Metal guys talk to me about Peters.

[gtr31]

James makes great amps. Total confidence in his ear and abilities.

Had a GNL great sounding amp

Build quality was off the charts like a tank

One of the nicest looking amps I have ever owned

I would totally recommend James as. Builder too Great guy that goes all
Out to explain the designs like a great matchmaker he wants to make sure your not
Disappointed

Anyway the new designs sound interesting and a small format is great
As that is one thing I will say the 100 watters are a beast

James , if you haven't though of name for the hi gain Gryphon
Maybe the Firejack

 

[JamesPeters]

Thanks for the support, guys! I appreciate it.

I don't think there's any need to be aggressive toward Reza. He's welcome to his opinion and I understand where he's coming from (even if his language comes off a bit harsh). Clips are just clips, as they say. The recording process is a huge part of how the guitar sound comes across to people in a clip. For all he knows, he doesn't like my designs.

Anyway the new designs sound interesting and a small format is great
As that is one thing I will say the 100 watters are a beast

I figured there would be some people wanting a smaller amp format. It's not often I directly hear from people about that, but I sometimes hear people saying that amps of that size are really large (even if there are a lot of amps in that general size/format...my Professional Series are approximately the size of a JCM800, for instance).

Only recently did it become feasible for me to consider making a dual channel amp (with full separate rows of controls for each channel) in this smaller size format. My layout had to be changed a lot. Inside the triple channel amps especially, there was no way I could conceive of making that in a smaller size format (without resorting to using smaller components and printed circuit boards and possibly stacking boards etc....which I don't want to do).

James , if you haven't though of name for the hi gain Gryphon
Maybe the Firejack

Thanks! I'll ask Gavin and see what he says.

 

[gtr31]

So basically and I'll probably get this wrong lol

You are going down to 4 channel ops with lead voicing or rythm

FSM and CSM will mutate to X
Gryphon and GNL will go to Y
Reg/ vega is combined for new crunch classic HIgain
Clean will be new design

That's actually easier I
Think for guys concerned with making
Right choice

Will the new duals be in the chassis that used to house the single channel
I can't recall their spec but wasn't around 25 width

 

[MYLILSS]

will you still be offering the two channel preamps ? something like with the new fear factory inspired high gain channel as well as a clean channel ?

 

[JamesPeters]

So basically and I'll probably get this wrong lol

You are going down to 4 channel ops with lead voicing or rythm

FSM and CSM will mutate to X
Gryphon and GNL will go to Y
Reg/ vega is combined for new crunch classic HIgain
Clean will be new design

That's actually easier I
Think for guys concerned with making
Right choice

Will the new duals be in the chassis that used to house the single channel
I can't recall their spec but wasn't around 25 width

Actually generally that's right. For amps in this new "more raw sounding" channel architecture:


-FSM and CSM have "donated DNA" to a new modern high gain design.

-Gryphon and GNL have "donated DNA" to a new vintage high gain design.

-Vega and Regulus have "donated DNA" to a new crunch channel design. (Basically like Vega, in the new architecture, so it sounds a bit meaner. And now when the crunch switch is turned off, it gets more classic sounding and lower gain, which is like the Regulus.)

-Halo has "donated DNA" to a new clean channel design.


Crunch and clean channel designs share circuitry with whatever "overdrive" channel is in the amp, so the crunch or clean channel of one amp will sound a bit different from a crunch or clean channel in another amp (but they'll still be very similar). The crunch or clean channel will make sense in context of whatever amp it's in.

I definitely wanted to help make the channel choices easier. Some designs were "splitting hairs", only really in the lineup because someone had requested a relatively minor change to a channel design (and then word got out, others wanted it, that sort of thing). Also the idea of what to get for a lead overdrive channel (in an amp with two high gain channels) was confusing since I couldn't offer every channel combination, and it seemed arbitrary. Now if you want a lead channel that makes sense to go alongside the rhythm channel you choose (both high gain channels), I just make a channel that's a lead version of the rhythm channel.

