Famous Champ Recordings

any great ones i am missing?

Clapton on layla
Steve cropper used them i think......
of course the rolling stones....
didn't Jim Campilongo say he uses champs on some stuff?

Joe Walsh, Rocky Mountain Way slide solo - tweed champ

don't know specifics, but I think I read Joe Perry used them alot for the older Aerosmith stuff.

any great ones i am missing?

Clapton on layla
Steve cropper used them i think......
of course the rolling stones....
didn't Jim Campilongo say he uses champs on some stuff?


Well - I don't know if they qualify as famous but I used my vibrochamp on two tracks on "Heaven Is Creepy" ... Hamster Wheel and Menace.

I also just recorded on a vibrochamp with my newly aqquired gibson 225 on a Martha Wainwright tune.

I think I read Joe Perry used them alot

I thought of Joe Perry right away. I've read that most of the early stuff with a Champ turned up to 10.

Joe Walsh, Rocky Mountain Way slide solo - tweed champ

Don't forget Funk #49, Telecaster through a Champ.

One of my all-time favorite tunes!

Winnie

Joe Walsh, Rocky Mountain Way slide solo - tweed champ

I was in some little vintage guitar shop in southern California (maybe around Santa Barbara) 10 years ago or so. The owner had a tweed Champ for sale that he said had belonged to Joe Walsh and was used on Rocky Mountain Way. Being a distrustful sort, I passed on it. But I've always kinda wondered...

any great ones i am missing?

Clapton on layla
Steve cropper used them i think......
of course the rolling stones....
didn't Jim Campilongo say he uses champs on some stuff?



I never heard of the Stones using Champs. Interesting. Do you have more info on what songs/tracks/albums? Man, I just love the Stones (and Champs!).



Don't forget Funk #49, Telecaster through a Champ.

One of my all-time favorite tunes!

Winnie



+1

Fantastic song, great tone, and awesome riff... I play this song so often its like hypnotized chickens.

I know I may catch some flak for this, but... Clapton's guitars on "Layla and Other Assorted..." sounds terrible to me. One RARE case of a Champ that sounded very bad - IMO.

Still... its still a guilty pleasure for me to crank up "Bell Bottom Blues" - IDK why that song is so great to me, but I love the hell out of it!!!

I read somewhere that the Stones use Victoria 518s (Victoria's Tweed Champ copy) on their more recent albums. Don´t know specific tracks, but I think for the last two or three albums.

Saw them a few month ago in a stadium FOR FREE. Say what you will about their greed and wheelchairs, but they were great.

Still... its still a guilty pleasure for me to crank up "Bell Bottom Blues" - IDK why that song is so great to me, but I love the hell out of it!!!

Well, he had a pretty good tone on that one! His tone on "Layla" leaves much to be desired, IMO. I love that album (my copy is pristine 1st-pressing vinyl), for the most part, but it's not about guitar tones. Eric hasn't equalled Bluesbreakers for tone, and I don't think he will. He has occasionally had some recorded tones since then that, while they aren't "great" by themselves, sit so well in the track and really take them to a different level. These really stand out in my mind...

Forever Man
See What Love Can Do
River Of Tears - That slide tone, and the techniques of lagging behind the beat and wide vibrato

When I think of great tone, the only Clapton tones that come to mind are from Bluesbreakers.

some of the tones on layla are good, but yeah some are a little screechy. he says he set his bass on 0 on that album, i wonder why?

i think i remember eric johnson saying that the tone on that album was his favorite.... (or was it the bluesbreakers album?).... i don't remember.

Don't forget Funk #49, Telecaster through a Champ.

One of my all-time favorite tunes!

Winnie


Zook, I was watching a Drew Carey sitcom one night. They had a scene in a small club type environment. The bass player was there with some small amp. A drummer with a small kit. Joe Walsh walks out with a tele, plugs into a Champ and starts that Funk 49 thing. It was for real. Lot of fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pXQARDNjR4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pXQARDNjR4)

:razz:

Champ?

I never heard of the Stones using Champs. Interesting. Do you have more info on what songs/tracks/albums? Man, I just love the Stones (and Champs!).

Yes the Stone used Tweed Champs. There was an interview in Guitar Player 1990 issue that Keith Mentioning that he used tweed Champs for recording Stones songs along with High Power Tweed Twin.

I read an interview years ago with Joe Walsh,and he said that he used a tele and a Vibrolux for Funk #49............

Yes the Stone used Tweed Champs. There was an interview in Guitar Player 1990 issue that Keith Mentioning that he used tweed Champs for recording Stones songs along with High Power Tweed Twin.


Yeah, but which ones?

I'm dying to know more.

The tweed Twin does get a lot of use live, but when it comes to recording - its a crap-shoot... who knows what's used when and on what songs...

