MAtamp and Or ELectric Amps

  • Thread starter Thread starter godgrinder
  • Start date Start date
godgrinder

godgrinder

Active member
Electric used to be the US division of Matamp then the 2 companies split at some point. Assumably these are similar sounding amps. I don't think these are very high gain? Probably would have less gain than a modern Orange variant.
 
Mudder":12e48wt9 said:
As an alternative check out Hovercraft.

These are modded Jet Cities, don't have much to do with Orange/Matamp sound wise.

But those guys are very clever. Matt Pike fanboys think that he used Matamp/Electric during the late Sleep/early HoF era but that was just a power amp, he always used a Soldano preamp into it. So a modded Jet City would sound more like Matt Pike than an actual Matamp/Electric, hahaha.
 
I was ripped off from Electric Amps for $2450, his amp builder left him years ago and he doesn't know a soldering iron from a banana. Avoid like the plague and do your research, tons of people took him to court and won. I am one of the ones still waiting for a refund. Search BBB
 
Rezamatix":2mmv7rqo said:
ibzprestige":2mmv7rqo said:
I was ripped off from Joel wheeler owner of Electric Amps for $2450, his amp builder left him years ago and he doesn't know a soldering iron from a banana. Avoid like the plague and do your research, tons of people took him to court and won. I am one of the ones still waiting for a refund. Search BBB
Holy F!
That's intense.
Sorry manZ


Yeah man, it's shitty. He's full of excuses and telling me he's going to take me to court for harassment. I've been waiting coming up on 3 years, some of the other guys have been waiting 4 to 5 years.
 
godgrinder":q427tn3c said:
Mudder":q427tn3c said:
As an alternative check out Hovercraft.

These are modded Jet Cities, don't have much to do with Orange/Matamp sound wise.

But those guys are very clever. Matt Pike fanboys think that he used Matamp/Electric during the late Sleep/early HoF era but that was just a power amp, he always used a Soldano preamp into it. So a modded Jet City would sound more like Matt Pike than an actual Matamp/Electric, hahaha.
What you say is true, but the dude running Hovercraft loves him some doom tones and will customize builds.
 
Yeah I've never heard great things about dealing with Joel from Eletrical amps and Matamps are hard to come by. If that's the sound you're looking for find an early 90's orange or reissue. They were built by Matamp before production got switched to Trace Elliot
 
I had a Matamp Custom 120 for a while. It was very similar to an older Orange OR120. The Matamp had a second, footswitchable master volume, so that was pretty cool. As far as tone goes, it was fairly dark, very loud and had a gigantic bottom end.
 
I have a 94 or120,definitely need pedals to the doom thing. It's a tight dry gain but sounds killer
 
I played a new Matamp GT1 and GTO in 2006 or so. Fantastic amps. The GT1 was like a JCM800 variant but more flexible and sweeter. Always wish I could find that model used. GTO was basically the "plexi" to the GT1's "800" . Non Master, crank it up for the goods but thicker than a plexi. I've always wanted to demo what Matamp makes but having no decent distro in the States I doubt it will happen. I only came across those amps in a store in Australia.
 
ibzprestige":3ij3pvvi said:
I was ripped off from Joel wheeler owner of Electric Amps for $2450, his amp builder left him years ago and he doesn't know a soldering iron from a banana. Avoid like the plague and do your research, tons of people took him to court and won. I am one of the ones still waiting for a refund. Search BBB


bummer man!!!!!
 
I'm in my late 30's, grew up playing on a '74 Orange OR120. Now I own a '97 OTR 120, made by Matamp for Orange.
The old Oranges use a cathodyne phase inverter as opposed to the long tail pair type used by Marshall.
They sound nothing like a Marshall, unlike the newer Oranges, which only have the colour and brand name in common.

To me they sound like/ have elements of Hiwatt (HUGE headroom and potential) and Marshall Plexi, but with a characteristic compression to them that neither of those amps has (I've never heard an amp that covers the elusive 'not quite dirty/not quite clean' rhythm sound like Orange does. For open rhythms and boosting into meltdown, the sound is exquisite), but the midrange is lower than a Marshall.

They LOVE boosts - Klon/Tubescreamer/Rat etc....

Baxandall tone stack, Treble and Bass up is a mid scoop, Treble and Bass at noon is most mids.
FAC counter clockwise is MORE bass, HF/Presence up is more Treble. You can really powerfully sculpt the drive sound this way.

