‘Drive’ brand amp - not junk after all!

[coyote-1]

I guess this post is about preconceptions. About what makes an amp good, about what makes a jazz amp.

I have a Drive G35 amp (1x10) that I picked up for around twenty bucks some years ago. It worked. The digital effects area has some issues (knob and button static) and the lead channel sounded terrible, but the amp worked. So why not have a spare around for practice, and for “just in case”?

Being a curious person though, I got to thinking. So I took it out yesterday and started to play with it. If you set the tone controls to 12 o’clock, it sounds dull. And one would imagine a ‘jazz’ amp would have certain tone parameters that would favor the mids and lows a bit. Anyway, after a few minutes I gave up on what the dials should say, and let them be whatever they’re going to be. And so the tone knobs, with zero at the 7 o’clock position and ten at the 5 o’clock position, have:

Treble: 3 o’clock
middle: 9 o’clock
bass: 9 o’clock
presence: 5 o’clock

I’ve never seen ‘jazz’ tone controls look like this. But it sounds better than mere ‘ok’. With my Eastman 610 floating pup guitar, it actually sounds good. Don’t get me wrong; all the other amps I have do sound better. But it turns out that this amp, at a level that would be clearly audible in a small jazz combo with drums and a few other instruments, has enough volume and definition and clarity to do the job. The bass is not flabby, the treble is clear but not piercing, and the overall sound has body.

Oh, and the digital effects do function. At least the reverb does. (Dunno about the delay or chorus, haven’t tried them.) You have to get past the static, but that takes only a moment. The effects level knob for reverb is just barely above zero, else it’s too much.

This amp is identical to the Acoustic G35. Anyway, if you happen to stumble across one at a garage sale or something and it’s cheap - grab it! It’s a better jazz amp than you’d have guessed. A useful backup for when your Polytone or Fender amp is in the shop.

[coyote-1]

Ok, effects all tested. All do function… but if you turn the knob anywhere past the first three percent of its travel, they become unusably extreme. So the current setting is reverb plus chorus. It’s so subtle that it’s barely noticeable. With the chorus, in fact, it is not noticeable until you turn the effect off. And either can easily be turned off at the press of a button.

[vintagelove]

Never EQ with your eyes.

If you take the old Fender Frontman 15, plug it into a real cab, and turn the treble to 1, it's a great rock guitar sound. It's ok to put a knob on 1, or 10.

Also, folks should check out the online tonestack calculator. It's very surprising to see what the actual curve of your eq settings is.

[coyote-1]

After working some more with this Drive amp, it’s now my second favorite for jazz of my five eligible amps! Actually tied for second with the Katana. Both can be set up with the archtop to have clarity and definition.

My top is the Princeton Reverb II. Man, for a 22 watt amp it can get really loud, and the headroom is just enormous. And it has this presence, almost an ‘sparkle’, across the entire fretboard and tonal range of my AR610ce that none of my other amps has. It’s a perfect match for this carved floating archtop.

Fourth is the Marshall DSL40. It works well and sounds good enough, but is voiced more for a solidbody.

Last is the Crate BX100. After working diligently with all five over the past few days, while I still would not be ashamed to use this amp (or any of these five) on a jazz gig it just does not get that combo of ‘dark’ and definition across the range that I can get from the other amps. Yet it works very well with my friend’s Ibanez laminate archtop (non-floating).

[coyote-1]

One final note about this Drive amp. At ‘bedroom’ volume, it sounds OK but not awesome. If all I were doing with it is low volume practicing, I’d likely opt for a different amp.

It’s when you turn it up to a level that works with a drummer that it sounds good. It’s at that level that the bass notes begin to have real definition and strength, and that the higher mids begin to’pop’.

[RJVB]

(knob and button static)

Some contact spray can do wonders with that.