Exo-metal
Well-known member
If the content is good, (like this) the thread is never long enough...
Shask
Well-known member
I just wonder what would cause phasing if put in a parallel loop if it is all analog.
This is exactly why I say the 2290p pedal is not analog dry through. If I put it through a parallel mixer, I get phasing comb filtering.
mentoneman
Well-known member
love Bruce’s work on the TOL stuff. it was truly my Tone of Life destiny moment when i got to play through his creations. i even had a cosmic connection to his choice of attire!
i had the TOL 100 head, the TOL 50 combo, and my friend’s 100 combo in this shot
dropped the head off with dave who modded channel 2 for me and turned it around in an hour!
i always struggled with what to do with Ch 2 by itself and used it as a semi clean pedal platform until Dave did a gain mod to it. IE4 Ch 2 still challenges me because i’m not a fan of the type of fender tweed breakup built into it, but if i set it as an alternate clean to Ch 1 and use it as a pedal pletform, it works for me. the gain and tone controls are very touchy.
mentoneman
Well-known member
the essence of this thread is about the wide variety of customized tones (highly inspired by Mike Landau in this and most of my cases
) a thoughtfully set up rack can deliver, being able to fine tune fx presets to enhance the core sound of your guitar and amp/preamp, and effectively switch instantly between angels and fire
mentoneman
Well-known member
here is a guy who currently absolutely crushes the 80s-90s grail era rack tones game—HRI’s beloved Marsa keeping the flame alive and blazing (and rocking a UA Lion for the dirt!
in his relentless pursuit of perfection, here’s a link documenting one of the greatest tribute to Landau rack building journeys you’ll ever read on the web!
https://hugeracksinc.com/the-end-is-near-the-tale-of-my-final-rig-done/
in his relentless pursuit of perfection, here’s a link documenting one of the greatest tribute to Landau rack building journeys you’ll ever read on the web!
https://hugeracksinc.com/the-end-is-near-the-tale-of-my-final-rig-done/
T
tonedog
Well-known member
YES!!! Love Bruce and his work. The TOS modded TOL's were awesome. One of the best live tones I ever had an outdoor gig was with the TOL100. Was right near the beginning of the boutique rabbit hole for me.
mentoneman
Well-known member
while i was at Bob’s shop picking up Zach’s rig i asked him about how he tracks down phase issues between devices in the rigs he assembles.
he slowly leaned forward and tapped his ears with a grin.
Bob could write an entire book on the phase, power, impedance and grounding issues and solutions when building rigs. it’s one of the biggest assets about having a guy like him
assemble your rig, yet the least talked about.
from a GP article in ‘85
one thing i will say is that having a dry mute switch in my wdw rig is very helpful in tracking down pesky and unwanted digitized dry signal leaking through fx units while programming short delays and choruses between devices. i find zero doesn’t always mean zero and the multiple personalities of internal bypass functions vary wildly from fx unit to unit.
can be both indispensable and your worst enemy in the pursuit of editing and combining fx units.
mentoneman
Well-known member
leave it to sniderman to tell the masters how to make things better!
wish i could’ve heard all the custom boggys and two rocks you were a part of over the years! Stud!
Code001
Well-known member
Bruce is like 30 min from me. Amazing guy, and he's been insanely gracious with sharing his knowledge on amps. Warning, though. He's very slow with getting work done these days.
mentoneman
Well-known member
he has always been so cool and kind to me
i remember walking into Lab Sound/Mesa Boogie Fountain Valley in socal back in the early 90s and seeing and hearing Shawn Tubbs rack which was meticulously built by Brian Swerdfeger. the back of the rack was a jaw dropping work of mogami wiring art.
amidst a vtwin rack preamp and matchless head on top was an IE4 and that rig sounded soooo good and the best i’d heard in person at thst time.
then i went to the baked potato and even though i missed seeing Mike’s big rig by then, his tones were still supreme using the burning water hybrid rig.
although i think this was his home studio rack, wish i had seen him rock this dual 42 loaded sweetie live before he sold it off to John Shanks
mentoneman
Well-known member
man this place was the tone dream factory back in the heyday.
who else remembers hanging out there?
who else remembers hanging out there?
G
GuitarVacation
Member
It’s funny seeing our rack heroes like Landau and Huff using pedalboards now. Heck those guys are so good, they’re going to sound awesome regardless. But it is a little bittersweet if you’re into rack stuff.
I spent my young gigging years playing a Mark IV combo, which actually was never really the amp for me. I still have it, but it’s down, and I don’t have much incentive to spend the money to get it serviced and up and running.
I missed out on the rack heyday, but racks are really intriguing and cool to me. I actually bought a rack and built a budget rack rig. It was really fun, learned how to use midi, and it sounded great at home. Cheap class D power amp really showed its limitations when I jammed with buddies running tube amps (pretty basic tube amps too lol).