This kind of info is like gold to a Stones fan like me! Feed my brain!!!

Zook, I was watching a Drew Carey sitcom one night. They had a scene in a small club type environment. The bass player was there with some small amp. A drummer with a small kit. Joe Walsh walks out with a tele, plugs into a Champ and starts that Funk 49 thing. It was for real. Lot of fun.

Something like this makes me think about getting a television again.

We live without TV. There's a DVD player and a screen for watching movies in the house, but that's it. I really don't miss it.

I saw Joe and Booker T and the MGs in the Crossroads festival video doing Funk #49.. That song really gets me, like Johnny, I play it so often the dogs know the tune.

Winnie

Yeah, but which ones?

I'm dying to know more.

The tweed Twin does get a lot of use live, but when it comes to recording - its a crap-shoot... who knows what's used when and on what songs...

This kind of info is like gold to a Stones fan like me! Feed my brain!!!

http://web.vip.hr/rollingstones.vip/keef/GPdec92.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pXQARDNjR4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pXQARDNjR4)

:razz:

Champ?

I couldn't get an good eye on that little amp that is being mic'd just to the
drummer's right, but Wood is pushing whatever it is hard with that Dan Armstrong Lucite. Cool guitar. He probably had the hot lead pup loaded in it.

I was in some little vintage guitar shop in southern California (maybe around Santa Barbara) 10 years ago or so. The owner had a tweed Champ for sale that he said had belonged to Joe Walsh and was used on Rocky Mountain Way. Being a distrustful sort, I passed on it. But I've always kinda wondered...

Was that Cowboystar? Down my the beach, once block off State?

Tequila

Tequila
"The Champs"....did they use more than one Champ? :lol:

Well - I don't know if they qualify as famous but I used my vibrochamp on two tracks on "Heaven Is Creepy" ... Hamster Wheel and Menace.

I also just recorded on a vibrochamp with my newly aqquired gibson 225 on a Martha Wainwright tune.

Jim,

I had heard that Martha's new record was being recorded at Allaire Studios in update NY. Did you record up there or ship it to her digitally? I dig Martha (and her brother).

http://web.vip.hr/rollingstones.vip/keef/GPdec92.htm



I always enjoy reading/hearing Keith interviews.

Thanks for that link!

I always enjoy reading/hearing Keith interviews.

Thanks for that link!

No Problem. I'm trying to fine his Nov 77, April 83 Guitar player interviews.

"The Champs"....did they use more than one Champ? :lol:

I can't put my hands on the picture right now, but I seem to remember their press kit showed them with a selection of piggybacks, probably a Showman, a Bassman, and a Tremolux.

Steve cropper used them i think......



For most of the 60's Steve Cropper used a Harvard for the Stax recordings.

I can't put my hands on the picture right now, but I seem to remember their press kit showed them with a selection of piggybacks, probably a Showman, a Bassman, and a Tremolux.

Yeah, I am sure that a press kit release would not show a back back in those days with a Champ or a Harvard or anything else that was not as big as the band needed for live venues. They had to have bigger amps back then.
REcording...that would be another thing.
anyway...mas tequila, por favor. NO salt, lemon on the side, please. Leave the waitress at the table....por favor again.

No Problem. I'm trying to fine his Nov 77, April 83 Guitar player interviews.

I'll look too...

If you find that Nov 77 let me know, that's the month and year I was born :)

I'll look too...

If you find that Nov 77 let me know, that's the month and year I was born :)


Ok. Probably on ebay

Well, the Nov '77 GP doesn't give much info on recording amps. Keith mentions that they used Vox amps early on for performances. He is asked if he is still playing on Ampegs. He said that he was, but that he had just started using Mesa Boogie. He wanted to put the Boogie through the PA.
NOthing about your birthday, JC.

Well, the Nov '77 GP doesn't give much info on recording amps. Keith mentions that they used Vox amps early on for performances. He is asked if he is still playing on Ampegs. He said that he was, but that he had just started using Mesa Boogie. He wanted to put the Boogie through the PA.
NOthing about your birthday, JC.


HAHAHAHA

Are you sure my birthday wasn't mentioned? HAHAHA

On the Chuck Berry DVD "Hail, Hail Rock and Roll" Keith does have a lot of Mesa's with vertical 2x12" cabs onstage.

When I saw them last November in L.A. (wait a minute, there seems to be a November Stones theme with me lately) Keith had quite a few amps onstage, but I noticed the tweed Twins the most :)

Between Champs and the Stones, I could be happy talking about these two subjects until next November.

Yeah Keith mention on his Web site that Mesa Cabinets are there to hold the amps. The Twin aren't plugged into the Mesa Cabinets at all.

