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Took my 535 in last week for a new pickup to be installed in the bridge position. The Railhammer Hyper Vintage was a nice sounding pickup, but really bright. I found myself constantly adjusting the tone controls. I've come to realize that pickup design works best for people who tune down a lot and use lots of gain. Not exactly the type of pickup commonly found in a semi-hollow body design. So I had a custom-made Red Rock Alnico III humbucker made for the H535. Since this is a semi-hollow body, I don't trust myself to install it. Instead I paid for an old tech of mine to do the work, to me, its worth the price paid. However, the point of this thread is not about Red Rock pickups but more about the old tech I used. This gentlemen ran a very popular music store in Royal Oak for a couple decades that provided guitar tech services, gear rentals, and even lessons in guitar, bass, and drums. (Fun fact, his drum instructor at the store was Chad Smith right up until he was recruited to join the Red Hot Chili Peppers). In those years, he has seen hundreds of Heritages guitars come through that front door. While he sold the business/building years ago, he continues to work out of his shop in his basement. He is rather amused how much I like Heritage. He kinda of shakes his head about it but ended up telling me he's seen a lot of bad ones come through his door. Recently had a 575 come through that had some weird pickups that were solid black (a lot like an EMG). What was not noticeable until he did a pickup swap with a normal pickup with pole pieces, did he notice the bridge pickup was so poorly misaligned. He said there was about a 1/4" offset to the pickup. He's never seen one that bad but mentioned how many of the Heritages he's serviced have terrible quality controls. I agreed with him to an extent. We all love our Heritages, but until they went under new management and manufacturing standards did Heritage's quality control improve. Heritage had its charms of being unique, custom, hand-made instruments from 1985 to 2015. However the uncontrolled environment and build methods would sometimes lead to a varying degree of quality. Just like Fender and Gibson in the 70's, Heritage also suffered from loose quality standards for many years. There are a lot of gems out there but also there are some dogs... So when people ask for the best years, its all subjective. For unique finishes, appointments, and typically slim, fast necks, go for the older stuff. For a consistent quality, choose newer stuff. Just my $.02.

This is a fairly small club. There are mics on the amps, but that's only for the video feed that they use for Facebook. It also appears that the Katana is the house amp along with the bass amp and drum kit. Some acts bring their own amps, but I was looking over a few videos of other groups and they all have the same bass and guitar amps.

Don't need to be big to be loud these days. Plus just about everyone mics their amps anyway...

I went with Farber, including the insert bushings. Super happy with the results, especially my 2001 H535 which came with the same Schaller roller bridge and top-load tail piece. I had to wait on getting the inserts for the H535, so I played for a while with just the Farber bridge. Once I pressed the much longer steel Farber bushings into the guitar, I was amazed at how much better it sounded. The go will into the maple center block, where as the original tailpiece bushing from Schaller was very short and just mostly contacted the upper shell. My 1998 H150, came with Gibson style zinc tailpiece and a "Nashville" bridge. The Farber hardware didn't make as much sound difference, but the lighter stop bar helped my goal of reducing weight of the guitar to under 9lbs, along with replacing the Grover tuners. I find the ABR-1 style bridge more comfortable to play.

A friend's band was playing a local club a few months back and I noticed that the harmonica amp was crapping out during the last half of the show. Last night, I saw he had replaced the old Fender with a new tweed Blues Jr. The guitar player also changed amps, going from an old Fender Deluxe to a Boss amp.

Can't deny some of these small solid state amps can get the job done. Never played anything from Hotone, but they have a lot of good stuff out there that is inexpensive but makes some great sounds. I personally have a Quilter Interblock 45 as an emergency backup amp for playing live. I've had to use it in the past and it worked fabolously. I would assume this little guy also packs a serious punch and can be a primary on-the-go lightweight amp or as a backup.

That's how it is with music, isn't it? Something that touches you inside - a memory, maybe something you liked, or even just something that has stuck with you - and the music can seem like an extension or a riff on that launching point... I'll have to check out Chris Whitley, thanks. (Oops, I was supposed to be talking about the H-535)

That's pretty cool. Like you, I love tube amps. I still play through them for the most part. However, I have done a couple of gigs on my Quad Cortex run through a Line 6 Powercab +. I hate to admit it but it is pretty damn good. While playing through tubes mostly, I have a back up system that I carry. I picked up one of those Carvin 100W stereo pedal amps a few years back. It seems similar to yours except this one is nothing but a power amp so I also carry a POD Express, so if amything goes wrong I have a complete amp and FX that fits in my hand. I actually had to use it at a gig once and it was a relief given that my recurring nightmare is one where I am on stage about to start and my amp isin't working. I fully accept that there my be a Freudian sexual interpretation to the dream about my equipment failing but I think it is about my amp.

