R.G. Keen has an amp series coming out

[CS Jones]

This point was covered by gotdabluz in the thread on Visual Sound and Workhorse amps but I wanted to list it more clearly in the title in case it was overlooked since the title of the thread didn't specify R.G.'s contribution.

This is pedal related - R.G. states that the design came about specifically to maximize your pedal array while retaining all the things we love best about tube amps and classic styled reverb.

I haven't been excited about  any  amp in quite awhile; in fact I haven't bought a "new" amp in almost 2 decades but this one actually has me stoked. I want that 1 X 12" 30 watter.

Clay

[aron]

>This is pedal related - R.G. states that the design came about specifically to maximize your pedal array while retaining all the things we love best about tube amps and classic styled reverb.

WOW, can you provide a link?

R.G. eh...? What does he know about amps!??  :wink:

[troubledtom]

a link would be great!!!!
 peace,
   - tom

[CS Jones]

http://www.visualsound.net/workhorse.pdf

[Paul Marossy]

Interesting. That is basically my approach - a clean amp with pedals.   :wink:

The switching between 6L6 and EL34 power tubes without a visit to the amp tech is a nice touch, and the microprocessor controlled biasing on the 60 watt model sounds very intriguing.  

[troubledtom]

i'm all over it, thanx :wink:
    - tom

[aron]

Pretty damn cool. Now what I want to know is does it use those oil caps (I think it's oil ...  the ones that last forever).

Hmmm not enough info... what controls are available? ooops I cannot read.

[R.G.]

Some quicky answers

- no, no oil caps. Like I said in the first topic, I put in all the "immortal amp" ideas that were economically feasible. It turns out that non-electro caps are simply not affordable in the volumes we expect to get.

Sigh. I wanted that one. Mother Nature is still teaching me about economics.

But it does have some common sense things - thick PCB stock, well supported mechanically. An access cover so you can get to both sides of the PCB if you do need to replace parts without removing the board or the controls from the chassis. Protection against faults killing your transformers. Transient suppressors to catch high voltage glitches before they kill the amp, tubes or transformers. Soft power on to stretch some more life out of the tubes. Things like that.

The 30W won't have all the fancy stuff like soft-controlled standby and self biasing, but it does have a bias assistant inside the amp so you can set up your own amp. The economics of the 30W squeeze you pretty hard on nonessentials.

The controls are pretty standard - Warp Factor, Gluon Flux, Neutrino Scattering, ...

No, it's the stock Volume, Treble, Mid, Bass, Reverb. It's got spring reverb in it ( I like spring reverb!!).

It's really a simple amp in concept. The extras all went into things that will make it play better and last longer. That was a hot button with me. But reliability features are hard to sell. How do you demonstrate longevity to a customer with a brand new amp? They have to trust you enough to pay extra for a "reliable" amp and they won't see the value for their money for years. That's a tough sell.  We had to be sure that the mix of "right-now" features was enough to justify the price, and hope that the reliability stuff proves itself over the years.

One thing that's really fairly ground breaking is the speaker grilles. Those chrome hubcap looking things are actually treble dispersers. I hate beamy speakers - speakers where if you walk off the centerline of the speaker the treble drops off. That's caused by the physics of the cone motion and the wavelength of sounds in air.

The fancy grilles have an internal cone that was selected by listening tests to spread the trebles back out. Bob came up with those. Same concept as Weber's Beam Blockers, horn phasing plugs, and a history of treble diffusers going back decades. But I think this is the first time they looked this good 8-) - and the first time on a production amp that I know of. Bob is pretty serious about that "Real tone for real people". There's not much in there that was done with no other objective than to make it look good. About all I can think of is the choice of better-grade cover tolex and color selections.

I've just about flogged to death the original "victim" amp that served to develop the concepts. We will be getting some prototypes from the factory soon. If they measure up, we'll be putting them into dealers' hands pretty quickly.

This is the first amp I've done the complete detail design for so I'm sure I'll run into some forehead-slappers (I already have, in fact) but we'll try to weed the remaining bugs out *before* we ship the amps.

OK, lessee... all's I gots to do now is program those microprocessor thingies...

[aron]

>OK, lessee... all's I gots to do now is program those microprocessor thingies...

Admit it, you put DSP in that amp....

JUST JOKING!!!!!  :wink:

Congratulations!!!!!

[Paul Marossy]

The fancy grilles have an internal cone that was selected by listening tests to spread the trebles back out.

I like!  

[CS Jones]

gotdabluz had the "keen" eye...he spotted the thing and mentioned it on the other thread.

Looks like it's a straight forward 5 knob minimalist...vol, treb, bass, mid, rev.
1 channel. I'd like to know what Celestion they chose.

Exactly what I'd build for myself but I'm personally tired of cooking and eating my own pork and beans. I'm ready to sit down, proper-like, and have a steak.

Here's R.G.'s full post from the other thread (to aid continuity)...

Ah, well. Secret's out I guess

Yeah, it's me.

Bob Weil, the owner of Visual Sound, asked me to do the detailed design of the Workhorse series based on some ideas he has formed over about 20 years as a guitar player himself, and was kind enough to allow me to incorporate some ideas I had come up with about amps.