Yes, the new smaller dual channel chassis and head shells will be the same ones I had used for the single channel amps. The chassis are "blank" aluminum ones that I have to drill myself, so I can put holes in different locations (and more of them) compared to a single channel amp. It just needs different faceplates. (I also got custom grills made to match the look of my larger amps.) Making a new dual channel amp format with those parts wasn't possible until now, so the parts sat on my shelves. Single channel amps don't sell well for me. It seems people expect the price to be half what a dual channel is or they're not interested. I can't do that since a lot of the cost of a dual channel amp is also in the parts/labor cost of a single channel amp. At least I can offer more value for a dual channel amp in that size format with the new channel choices.

will you still be offering the two channel preamps ? something like with the new fear factory inspired high gain channel as well as a clean channel ?

Yes.

 

[guitarobert]

An amp from James will get you there. I'm a huge fan of the FF Demanufacture tone. I was looking for something of the Metalhead mod variety and found an Axis Excalibur preamp, which is at least an offspring of that tone. Extracted an IR from a track using a matched EQ while playing an EMG loaded ESP. That got a very close match to the FF tone. Then compared using my Peters Hydra channel through the same IR. It sounded just as close, and now I only have the Axis sitting around just because it was a hard to find piece of gear.

Mine is a Hydra/FSM/Halo. GAS has come here and there but I still have the amp as my main amp. I also have a VH4. I've done an A/B with friends and we agree the Hydra/FSM channels beat the VH4 gain channels 3/4. VH4 wins for cleans, but that is a unique and phenomenal clean I haven't heard elsewhere.

If I get around to it I'll put up some clips! I've meant to do so since my NAD 4 years ago or so...!

James, your new channel setup sounds like a holy grail! FF/Crunch/Clean would be perfect. While I want to hit the FF range of gain, I really find myself playing mid-gain/low-gain more often these days. What is the new crunch channel sounding like?

 

[Sardocasm]

James, how would you describe the difference between the old clean and new in terms of sound and feel?

 

[JamesPeters]

James, your new channel setup sounds like a holy grail! FF/Crunch/Clean would be perfect. While I want to hit the FF range of gain, I really find myself playing mid-gain/low-gain more often these days. What is the new crunch channel sounding like?

If you haven't heard the Vega it might be hard to describe overall. It's a mid-gain (by comparison to the high gain channel) modified Marshall sound, so like a really good high gain mod done to a JCM800 without adding any more gain stages. Very good for 80s rock (esp. featuring players who used modified Marshalls at the time) or for hard rock in general. And it does a lower gain sound nicely now too.

James, how would you describe the difference between the old clean and new in terms of sound and feel?

Since it depends on the amp (it always did, but a bit moreso with this new architecture), I can't nail down that difference "in all cases". But "all else being equal" (for instance the new modern high gain design compared to FSM, for each amp's clean channel the new clean channel can get a bit raunchier dirty sound with the gain turned up, but also feel a bit more "elastic" for its clean sounds (with low gain settings).

 

[7 Stringer]

Wow, i am liking what i hear here man

FF rythm tones, damn, one of my favorite metal tones.

Ok, question for James, could my triple channel's FSM be modified to this new design? And the Vega/Regulus crunch also? I love the Halo clean so i would leave that as is. Oh and not that i dont like the current tones i have with it now, but this sounds very interesting.

I could also get you to write by hand the description on the chassis and footswitch, i am such a kid sometimes...... Love hand written stuff on my amps by the builder, makes it more personnal and hand made....lol

 

[RockyStar]

I look forward to the new designs. I have a 50 watt Gryphon that I love. For crisp, clear yet heavy, punchy gain it is tough to beat. Peters deserves far more credit than he receives for his work. Good stuff IMO.

 

[Intimidator333]

Thanks for all your responses guys. Been talking to James and think I might go for this new high gain channel mixed with a Halo or whatever clean he's doing now.

 

[JamesPeters]

Wow, i am liking what i hear here man

FF rythm tones, damn, one of my favorite metal tones.

Ok, question for James, could my triple channel's FSM be modified to this new design? And the Vega/Regulus crunch also? I love the Halo clean so i would leave that as is. Oh and not that i dont like the current tones i have with it now, but this sounds very interesting.

I could also get you to write by hand the description on the chassis and footswitch, i am such a kid sometimes...... Love hand written stuff on my amps by the builder, makes it more personnal and hand made....lol

Hi Chris,

I can modify your amp but the Halo can't be "left alone". It would need to be changed along with the rest; there's no choice about that. Sorry!

If you want this to be done, let me know and I can give you a quote. I don't want to start quoting prices for individual amps publicly though so we should take it to email or phone calls after that. It's a significant bit of work so I'd have to charge for it, but I'll try to keep "in line" for what you might expect of other respected amp builders' more involved modifications.

