Sharing my Thunder 1 and question

[bdolzani]

Hi all, first post. I've been wanting to share my T1 for a while now, finally joined. I picked it up about 15 years ago locally, and it's my favorite amp. Wanted to revive it about 8 years ago and brought it to a local audio tech and he swapped a couple tubes I believe and added a 3-prong cord. He gave me a few tubes back, pictured on top. I'm far from an amp tech, just writing the songs...

I'll share a few photos (sticker says T-1-M. Can't find what the M means). Are these amps about 12W I read?

Statement: This amp is nothing like my '68 Custom Deluxe RI, which I gig with but don't love nearly as much as this. I have gigged solo with this amp a couple times, and with my band a while back but it was a bit underpowered even with a mellow drummer (and second guitar player). That's when I decided to get the '68 RI.

Question: I'd like to perhaps swap out the silverface for a more powerful amp similar to the Guild vibe. How would you describe the sound? I've been looking at many many many Tweed amps. I'm an acoustic songwriter as well as Neil Young devotee. Just launched a solo Neil tribute show in Connecticut as a side project.

Hoping to say hello to you folks here. Cheers!
Brian

 

[GGJaguar]

Welcome to LTG! Thanks for sharing your T-1 amp. A few of have them and like them. I've never seen the "M" designation on label before. A mystery! Here's my Thunder 1 that's like yours except it's the 10" speaker version.

 

[GGJaguar]

And here's a copy of the instruction sheet for the T1.

 

[bdolzani]

Hey thanks very much and for your share as well! Great guitar and it was silly of me not to post my 60's T-50 along with the amp. My favorite combo. Yours is T-50-ish, It think I've seen it before...which one is that?

And those instructions are awesome, thanks! I actually have only used the high gain input, cause why not...I'll try Normal and cranking it even more. It does break up very quickly on high gain.

 

[GGJaguar]

which one is that?

It's an ST-301 Studio.

 

[GAD]

It's an ST-301 Studio.

Am I going to have to post my Thunder-1 with my ST-302?

I looked through my scanned docs and didn't find any mention of the -M. Interesting.

 

[bdolzani]

Also, I find I only like flat wound chromes on this guitar. That's what I bought it with and it totally stuck for me. Feels like an acoustic which I like. 12's.

 

[AcornHouse]

I thought the M might be for a different speaker than usual, but the speaker code is the typical CTS that Guild was using. @Default ?

As far as a replacement for your ‘68 Deluxe RI, you mention both a stronger Guild vibe akin to the Thunder, and the Neil Young tweed sound. Those are two very different sounds, to my ears. If you want a louder Guild sound, I’d say look for a Guild Thunderstar. Plenty of power to keep up with a band, and its own Guild-y sound.

For a Neil Young tweed, then he favors the 5D3 Deluxes, IIRC. But that will also be in the 12W area.

 

[GGJaguar]

Am I going to have to post my Thunder-1 with my ST-302?

Of course!

 

[bdolzani]

I thought the M might be for a different speaker than usual, but the speaker code is the typical CTS that Guild was using. @Default ?

My first thought was 'mono'. Or 'minty'? ;-) But yea maybe you guys can find something.

As far as a replacement for your ‘68 Deluxe RI, you mention both a stronger Guild vibe akin to the Thunder, and the Neil Young tweed sound. Those are two very different sounds, to my ears. If you want a louder Guild sound, I’d say look for a Guild Thunderstar. Plenty of power to keep up with a band, and its own Guild-y sound.

Thanks for this I may want to check it out. Though between the new-to-me Normal input, plus the usually-avoided Bright pull, there are a lot of sounds that come out of this T1. Very cool.

For a Neil Young tweed, then he favors the 5D3 Deluxes, IIRC. But that will also be in the 12W area.

Yes I think I'll be needing some Deluxe tweed. Thank you. I've been seeing some 20W as well.

 

[Default]

I haven't heard of a T-1-12 "M" before. I have no guess as to what the M would designate. It looks stock...

