CECamps
New member
Hey guys, as you can see from the post count I'm brand new here. I wanted to introduce myself and my company, CEC Amplification.
My name's Craig Wildenradt and I'm the owner, designer, builder (and everything else for that matter!) at CEC. I'm based in the Nashville area now, having moved from Florida just a bit over a year ago. I began designing the first of the CEC product line in 2006 and brought it to market in the beginning of 2010. I focus on original circuit designs in an effort to bring something different to the world of guitar amps. Aside from offering three standard models currently, I also do custom one-off amps by customer request as well as mods and repairs.
I had a really productive year in 2011 and am looking forward to some great things in 2012. I'm still small, but always looking to broaden my reach.
Here are some pics and brief specs on my standard model amplifiers:
Suckerpunch15
The Suckerpunch15 was the first CEC amp. It's a 15-watt 1x12 combo sporting a 5751 and a 12AX7 in the preamp and a single, class A KT88 in the power amp. It's designed to go from crystal clean to aggressive mid gain distortion in a single channel.
Toll-Free Express
The Toll-Free Express is a 10-watt head sporting 2 12AX7's in the preamp and a single, class A EL34 in the power amp. It's designed to be very compact & portable and get you a range of those coveted British crunch and overdrive tones we all know and love at incredibly reasonable volumes. What really sets the amp apart from others attempting to do the same thing is the fact that it feels like a much higher wattage head when you play it. None of the mushiness and falling apart that are characteristic of low wattage amps.
Credit for the picture above goes to Premier Guitar magazine, who just recently reviewed the Toll-Free Express in the January issue. You can check out that review and their audio clips HERE.
Brigand
Brigand is an 80-watt head sporting 2 totally independent channels with 2 modes per channel. Tube lineup is 1x 5751, 1x 12AU7, and 1x EF86 in channel 1 and 3x 5751 in channel 2. It also has a 12AT7 driven effects loop, an ECC803 phase inverter, and runs two KT88's in the power amp.
The amp has a ton of features, but in a nutshell it's designed to be super versatile with channel 1 doing tones from high-headroom cleans to AC/DC-esque overdrive (thanks to the EF86 being used for clipping distortion) and channel 2 taking care of high gain duties. The global negative feedback is switchable on and off, with presence and resonance controls available with it switched on. Each channel has a dedicated EQ and multiple gain controls, and channel 2 has several controls that enable the distortion character to be highly shape-able. The effects loop is switchable between series and parallel, and can even be switched completely out of the circuit for times when it is not needed. Rear panel bias checking and adjustment is also a convenience.
Aside from the standard models, I do custom work as well. The amp below is one of my more popular custom jobs. It's a variant of the Suckerpunch15 that had some custom tweaks for the owner and was done as a head with matching 2x12 cab.
And I've done some fun little projects for folks like the conversion below. This is a Peavey Rage converted into yet another Suckerpunch variant.
Anyhow, that's a pretty good idea about what CEC is doing. I hope I can contribute some good stuff around here and if you have any questions about anything don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm easily accessible.
info[at]cecamps[dot]com is my email
(386)CEC-TONE is my number
Thanks for reading!
My name's Craig Wildenradt and I'm the owner, designer, builder (and everything else for that matter!) at CEC. I'm based in the Nashville area now, having moved from Florida just a bit over a year ago. I began designing the first of the CEC product line in 2006 and brought it to market in the beginning of 2010. I focus on original circuit designs in an effort to bring something different to the world of guitar amps. Aside from offering three standard models currently, I also do custom one-off amps by customer request as well as mods and repairs.
I had a really productive year in 2011 and am looking forward to some great things in 2012. I'm still small, but always looking to broaden my reach.
Here are some pics and brief specs on my standard model amplifiers:
Suckerpunch15
The Suckerpunch15 was the first CEC amp. It's a 15-watt 1x12 combo sporting a 5751 and a 12AX7 in the preamp and a single, class A KT88 in the power amp. It's designed to go from crystal clean to aggressive mid gain distortion in a single channel.
Toll-Free Express
The Toll-Free Express is a 10-watt head sporting 2 12AX7's in the preamp and a single, class A EL34 in the power amp. It's designed to be very compact & portable and get you a range of those coveted British crunch and overdrive tones we all know and love at incredibly reasonable volumes. What really sets the amp apart from others attempting to do the same thing is the fact that it feels like a much higher wattage head when you play it. None of the mushiness and falling apart that are characteristic of low wattage amps.
Credit for the picture above goes to Premier Guitar magazine, who just recently reviewed the Toll-Free Express in the January issue. You can check out that review and their audio clips HERE.
Brigand
Brigand is an 80-watt head sporting 2 totally independent channels with 2 modes per channel. Tube lineup is 1x 5751, 1x 12AU7, and 1x EF86 in channel 1 and 3x 5751 in channel 2. It also has a 12AT7 driven effects loop, an ECC803 phase inverter, and runs two KT88's in the power amp.
The amp has a ton of features, but in a nutshell it's designed to be super versatile with channel 1 doing tones from high-headroom cleans to AC/DC-esque overdrive (thanks to the EF86 being used for clipping distortion) and channel 2 taking care of high gain duties. The global negative feedback is switchable on and off, with presence and resonance controls available with it switched on. Each channel has a dedicated EQ and multiple gain controls, and channel 2 has several controls that enable the distortion character to be highly shape-able. The effects loop is switchable between series and parallel, and can even be switched completely out of the circuit for times when it is not needed. Rear panel bias checking and adjustment is also a convenience.
Aside from the standard models, I do custom work as well. The amp below is one of my more popular custom jobs. It's a variant of the Suckerpunch15 that had some custom tweaks for the owner and was done as a head with matching 2x12 cab.
And I've done some fun little projects for folks like the conversion below. This is a Peavey Rage converted into yet another Suckerpunch variant.
Anyhow, that's a pretty good idea about what CEC is doing. I hope I can contribute some good stuff around here and if you have any questions about anything don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm easily accessible.
info[at]cecamps[dot]com is my email
(386)CEC-TONE is my number
Thanks for reading!