I’m backed to using my tube amps and pedals, but I still have the empty rack. This thread really has me thinking of getting one of the newer Fryette power amps that are space friendly, and pairing it up with a cool tube preamp. I don’t get super fancy with delay/verb/mod, would probably go with a Fractal vp4 and call it a day.
A syn2 would be a natural option since I’ve already been in the Synergy ecosystem for a long time. Since it’s a labor of love not need, however, I really want to just get a bad ass tube preamp. Heck, rack is making a little comeback, and there are a lot of tube preamp pedals out there nowadays. I’m not opposed to getting a schematic and getting a clone of something built either, especially if it quality for an affordable build.
I saw some Rocktron IE4’s on reverb for around $1,500. Are those decent or “less than” versions?
I spent my young gigging years playing a Mark IV combo, which actually was never really the amp for me. I still have it, but it’s down, and I don’t have much incentive to spend the money to get it serviced and up and running.
I missed out on the rack heyday, but racks are really intriguing and cool to me. I actually bought a rack and built a budget rack rig. It was really fun, learned how to use midi, and it sounded great at home. Cheap class D power amp really showed its limitations when I jammed with buddies running tube amps (pretty basic tube amps too lol).
I’m backed to using my tube amps and pedals, but I still have the empty rack. This thread really has me thinking of getting one of the newer Fryette power amps that are space friendly, and pairing it up with a cool tube preamp. I don’t get super fancy with delay/verb/mod, would probably go with a Fractal vp4 and call it a day.
A syn2 would be a natural option since I’ve already been in the Synergy ecosystem for a long time. Since it’s a labor of love not need, however, I really want to just get a bad ass tube preamp. Heck, rack is making a little comeback, and there are a lot of tube preamp pedals out there nowadays. I’m not opposed to getting a schematic and getting a clone of something built either, especially if it quality for an affordable build.
I saw some Rocktron IE4’s on reverb for around $1,500. Are those decent or “less than” versions?
mentoneman
Well-known member
never had a chance to A/B og IE4 v rocktron version. Bruce said the only differences were the tapers of the pots but other corners could have been cut.
for that coin i’d pass on the rocktron. pay a bit more and look at X88ir or Red Seven if trying to branch out from Synland
Code001
Well-known member
Yeah, biggest difference between those old Egnaters is pot taper. The other changes are minor like a different PCB, MIDI board, better way of doing certain things compared to the old way. Still the same overall circuit, still the same transformers, etc. So everything that truly matters is the same unless you're a real stickler about exactly where a pot is pointing on the front panel. The Rocktron partnership helped him a lot in making more production-efficient PCBs compared to the old school hand etched ones that he used to use.
Old:
Rocktron:
There's also a new IE4 which is updated with CH1 and CH2 both having bright switches, CH3 and CH4 having voicing switches, an analog speaker sim (roughly same "mic no mo" circuit he made for Friedman) and dual mono/stereo series/parallel line/inst effects loop. It's his final version of the preamp, and there were two runs. The differences between them is one of the chassis were fully colored and made by Robert F Chapman - same person who does BAD chassis. The other one was made by KSR, but because KSR didn't have the production facility Chapman had to do some of the custom work Egnater spec'd out, there were some very slight design tweaks to the chassis which meant you could only customize the front panel color; rest of it was black.
The name "E3 Audio" is because he cannot legally use the Egnater name anymore, as he sold it. When he went to form an LLC locally, they asked him what his business was gonna be called. He had to think of something on the spot, so he randomly blurted out "Ummm... How about E3 Audio?" And there you have it, his new stuff is now named E3 Audio
1st run with the Chapman chassis:
2nd run with the KSR chassis:
Old:
There's also a new IE4 which is updated with CH1 and CH2 both having bright switches, CH3 and CH4 having voicing switches, an analog speaker sim (roughly same "mic no mo" circuit he made for Friedman) and dual mono/stereo series/parallel line/inst effects loop. It's his final version of the preamp, and there were two runs. The differences between them is one of the chassis were fully colored and made by Robert F Chapman - same person who does BAD chassis. The other one was made by KSR, but because KSR didn't have the production facility Chapman had to do some of the custom work Egnater spec'd out, there were some very slight design tweaks to the chassis which meant you could only customize the front panel color; rest of it was black.
