Victory V44 Sheriff
Let me confess something to you, dear reader. I have a weight problem. Not the inevitable middle-age consequence of eating too many pasties and pints (though I have that too) – no, I have a problem with the weight of amps. Having recently fractured both arms coming off my push-bike and put my right shoulder out of sorts into the bargain, the need for a fairly lightweight but capable amp is more pressing than ever. With more Hendrix tribute gigs coming up, the flavour of amp that I need is Marshall-like in tone and herein lies a problem. I did have a 90s reissue Bluesbreaker but I sold it because it was so heavy – 31kg – and only had one carrying handle on the top. Likewise, I recently put a lovely Dr Z Jaz 20/40 up for sale. Sounded wonderful, like a Princeton on steroids, but again it weighed close to 30kg. Basically a Tolex-covered hernia-in-waiting...
With all that in mind, and after many years of playing combos, ostensibly the ‘simpler’ format, I’m really coming round to the head/ cab solution. Though the combined weight may be about the same as a chunky combo, it’s far easier to balance yourself out when carrying two moderately heavy things in either hand than one bloody heavy thing in only one hand. So what are my options for the Jimi gig? Well, Marshall would be the obvious choice and indeed its 20-watt 2061x head and one of their 2x12 cabs is probably the most classic, non-back-breaking option I could choose if I want to go smaller than a JTM45. But at our last Hendrix tribute gig up in Hull, That Pedal Show star and Guitarist contributor Mick Taylor brought along a Victory Sheriff V44 that sounded fantastic: powerful and penetrating yet also gritty and full of toothsome gain. The form factor is interesting too: the head has a traditional wooden enclosure but although it’s wider than some of Victory’s lunchbox-sized heads, it’s rather more compact than a JTM45, for example. Over the next few reports, I’ll pit the Sheriff against some other contenders (including Victory’s smaller Brit-voiced head, the V22, seen atop the V44 in the main pic) for heavy rock tone in a portable package.
First, though, a walk round our main contender. The V44 is basically an evolved take on Marshall’s hallowed Plexi JTM45. You get two channels, one relatively clean and vintage-voiced, the other a more sizzling circuit by far that yields high-gain tones of the Van Halen persuasion. A brace of EL34s lurks in the power stage, those patriotic pentodes serving up 45 watts of oomph between them in the time-honoured manner. Weight-wise the head on its own weighs in at 12.5kg while the matching V212-VH closed-back cab, with a dissimilar duo of Vintage 30 and G12H Anniversary drivers, clocks in at 23kg. As mentioned, that’s actually heavier overall than my old Bluesbreaker but boy does splitting the load into two halves help, especially as the cab has a deep recessed handle with a girthy metal bar to grip. The narrow plastic strap on my Bluesbreaker was, by comparison, an instrument of exquisite torture when you had to carry the brute more than 20 sweating, swearing paces.
I also like the fact you can either sit the amp on top of the cab in upright orientation (as it’s meant to go) or lay it on its long side and place the head on top of that for a lowand-wide setup – albeit with the cab’s rubber feet pointing at the wall. It looks more natural than it sounds... Indeed, that’s how I set it up in our loft /studio at home. A few exploratory noodlings with the V44 prior to a recent Brian Eno tribute gig reveal that its clarity and punch make it an ideal canvas for effects, too, which bodes well for the far-out Jimi excursions I’m going to subject it to next…