Thanks Chris!

I look forward to the new designs. I have a 50 watt Gryphon that I love. For crisp, clear yet heavy, punchy gain it is tough to beat. Peters deserves far more credit than he receives for his work. Good stuff IMO.

Thanks!

 

[7 Stringer]

Wow, i am liking what i hear here man

FF rythm tones, damn, one of my favorite metal tones.

Ok, question for James, could my triple channel's FSM be modified to this new design? And the Vega/Regulus crunch also? I love the Halo clean so i would leave that as is. Oh and not that i dont like the current tones i have with it now, but this sounds very interesting.

I could also get you to write by hand the description on the chassis and footswitch, i am such a kid sometimes...... Love hand written stuff on my amps by the builder, makes it more personnal and hand made....lol

Hi Chris,

I can modify your amp but the Halo can't be "left alone". It would need to be changed along with the rest; there's no choice about that. Sorry!

If you want this to be done, let me know and I can give you a quote. I don't want to start quoting prices for individual amps publicly though so we should take it to email or phone calls after that. It's a significant bit of work so I'd have to charge for it, but I'll try to keep "in line" for what you might expect of other respected amp builders' more involved modifications.

Thanks Chris!

I look forward to the new designs. I have a 50 watt Gryphon that I love. For crisp, clear yet heavy, punchy gain it is tough to beat. Peters deserves far more credit than he receives for his work. Good stuff IMO.

Thanks!

I will shoot you an email and we go from there!!!!!!

My Halo.......i love my Halo.......lol

Talk in a bit.

Thanks James

 

[firejack]

Known about Peters Amplification for a while. Never had any experience with one. They seem to get a lot of praise. How do you guys like them in a down tuned modern aggressive metal context? Tones like Fear Factory, Meshuggah, SYL. Specifically talking about the higher gain models like the FSM, CSM, and others. Have talked back and forth with James about his amps and seems like a really good guy to do business with.
I've heard comments before about how they are like your Engl, Diezel, Bogner, amps but thicker, less compressed, and clearer. Also heard someone say like a more saturated VHT UL.
It seems like a lot of the people that have them end up selling them, but also seems like they sell in order to fund a different Peters model.

Id like to hear a REALLY well recorded clip of any of these amps.

Same here. Most clips out there are just like cellphone in the room kind of stuff.

Don't know if they are the type of recordings you guys are looking for, but I did an album entirely with my first Peters Gryphon amp years back:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_music.cfm?bandID=713239

Ignore the song "Jonestown Massacre" as that wasn't on the album (although it has one of the sweetest lead guitar tones I ever coaxed from the Gryphon) but the rest of the songs are all from the album.
I personally think the song "Alien Invasion From Chi Sagittarii" has the best overall tones. It showcases a fairly diverse range of clean and high-gain tones.
All these Soundclick recordings are of my original Gryphon 50w Dual Channel. I've since owned a Hydra 50w Dual, and now have a GNL 50w Dual which I'll never part with.

 

[gtr31]

So James

What is the basic differences on the new hi gain channel other than more growl
Are they very similar in the way that if you favoured the GNL you would dig the new Channel
And vice versa with the FSM/Hydra

 

[JamesPeters]

So James

What is the basic differences on the new hi gain channel other than more growl
Are they very similar in the way that if you favoured the GNL you would dig the new Channel
And vice versa with the FSM/Hydra

Consider the Gryphon versus GNL. The Gryphon came first, and was meant to be a "vintage high gain" sort of channel: lots of gain ("modern" levels) but vintage-voiced. Gavin (Firejack) made clips of it which sounded a bit different from what I had intended, partially because he used a mild boost in front of it. The attack was more solid and it had more growl. This sort of response could be obtained from the Gryphon if you used just the right pickups/guitar/playing technique, but in general I couldn't recommend the Gryphon to get that specific sound. So the GNL was born. It had a bit more solid attack while keeping the rest of the Gryphon sound "intact". It wasn't a huge difference but for those who wanted sounds like Gavin's, I would have recommended the GNL.

There are some people who wanted to hear even more aggression from the Gryphon or GNL. They wanted that particular sound "but more aggressive". The thing is, you can only modify an amp so much in one particular way before the balance is thrown off in some other way. The GNL, if modified any futher in those aspects, would lose some growl and start becoming basically too much like the FSM. Some people think the FSM is "growly enough" but some don't, so it's not a good answer to just tell people to get the FSM instead.