The name "E3 Audio" is because he cannot legally use the Egnater name anymore, as he sold it. When he went to form an LLC locally, they asked him what his business was gonna be called. He had to think of something on the spot, so he randomly blurted out "Ummm... How about E3 Audio?" And there you have it, his new stuff is now named E3 Audio
1st run with the Chapman chassis:
2nd run with the KSR chassis:
Last edited:
mentoneman
Well-known member
how’s that baby shower themed triple giant?!Yeah, biggest difference between those old Egnaters is pot taper. The other changes are minor like a different PCB, MIDI board, better way of doing certain things compared to the old way. Still the same overall circuit, still the same transformers, etc. So everything that truly matters is the same unless you're a real stickler about exactly where a pot is pointing on the front panel. The Rocktron partnership helped him a lot in making more production-efficient PCBs compared to the old school hand etched ones that he used to use.
Old:
View attachment 428766Rocktron:
View attachment 428765
There's also a new IE4 which is updated with CH1 and CH2 both having bright switches, CH3 and CH4 having voicing switches, an analog speaker sim (roughly same "mic no mo" circuit he made for Friedman) and dual mono/stereo series/parallel line/inst effects loop. It's his final version of the preamp, and there were two runs. The differences between them is one of the chassis were fully colored and made by Robert F Chapman - same person who does BAD chassis. The other one was made by KSR, but because KSR didn't have the production facility Chapman had to do some of the custom work Egnater spec'd out, there were some very slight design tweaks to the chassis which meant you could only customize the front panel color; rest of it was black.
The name "E3 Audio" is because he cannot legally use the Egnater name anymore, as he sold it. When he went to form an LLC locally, they asked him what his business was gonna be called. He had to think of something on the spot, so he randomly blurted out "Ummm... How about E3 Audio?" And there you have it, his new stuff is now named E3 Audio
1st run with the Chapman chassis:
View attachment 428771
2nd run with the KSR chassis:View attachment 428770
must sound siiiick.
in the spirit of our earlier foray into manual trauma
nerd alert in 3…2…
printed my own dual fx card manual with custom color cover and coil binding for $13 at the local shop
i still marvel at the power and quality of this machine and the level of complexity the company built into it.
the menu matrix column/row parameter text is a little blurry per the quality of the Lexicon site pdf but still legible and way nicer than phone scrolling!
pitch fx manual on the way
G
GuitarVacation
Member
I do like that RedSeven unit. They seem like they make really cool stuff. I like the functionality of the new Headfirst pre, just don’t know if it’s tonally going to be exactly what I’m looking for (albeit clips are limited right now).
Crazy Egnater question for Mentone. This may be outside your wheelhouse, but I think you’re the most knowledgeable fella I’ve been able to talk with about the legendary Egnater stuff, TOL, IE4 era etc.
Regarding the later Egnaters, the ones Bruce designed, sold off, and got mass produced. I always hated that the quality issue reputation those got (whether deserved or not) was an unfortunate mark on the Egnater name. Especially considering I think those amps are more well known than the best stuff Bruce has had a hand in.
I would email Bruce this question, but I get the impression he’s not super connected these days, and I’m all for a dude that is a legend stepping back as the years go on. He has earned that IMO.
Anyway, I’m already being way too long winded. My question is based on this premise: I have played an Egnater Renegade, and that is the one amp from that later line that did the thick IE4 channel 4 / TOL thing.
The focus of that amp was always on the bells and whistles, blending different power tubes etc., but all that is cool from a design/development perspective, it is relatively un noteworthy as far as the thick type fusion tone you have mentioned.
The schematics of all Egnater stuff are above my pay grade, but I have always theorized that the Renegade had the preamp DNA of the IE4 ch 4 or some TOL lineage.
Just wondering if you’ve ever heard anything along those lines, or anyone else that’s more knowledge or schematic savvy than me is welcome to weigh in.
I could be right based on my ears, but I could also be dead wrong LOL.
Awesome thread, hope I’m not derailing it with my Egnater quest.
mentoneman
Well-known member
i think @Code001 may have more insight regarding the evolution through the Renegade years. I like you checked out when he did the deal with GC and the China reliability factors began to sully his brand name.
The Dual Tone which begat the TOL 50 was the last of the fatter old tone circuits IMO. I’m sure the new IE4s sound great but never heard one in person. I’m sure the supply chain issues really took the wind out of his sails for future production of new gear.
I had the TOL 50 2x12 combo which was the identical dimensions of an AC30. great grab and go clean/blues amp but not ch4 level gain.
But i’d run it into my bogner 4x12 and with a proper boost/od it had that elastic liquid lead vibe.
Bill Bladder was Rocktron owner Buck Waller’s right hand man and we had a wonderful discussion at the NAMM show which led to him assembling my TOL 50 with the remaining inventory of parts they had following Bruce’s departure.
My rig at one point was basically all Rocktron ala Utopia system except i had a triaxis as the preamp and a gforce. Intellifex, Replifex, ProQ, Patchmate, 300G comp, Power Station, Silencer…
Bill’s personal rig was a TOL 50 head with old Marshall 4x12 and Replifex (which he helped design). He also mentioned that the head on standyby still left the preamp active and he either reamped that or ran a DI path for another way to do things. sorry i can’t recall the exact details…
mentoneman
Well-known member
re: preamps
the IE4 appealed to me above the Fish and CAE 3+ because the focus was more vintage tones.
