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Here’s the final part of the interview with Electroplex owner and amp designer Don Morris. Part 1 is here.

AmpGAS: What was the first Electroplex amp?

Don: My first model was the 90, which came out in 1994. Back then it was very hard to get good overdrive and low volume, so I built the overdrive into the preamp. A Guitar Player review in 1997 said it can really sound like a full-on overdriven amplifier without pushing the output stage at all.

From a technical standpoint, there are some advantages to having that situation, where the preamp is the entire source of overdrive if you choose. Normally if you overdrive an amp and the output transformer saturates, the output stage tends to lose its highs and lows and pushes the mids. That’s a cool sound, but if you’re not doing that, then you’re not pushing the output section very hard and you get all the low end and high-end sparkle – because the output stage is coasting. It’s not sweating bullets.

Your amps struck me as Fender-ish – sort of how they look, sort of how they sound. Did you start at that point? Do you consider your amps Fender-ish?

I think that’s a fair comparison. They’re kind of an amalgam of various previous designs, and then I just took it from there and added my own twist to a lot of things. For example, the output stage is in the mode of Fender and Marshall stuff. Not class A, not using EL84s or anything like that. But at the same time I’m still able to get that jangly chime, that Voxy sound, just in a different way.

Who are you going after with these amps, meaning the type of player or style of music.

That’s an interesting line to draw for any amp builder. It’s pretty impossible to build one amp that’s perfect for everyone, so you do kind of have to draw some lines or aim at some people. I do find the customers that resonate the most with [Electroplex amps] are rockers who like clean and overdrive, blues players and country pickers too because they like to get a little more hair on the sound than they did years ago.

Aside from that, the other way I can characterize my customers is that they tend to be the ones who like to use their hands to get a lot of different sounds out of the guitar and the amp. They don’t tend to be the guys on full all the time. They’re players who are looking to get some dynamic punch and dynamic range that they can control with their volume knob or their hands, regardless of the genre of music they’re playing.

The Rockets sound better and different than Fender amps. I was also surprised that they could rock. How do you get such diverse tone out of your amps without sacrificing tone?

The amps were always what I wanted a Fender amp to sound like – it’s [the amp designer's] ears first. I’ve been modifying Fenders for a long time, and Marshalls, and have a collection of old Fenders in the house that I kind of used as benchmark. That includes a ’64 Vibroverb, a ’65 blackface and also a big influence was a blonde Bassman from ’63 that I liked a lot but always felt like it was a little harsh for me. So I tried to smooth out the rough edges of the Bassman sound, add a little more gain, add in some Marshall punch and the midrange capability [of the Marshalls], and sort of came from that area.

I have a ’65 JTM 45 and I just love it. I has the old KT66s and Mullard ECC83s [12ax7s] in the preamp. It’s just a great example of the bell-like quality you hear in the Bluesbreakers sound with Eric Clapton. I tried to build that into [the Rockets] as well.

When people hear the Rocket 22, some liken it to a Deluxe Reverb but it certainly isn’t your father’s Deluxe Reverb. And some people back in the ’90s said if you want a Dumble and can’t afford it, buy a Rocket. To be honest, I don’t know that [Rockets sound] like a Dumble that well, and if they do sound like that I have to chalk it up to coincidence. But I don’t discourage comparisons because it’s all people’s opinions and it draws from their unique experiences.

What’s on the drawing board for Electroplex?

Well, I’ve retired from the other gig so I’m doing this full-time for the first time and that’s exciting to me. I’m really putting a lot into it, a lot more marketing push and hopefully developing new models in a year or so to go in different directions.

Notable

> Right now Electroplex amps range from $2,200 to $3,600 depending on the model, whether you order just a head or a combo and what speakers you choose.

> Electroplex only has a placeholder website right now, but you can find it here.

- End of part 2 of 2 -