Oh glad you listened, I can hear the The Chain element for sure, and maybe a bit of Black Water. But the musical well that I drink from, especially when playing my National Resonator, is more Chris Whitley. Andt's funny that you say this song has an onimous melody, as today someone told me it sounded sinister. When I wrote this melody I was just singing about the frustration of my situation with my exwife/lover, a dancing girl so to say

Your parents were happy keeping you kids off the streets steeling hubcaps and worse Rich.

I recently got a deal on one of these. The reviews were good, so I bought it. It's loud AF and has a lot of great tones. It models a Dual Rectifier and a Fender of one kind or another. It's lightweight, so all I need is this, my multi effects unit, and a speaker cabinet. I use my old ZT Lunchbox for that. The amp stopped working a while ago, so I made it into a cabinet. It has a 6 inch 100 watt speaker 8 ohm speaker in it. So most of my setup can fit into a backpack. I love tube amps, but at this stage in my life, portability is very important. I just don't want to carry a lot. Here's a link to the Amazon page for specs. https://a.co/d/aOcxqkO

I liked the song - echoes of Fleetwood Mac The Chain and Doobie Brothers Black Water - with a rather ominous melody!

aha, interesting!

Thanks! The first knob is a master volume and the second is a cut control. The master is post phase inverter. The amp is still two channels but with a single input per channel and they are side by side on the left side of the amp. No sound samples yet. I am currently recording with my band and I’m using this amp so there will be examples from that. I have a web domain but no web site yet. I will start working on that soon and then I’ll need dedicated samples and some much better pictures.

I would love to do that, get one right from the source, and have it setup perfectly to my liking while I was there!!! I play alot of acoustic guitar and resonator with my band, and because of that we have to keep our volumes approriate. I posted this in another thread, but in this song I doubled my Martin HD28 with my National M2 reso. Listen to the drums, you can tell that we aren't that loud. We record in my very small studio so anything really loud would overtake the room.

Did you get any sound samples of the app before you delivered it, it looks pretty cool.

that is cool! what's the deal with the knobs in ch2 inputs? and congrats!

It's gotta be fun to buy a guitar at the factory, walk outta there with the newly acquired axe in hand what a souvenir!

These days I play a lot quieter than I did 50 years ago. When our band from back then got together last month after 50 years, one of the things I mentioned was that our parents were saints for putting up with us. 4 or 5 guys in a basement with amps turned up almost all the way, playing for 2 or 3 hours. One day our drummer's mother pointed out that the clock on the wall had rotated sideways from the bass player's sound. I remember at one PSP, I had my 525, and if I turned towards my Patriot amp, it would start to howl on a lot of notes. It's a LOT more susceptible to feedback than my 535 or Millennium LE.

https://www.triplett.com oops. wrong triplet.

I play more acoustic than anything lately. I still want to get into a loud rock band again before I die. I figure my ears are damaged enough so what the hell. There is a power in a lud amp that is cool. I can get a nice tone from a smaler amp or a modeler but still want them to be loud. Oops....totally hijacked a thread here.....

I started building amps a couple of years ago and really enjoyed doing it. I started taking them to all my gigs and then sold all my other amps (aside from a ‘62 Concert). Then one day after a gig I was approached by a guitarist that wanted me to build him an amp. Hmmmm, so I do it or not? Well I did it. First I got business insurance and an LLC then I got to it. A few weeks later I sold him an amp and Southbound Amplification was born! The Cypress model is what he bought. It is based on a 6g3 only channel one is cleaner and two is dirtier. There is also a master volume, a cut control, a negative feed back switch and a boost for channel two. The picture is the amp he bought. I have a Cypress amp that looks like this too, which I gig with but I don’t have a cut control on my amp. I really don’t think it needs the cut control imo. I’m still experimenting with features and design for what I think is the perfect 6g3 type of amp. This amp has the ability to run either KT66 or 6v6 tubes for 30 or 20 watts. With KT66 tubes and a Alessandro neo GA-SC-X speaker the amp weighs in at 25 pounds which is still portable. I added test ports to rebias the tubes without having to pull the chassis. The switch in power tubes does require a rebias since it is a fixed bias amp and the transformer I’m using supplies a switchable voltage variation. The KT66 tubes sound really good in this design. I’m super excited about building amps and have other models I’m working on with more and less wattages. Who knows if I can make it a successful business, which for me would be just a small supplement to a retirement I hope to take in a couple of years.

Well rock and roll can be unkind, but we keep our stage volume and rehearsal volumes at a totally reasonable volume. Now that nonstop cacophony at Heritage, which doesn't let up, is sure to kill some ear drums! And BTW, my main gig is playing acoustic, and it's funny, I went acoustic so I wouldn't damage my hearing

They have had ear protection available for years. I remember Jim Deurloo cutting a backplate during a tour and he had in a pair of earplugs. They also have safety glass available. Everyone who goes on the tours is required to have a pair. I took my own since I had to use them at work.

Nice tripletts! Good comparison of the cutaway horn on Heritage & Gibson, too