To understand the amps, you have to know a little about Bob.

Bob is a longtime guitar player, and a good one. He started Visual Sound literally on a shoestring and has put almost his entire waking life into it since it started. He's a fun guy to know - I think most of you would like him personally if you met him. He's knowledgeable, confident of himself without being %^&*y, and doesn't feel any need to attack others if they don't happen to share his views.

Although Bob has a background in sales, he's a no-BS kind of guy. That's where the motto "Real sound for real people" comes from. He really does want to provide the best possible sound for players, and he works hard at it.

The Workhorse series is not your typical mega-monstro-overdrive channel switching amp. Neither is it a vintage amp copy.

In some discussions with Bob we found we shared a view of amps that's decidedly non-mainstream. I've always thought that you ought to be able to hear your effects, not produce them carefully, then have the amp slice and dice the sound of the effects to ribbons with internal distortion. Bob agrees, and also points out that this is nominally what effects loops are for, but that power amps are usually overdriven so much that even an effect loop doesn't help.

Case in point. What happens if you like your amp's overdrive, but want to use a digital delay pedal? The delay pedal almost has to go before the input, but then the delay gets hacked up by the amp distortion. Wouldn't it be neat if you had your distortion sound but heard the distorted signal cleanly delayed?

Miking up small amps can do this, but it's a tough to do that on a small stage like most working musicians have to use.

So it makes sense that the amp should be relatively clean. Well, it should retain the tube amp character that you get before the tubes start getting massively overdriven at least, so you still get that juicy tube tone when you're playing fairly cleanly, not the sterile tone of tube hifi.

It ought to have a good spring reverb sound, in the best tradition of Fender surf amps.

It ought to be reliable...

And that's where I spent a fair amount of time.

Those of you who've been tuned into the the "R.G. Keen Amplifier Hour" for a while know that I have some definite ideas about how amps should be made for longevity. I have incorporated all of those that we can afford and still price the amp where people can buy it.

Some things didn't get included, because they're just not cost effective in a commercial production amp - like making the filter caps out of motor starting caps for unlimited life, for instance. Too expensive for a production amp.

But a lot of other things did get in, like soft starting, transient suppressors, conservative tube operation, and simple-to-get-to servicing.

There's more, but we're still working the prototypes. The final versions will be out soon. I hope they work well for you.
_________________
R.G.

edit Not fast enough again. Sorry about that.

[Mark Hammer]

Well now there's a man what knows how to keep a secret.  When he "retired" from his long-time employer last year (and that might even be more than a year ago), he told me that he was in negotiation with a "pedal  manufactuer", but as God is my witness, despite many note exchange in the intervening period, I had absolutely no clue that it was heading in this direction.

Make that man V.P. of amps AND national security!! :lol:  :lol:

Just one thing, though.  If the amp is designed to be clean, clean, clean, what exactly is the point of switching tubes? :?

[aron]

It's clean by itself and then you use a Shaka Pedal to boost it  :twisted:

[Paul Marossy]

It's clean by itself and then you use a Shaka Pedal to boost it

That's how I see it.  :wink:

If the amp is designed to be clean, clean, clean, what exactly is the point of switching tubes?

6L6s and EL34s have a little different character and they do sound a little bit different from eachother.

[object88]

... Neutrino Scattering, ...

No, it's the stock Volume, Treble, Mid, Bass, Reverb.

What?  No neutrino scattering?  Screw that, I'm not buying one if it won't scatter my neutrinos.

The best of luck to you, RG.  I especially love the idea of stompbox power-outs on the amp-- that's a feature long overdue!  And it makes me really happy to hear that an amp manufacturer cares about longevity and maintenance.

[Paul Marossy]

I especially love the idea of stompbox power-outs on the amp

Oh yeah, I was going to mention that I thought that was a great idea as well.

[H.Manback]

Wow, from the looks of things you've got everything sorted out VERY well. Those indicated retail prices are awesome. And if it is as good as you just wrote (I don't have any doubts about that), I think it is a killer actually.

Now just pray for decent marketing when the thing hits the market , but I'm sure that you guys and Visual Sound are on top of that as well. Good luck with it!

[David]

OK, R.G., here are some enhancements for the next release:

A bass head version

User-modifiable code in the OS (just kidding)

A voice-activated ASMOP interface

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[R.G.]

Just one thing, though. If the amp is designed to be clean, clean, clean, what exactly is the point of switching tubes?

Ah, yes, the sterile Scylla to the mixmaster Charybdis of overly distorted amps.

Well, it's not going to be all *that* clean. No hifi feedback loops. It's a straightforward cascade of triodes feeding a common-as-dirt power amp circuit. It's more like guitar amps before we discovered distortion. They had distortion, but it was more like "tube character" or "tube coloration". You can hear the tubes as tubes, and your guitar as your guitar.

And there are exactly *two* carbon comp resistors in it, so you can even smell the carbon...

[aron]

>And there are exactly *two* carbon comp resistors in it, so you can even smell the carbon...

hmmmm one day when you can, I would love to hear what thoughts went into the design and choices that were made.