Clean to Mean Rack Tones 12/27/25

[ChurchHill]

I'd like a reissue of the Quad!

Or the Studio.... wouldn't complain about the 395, either

 

[mentoneman]

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...

brilliant.

 

[mentoneman]

Or the Studio.... wouldn't complain about the 395, either

A new triaxis with mini analog GEQs like they’ve tucked onto the VII (2 space maybe) dockable to a new 395 with shared power supply and adjustable Deep extend level would be sweet!

 

[ChurchHill]

A new triaxis with mini analog GEQs like they’ve tucked onto the VII (2 space maybe) dockable to a new 395 with shared power supply and adjustable Deep extend level would be sweet!

Sweet indeed! I got my Studio over 30 years ago. It was the first amp that I ever really fell in love with. I eventually got a 395 to pair with it. Along the way, I've been fortunate enough to own many great amps, but that Studio remains one of my favorites and I always come back to it. I've got a Triaxis and a Quad, too, and they are all amazing!

 

[mentoneman]

didn’t i just say i hate manuals?

so why then did my collection grow by two today!?!

i have two rocktron rack interfaces (one active/one backup) and the jack labels on the one in use has been worn down to a point that it’s almost impossible to see what jack does what.

trying to read the websites scanned photocopy of the manual over the years has been painful at times. so this original manual with clear diagrams is so nice!

in other news 2 of my friends texted me with gtrs for sale—nice but i’m good thank you!

https://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/msg/d/honolulu-guthrie-govan-charvel/7907837519.html

https://reverb.com/item/92194042-ja...m_medium=android-share&utm_source=android-app

 

[mentoneman]

at. 3:45 into this PCM 70 demo by a familiar rack makes a brief appearance

 

[GuitarVacation]

@mentoneman @Code001 You fellas are legends, thanks for all the info.

The pitfalls of import manufacturing, especially as they apply to the Egnater name, should be more well known.

I think nowadays there are some more reliable overseas manufacturers, and they can stick to whatever the scale of price point/quality is for a given product line.

I also think part of that is companies in many different industries have learned the hard way that if you aren’t doing some in-house QC, even just spot checking/testing, and have a foot in the back door of the overseas manufacturers, you have no guarantee’s that corners aren’t being cut.

I think it’s safe to say if you aren’t double checking that overseas stuff is made to spec, you can almost guarantee corners WILL be cut LOL.

I really would like to hop in one of Bruce’s classes. Hopefully I can before he hangs it up.

Also, Rocktron doesn’t get many mentions anymore, but they made some really cool stuff especially for poor folks like me. Yeah, they had some goofball products in there, but some of their preamps and fx units could still be used on stage today IMO.

 

[mentoneman]

@mentoneman @Code001 You fellas are legends, thanks for all the info.

The pitfalls of import manufacturing, especially as they apply to the Egnater name, should be more well known.

I think nowadays there are some more reliable overseas manufacturers, and they can stick to whatever the scale of price point/quality is for a given product line.

I also think part of that is companies in many different industries have learned the hard way that if you aren’t doing some in-house QC, even just spot checking/testing, and have a foot in the back door of the overseas manufacturers, you have no guarantee’s that corners aren’t being cut.

I think it’s safe to say if you aren’t double checking that overseas stuff is made to spec, you can almost guarantee corners WILL be cut LOL.

I really would like to hop in one of Bruce’s classes. Hopefully I can before he hangs it up.

Also, Rocktron doesn’t get many mentions anymore, but they made some really cool stuff especially for poor folks like me. Yeah, they had some goofball products in there, but some of their preamps and fx units could still be used on stage today IMO.

intellifex ducking delay and 8v chorus are worth the price of admission, i sold my vintage mxr flanger because my replifex could replicate it perfectly, and to this day i don’t understand why they didn’t build the midi programmable stereo Hush that was in the rack patchmate into its own device.

you guys had me going down memory lane.

at NAMM 09 i shot video wandering around the show watching demos from Jeff Kollman at Fender, the Randy Rhoads Marshall, Neil Zaza at tc….my friend Bud who played in the 70s-80s band Seawind was with me and i took him to check out the Rebel. (at about 6:00)



and on this “episode”, Cameron CCV, Diamond amps, Andy Fuchs demos his stuff, and i grabbed Frank Lamar (Bruce’s partner) and took him over to the VHT booth for Steve to show him the Sig X which i had played earlier and loved,
and fellow Fuchs player ( i had an OSD 100 at the time) Scott Lerner and i checked out the “brand new” Eggie modular stuff

 

[Shask]

@mentoneman @Code001 You fellas are legends,

Also, Rocktron doesn’t get many mentions anymore, but they made some really cool stuff especially for poor folks like me. Yeah, they had some goofball products in there, but some of their preamps and fx units could still be used on stage today IMO.