But when I was ready to pull the trigger a Triaxis was available for a screaming deal so i opted for that. Lead II Green is along the lines of the IE4 Ch 4 and with a boost/od (i think i used an og tc LBD) it could sing with the right bite.
i think the coolest thing Boogie could produce atm would be a new triaxis!
the IE4 appealed to me above the Fish and CAE 3+ because the focus was more vintage tones.
But when I was ready to pull the trigger a Triaxis was available for a screaming deal so i opted for that. Lead II Green is along the lines of the IE4 Ch 4 and with a boost/od (i think i used an og tc LBD) it could sing with the right bite.
i think the coolest thing Boogie could produce atm would be a new triaxis!
Code001
Well-known member
Spoke to Bruce at great lengths about this. So... Apologies in advance, @mentoneman
Bruce and Avi (owner of BAD) are very close friends and get along well. Bruce had always had a partnership with Avi even before BAD was a thing - back when they were called ETI and Bruce was doing amp designs for the B52 line. If I recall, ETI and that whole business actually started as cabinet makers for like car speakers or professional audio enclosures or something. ETI first tried to jump into the line of amps to sell to Guitar Center, and they reached out to Dave Friedman for help because their very first iteration was apparently pretty bad. Dave pawned it off on Bruce, and that's how Bruce got involved with them originally.
Fast forward a bit, Bruce eventually sold the rights and everything regarding his Egnater name to ETI which became BAD. Main reason for selling it was because it allowed Bruce to focus on the design part - the part he loved the most, and Avi could focus on the business part which Bruce always hated. The plan was to use Chinese factories to make everything and keep the costs down, but have Bruce design the circuits so they're good sounding amplifiers. They'd then mass market them at Guitar Center and elsewhere at extremely aggressive pricing, often becoming people's first tube amps. Because they had access to all these Chinese manufacturing facilities, they could literally make pretty much any part from scratch.
Tangent story time... Egnater Rebel. So that amp originally just had a lever to switch between two tube types. You could swap between 6V6s and EL84s. At the very last minute, BAD's legal team identified a patent issue where, I believe it was Mesa had a patent on the switch to select between two different tube types, and they were in danger of possibly being sued. Entire production line for this new amp halted because of it. Avi phoned up Bruce while he was on vacation and basically made him design something to put in that same place on the spot. Bruce came up with this crazy 4 gang center tapped potentiometer to blend the amount of each tube instead of simply switching between them. The Chinese facilities custom made the pot for them on the spot, and they were able to save the production line, coming up with a totally new way of handling mixing tube types never seen before. Pretty sure this was patented.
Anyway, the amps were great and everything went well. However, they started noticing some strange failures in the field regarding transformers. Bruce said that's impossible, the transformers were spec'd perfectly fine. They started taking them apart and investigating. They found out the Chinese suppliers were cutting corners. So they flew over to China and told all of the facilities to stop cutting corners, they need to be designed exactly as specified. It didn't matter. Even if those facilities stopped doing it, the facilities they got their supplies from were cutting corners that preventing them from meeting the correct spec, and that one aspect alone basically ruined his entire name. They eventually got reliable replacements towards the end, but the damage was already done, and the Egnater name was no longer really "cool" anymore. The lack of perceived reliability kinda was the nail in the coffin.
None of it was Bruce's fault, but it was definitely a lesson learned...
To get back to your question - Bruce really only has a few handful of designs. They're all twists on his original IE4 circuits, his Megadrive circuit he did for Marshalls, his Boutikit... CH3 is the classic Marshall-style circuit. CH4 is the added gainstage and making it nice and warm, but still keeping it tight. He was the main guy who popularized the tight switch, after all. So you are indeed correct, they have a certain "Egnater" character because he tends to shape their sound that way.
The most different sounding Egnater circuit is probably the Vengeance / Armageddon circuit where they tried to cater to the metal crowd. The Armageddon has the ISP decimator since he's friends with the Rocktron guys, and he also has this mid circuit in it which he got from Peter Diezel (with Peter's blessing). There's a fun story about the Armageddon and djent guys, but I'll save that for another day.
If anyone ever gets a chance, go take his amp building class. He's going to retire soon, and there are very few slots left. He loves to chat and tell stories, teach people about amps and amp design. And he's probably had his hands in way more things than you'd ever imagine... Lots of things that have other people's names on them are actually his design since he does contract work for a majority of companies. Everyone at BAD, Fender, Bad Cat, B-52, Randall, Rocktron...
Code001
Well-known member
I'd like a reissue of the Quad!
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