VOX FOR EVERYONE!

(Warning: GUITARIST SPECIFIC CONTENT)

I was in St. Louis last week for a seminar and had some downtime, so I went to the Ed Debevic's of guitars stores - Guitar Center. (GC is slightly better than Myspace as far as annoyance factor.)

After about 10 minutes I finally got one of the "too-cool-to-be-bothered-with-the-only-customer-in-the-store" employees to fetch me a cable so I could check out some amps. A Lonestar Special, AC15CC, Crate V16 and V32, and a Line 6 Vetta were all in close proximity, and I had an hour to kill.

I started with the LSS. I really dug it. My main complaint is that you can't turn off the reverb via footswitch and it was really obtrusive. Then I compared another known quantity - the V32. Umm... I'm almost scared to report that it sounded better than the Mesa. The clean was "voxier" and the overdrive was more "marshallish." The Mesa costs (and weighs) 3X more. I REALLY wanted to like the Mesa, but...

...then I plugged into the AC15. It was the $600 one with the Whafdale speaker, but it reeked with that nearly inimitable* VOX beefy jangle. I was initially quite disappointed that they didn't have an AC30CC, but the more I played with the AC15, the less I cared. Really nice reverb (I'm not a Fender reverb guy) and tremolo. But it's the TONE that I'm infatuated with. My usual tonal needs are for something that's full-yet-bright and clean-with-some-hair-on-it. This is the VOX speciality. I was able to do my Edge impersonation and venture into indie/alt-country with ease. Ahhh...

So I concur with my friend John's assessment of several months ago. VOX is the magic. And - surprise of all surprises - Crate trumps Mesa. (Never made it to the V16 or the Vetta, but I'm a Line 6 user anyway.)

Bottom line: I want a VOX. I want John to have a VOX. I want you to have a VOX. VOX FOR EVERYONE.

(But I'm too poor to afford a VOX.)

*Bad Cat, Matchless, Dr. Z, Mojave, Top Hat, and a couple others make amps with similarly magical sounds - for two to five thousand dollars (gulp).