings I began to see just how well each control worked with the next. The one control that really made it possible for me to dial in what I wanted was that power control. I could roll the power back to shorten my headroom, which would leave me with more crunch and harmonic content. This control also worked beautifully for low level overdrive tones. Some amp's you start introducing more lows and then notice the highs disappear. Or crank the mids and hear them take over. This was not so with this badboy. Somehow the frequencies of the amp all stayed balanced and in harmony with one another. I could bump the highs on the Little Chopper and they'd ring with more twinkle, yet the bass and mids came through just as they were without any one frequency being louder than the next. I then flipped the stack control to it's clockwise position, giving me only the top's knob as a high-end roll off. This position also gave a jump in gain and boost in mids. I was able to get a spot-on Neil Young tone with the stack knob in this position. The gain became angrier, and the power control provided me with all the crunch, sustain, and compression I needed. Switching into the bass pickup hooked me up with some killer sounding fuzz/overdrive tones. The amp also responded great to my guitar's volume and tone knobs. I could push the amp itself into a raging lead tone and use my guitar to tame the signal down into a rhythm and semi-clean tone. Awesome stuff!

Another killer guitar/cab setup I dug was my Tele and Strat guitars with a 2x12 closed back cabinet. My buddy has an amazing hand built custom cab that just blended perfectly with the Little Chopper's wide range of sounds. Inside this cab are two 25 watt vintage ceramic Jensen's. I began with a good ol' American clean tone and plugged in the Tele. Right from the get-go I was able to get bell-like tones that adapted beautifully to both Tele pickups. My bottleneck slide was the perfect candidate for this tone. Then again so was a brass, steel, and ceramic slide. The amp was able to deliver a rich and warm tone that stuck to the slide's character and created killer steel guitar effects. With my tube reverb, analog delay, and volume pedals thrown into the mix, I was literally stuck for hours. Classic country big'nbright tones were not a problem for this amp. The more bass and highs I added to the signal, the juicer and sweeter things got. While in the middle of this heavenly session I also broke out my lap steel. The closed back of the cabinet really let me shape and control the mids and lows to get the most precise levels. This let me set a bunch of different root tones that let me adapt the amp to many styles and sounds. To get some hair on this American tone I went ahead and did the stack control thing and rolled off on some of the power knob. Here I also introduced the bright switch, rolled up more gain, and OH MOMMA! The bright switch handed me an awesome vintage style sound that reminded me of some of my favorite old timer amplifiers. By tossing a Tubescreamer on top of the amp's medium grit, I was able to broaden the overall tone. The overdriver combined with the amp's bright rich tone did one of the meanest sounding blues tones I have ever heard. Slide or no slide the amp was really cooking now and everything that came out of it was gold. If ever you've cranked a great sounding tube amp to the point of no return while playing a Tele you know how cool a sound can be achieved. The Little Chopper did this and many many other amp voices. Depending on how I had it set I was able to produce Plexi tones, AC30 tones, Blackface, Tweed, and everything in between. An amp of this size should not hold this much power... Or should it? My next task was to see if I could mimic a fire breathing Hendrix tone. I flipped the Little Chopper's hi switch, slammed the gain to about 75-80%, set the stack in it' high-end roll off mode, and cranked the power control at around 50-60%. I did flip the bright switch on to make up for the high-end roll off. I then broke out one of my favorite fuzz boxes, stacked on a chorus/vibe pedal, and that was that, Hendrix heaven. You should have seen my partner's face when he came into the studio and heard me flying away to a tiny amp head and 2x12 cab. He just couldn't believe it was coming from such a small amp. Mic'd up the signal carried beautifully for both recording sessions and live setups. It seemed like no matter what dirt box (or any pedal for that matter) I ran through the Little Chopper, I was able to dial in epic sounding tones. These last couple years have been a flood with small boutique low watt amplifiers, so much so that even some of the bigger cats have jumped on board. Many of these amps have been duds, always being driven by hype, needing to be modified, or being limited in their voicing. The Little Chopper will show you that low watt amps can be as versatile as the big boys. My time as a player and the few years Analog War Cry has been up has provided me with the opportunity to try out some of the coolest, best sounding gear out there. The Little Chopper will be one piece of gear that will never forget. Keep up the killer work Steve.

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For more info on Audio Kitchen go to www.audiokitchen.co.uk Make sure to check out their video demos, pics, and other killer products. We will be keeping an eye on Audio Kitchen' progress and bringing more in the near future. You can also check out Little Chopper demos in our Youtube search engine at the bottom of our site.