Gibson producing amps again

[GGJaguar]

Check out the Falcon 20. It has "hypnotic throb" all-tube tremolo.

https://www.gibson.com/en-US/amps

 

[GAD]

Falcon 20 12-watt 1 x 12-inch Tube Combo Amplifier - Sweetwater

Looking for Guitar Combo Amps? Sweetwater has 0% Financing, FREE Shipping, and FREE Sweetwater Support for Guitar Combo Amps!

www.sweetwater.com

$1800 doesn't seem too bad, but I want to see inside it.

 

[shihan]

I have 2 Gibson amps; a ‘58 GA-20 and a ‘65 Scout. I use them all the time, they sound great. The Scout has an absolutely killer tremolo; perfect for soul and slow burners.
glad to see Gibson back in the amp business. Very interested in hearing what they did.

 

[Walter Broes]

Cool to see the Gibson name on amps again - not sure if I like the Mesa-Boogie connection

 

[GAD]

Cool to see the Gibson name on amps again - not sure if I like the Mesa-Boogie connection

Man, remember when Mesa Boogie was a sought-after custom shop type of brand? From what I know of your musical tastes I don’t know if they would have been your thing, but at the beginning they were very desirable.

When I first got into modelers I decided I wanted “one amp to rule them all” and the Mark V seemed to be exactly what I needed. So I went and tried one and felt like I needed to go get a degree to figure it all out, but sitting there in the store with it I could not get it to sound the way I wanted.

10 minutes with the Axe-FX and I had what I wanted. As it would turn out 20 years later what I’d really wanted was an enormous Marshall, but that’s a different story.

 

[Default]

I have 2 Gibson amps; a ‘58 GA-20 and a ‘65 Scout. I use them all the time, they sound great. The Scout has an absolutely killer tremolo; perfect for soul and slow burners.
glad to see Gibson back in the amp business. Very interested in hearing what they did.

I have a GA-20 too. Great amps.

 

[Walter Broes]

Man, remember when Mesa Boogie was a sought-after custom shop type of brand? From what I know of your musical tastes I don’t know if they would have been your thing, but at the beginning they were very desirable.

I do remember that, and maybe over here in the 80's it was even more so for lack of alternatives - they were seen as THE quality modern tube guitar amp - total status symbol for a good decade over here. And hugely influential : I think on a world scale, looking back, they're largely responsible for the dual-or multichannel master volume amp being the standard ever since the 80's.

I was umm..."set straight about amps" by an older friend pretty early on in my playing life - I was around 20 in about 1990 and desperately trying to make that red-knob twin I had work in the pretty traditional blues band I was in at the time when he gave me a short sermon he started with "your playing is alright..." and ended it with "new amps are JIVE!" - and he loaned me an early 60's white tolex bassman until I had money to get my own "old" amp. Yes, he's still my friend, and what a friend to have at an impressionable age.

And I never looked back - I had a reissue bluesbreaker amp for a minute (it sounded great, but it kept breaking..), but it was all vintage Fender amps from there on, one of many silverface Super Reverbs was the first, and I remember several bandmaster reverb heads and bassman heads, they could be had dirt cheap until fairly recently. So I hardly made the detour of the archtypal 80's channel switching amp (and with the music I've consistently played it would have been a detour) and pretty much almost went straight to non-master volume Fender amps, and when those got too expensive, well built "boutiquey" clones of older Fender amps.

When I finally did meet several Boogies up close and personal it was quickly determined they "were not for me". I remember one Mark I combo in particular : I thought the "gain channel" was so focused on a midrange frequency it was almost like playing through a cocked wah, and the clean channel was like a bigger Fender amp with a *really* intense heavy duty speaker.
Owning and operating a small stable of vintage Fenders always meant knowing at least a couple of tube amp tech types, I'd heard that even in the pre-triple rectifier days before metal adopted Boogie (or vice versa) they were always a bit of a pain to work on - I think the real sub-par parts and questionable designs came later.

 

[tonepoet]

I've had 3 old Gibson amps. The ones I still have is a 1958 GA-5, which was basically the Gibson version of a Fender Champ. 1x6V6 and 1x12AX7 with a 5Y3 rectifier and an 8" speaker. The other is the 1962 version of a GA-5 that had 2x 6AQ5, 6EU7, 6C4 and 6X4 tubes and a 10" speaker.

The 1958 "Champ" style has great tone, both clean and crunchy.

The 1962 is better with clean tone than it is with crunch. Very basic with only an on/off switch and volume. No tone control. No tremolo. And the first year version only had a 1/4 inch plywood cabinet. (Photo from the internet)



The other I once had was an early 1960s Hawk like this one: (photo from internet)



It had one 15" speaker and I think was rated at only 15 watts. I recall it having 2x 6v6 and the preamp tubes being 6EU7. It essentially had the same tube compliment as a Fender Deluxe Reverb (6EU7 tubes being similar to 12AX7 with different heaters and pinouts) but was really lacking compared to the Deluxe Reverb. I recall it having a very small output transformer.

