Duane Allman's amp
Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 6:56 am
I heard that Duane A. played through a marshall bass amp. Does anyone know what he may have played through 
He had at least two, one of which was a tremolo model. The tremolo models could be either bass or lead models, so it's anyone's guess.
But in general, I'd say his tone was a bass model 50W, pretty much flat out into a 4x12 cab. As for the speakers, there are several rumours - G12H30 55Hz Celestions, JBL D120, Cerwin Vega ER123, even Altec 417C... Also rumours about having half the back of the cab removed, but current information seems to contradict that.
My $0.02 after having chased his sound for a long time:
- the guitar and especially pickups are a large part of the sound
- 50W bass model (basically early specs 50W) with good tubes
- speakers: I think they probably varied a bit. His tone changed around a bit - the Atlanta Pop July 1970 recordings for instance, sound kind of like JBLs or maybe Altec to my ears (I own both). The Fillmore East March '71 tone, though, seems to be the benchmark tone. I don't think those are JBLs - and I have a 2x12 with original cone D120Fs. They are a little too bright and with a very distinctive upper midrange honk which I can't really hear in Duane's sound, but more so in Dickey's. I bought a pair of Cerwin Vega ER123s off of Ebay, but the douchebag who sent them packaged them so poorly that they arrived shred to pieces. I won't even get into that, but I'm looking into having the reconed by Ted Weber. I've been told they're kind of a cross between JBLs and Celestions, which sounds promising. More woody like a Celestion, but with the cool compression and clarity of the JBLs.
BTW: I promise to decapitate the first person to say "it's all in his hands" or something like that. It is not. There is a difference between sound and tone - tone is personal, sound not so much. And if you don't know how to produce a good guitar tone in the first place, why are we even here?
