1961 Gibson GA-79RVT Vintage Amp Replacement Challenge
Writer Rod BRakes Guitarist & Journalist
Having now finally parted ways with a classic vintage amp – a 1961 Gibson GA-79RVT – Rod is on the hunt for a more roadworthy alternative that delivers all the character and vintage charm of this classic collectible combo without compromising on sound.
Having come out the other side of what feels like a particularly prolonged and acute bout of GAS, it appears that there’s nothing quite like a seemingly impossible task to sharpen up your knowledge. My initial presumption was that it would be a relatively straightforward exercise in weighing up the pros and cons based on educated guesses before pulling the trigger at the end of the shootout. However, it often seemed as if the harder I looked, the deeper down the rabbit hole I went and, as it turns out, during the past few months I’ve been on yet another steep learning curve in my journey as a guitarist.
Perhaps the most fundamental lesson learned has been that short of buying the same 1961 Gibson GA-79RVT back again – and, unfortunately, this is not an option – I will never truly replicate the same sound. In my experience, this is the case with virtually all vintage amps; no two are exactly the same. They all have their own quirks and charms that change slowly over time. It’s also worth bearing in mind that as a true stereo amp, that is two independent amplifiers in one combo, the design is especially unique to begin with. I was particularly smitten with its tremolo due to either side of the stereo spread being slightly out of phase. This subtle modulation, reminiscent of Fender ‘brownface’ harmonic tremolo, coupled with a fantastic sounding reverb sporting its own amplification stage and a particularly wide spread of sound, courtesy of a pair of angled speakers, was as good as classic on-board amp effects get as far as I was concerned.
Nevertheless, my main gripe about the GA-79RVT, was that – aside from being a little on the precious side to constantly lug around studios and gigs – it didn’t have enough in the way of clean headroom to be useful as a good all-round workhorse amp. Although being endowed with some of the sweetest sounding EL84 breakup to be had, I found its tendency to get dirty very quickly rendered it a little too far into the ‘character’ zone to be practical (a little bit like my Great Aunty Kat after a few too many). The bottom line in terms of performance was that I needed an amp capable of great sounding tremolo and reverb that would stay clean at drum kit level and work well with pedals – in other words, more options.
Naturally, before putting as many reverb/ tremolo combos as I could find through their paces, I did what all truly dedicated gearobsessed musos do and probed the internet for hours at a time, waxed lyrical about amps with my guitar buddies, tested the patience of a few music shop staff and bored the shit out of my girlfriend.
My first port of call was a 1965 Epiphone Comet I borrowed on spec from a friend to record a sound-piece for performance artist Will Hughes called Ghost in the Sheets. It had a great atmospheric sound, but I was left with the same old predicament of not having enough clean headroom. Having used it a week or two later for a session at Mizpah Studios in Bath, the artist I was recording with, Sam Gotley, loved the sound of it so much that he, thankfully, put me out of my misery and ended up buying it himself!
Shortly thereafter, I quickly fell in and out of love with a ’65 Princeton Reverb reissue (again, not enough headroom!) before trying out an early 80s Fender Princeton Reverb II
“No two vintage amps are exactly the same. They all have quirks and charms that change over time”
and a Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverb, kindly lent to me by Guitar Techniques editor Neville Marten. Those last two amps really got me thinking about the upwards direction in wattage I was inevitably headed.
As much as finding a replacement has been about letting go it’s also been about finding something new and discovering that, along with all my research and testing, sometimes the best answers are so blindingly obvious that it’s hard to see them for looking. In the final piece of this series, I will examine the success of an entirely unexpected approach that goes way beyond just a new amp.