This is a great post and takes me WAY back. I used to own a Peavey Mace. My dad brought it home from a local auction and gave it to me. This would have been around 1984-1985. I can't vouch for the amp's ability to mimic Schon and/or Skynyrd tones. I liked Journey, I was REALLY into Yngwie, Van Halen, Judas Priest, and Rush. To my 15-year-old pea brain Peavey equipment was second-rate. That said, I did play through that amp a lot. I can remember that it was heavy as anything, it was ear-splittingly loud, and I thought the built-in phaser was TOTALLY cool.

The last I remember the Mace was sitting in pieces in a storage room in my best-friend's house. I can't for the life of me remember what we were doing. I think we tried to take the Black Widow speakers out and do something with them. Kids those days!

After reading this article I just had to speak up. First, let me introduce myself. My name is Joe Barnes. I was the second roadie hired when Lynyrd Skynyrd started touring to support the release of “Pronounced”. I had known most of the band since Lakeshore Jr. Hi School when Bob Burns and Allen Collins were in my gym class. Gary was a year ahead of me and Ronnie and Larry Jungstrom were several years ahead. I saw them many times when they played at the teen dances at the Good Shepard Church on Park Street and other places around Jacksonville when they called themselves the 1%. I also did some special projects for them and loaned them amps and speaker cabinets for some larger shows around Jacksonville when they were on the cusp of breaking out. I played guitar in some garage bands but my biggest talent was making everything work, my amps never blew up. When I was officially hired, I took care of all the amps, guitars and drums. Kevin Elson took care of the piano, the PA and front of hall mix. When Craig Reed was hired I taught him about the drum kit and he took off from there. When Chuck Flowers was hired, I taught him how to take care of the guitars. My role evolved as Stage Manager. In short, I was there and I was in charge of everything related to stage equipment.

There is a lot of mythology and just plain bad information out there about Skynyrd’s PV Maces and a lot of it is in this article. First, when the band was talking about taking the PV endorsement, the main criteria that was expressed to Hartley Peavy was that the amps would sound like Marshalls. That's what he delivered with the Maces and they were stock. Allen’s amp was not rewired, it was stock and it was designed to sound like a Marshall and the same with Gary’s amp.

Jeff Carlissi and Don Barnes got Maces shortly after that and if they couldn't get a Marshall sound, they wouldn't have kept them. The comment above by Tracy Grider claims that with his Mace he can completely nail Skynyrd, Blackfoot, ZZTop, Hatchet, and Marshall Tucker tones with it easily. Well, those are all Marshall bands and Skynyrd was getting the same sound out of their Maces.

As far as “bridging” the power transformer taps or any other silly shit, it never happened. There were never any changes with the transformers, at least while I was there. The amps were loud enough already and the highly efficient JBL speakers made then even louder.

As far as Ronnie saying “Well, it looks like we done blowed up another amp,” there was no amplifier problem. I’m not sure what it was in that brief moment 35 years ago, but it was not an amp failure.

Skynyrd stuck with the PV’s because they got the sound they wanted, the amps were loud and the band was loyal. Hartley Peavy showed his faith in the band when they were still trying to crack into the upper echelons of the music world, and coming from their humble origins, they were really flattered to get such attention.

I hope this clears up the misinformation.

Thanks Mylvyn.

BTW, in the picture at the top of this story, that's me behind Garys amp, hiding behind the beer can.

Joe

I had an old Mace for awhile in the eighties (was an old silver knob version just like Skynyrds but with black Tolex). It was an interesting amp, that unfortunately did not sound extremely good at low volumes with just the solid state preamp distorting, and I never had much of a chance to crank it very high, also did not have a power attenuator at that time. However it was bright and crunchy, and from what I heard it is obviously voiced like a Marshall. I never got the warmth from it to handle Blackfoot tones, but it definitely sounded like .38 Special in many ways. It probably would have been much warmer at higher volumes with the power tubes working hard.

BTW, on thing about most Skynyrd tones (except for Rossington), they are extremely clean with little overdrive. An old Mace, with the preamp mostly clean and just a bit of distortion, and the power tubes grunting, would probably sound very nice indeed.