My Gear
Fender amps are great. They’re just not for me. The two amps that I am currently using are a tube Standel and an Echo-Sonic. These are not your everyday amps, and I get a lot of questions about them.
I wrote a history of Standel Amps for the new Standel company, which is making great reissues of the early Standel amps. I won’t reprise the whole story here, but I will tell a few details. Standel started in 1953 with a man named Bob Crooks, who built custom amps in his garage in Temple City, CA. His amps were used by Merle Travis, Joe Maphis, Speedy West, Grady Martin, Chet Atkins, etc., etc.
Standels were known for their clean, twangy sound. They were only made on a custom basis and used exceptionally large output and power transformers coupled with a JBL 15″ speaker, which gave the amp a very solid low end (with no distortion) and made it very, very loud.
The first custom-made amp, known as the 25L15 (which stood for 25 watts, Lansing 15″ speaker), proved too expensive to make, so after about 75 amps, Standel switched to mass-produced amplifiers.
I own two 25L15 amps. The white amp is an original 1950s Standel. It is not a production model, but rather an unusual prototype amplifier, or “Shop” amp used for several different prototype models. Bob Crooks told me when he saw my amp that the two tacks placed on the top of the amp (noticeable in the picture of the top and back of the amp) meant that it was prototype number 2. After borrowing Merle Travis’ amp from R.C. Allen, this amp was changed back to the original 25L15 schematic, though it uses EL34 tubes instead of the original 807 tubes.
If you look at the picture of the back of the white Standel, you can see that it has one of the earliest JBL D-130’s in it. This D-130 has a squared-off magnet with no breather hole on it. The model number is engraved in one of the spider arms, and a decal is on the side of the magnet that says “James B. Lansing speaker co., Los Angeles, CA.” I’ve never seen an earlier JBL D-130.
The second Standel I use is one of the new reissues made by the new Standel company of Glendale, CA. They are doing a phenomenal job of replicating both the original Standel 25L15 amp and the JBL D-130 speaker. You can order these new amps with any color naugahyde you desire. I chose a red/black/red two-tone. Besides looking great, these amps are LOUD and CLEAN. You can get information about ordering these new amps from the web address above.
THE RAY BUTTS ECHO-SONIC AMP
A guitar amp with built in tape echo? Yes, they exist, but just barely!
The sound of the Ray Butts Echo-Sonic amp is instantly recognizable… We know the tone of this amp from Scotty Moore’s guitar licks on early Elvis Presley hits like “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Mystery Train,” “Too Much,” etc. Scotty Moore and Chet Atkins (who used the Echo-Sonic on his hit recording of “Mr. Sandman”) are probably the two most famous players who used an Echo-Sonic amp, though other celebrities like Carl Perkins, Luther Perkins, Gary Lambert (with Glen Glenn) also used them.
The Echo-Sonic amp was made in extremely small quantities by Ray Butts, a radio-TV repairman from Cairo, Illinois, in the mid-1950s. The amp cost $500 in 1955, or twice as much as Fender’s top-of-the-line Twin amp. It had a built in tape echo (a tape loop built into the bottom of the amp) with variable echo sensitivity, multiple repeats, and footswitch. The only thing you couldn’t change was the length of the echo — it was fixed at one certain delay time — but one that proved perfect for rockabilly music.
Here’s a picture of the back of the Echo-Sonic. You can see the tape loop down in the bottom of the amp.
In the late 1950s, Rickenbacker licensed the schematic from Ray Butts and made extremely small quantities of their own version of the amp, called the Eko-Sound. The amp was exactly like the Echo-Sonic in every way; it was a straight copy of Ray Butts’ design.
I got my Echo-Sonic from a gentleman in Orange County who used to walk past the Rickenbacker factory every day. One day in the early ’80s, he passed the factory and the dumpster was full of amplifiers! He went home, grabbed his pickup truck and took them all home. Among the amps was this Echo-Sonic, covered in Rickenbacker amp tweed! It was probably the amp that Rickenbacker obtained from Ray Butts to manufacture their own version.
What can be said about the Echo-Sonic? Plug your guitar in — instant Scotty Moore! You play the lick from “Mystery Train” through this amp — it gives you goosebumps!
SAY, WHAT’S AN ECCO-FONIC ANYWAY?
Lots of people ask, “What is an Ecco-Fonic?” Good question! Besides being one of the best bands in the country and a great record label, it’s also the name of an early guitar tape echo unit made in Los Angeles in the 1950s.
They sound good — but were notoriously unreliable. I can relate… I own five Ecco-Fonics and none of them work properly.
Here’s a picture of one of my Ecco-Fonic units, just so you can tell your friends “I know what an Ecco-Fonic is!
THE ECCO-FONIC DRUM SET
All the Ecco-Fonic drummers use our 1950s Gretsch orange sparkle drum kit. Not only do the smaller sizes of the shells (20″ bass, 14″ floor, 12″ rack) sound better for our music than giant rock drum sets, but they also barely fit into the van after the guys load their monster amps in, so drums even an inch bigger wouldn’t fit! The bass drum head was painted and pin-striped by famed L.A. Car Kustomizer, pinstriper, and “low-brow” artist Von Franco.
Well, that should answer all your “gear” questions. If anyone has further questions, such as what picks or strings we use, we suggest getting a life.