The Hawk went out the door pretty quickly but I still have the two versions of the GA-5

 

[Canard]

Years ago I gave a friend who has a large collection of vintage "budget" Gibsons (Melody Makers and Jr.s) a dead GA 20 as a Christmas present. I more or less got it for next to free.

He did nothing with it for years and years except to use it as a (dead) display piece, window dressing for his collection. A year or two ago, he took it to another friend (mutual) and had it re-capped and repaired. It is a sweet sounding amp now.

I went to look at a Trace/Elliot (Gibson) sort of remake of the GA 20, but didn't think too much of it with its stock Celestion speaker--too bright and not enough sparkle for my tastes. It would be interesting to hear it with a Jensen with a corrugated cone.

The electronics repair friend and other techs have told me that Gibson never really got things right with their amplifiers, say in comparison to Fender. The workmanship and parts under the hood was always poorer even if the basic designs were OK.

The new models seem to be aiming to take a chunk out of Fender's lucrative Blues Jr./Hot Rod market--even similar styling. I hope they get it right this time and stick with it.

 

[jp]

This is a cool development. I hope simplicity is the theme of the circuitry. I've had a Gibson Falcon, a Scout, and, in the same family, a rare Epiphone EA-22RVT running EL34s.

Edit: Pics added

Man, remember when Mesa Boogie was a sought-after custom shop type of brand? From what I know of your musical tastes I don’t know if they would have been your thing, but at the beginning they were very desirable.

When I first got into modelers I decided I wanted “one amp to rule them all” and the Mark V seemed to be exactly what I needed. So I went and tried one and felt like I needed to go get a degree to figure it all out, but sitting there in the store with it I could not get it to sound the way I wanted.

10 minutes with the Axe-FX and I had what I wanted. As it would turn out 20 years later what I’d really wanted was an enormous Marshall, but that’s a different story.

In general, Mesa's seem to have too much natural compression that kind sounds like the signal is being choked. There are a few models I like, though, and none are the popular ones--the DC series, the Subways, and the Lonestar Specials, Rocket 44s, and the Blue Angels. Admittedly, many do take some tweaking to get good usable tones.

 

[Default]

I do remember that, and maybe over here in the 80's it was even more so for lack of alternatives - they were seen as THE quality modern tube guitar amp - total status symbol for a good decade over here. And hugely influential : I think on a world scale, looking back, they're largely responsible for the dual-or multichannel master volume amp being the standard ever since the 80's.

I was umm..."set straight about amps" by an older friend pretty early on in my playing life - I was around 20 in about 1990 and desperately trying to make that red-knob twin I had work in the pretty traditional blues band I was in at the time when he gave me a short sermon he started with "your playing is alright..." and ended it with "new amps are JIVE!" - and he loaned me an early 60's white tolex bassman until I had money to get my own "old" amp. Yes, he's still my friend, and what a friend to have at an impressionable age.

And I never looked back - I had a reissue bluesbreaker amp for a minute (it sounded great, but it kept breaking..), but it was all vintage Fender amps from there on, one of many silverface Super Reverbs was the first, and I remember several bandmaster reverb heads and bassman heads, they could be had dirt cheap until fairly recently. So I hardly made the detour of the archtypal 80's channel switching amp (and with the music I've consistently played it would have been a detour) and pretty much almost went straight to non-master volume Fender amps, and when those got too expensive, well built "boutiquey" clones of older Fender amps.

When I finally did meet several Boogies up close and personal it was quickly determined they "were not for me". I remember one Mark I combo in particular : I thought the "gain channel" was so focused on a midrange frequency it was almost like playing through a cocked wah, and the clean channel was like a bigger Fender amp with a *really* intense heavy duty speaker.
Owning and operating a small stable of vintage Fenders always meant knowing at least a couple of tube amp tech types, I'd heard that even in the pre-triple rectifier days before metal adopted Boogie (or vice versa) they were always a bit of a pain to work on - I think the real sub-par parts and questionable designs came later.

There's a really good amp guy that used to live on the route I had before the one I have now. He was among other things, a Marshall, fender, and Mesa boogie certified technician. I remember him telling me about how he called up for a spare part and the Mesa boogie guy on the other end of the phone gave him what was the present part. So part shows up he tries to install it it's not the same and it doesn't fit. He calls up Mesa boogie again talks to the same guy the guy says oh yeah, I'll send you out the right part and he asked well what part is that now? after some discussion, the Mesa boogie guy came to the realization that Mesa had changed the specifications at one point and never passed it along to the support team.

