Amp rabbit holes

Cameron’s used to come up for sale in the classifieds all of the time. Seems those that have them aren’t active anymore and sell them on reverb or privately, or in general not at all.

One thing about his amps is that you had great sounding ones and not so great sounding ones. To own an amp he did is one thing, to own an amp that sounds good and wasn’t permanently ruined with epoxy and spray paint is another.
 
The Atomica story about how Cameron Amps started is a great read but I can't find it anymore. I though it was on the Metropolis Forums..
 
I had a FBM, Forza & tried my friend's Tuzzia. I thought they sounded just ok to decent at best vs the exceptional level amps, nothing amazing, but they sure did look cool! IMHO there are many better sounding amps out there for the kinda sound they had

Like most modern amps, they sounded more on the artificial side and the main let down for me was that I was expecting this super unique, novel sound, but with all the many amps I’ve tried at this point none of them seemed like anything I hadn’t already heard before. I liked the FBM best of the bunch though
 
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braintheory said:
I had a FBM, Forza & tried my friend's Tuzzia. I thought they sounded just ok to decent at best vs the exceptional level amps, nothing amazing, but they sure did look cool! IMHO there are many better sounding amps out there for the kinda sound they had

Like most modern amps, they sounded more on the artificial side and the main let down for me was that I was expecting this super unique, novel sound, but with all the many amps I’ve tried at this point none of them seemed like anything I hadn’t already heard before. I liked the FBM best of the bunch though
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Would what you put ahead of it for that tight meshuggah thing ?
 
Dyllheaven88 said:
Would what you put ahead of it for that tight meshuggah thing ?
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Well I did hear some Meshuggah vibe in there, but there are lots of amps out there tighter than the FBM, but they didn’t necessarily have a Meshuggah vibe to their tone. Fwiw I don’t think about tone relative to other bands/artists (I really don’t care about that), so maybe you may feel differently. I didn’t care about the Meshuggah association. I simply gave the amp a thorough playthrough and what I heard was it sounded very big, thick, tight but not super tight like I was expecting, modern but artificial, lacking complexity, lacking complete growl on chords, not the best sounding for leads (because of the lack of tonal nuance or vocal connection between notes). I really just kept for a bit for how big it sounded, worked well with my 7 & 8 string guitars, but then came other big sounding amps like my Wizard MTL, this particular Cameron mod, later a Blueface VH4, other amps and all of a sudden it didn’t have “big” going for it either. If you want very tight, the Monomyth’s (both his modded Marshall’s and skeleton key), Mako Dorado ch on my MK4 preamp, or CCV are all in their own ways the tightest amps I’ve tried so far, but they don’t sound like Meshuggah. I don’t try to sound like other bands or think about their tones, so I guess I don’t really have a great answer for you. It just simply to me didn’t have what I feel is high quality tone and there are other amps that sound more brutal/heavy (like my megalith beta, Rev 1 Uberschall, c+ coliseum) and other amps that sound tighter. Idk just no need for it I felt, but ymmv. It was also 6 years ago when I had it, so I can’t describe things quite as precisely as usual
 
