Here's the Atom. Too complicated for ya? (Satellite photo)

Part 1

Satellite amps are the haikus of the amp world: Simple but they convey a lot. Just look at the front panel. Two knobs (labeled Volume and Tone, but no numbers), two unlabeled input jacks, one switch that covers Off, On and Standby. That’s it.

Okay, one Satellite model as three knobs – Volume, Bass, Treble – but you get the picture.

As I kidded Satellite Amplifiers owner and amp designer Adam Grimm, he must’ve stolen his designs from Mesa….

But seriously, Adam obviously is delivering a message with his amps: Plug in, turn it on, spend less than 60 seconds twiddling knobs and you will sound awesome. Or, as he says, “f*cking awesome.”

The reason you’re reading about his amps here is because they do sound F-ing awesome. And people with far better ears than mine – people with friends like Joe Perry and Brad Whitford – love them. And so do punk rockers.

Intrigued yet? In an effort to peer behind the curtain of what makes his amps so great, I cornered Adam for a brief interview. Well, it was intended to be brief, but as you will see, Adam can talk amps! Here we go:

AmpGAS: How did you get into the amp business?

Adam: About 9 years ago I had a Hawaiian band called the Cheap Leis – that’s not pretty but it is funny. Anyhow, the lap steel player in my band wanted an Epiphone Console Grande. It’s an amp and lap-steel stand, all in one unit, made by Epiphone in the late 1930s. I’ve only seen two and only in pictures. We never found one for sale, and I still have never seen one in real life.

So we didn’t know anything definite [about the amp], just that it existed and Epiphone made at least two of them. The guitar player in the band was a cabinet guy, so we decided to build one.

I’d been interested in music since I was a little kid, but never built an amplifier. So I talked to friend who built antique radios. I said, “Here’s what we’re looking for, an old Epiphone amplifier, kind of like this [in the picture] but different,” and we built two of them. They were the first amplifiers I ever built.

So we played them with the Hawaiian band – the guitar player used one, and the lap steel player used the other one. We had people come up asking about them, which eventually grew into orders for them. Not enough orders to live on, but the other business I was in started shutting down and I said, “You know, I think I want to build amplifiers.” So that’s what I did.

What did you want to achieve with your amps?

Adam after a long day at the Amp Show.

I had a small [guitar an amp] repair shop, and [initially] I was looking to create “that amplifier.” Here’s what I mean: I’d been into guitars and amps for years, for a long time, and people would come into my small repair shop and say, “I want to buy my kid an amplifier. What’s a great new amplifier?”

I’d say, “To be honest, nothing. You’re better off buying a vintage amplifier.” This was before the boutique rage hit.

So I thought I’d like to build an amplifier that was worth buying, worth playing and that I would personally be happy to go down to a store and pay money for.

Do you think you’re there yet?

Oh yeah, definitely.

How long has Satellite been around?

The brand name is going on 6 years now, but the actual full production line has only really been pushed for 3 years now. I had no experience before this in designing a product and getting it to market, so there’ve been a lot of very hard lessons there to learn on a budget.

When I played the Atom, I told you I heard EL84 grind with Marshall mids and the nastiness of a cranked Fender – and that wasn’t really describing it because it’s unique. How would you describe the tone of the Atom, or any of your amps?

I would describe the tone of my amps as “f*cking awesome.” That’s how I feel about all the amps I make, and I want my customers to feel that way too. I want them to pick up a guitar, plug it in, hit a chord and go, “Damn. That is f*cking awesome.”

When you and I discussed that at the New York Amp Show – using Marshall mids or cranked Fender nastiness as tonal descriptions – I explained a bit of my problems using those terms. Saying “Marshall mids” is a meaningless term to me. Marshall has made hundreds of different amp models. Some have scooped-out mids, some have in-your-face punchy mids. WIthout having a model in front of us to use as an example, it’s a bit meaningless.

Using Fender is even more so. “Fender nastiness” can be anything from a cranked-up tweed Champ, to a dimed Twin with a Showman cab ala the Nuge. Those are some very different forms of “nasty.”

In the glorious world of the Internet, I would say my amps are a mix of a JTM45, a Super Lead, a Super Bass, a Tweed Champ, a Tweed Deluxe, a Tweed Bassman, a bit of a Tweed Bandmaster, an AC4, an AC10, an AC15, an AC30, a slight hair of an AC50, a touch of DR50, some Selmer TV12T, a notch of Treble & Bass 50 (non reverb), some Watkins, some Valco, a bit of White, and a touch of Peavey Deuce, with a bit of class A and AB1 intermixing, but not much AB2, all run with a slightly hot over-bias condition – right at about 79% plate dissipation on the fixed bias, and about 110% on the cathode-biased versions of my amps.

[Got that?!]

Different people are looking for different tone to their setup. I could take five different guitar players and have them all plug into the same amp, and they are all going to hear the amp in the context of their own music, and therefore will have very different opinions on how it sounds and behaves.

To give a real life example, take the Atom. Jonny 2Bags [of Social Distortion] uses his to get very classic punk tones – chunky rhythm and juicy leads. Josh Elmore [of Cattle Decapitation] uses his for some insane shredding. He’s using it to add a third element to his tone that he just can’t get running a single amp.

Andrew McKeag [of Presidents of the United States] uses his to get some classic rock tone along with some pop simplicity. Rev. Jim Rota [of Fireball Ministry] uses his Atom for fat metal/stoner rock meatiness.

If I throw in some Jordan Shapiro [session musician], who uses his with a pedal steel for some of the best steel tones imaginable, then I think that rounds out a good idea of how the tone of the amp will change with the player.

I do like to think of my amps as being aggressive, punchy, gainy, angry tone machines. They do tend to have a mid punch to them all.

- End of part 1 of 3 -