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Here's Ultimate 0063 in action on our version of "St. James Infirmary" from last Saturday night. A little self-indulgent? Maybe. 😆 But when you have a guitar that plays as good as this one you just kinda wanna keep going, you know? 🙂 Signal chain: 2017 Shishkov Ultimate 0063 (Gravelin Schlabotnik pickups) Line 6 G90 Wireless System 1999 Fulltone Full-Drive 2 (for solos) 2015 Mesa Mark V (Orange Channel) Line out from the Mesa goes through a 2008 Behringer VD400 Analog Delay (short delay, single repeat, wet-only output) to a 1953 Magnatone Melodier 110 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0xmUreA-GvI?si=Zt6CEc_9rD0Nn9nR" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> "St. James Infirmary" – which has origins in a song called "Gambler's Blues" from the late 1800s – first gained prominence with Louis Armstrong's 1928 recorded version, and has been covered countless times since then, including versions by Cab Calloway, Bobby “Blue” Bland (my personal favorite) and even the White Stripes.

Getting great tones without the heavy lifting is what I have gone to for a bit now. Not really anyone I need to impress with a "stack". (Side note...I built a 1 x 8 cab with a 100 watt speaker that stood up admirably to an Orange half stack live, but that is another story). I have put together a setup with the Imperial preamp as a base. Royalist preamp in the bypass. So, more or less F type Blackface and Tweed, plus multiple M type options on call. For those that think the Royalist has insufficient gain, a boost in front works wonders. I happen to like the Chase Bliss Brothers AM (sort of a modern King of Tone without the time and expense to run down) for that. Add FX in the preamp loop, if desired. I do NOT have experience with the Fryette and am sure it is great. But what I have tried work well for me as pedalboard mounted power amps. (I want stereo and portability). The Duncan stereo works well, but the one I like better is the Thermion Zero (which can be redundant with the F type preamp built in, but can be bypassed or used for a separate preset). And if you want to get by for a lot less, Carvin makes a stereo power amp for $159 that I find very usable.....Downside is that it is small BUT needs the (included) brick of a power supply. Not bad if you can mount it under the board. Gig bag, pedalboard and small-ish stereo cab......In and out in one easy trip. And as much volume as I ever need.

I remember reading, WAY back when, that KISS started out in the clubs with a wall of empty 4x12 cabinets for "the look". Maybe some of them had lights instead of speakers.

Rational, responsible thinking has no place in this hobby.

Well damn, and here I was just saying I didn't need more guitars.

That was almost tempting to me at 4:45 this morning. Then I figured it would sit in the stack of unplayed Hamers I already have.

Well they sure confused my young mind and way back when, my first "real" amp was a Peavey Classic 50 with a tremolo. Like you, I wanted all the distortion I could get back then and I was like, "What the hell is this stuttering tremolo thing?" and thought it worthless. I traded it back in for one that had a phase shifter which I found I could use for the style of music I was after. This was around '77 when I was listening to KISS Alive! and the Alice Cooper live album with Dick Wagner on guitar. Man, what a killer tone he had. If only I had known he was using a Wah.

👍 Thanks a lot!!! I still have the private home adress of the Admin (Tony aka menace) from sending a neckplate for a donation project some time ago, my user nickname over there is 88pcII Andi

As smart as Leo Fender was, his company sure did have an issue with understanding what "vibrato" and what "tremolo" meant, haha.

To be fair, I also read your post at 4:45 this morning with the morning news in the background so I didn't quite get what vibe you meant as in, "I get your vibe, man." Also, back when Fender introduced the tube driven tremolo they did call it Vibrato. And that circuit was correctly named. The future circuits were also called Vibrato when in fact, they are more tremolo. The Vibrato is actually a change in pitch where tremolo is a change in volume. I went down that rabbit hole for a few weeks recently when I thought I wanted another amp. Thankfully I remembered the "Tremolo" on the Tri-Tube TKI before I made that mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6dGY31laBY

Not going to find one cheaper.

Haha I know right?! That looks like a beautiful example and somebody here will be very happy 😊

Silver Spring MD. No affiliation. https://www.facebook.com/share/18tDtxFpF7/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I bought it FOR the tremolo more than anything else. I incorrectly called it a vibe in the OP, but I meant the Trem. When I first started playing, although all I wanted was all the metal and all the gain, I loved this Vibroverb reissue they had at the local music shop. Seemed like a one-trick pony to me though, and learning to play guitar in the 90s vs the 80s meant also learning to play in an era where tons of amps got all the gain you could ever want. The idea of needing pedals for dirt never crossed my mind. In fact, I was a member of this group and had been playing guitar for 20 years before I even understood properly what an effects loop did, much less a boost. Hell, I was buying boost pedals for a couple of years in the 2010s to use for distortion before I learned the trick turning the gain down and the volume up to hit the front end harder. This is all to say that I've always been a raging Marshall guy, and out of sheer ignorance was also a pretty much plug straight into the amp guy too in my salad days, which is weird. I went through the RIM program at MTSU, did a ton of studio and live stuff, was known locally as a pretty damn good player, and read guitar magazines religiously. Just never connected the dots that an SD-1 wasn't just for JCM-800s. The first time I ran a good boost into an already distorted amp, I thought, "Oh... so that's why everyone does that. What have I been doing to myself for 25 years?" So I've never owned a Fender-style circuit unless it was included in something - the clean channel on the BE-50 or the Shiva for example. This started out with the Royalist as an attempt to do a quiet stage thing but turned into an effort to get a good, Fender-style clean channel into a Quickrod or Helios. It's now expanded a bit beyond that.

A friend used to be a known Kramer collector. An e-mail was sent, if the address is still good. Maybe we will have some good news for you.

the VH tribute Best of Both Worlds has 5150 striped roll-up panels that look like stacked 4x12s, just graphics printed on a flat surface. They do the job pretty well

Empty Marshall Cabinet | eBay 😉

More often than not for band practice I'm using the IR-J because I don't want to haul anything. For shows though a full backline has "the look". 😄

Meh, if the band is doing it up right, they won't be paying attention to your amp/modeler (unless it some gear geek, like we have on here ) More to the point, 99% of the audience doesn't give a fat rat's ass about what guitar you're playing, what amp/pedals you're using, or even if you hit every note of that solo. Especially if they've been drinking. If it sounds good and makes life easier for you, re- load in load out, then fuggem.

There are several Spotify Playlists along those lines! 🤣

Ahhh, that makes sense... its the "50155"/"50156" following the first digit that I always forget about... I have a same color 1997 Standard... Thanks for posting that list 👍

I have four very good sounding tube heads BUT- if they all went away and all I had left was my IR-J and PS-2A I'd be perfectly happy, it doesn't look near as cool but..., 😂

Did you get your Uli Jon Roth flo on, @Dutchman?