https://forum.metropoulos.net/viewtopic.php?t=15606&start=15

Joe Holmes has two killer sounding '72 Jose modded Super Leads. Those things are his prized possessions. He used them forever around the LA clubs and used them when he played with Ozzy. His tone with Ozzy live was one of the best tones I have ever heard. Just monstrous.
Also as mentioned, Sykes's amps he uses in the current Thin Lizzy stuff sound killer.
I heard a lot of Jose modded Marshalls in Hollywood back in the mid to late 80's. Most of them sounded like crap, but was that the amp or the players fault? A few of them were awesome. The thing is, there were quite a few different "Jose mods" that he did. Some were higher gain than others.
Brian Jay from Keel had a great Jose modded Marshall. SO good in fact that when Keel got their record deal, someone from Peavey used Brian Jays amp to make the VTM series amp. I never played a VTM series but Mark Cameron tells me if you get all the dip switches set right that they sound pretty good.
Here's a very interesting Jose story that I experienced first hand. My buddy owned a guitar shop in Huntington Beach. Mark Cameron worked for him and I was already having Mark work on my amps. This was probably 1997 when his store opened. In about 2000, my buddy bought the entire Jose collection of amps from Jose's family after Jose passed away. They took the truck down to pick them up and I left my store I own and drove to their store to wait with Mark for the delivery. The truck gets there and we start unloading Super Lead after Super Lead after Super Lead (almost exclusively metal panel amps). Someone noticed that taped to the bottom of almost every single amp was an invoice. We started turning all the amps upside down and reading off the names on the invoices: Neal Schon, Mick Mars, Bruce Bouillet, etc etc I don't even remember all the names but it was a who's who of LA rock guitarists.
All these guys had sent Jose amps for mods and then Jose passed and they never got their amps back. Well Mark and I start weeding through the amps and going for the ones that we could tell from the exterior were already modded. Very soon we found an amp that had the name ATOMICA stenciled across the front where the Marshall logo should have been. It was a '71 Super Lead and was beat to hell. This was THE amp guys seriously. It was that sound, in a box, right in front of us. Mark was playing through it and it was just that tone I had always wanted. We switched off playing it and I decided I HAD to have that amp. I went to talk to the owner who was one of closest friends at the time. I offered him $1500, he said no. I offered him $2k he said no. Now $2k was about what a very nice plexi was selling for at the time and this was a beat to hell metal panel. $2500? No. $3000!!!!!!!!! No.
He said, just let me sort through this stuff and I'll sell you the amp once I figure out what's what. Mark loved the amp so much, and there were so many Super Leads there that Mark took it and hid it in his pile of amps to be repaired in his repair room. For months, Mark would pull it out when I came in and we would play it then he would hide it again. The owner and I had an agreement that it was mine when he decided to sell it, but by this point he didn't even remember he had it. Then my buddies shop started having severe financial trouble.... severe. Mark kept telling me the amp is still there. You better get it soon. I said don't worry it's mine, your boss promised.
About 3 weeks later Mark called me..... "did you get the Atomica amp?" No, I said...... Mark said, "WELL IT'S GONE. I've torn the whole shop apart!" I called the owner and when he finally got back to me he confirmed he had sold a "bunch of broken stuff that Mark was never going to fix" to a competitor. HOLY CRAP!!!!! I called that shop and he said, "Oh yeah, the Atomica amp? I had ******* fix it and return it to stock and I sold it". Now ******* was the biggest electronics doofus you could imagine. He was a keyboard player and didn't have the slightest clue about tone. The ATOMICA amp was gone, but thankfully Mark Cameron poked around inside that amp for months and knows every little secret as to why that amp sounded so good. How much of the Atomica amp inspired Marks's "Jose" mod? More than a little I'd guess.
Sorry for the long post, but there's some Jose history for you.
 
I've got Rottingcorpse's DAR FBM and it's a fucking amazing amp. I still probably like the Pitbull UL just as much tho. Cameron was a genius because he had the ears to tune each amp for the customer request and not just put out the same mod to each customer. THAT'S why his mods are still coveted. No 2 sounded the same, much like the Jose amps he learned from.
 
midnightlaundry said:
https://forum.metropoulos.net/viewtopic.php?t=15606&start=15

