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288 Part V: Gearing Up: Outfitting Your Arsenal Vox AC30
Another classic British amp maker is Vox, and their amps have a distinctive
twangy sound favored by blues-based rockers and the British Invasion contingent.
The Vox AC30 had a bright high end, different than the Fender sound,
and, though it was British, further apart still from the Marshall sound.
The Rolling Stones (who were heavily influenced by American traditional
blues) used the Vox AC30 in the early days. U2’s The Edge uses them, as does
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and many other blues players who want
bright, cutting sound. Oh, and a certain obscure rock band from Liverpool
known as the Beatles also played through AC30s (and they did play the blues,
especially in their younger days).
Check out the Vox AC30 in Figure 15-14.
TEAM LinG
Figure 15-14:
The Vox
AC30.
Mesa/Boogie Mark IIc+
Randall Smith started out as many amp makers do — hot rodding existing
amps for selective clientele. His company, Mesa Engineering, originally based
their amps on a Fender design. The Mesa/Boogie IIc+ amp soon came into its
own as a great-sounding, powerful, and wonderfully built amp for blues and
other types of music. The amps also included an onboard graphic equalizer and
a power-regulator switch (that changed the way power was delivered to the
amp instead of just relying on the volume), which was innovative at the time.