I still have an Intellifex and Replifex!

 

[Exo-metal]

I own two Intellipitch units!!

 

[Code001]

I swapped my Intellifex out for the Intellipitch since it's the exact same thing but with the Wave Mechanics chip in it. Amazing unit! It took me over a decade to find one at a good price in an amazing condition with on and off searching, but I'm so glad I found one. Even had the original box and manual! Never racked! haha

You can also use analogkid85's presets with it to really expand the capabilities: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/i...n-intellifex-39-new-presets-for-2018.1984703/

 

[mentoneman]

i’ve never messed with an intellipitch or intelliverb but i’ve been in communicado with Ryan/Analogkid85 over the last few days.
guy knows what’s up re:fx that’s for sure! i’ve got a few of his great 1210/TSC chorus and analog delay presets he sent me loaded into my pcm80.

 

[Exo-metal]

Anyone know where I can find some knobs for the Intellipitch? They are second hand on my #2. Want them to match or at least closer than they do now.

 

[Code001]

Anyone know where I can find some knobs for the Intellipitch? They are second hand on my #2. Want them to match or at least closer than they do now.

Encoder knobs? If so, these apparently fit and, while not identical, are pretty close. Cheap enough and plentiful enough where you could swap them all so they match. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T4ZVT68

 

[Exo-metal]

Any benefits for running two?

 

[Code001]

Any benefits for running two?

You gotta look at the algos and see if you feel there's a benefit in running two. If you have two, you can run intelligent pitch shifting into stereo delays, for example. You can't get that with just the intelligent algos normally. That's kinda what I'd do. Dedicate one just to intelligent pitch shifting (forward or reverse) since that takes up like the entire processing power. Then use the other for additional FX (delay, reverb, chorus, etc).

Most disappointing thing with the Intellipitch is that it doesn't have a better detune; the Wave Mechanics chip still isn't used for that, so it's exactly the same as the Intellifex.

 

[mentoneman]

ok VH fans i’ve never seen this before-
iso’s of Ed’s fabled celestion + ?? speaker cab mics from the VH1 session!!??

@harddriver as the resident RT VH guy is this old news??

 

[bste328]

We should definitely open a Sub-Form about all things RACK!

 

[GuitarVacation]

That NAMM in 09, what a time. And good to see some of the good amp builders of that day are still around making great amps.

Awesome ref all my Rocktron bros. Now that we're talking about it, if I fill that empty rack I have, I might skip the Fractal VP4 for effects, and go with a cool old Roctron unit.

Really for what I do, a few different delays, and a John Scofield style "fake drunk leslie" chorus just about has me covered.

I do love reverb as a big ambient effect, not sure if any of the Rocktron multis cover that, but I still have my Alesis midiverb ii, and the 2 patches that are great, are still special.

If I throw the Alesis in, I'm already committing to loop and parallel routing, because the bypass 00 patch on that box should be listed in the preset manual as "Tone Suck Level 5000." LOL

 

[mentoneman]

That NAMM in 09, what a time. And good to see some of the good amp builders of that day are still around making great amps.

Awesome ref all my Rocktron bros. Now that we're talking about it, if I fill that empty rack I have, I might skip the Fractal VP4 for effects, and go with a cool old Roctron unit.

Really for what I do, a few different delays, and a John Scofield style "fake drunk leslie" chorus just about has me covered.

I do love reverb as a big ambient effect, not sure if any of the Rocktron multis cover that, but I still have my Alesis midiverb ii, and the 2 patches that are great, are still special.

If I throw the Alesis in, I'm already committing to loop and parallel routing, because the bypass 00 patch on that box should be listed in the preset manual as "Tone Suck Level 5000." LOL

my old live rack:

Rivera TBR-1 for stereo power only
power station, 300G compressor (that ended up in Zachman’s mega Bradshaw rig), patchmate, triaxis, intellifex, peavey valveverb, replifex.

ran two Hughes and Kettner EV 1x12 cabs

i had the repli programmed with an expression pedal through my digital music (now voodoolabs) ground control pedal to roll in the leslie mix & speed, and reverb mix. you could sent up to 8 continuous controller messages per preset.

(*edit*) the other massive win was that the power station powered all the rocktron devices via a tiny 2.5 mm barrel connector cable, eliminating the wall warts and weight of all those devices.

i am still enjoying that advantage today to power my rack interface and my GCX and Korg delay run off of a 2.5 mm to 4 pin DIN from the power station

for a cheap good verb the lexi mpx-1 is a looker.
it wasn’t until i stuck a pcm 80 into my rig that i was really happy with my reverb.