 

[SFIV1967]

“Over the last two years, I’ve witnessed the Gibson team working together to design and develop the new Gibson amplifiers and I couldn’t be prouder and more excited about what they have accomplished,” says Cesar Gueikian, President, and CEO of Gibson Brands. “It started with Randy Smith researching the Gibson sound, exploring the sound of many original Gibson amplifiers to design a new and improved circuit board that he passed on to the Lab team. John Marshall, Tommy Waugh, Jim Aschow, Doug West, Steve Mueller, Mat Koehler, and Craig Hockenberry all came together to create the amplifier and brought the new Gibson Falcon to the finish line. Upon playing the final prototype I immediately called Randy and told him, this is the Gibson sound, only better!”

Source: https://gearspace.com/board/new-pro...n-amplifiers-return-falcon-5-falcon-20-a.html

Ralf

 

[twocorgis]

I have a GA-20 too. Great amps.

GA-20 is a pretty great band too. Not bad for no bass player, we saw them live recently.

The harp player in my band plays through a vintage one.

 

[Rocky]

“Over the last two years, I’ve witnessed the Gibson team working together to design and develop the new Gibson amplifiers and I couldn’t be prouder and more excited about what they have accomplished,” says Cesar Gueikian, President, and CEO of Gibson Brands. “It started with Randy Smith researching the Gibson sound, exploring the sound of many original Gibson amplifiers to design a new and improved circuit board that he passed on to the Lab team. John Marshall, Tommy Waugh, Jim Aschow, Doug West, Steve Mueller, Mat Koehler, and Craig Hockenberry all came together to create the amplifier and brought the new Gibson Falcon to the finish line. Upon playing the final prototype I immediately called Randy and told him, this is the Gibson sound, only better!”

Source: https://gearspace.com/board/new-pro...n-amplifiers-return-falcon-5-falcon-20-a.html

Ralf

That is a perfect example of a press release written by Marketing, and run past the CEO for final approval.

 

[SFIV1967]

Falcon 5:






Falcon 20:





Ralf

 

[knavel]

Aesthetically the two amps look great. Clearly based on the sort of blond naugahyde look of the two base model amps in ~1959, the GA-5 Skylark and GA-8 Gibsonette. The marketing seems to be well orchestrated with players having appeal to all ages having promo videos of them playing the amps hitting at the same time.

The back panel of the amps say hand wired in California USA. I'm not 100% sure what "hand wired" means here without seeing the guts, but for a product made in the USA, California in particular, that seems like a good list price.

I am relatively new to vintage Gibson amps. I went from the family Sears Silvertone in 1980 to a blackface Twin Reverb. No modern amp has ever touched my home--I even have a "no silverface" rule (which I wish had jettisoned in hindsight when thinking about a SF Champ I once got in a deal and sold it for $100). I have the tweed Falcon from 1961, a 1959 GA-5 and three 1959 GA-6 Lancers (I thought one of the GA-6s was a GA-20 when I bought it but it turned out I was wrong).

1960s Gibsons and Epiphones (post tweed) are great value for what is a "boutique" amp by today's standards. They require a new speaker and a couple of basic mods and they are great, and you can get power tubes unknown to a Fender (or in the case of EL-84s known to Fender for a matter of weeks). The mid 60s white panel ones are great when this is done but the composite cabinets are ridiculously heavy. I paid I think $300 for my 1966 Epiphone EA-32RVT Comet (GA-15RVT Explorer).

My concern is Mesa Boogie. I remember when, as Walter recounts, they were "the amp" in the 1980s. I hated them upon trying one back then and started calling them the same thing as I call them now, "Mesa Booger".

A lot to read above, so here is some related photo porn - my favorite recording rig - the original Falcon.

 

[Rocky]

Falcon 20 looks like it's pretty much a cathode-biased Princeton Reverb (with 6G2 tone knob) and a few boogie-isms added. It's not like you can configure 8 triodes in that many ways and have tube driven reverb and tremolo.

 

[Midnight Toker]

My first “good” amp was an early Mesa 50 Caliber.I loved and still miss it. That was my band days amp. I’ve since gone strictly vintage 5 watters (or hand wired new) If Gibson puts out a new low watt amp, my ears (and wallet) will be perked.

 

[chazmo]

My concern is Mesa Boogie. I remember when, as Walter recounts, they were "the amp" in the 1980s. I hated them upon trying one back then and started calling them the same thing as I call them now, "Mesa Booger".

Really good point... Mesa Boogie is part of Gibson's brands and there's no question about the influence on these Falcon amps. I do like the fact that their "wired" in Petaluma. Other folks have suggested that sourcing the tubes from Mesa Boogie is of some value because of their testing process. Don't know if that's marketing-speak too.

 

[knavel]

I do like the fact that their "wired" in Petaluma.

Someone on one of my FB groups already has the Falcon 20 now and took it apart and shared photos. It's "hand wired" on a circuit board.