Part 2

Here's the Mantis I played, in western-style Tolex. Nice! (click to see way bigger)

(Here’s the second part of the interview with Andy Fuchs about his killer Mantis amp.)

AmpGAS: First this amp was called the Frost, then the Viper and now the Mantis. Are they all basically the same amp?

Andy: It’s been an evolution. Originally we did the Frost, then we converted it to the Viper – we changed the panel and made a couple minor tweaks to the circuit based on feedback from artists.

Then we had a good review of the Viper in a magazine, but got a note from Hartley Peavey – a nice note – that said, “Congratulations on the good review but we have a problem with the use of the ‘Viper’ name.” They have an amp called the Vypyr spelled V-Y-P-Y-R. I don’t think anyone could mistake our amp for theirs, but you have to pick your battles so I sent a letter back that said we would change it.

We’ll probably stick with ‘Mantis’ going forward. There might be a Mantis 2 and a Mantis 3 – we like the name.

What were you trying to achieve with this head, and have you achieved what you wanted to with it?

I’m always on a journey. As [an amp] designer, I never feel like I’m fully done. There are ideas I have to use different topologies, whether they’re using FETs or tubes, and I have ideas and variants of things I want to try and do in the future. But it comes down to having enough time to experiment and refine. That’s the tough part: I do design work for my own company, some for other pedal and amp companies.

The next challenge probably is a higher-gain amp than the Mantis. Quieter, more gain – the Black Veil Brides and other folks we’re working with say, “This amp is great, but we want it to go to another [gain] level – can you do it?”

Anyone know this guy?! (click to see bigger)

Tone-wise what would you say about this amp?

I guess it’s in the Marshall camp for tone, but it really depends on what the player’s expectation is. I’ve had players say it’s good for classic rock, for metal, for blues, but I’ve also had metal guys say they want more gain. So I might do a three-channel version of the Mantis that’s even higher-gain.

Personally I think [the Mantis already] has a boatload of gain, but guys say they want more gnarliness to it, more edge. You see what these guys are playing, Diezels and stuff like that. [Those amps] have amazing amounts of gain on tap.

Speaking of gain, some people think that preamp-derived gain is a bad thing, maybe because some amps don’t do it well while others, like Soldano and your amps, do.

Most of our amps were designed with preamp gain in mind, other than the single-channel amps we’re making. [Most Fuchs amps] were designed to allow you to do overdrive at a conversation volume without having to blow your brains out to do it.

A lot of amps, although nice amplifiers, you have to turn them up to get them to distort. We’re taking a different approach. You can [turn up Fuchs amps for distortion], but you don’t have to.

Do you think buzzy high-gain amps have given the term “high gain” a bad name?

I’ve done some mods to the Tripledrive and Mantis for some players looking for that abusive Death Metal grindy thing. But I find it to be very compressed. It’s so aggressive that to me it becomes almost a-musical. I’d rather have less gain and a sweetness and musicality to it.

There are high-gain amp companies that cater to that certain market, which is fine, but those amps do that and not much else. To me that’s kind of narrow-minded. I prefer an amp to be a little more musical than that.

We’re broad-minded. We want to bring an audiophile-like quality to a high-gain amp, with that attention to tone. I wanted my amps to never be the kind of amp where somebody says, “Can you turn that down, I can’t take it.” I think no matter how much the gain goes up and how loud you play [the Mantis], it never turns into the kind of chrome-plated harsh thing that a lot of amps will do.

Is this a ‘metal’ head? Your website specifically mentions scooped mids.

If you look at it on a scope, channel 1 has a midrange bump and channel 2 is the opposite, kind of like a smile. That’s often referred to as scooped, but [on the Mantis] it’s not a drastic scoop. A lot more amps are more viciously scooped there. I’ve done some custom stuff like that for people, but I’m not into that big a scoop because if you scoop too much, nothing’s left – none of that push in the mids that everybody likes.

6550s don’t have much of a reputation. Marshall supposedly threw them in some amps because the EL34s were too delicate, and most everyone going for the Marshall sound now uses EL34s. Why did you stick with the 6550s and how do they sound different?

They happened to be what was in the original [Jose-modded] amp. Those tubes have a certain girth and big sound to them that’s really nice. So we started out with that and were like, Jeez, I forgot how great a good 6550 can sound.

We do have guys who like a traditional EL34 sound and the amp will run on those as well [properly adjusted]. I happen to think the 6550 is a really big-sounding tube. It has nice in-your-face midrange, and a full low end that has a good chunk to it at higher volumes. But we get orders all the time from guys who want EL34s because that’s what they’re used to and it’s a cheaper tube if you have to replace them.

‘Final’ Impressions

Curious yet? You should be!

To me it seemed like the Mantis really was a blues-rock-metal head, meaning it could do all of them well. Real well. But I think that description is inadequate, and thus doesn’t do this high-end tone machine justice.

So at some point I’m going to hopefully drag home the Mantis demo head Andy has at his HQ, put it through its paces, and video/audio the results.

Either way, the Mantis – I played the 50-watt version – is on my GAS list.

Pricing Info

Right now there’s only one Mantis model in two versions:

50w Mantis = $2999.00
100w Mantis = $3185.00

Expensive, yes, but how much would you pay for a great guitar? Isn’t a great amp – one that has great tone or your tone – worth just as much? Ultimately your ears will tell you one way or the other. But I’ve said before and will continue to say that if you really care about your tone, you should be willing to pay as much or more for your amp as your guitar.

Notable

> Since the Mantis is based on a Jose Arrendondo-modded Marshall, I asked Andy what he thought about what Jose did mods-wise. Some people think Jose’s work was great – like Mick Mars, who still uses a Jose Marshall – while some think he was a hack. Andy said: “The workmanship I saw in the amp was fine. He didn’t do any major mods, just some tweaking and changing to circuit values and stuff.”

- End of part 2 of 2 -