On the Victoria site there is a clip of Can't you Hear Me Knockin that sounds pretty true to the original. It's played on a 5112, the Champ clone with a 12" speaker. My new 5112 is sposed to be here tomorrow.:smile::cool:

I guess something's come out, then. In Tom Wheeler's "The Soul of Tone," page 245-7, he describes The Champs as posed with three Professional Series amps, two combos and a piggyback. And the piggyback appears to be in brown Tolex.


(Edit): the picture is on page 30 of Teagle & Sprung, "The First Fifty Years..."

Ref. the ancient original post on The Champs:

I can't put my hands on the picture right now, but I seem to remember their press kit showed them with a selection of piggybacks, probably a Showman, a Bassman, and a Tremolux.

I guess something's come out, then. In Tom Wheeler's "The Soul of Tone," page 245-7, he describes The Champs as posed with three Professional Series amps, two combos and a piggyback. And the piggyback appears to be in brown Tolex.

Ref. the ancient original post on The Champs:

There is a picture on page 30 of the Sprung and TEagle 'Fender Amps' book showing The Champs with exactly that arrangement...a piggyback and two combos. The bass player is sitting in front of the piggyback set...?the literature says that it was a prototype piggyback amp.. Showman? while the guitarist are sitting in front of the combos. The combos appear to be one 4X10 ?Concert? and a 1X15 ?Pro or Vibrasonic?. Just guessing...

That Drew Carey episode...wasn't that Joe with Jim and Dale of the classic James Gang lineup? It's been a while since I had seen that one.
I had read in an interview with Stones guitar/amp tech Chuck MacGee (sp?) that Keith and Ron would use Champs in the studio for recording. Don't know if they ever used them live though.

Don't I remember hearing that Gilmour used a Champ on some recordings? I don't remember which songs. Anybody know about this?

My favorite CLapton tone was Cream era with the Les Paul and Marshall tone.
Blues Breakers was great too and that tone was carried over for the early Cream stuff. I have the old BBC recordings live and his tone was just fantastic. Really makes you wonder why he ever changed gear - just makes absolutley no sense. But I think tone is kind of a mystery to EC and he just doesn't understand it.

Yes - it's a documented fact the Stones used Champs in the studio both Tweed and non-tweed (Black faces).

I read somewhere that the Stones use Victoria 518s (Victoria's Tweed Champ copy) on their more recent albums. Don´t know specific tracks, but I think for the last two or three albums.

Saw them a few month ago in a stadium FOR FREE. Say what you will about their greed and wheelchairs, but they were great.

They may be still great but I wish that Old Rubber lips would have kept his mouth shut about politics like most celebs that don't know crap. Even Keith as screwed up as he is thought it was a bad move!

JohnnyCrash; I never heard of the Stones using Champs. Interesting. Do you have more info on what songs/tracks/albums? Man, I just love the Stones (and Champs!).

Read this article, a few Champ references though not to specific stones songs.

http://www.geocities.com/abexile/keithintgpl.htm

Chabby, I wonder if that's why Clapton has that midrange boost on his signature strats...to get that quasi-overdriven humbucker sound? :grin:

[QUOTE=JohnnyCrash;899225]I never heard of the Stones using Champs. Interesting. Do you have more info on what songs/tracks/albums? Man, I just love the Stones (and Champs!).QUOTE]

I remember reading an interview where Keith says he likes to play a Twin, and slave a "little Champ," something he said about getting VOLUME from the Twin and TONE from the Champ....wish I could find that interview again....

Chabby, I wonder if that's why Clapton has that midrange boost on his signature strats...to get that quasi-overdriven humbucker sound? :grin:

Yeah, sometime I read an interview with him where he said that's pretty much exactly why that is in there, 'to play the old Cream numbers' or something like that.

steven

Don't I remember hearing that Gilmour used a Champ on some recordings? I don't remember which songs. Anybody know about this?

I have not heard anything about specific song but he has said something along the lines of: "when you get some of those small fender amps in a small space and miked up right they can sound massive"

My favorite CLapton tone was Cream era with the Les Paul and Marshall tone.
Blues Breakers was great too and that tone was carried over for the early Cream stuff. I have the old BBC recordings live and his tone was just fantastic. Really makes you wonder why he ever changed gear - just makes absolutley no sense. But I think tone is kind of a mystery to EC and he just doesn't understand it.


I think that Clapton can hear the difference perfectly well - he just didn't want that Cream/Bluesbreakers thick warm sound anymore. He was done with it, had gone through a lot of personal changes and wanted a sound that was deliberately "small" in comparison.

It would be hard to imagine Clapton's big hits of the '70s being done with a Gibson/Marshall sound. The songs he wanted to do no longer fit that mold.

I can relate. My first electric was a Les Paul, and it was just way too "big" sounding for what I had in mind - it was like threading a needle with boxing gloves on. I was glad to sell it to someone who wanted to play rock, because I didn't want to do that at all. Fine guitar, just wrong for the application.