They ARE NOT only good for stoner/doom - they are outstanding for rock or even heavier alternative stuff. The less gain you wind in, the 'drier' and more articulate the dirt sound is. However they are more than capable of extremely mushy/ thick/ sludgy filth as well at volumes that will basically shrivel your testicles.

They rule as bass amps too.

Here's my beast:

 
Rezamatix":3ewb3bmy said:
ibzprestige":3ewb3bmy said:
I was ripped off from Joel wheeler owner of Electric Amps for $2450, his amp builder left him years ago and he doesn't know a soldering iron from a banana. Avoid like the plague and do your research, tons of people took him to court and won. I am one of the ones still waiting for a refund. Search BBB
Holy F!
That's intense.
Sorry manZ

Glad you posted this ibzprestige. I was going to be like, "DON'T buy anything from that guy!!!" I'm sorry you got ripped off. I've had a few friends get fucked by him too.

But as for Matamps they are pretty cool. Just going by my experience, they are built like a tank and weight a ton. They are a pretty clean amp with high headroom with a massive low end. Loud as fuck and take fuzzes/distortions really well. I have a friend that runs his with a Blackout Musket Fuzz, one of the most brutal tones I've ever heard.
 
Get an Orange, HiWatt, JTM45 or Clone, Sunn, old/reissue Bassman, etc. Pretty much any random thing that has some headroom and takes pedals well; and a Fuzz or three. Done. No point in searching out or paying top dollar for exotic stuff to get Doom tones.
 
I didn't pay crazy money for my or120 and it really is a different beast than buy something with clean headroom and some pedals. It's the only amp I've ever encountered that's somehow the perfect mix between my superbass and v4.doesnt sound like either is almost a cross between the two. Sunns are horribly overrated. I have a 200s with a matching 2x15 it's alright but really sterile kinda lacks character
 
Huh, Reza... normally you own all the amps I want, so weird to ever see the tables turned?? I actually had dreamed of a Matamp 1224 MK II for about 8 years or so after reading a stellar musicradar review about them maybe in 2008 or so, back when I lived in the US and the thought of buying a custom amp from the UK without a major US distributor was kind of a no-go. I moved to London a couple years ago and the first thing I did was custom ordered this with a 2x12 from Sam at Wire & Wood:

DSC_3116

DSC_3125

Sam's super good so highly recommend him if you decide to go this route.

Build quality on the head is really good. It's very old school construction and like they have a single guy that does all these front plate etchings and has been doing them for like 30+ years or something. So in the age of digital modeling (and I run an axe for most prog/metal tones), this really dedicated hand-wired type of build (it's turret board style) made by a couple of guys who have been doing this their whole lives was a major part of the appeal. And I'm a huge Boris fan so I thought this would get me into that zone.

As to the sound, the 1224 is probably not the most doom-specific Matamp but it is the most versatile. It has a voicing knob which both adds gain and seems to shift the mids lower and adds more bass, and this is foot switchable. When set to its angriest, it's definitely a Doom-y amp with a sort of thick, fizzy sound. I still find it sounds much better when boosted, so I always run it with a boost when I'm using gain. I feel like it could get a little bit meaner, but it's 90% there, much more than amps outside of this Matamp/Orange/Electric lineage. So that's one option. Other notable things are a midboost that puts it a bit into Marshall territory, though not anywhere near the amps you already have. Pretty good reverb. Really nice cleans. A couple other switches that make very marginal adjustments that are hard to verbalize.

My biggest complaint is more in terms of its conveniences. The loop is line level and needs one of those special Y cables and plugs in on the front...not a huge fan of that. The footswitch has a voice switch to move between the "nicest" voicing and whatever you have the voicing switch set to (so naturally I usually have that on its "meanest" setting), and an overdrive and reverb switch. But if I wanted to go from a great clean tone with reverb to a great lead tone with delay I would have to hit all 3 foot switches AND dial back the gain on the amp AND hit my lead effects AND probably adjust the volume as well. Even though I'm not using this amp out, I still find it annoying to change so many things to move between 2-3 basic tones, although those tones are really good.

Hope that helps. Of course the closest amp to Electric Amps would be something in the GT series -- an amp that doesn't attempt to be versatile at all, and so has a simpler interface with less to complain about.
 
Back
Top