Joe Holmes has two killer sounding '72 Jose modded Super Leads. Those things are his prized possessions. He used them forever around the LA clubs and used them when he played with Ozzy. His tone with Ozzy live was one of the best tones I have ever heard. Just monstrous.
Also as mentioned, Sykes's amps he uses in the current Thin Lizzy stuff sound killer.
I heard a lot of Jose modded Marshalls in Hollywood back in the mid to late 80's. Most of them sounded like crap, but was that the amp or the players fault? A few of them were awesome. The thing is, there were quite a few different "Jose mods" that he did. Some were higher gain than others.
Brian Jay from Keel had a great Jose modded Marshall. SO good in fact that when Keel got their record deal, someone from Peavey used Brian Jays amp to make the VTM series amp. I never played a VTM series but Mark Cameron tells me if you get all the dip switches set right that they sound pretty good.
Here's a very interesting Jose story that I experienced first hand. My buddy owned a guitar shop in Huntington Beach. Mark Cameron worked for him and I was already having Mark work on my amps. This was probably 1997 when his store opened. In about 2000, my buddy bought the entire Jose collection of amps from Jose's family after Jose passed away. They took the truck down to pick them up and I left my store I own and drove to their store to wait with Mark for the delivery. The truck gets there and we start unloading Super Lead after Super Lead after Super Lead (almost exclusively metal panel amps). Someone noticed that taped to the bottom of almost every single amp was an invoice. We started turning all the amps upside down and reading off the names on the invoices: Neal Schon, Mick Mars, Bruce Bouillet, etc etc I don't even remember all the names but it was a who's who of LA rock guitarists.
All these guys had sent Jose amps for mods and then Jose passed and they never got their amps back. Well Mark and I start weeding through the amps and going for the ones that we could tell from the exterior were already modded. Very soon we found an amp that had the name ATOMICA stenciled across the front where the Marshall logo should have been. It was a '71 Super Lead and was beat to hell. This was THE amp guys seriously. It was that sound, in a box, right in front of us. Mark was playing through it and it was just that tone I had always wanted. We switched off playing it and I decided I HAD to have that amp. I went to talk to the owner who was one of closest friends at the time. I offered him $1500, he said no. I offered him $2k he said no. Now $2k was about what a very nice plexi was selling for at the time and this was a beat to hell metal panel. $2500? No. $3000!!!!!!!!! No.
He said, just let me sort through this stuff and I'll sell you the amp once I figure out what's what. Mark loved the amp so much, and there were so many Super Leads there that Mark took it and hid it in his pile of amps to be repaired in his repair room. For months, Mark would pull it out when I came in and we would play it then he would hide it again. The owner and I had an agreement that it was mine when he decided to sell it, but by this point he didn't even remember he had it. Then my buddies shop started having severe financial trouble.... severe. Mark kept telling me the amp is still there. You better get it soon. I said don't worry it's mine, your boss promised.
About 3 weeks later Mark called me..... "did you get the Atomica amp?" No, I said...... Mark said, "WELL IT'S GONE. I've torn the whole shop apart!" I called the owner and when he finally got back to me he confirmed he had sold a "bunch of broken stuff that Mark was never going to fix" to a competitor. HOLY CRAP!!!!! I called that shop and he said, "Oh yeah, the Atomica amp? I had ******* fix it and return it to stock and I sold it". Now ******* was the biggest electronics doofus you could imagine. He was a keyboard player and didn't have the slightest clue about tone. The ATOMICA amp was gone, but thankfully Mark Cameron poked around inside that amp for months and knows every little secret as to why that amp sounded so good. How much of the Atomica amp inspired Marks's "Jose" mod? More than a little I'd guess.
Sorry for the long post, but there's some Jose history for you.
Click to expand...

I did read this story before and the first thing that came to my mind is, that it sounds fishy. I mean, all of the sudden the one and only amp got sold away without notice to Mark or the storyteller? And of course this holy grail amp got then returned to stock and even get sold further which means: please don`t even bother finding the amp back again as the magic is gone anyway?

Of course we are talking about an amp the original owner didn`t want to sell even for way over the market value at this time. But luckily all the secret sauce in this amp was extracted by Mark before the amp got lost.
Not sure who the storyteller is and I don`t want to offend anyone, but there are to many coincidences or red flags in this story especially knowing the shenanigans around Mark.
 
Bloodrock said:
I've got Rottingcorpse's DAR FBM and it's a fucking amazing amp. I still probably like the Pitbull UL just as much tho. Cameron was a genius because he had the ears to tune each amp for the customer request and not just put out the same mod to each customer. THAT'S why his mods are still coveted. No 2 sounded the same, much like the Jose amps he learned from.
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You should post a vid of that thing all the current clips are all old as hell, I guess they are pricey af due to rarity. Or else I’d be interested haha
 
BesaMoogie said:
I did read this story before and the first thing that came to my mind is, that it sounds fishy. I mean, all of the sudden the one and only amp got sold away without notice to Mark or the storyteller? And of course this holy grail amp got then returned to stock and even get sold further which means: please don`t even bother finding the amp back again as the magic is gone anyway?

Of course we are talking about an amp the original owner didn`t want to sell even for way over the market value at this time. But luckily all the secret sauce in this amp was extracted by Mark before the amp got lost.
Not sure who the storyteller is and I don`t want to offend anyone, but there are to many coincidences or red flags in this story especially knowing the shenanigans around Mark.
Click to expand...

Chubtone is actually pretty well known, including Chubtone guitars and has no reason to make stuff up
 
technomancer said:
Chubtone is actually pretty well known, including Chubtone guitars and has no reason to make stuff up
Click to expand...
Like I mentioned, I don`t want to offend anyone here, it was just my gutfeeling about this the first time I red it. Maybe I`m too suspicious about it after reading all the things that revolve around Cameron amps. I should avoid this topic actually and leave it to others.
 
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