These knobs go to infinity. (Click to see it bigger, Satellite photo.)

Here’s more of the conversation with Satellite Amplification‘s Adam Grimm. We wound up part 1 talking about what classic amps his amps sound like, and he gave a long answer that ended with: “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.” So:

AmpGAS: Aha! That mid punch to me says “Marshall” – ish.

Adam: I am a Marshall guy, and I always set them up the same. I can’t help it. I never pre-set an amp. I turn it on, and find that with most Marshalls that are running well, I start playing, dial it in to what I want it to sound like, look and it’s almost always the same [settings].

So with the Atom and the Neutron, I tried to get them to sound like my sound because I enjoy it. I get the tone control to a range where I like it – things are already set without having all the knobs and controls to fiddle with to get me there.

Why do your amps have so many knobs?!

We’ve done amps with four knobs and have a production amp with three knobs [the Omega] but I’ve found that keeping things simple works for me. And there’s a look and feel to the amps that I’m trying to keep similar across the product line. We can do more knobs, but it’ll always will be a custom order.

One of the things about designing an amp, every time you add a part there’s a potential gain loss. For example, if you have three tone controls, you have more gain loss because more parts are involved. It’s about a -20% gain loss per control, so you’d have to add more gain after that circuit.

By using only a single tone control, you can get away with not having to add gain at the end. The tradeoff is [with more tone controls] you can separate your frequencies better and some people really need to have that.

A really good example for me [of simple amps] is Billy Gibbons. His tone over the years has been pretty amazing, and a lot of the stuff he uses in the studio is, what sound like to me, small little amps. But he gets amazing amounts of gain and God-like tone. He’s been known to use a tweed Champ quite often in recordings, and a Champ is about as simple an amp as you can get.

If you take all the tone controls out of a Marshall, you can get rid of two of the gain stages, still get the same amount of gain at the end and it will sound amazing, but you don’t get the tone controls. [Marshall tone controls aren't worth much anyway!]

Basically I want to get as much tone, gain and power out of an amp as possible with the minimum amount of parts and controls.

Here's the three-knob Omega (click to see it way bigger, Satellite photo).

I like the fact that there are no numbers around the knobs. Players have to find the sweet spots with their ears. Was that intentional?

Yes it was. I don’t think it’s right for someone to automatically have to have certain settings on an amp. That’s so arbitrary. Unless you’re playing exactly the same room every time and you’re never moving anything, you should be changing [the settings].

In a studio environment, knobs usually won’t get moved. But again, for live situations the idea of having a preconceived number is…stupid. Just turn the amp on and dial it in really quick. It should take about 10 seconds.

So I put no numbers on my amplifiers so people have to turn the knobs and figure out what they like.

The first set of knobs had no marker [line on the knob] on them, but the supplier ran out. I might switch back if I can find a good supply of them.

Since your amps don’t have a master, how far do they have to be turned up before they distort?

We don’t do clean very well. The amps usually get into distortion about a third of the way up.

We do have two amps that have clean headroom for people who need it, and I can put a master volume on an amp for anyone who needs it. But I don’t like them and they won’t be on a production head.

The whole concept of a master volume – well, take a 100-watt amplifier. I don’t know anyone who really needs one. If we were to take one and put any one of the more common master volume-type circuits into it, we would accomplish a few things. The amp would have less output, but there is also a tonal loss involved. Frequencies get squished or lost. The amp sounds choked.

If you want an amp to sound choked, you’re better off just throwing a blanket over the speaker cab.

I’d prefer to have a customer get an amplifier that is more in the range of volume they are looking for without having to compromise the overall tone of the amp.

Why do your amps sound different than other amps?

Because they are. That’s a simple answer, but I can explain.

Tube amps are old technology. There really aren’t a whole lot of breakthroughs that have happened in the last 40 years. In the general sense, there are only so many ways to run tubes. In the specific sense, every aspect is adjustable and everything matters to the end result.

Our circuit designs are all done here, by myself or another guy in my shop, Eric Bernstorff. We usually start with an idea of an end result and a general idea of how to get there. As an example, in the general sense of things, there are only a few ways to bias a tube effectively. Cathode biasing is probably the easiest way to bias a tube. What values someone uses and how much dissipation they are looking for is a much more specific adjustment. Just that alone can make or break the tone of an amplifier.

The parts are another aspect. The parts are the ones we choose to be the best-sounding. I only use Mercury Magnetics transformers because they give me exactly what I want out of a transformer – and [Mercury is] extremely good to work with. I primarily use Mallory 150 caps for my smaller caps, but that isn’t always true. I tend to go there first, but if a different brand sounds better, then that’s what I use. It’s really about the end result being the best amp I can make.

- End of part 2 of 3 -