Clapton doesn't understand tone? Interesting viewpoint.

I think he just decided he preferred a minimal, funky, dry sound like so many blues players and other minimalists like JJ Cale used. Now he's a little of both with his Strat through a tweed twin.

He was getting away from the massive jams and more toward the songs then.

They may be still great but I wish that Old Rubber lips would have kept his mouth shut about politics like most celebs that don't know crap. Even Keith as screwed up as he is thought it was a bad move!

Don't you just love Keef. His sole purpose is to play music and he does it so well.

Barnes, Tazzboy put a link to that interview on page 1 of this thread, where Keef talks about that in a 1992 issue from Guitar Player.

From the Interview:

Small amps?
Yeah. Champ or a little Silvertone, a Kay thing. I've got these little relics lying around, all of those weirdo amps. Bump that one up, use the other one for clear, and then you can mix the two in where you want them. It's very rare on a track that you want the same sort of distortion all the way through. I like to be able to play with it, so I can bring one amp up. Put them on separate tracks, so you can juice the distortion where you want it. You have the opportunity to play around with it after you've played it, because when you're playing it, you're not going to hear exactly what's going down on the tape. You've got the cans on.

Also if you read the late amp Doctor Cesar Diaz he mention also that Keith and Wood used Tweed Champs in the Studio

http://www.tonequest.com/pdf_pubs/samples/TQRDiaz.pdf

http://home.comcast.net/~jimlinehan/Images/kay1471_01.jpg
I picked up a champ-like Silvertone 1471 not long ago... I dime it and plug in the tele, and damn!! First thing the tone insprired me to play was Funk49...

I have yet to play around with the tubes, but I do have a few varying types to try in there in the preamp to see what differences I can (or can't) hear.

This was the beginning of the end of the BF tone for me... I used to live for the Ronnie Earl tone (used a Pro Reverb to get me there), and thought I'd never be happy with anything but 6L6 amps (like the Holland L'il Jimi I just sold), but the Silvertone opened up my ears... next up is a 5e3 clone I sold the Holland to fund. Mmmm... small tweeds!!

From the Interview:

Small amps?
Yeah. Champ or a little Silvertone, a Kay thing. I've got these little relics lying around, all of those weirdo amps. Bump that one up, use the other one for clear, and then you can mix the two in where you want them. It's very rare on a track that you want the same sort of distortion all the way through. I like to be able to play with it, so I can bring one amp up. Put them on separate tracks, so you can juice the distortion where you want it. You have the opportunity to play around with it after you've played it, because when you're playing it, you're not going to hear exactly what's going down on the tape. You've got the cans on.

Jim...nice little box. I was reading about the virtues of Silvertones in a recent ish of Vintage Guitar. I call those the pawnshop prizes. Wish I still had that little Alamo amp from 25 years ago. But if I knew at 12 what I know now at 37...:neutral:

Silvertones are going up in price all the time not as bad as Fenders but they are getting a following.

I seem to recall reading in Guitar Player a long time ago (late 70's early 80's?) that Eddie Van Halen used to love playing thru a dimed Champ in his little practice room at home, rather than the big rigs.

[QUOTE=JohnnyCrash;899225]I never heard of the Stones using Champs. Interesting. Do you have more info on what songs/tracks/albums? Man, I just love the Stones (and Champs!).

This is an excerpt from an interview with Keith Richards. He used a Champ on occasion.
"Traditionally, how would you go about getting a nice distortion?

Traditionally, I'd set up that Twin and maybe slave a little Champ. Put it through the both of 'em and then mix. if I'm looking for some kind of distortion, I usually use two amps rather than go for it out of one thing, because I've always found that a really good distortion needs to come from two different places. Obviously it's not true for "Satisfaction," where it's an obvious thing, but you want some distortion and some clarity at the same time where you need it, so I'd rather put it through two amps and overload one of them.

Small amps?

Yeah. Champ or a little Silvertone, a Kay thing. I've got these little relics lying around, all of those weirdo amps. Bump that one up, use the other one for clear, and then you can mix the two in where you want them. It's very rare on a track that you want the same sort of distortion all the way through. I like to be able to play with it, so I can bring one amp up. Put them on separate tracks, so you can juice the distortion where you want it. You have the opportunity to play around with it after you've played it, because when you're playing it, you're not going to hear exactly what's going down on the tape. You've got the cans on."
http://www.geocities.com/abexile/keithintgpl.htm
can see from earlier posts that what i have added is redundant.

I seem to recall reading in Guitar Player a long time ago (late 70's early 80's?) that Eddie Van Halen used to love playing thru a dimed Champ in his little practice room at home, rather than the big rigs.

When my BF Champ is dimed, it is too loud. I have to hide behind a couch.