The design with which I'm replacing the Gryphon/GNL has no trouble in that regard. With the different circuit architecture, I can keep the growl and add a bit more aggression yet. The attack has a bit more chunk than the GNL and it sounds a bit meaner overall. No one seems concerned with the most subtle aspects of the Gryphon's sound being lost, so this is an obvious choice for me. Even so the design responds nicely to rolling the gain control down (and turning edge/crunch switches off).

As for FSM and Hydra, that's different in a way. The Hydra was not originally intended for very aggressive attack and bite; its intent was warmer/smoother/thicker sound than the Chimera (specifically, the first Hydra was made for a Chimera owner who quit his heavy "death metal"-ish sounding band and wanted to get a more 80s hair metal type sound). I eventually modified the Hydra so that it *could* sound a bit more aggressive/bitey, but I'd always recommend the other designs first for that (including Gryphon) since the Hydra wasn't very strong at this. However, there were a couple Youtube clips of the Hydra which people keep telling me "I want that sound!" and "make me a Hydra!" because they hear a really tight attack in the clips...but I know it's very unlikely that they'll get that sound from the Hydra. Part of what they're hearing is the unusual speaker choice (I forget which, but they're not the usual Celestions), the fact there's a powered subwoofer being run at the same time, camcorder/portable recorder/cell phone mic clipping (and the sound of the room), and of course the specific choice of guitar and pickup. For the sounds in those clips, I would have generally recommended the FSM to people (and later I made a "lead variant" as I described above, which helped get even closer). Even so I knew I could do better to get the kind of response people were actually expecting...but it wasn't really there in any of my designs at the time. I wanted to add some aspect to the distortion and raw voicing which sounded similar to what was happening overall in those clips.

Plus, I didn't want to have several high gain designs which were a "spectrum of similar sounding" designs, with some being different to a relatively small degree from the other (Gryphon versus GNL, or FSM versus CSM). If I could make a range of sound/response in a design that most people want for Gryphon-type sounds "optimized", I could make that the "vintage high gain" design. And if I could make a range of sound/response in a design that most people want for FSM/CSM/(and Hydra) type sounds "optimized", I could make that the "modern high gain" design. That would end the concerns over whether one design was better for X or Y. The choice would be much easier, and it would be more likely that I could meet people's expectations with the amps.

That's what I'm doing now.

I hope that answers your question. I can't really say much more. Describing sound isn't easy since it's subjective.

I could say "they're the best amps ever, in the world, in all history" though.

Seriously they are and you should buy them all.

 

[firejack]

Had a GNL great sounding amp

Build quality was off the charts like a tank

One of the nicest looking amps I have ever owned

I would totally recommend James as. Builder too Great guy that goes all
Out to explain the designs like a great matchmaker he wants to make sure your not
Disappointed

Anyway the new designs sound interesting and a small format is great
As that is one thing I will say the 100 watters are a beast

James , if you haven't though of name for the hi gain Gryphon
Maybe the Firejack

Ha!

 

[garey77]

CENTAUR would be a cool name and fall in line with the mythical beasts idiom.

 

[JamesPeters]

CENTAUR would be a cool name and fall in line with the mythical beasts idiom.

I'm dropping that naming convention. There are too many mythical beast names used by other manufacturers of amps anyway, so it limits where I can go with it. I've already hit a wall with some names as of a few years ago, and as an example of this: the name Centaur is already used for acoustic guitar amps. Plus I'm tired of it. I like "Body Hammer" and "Firejack" so far.

 

[maddnotez]

CENTAUR would be a cool name and fall in line with the mythical beasts idiom.

I'm dropping that naming convention. There are too many mythical beast names used by other manufacturers of amps anyway, so it limits where I can go with it. I've already hit a wall with some names as of a few years ago, and as an example of this: the name Centaur is already used for acoustic guitar amps. Plus I'm tired of it. I like "Body Hammer" and "Firejack" so far.

Just my .02

I was going to say to have a sick word like crusher or something and translate it to French for the amp name but then I realized how utterly feminine the French language is.

Obviously it is your amp and you can do what you want but IMO the name of any product weather it be an amp, a band, a brand of underwear, etc. can be as equally as important as having a good product.

Halo was a great name IMO.