 

[mavuser]

just throwing darts blindfolded and backwards here, but that looks like a relatively early Thunder 1.

Could the "M" possibly have meant "Masteramp?" not that it would make any sense...just something someone wrote. or possibly "Mono," to differentiate from the T-1 twin, or T-1 RVT, which both have 2 speakers (again, with logic not necassarily being part of the equation...)

or after they wrote "112" they were dreaming it was a guitar with a maple back, or mahogany stain?

 

[AcornHouse]

just throwing darts blindfolded and backwards here, but that looks like a relatively early Thunder 1.

Could the "M" possibly have meant "Masteramp?" not that it would make any sense...just something someone wrote. or possibly "Mono," to differentiate from the T-1 twin, or T-1 RVT, which both have 2 speakers (again, with logic not necassarily being part of the equation...)

or after they wrote "112" they were dreaming it was a guitar with a maple back, or mahogany stain?

Certainly different than my slightly later one. Still has the gold fishscale grill cloth so among the early version, but serial number a little later.
I wonder if the Made in US stamp means it might have been exported.

 

[mavuser]

I've seen the made in USA stamp on a bunch of guitars. I don't think they were for export, as I thought the export guitars had a pink label. but i'm not sure

 

[matsickma]

I've had a few T1-12's but mostly had T1-12 RVT's. Don't ever recall seeing that "M" suffix on an amp label before. Guild has been known to do some odd notations. A simple example is in the later run of the Thunder1 amps towards the late 60's the amp label said T1-12 even though they we installing 10" diameter in those later amps. I've also seen T1 -12 RVT amps with an adapter board to convert the 12 speaker to a 10" speaker. No special marking was indicated.

Since you are using. T1-12 amp you have not experienced the tone and spacial pseudo stereo effect of the T1-12 RVT speaker driven reverb circuit. That is different from any amp you played with before. Essentially Guild taps off of the output power going to the 12 inch speaker, adds a high power resistor to attenuate the signal and then feeds that signal into 2nd low watt amp channel, adds a high pass filter to cut out the low frequencies and sends this reverb sound to a separate 6 or 8 inch (can't remember the size) speaker. So when you sit in front of the amp the 12 inch speaker has the dry signal and the reverb sound comes from the small speaker adjacent to the 12". It's a pretty cool pseudo stereo effect.

If you like that tone but need more power I suggest you look for a '67 tan tolex Thunderbird combo amp with the two tone grill. Very sweet sounding amp that used 7591A power tubes and a similar speaker driven reverb circuit with separate speaker like the T1-12. If I recall the 1st generation Thunderbird is around 28 to 30 Watts. (Note their a 3 iterations of the Thunderbird amp. '66/'67, '68 and '69. The 68 and '69 are in tall 2-12 cabs with black tolex. The amp I'm recommending is a tan combo that is around 1.5:1 the size of the T1 RVT.

They are not easy to find but do come up from time to time.

M

 

[Default]

12 = watts, not speaker size.

 

[matsickma]

Hey Default...I never knew the 12 was for the output power! All these years...my first amp was a '65 black Thunder 1 RVT I purchased from a guy living in the next town over (Jim Thorpe, PA) for $150 in the summer of '67. A few days later my old man was livid I was blasting the guitar at the house. Had to start a band just to get out of the house so I could play the S-50 Jetstar with the Thunder 1 RVT. Middle school gigs paid $10 a person in the band. In today's $ that would be around $90 in today's money. Not bad for a 7th/8th grade 3 hr gig where all the girls liked to dance up close to the band.

M

 

[GAD]

From https://www.gad.net/Blog/2010/08/04/guild-guitar-price-list-1965-july/

Did that change at some point? Weirdly I don't even see the T1-12 in price guides after 1965 - they all just say Thunder 1.

 

[Default]

I don't recall ever seeing anything marked as a T1-10. They've all been T1-12s

 

[chazmo]

Maybe they stopped selling (or never sold?) them with 10" speakers?