The big sell for me was playing a show with Dinosaur Jr, who if you aren’t familiar are tone/volume snobs. During soundcheck I had my Blackface Showman running on 40 watts and the soundman freaked out about how loud I was. I said “fine” and unplugged it. I had the minuteman in my car, plugged it in and told him to mike it.It was the best sounding show we ever played at that venue (Orang Peel, Asheville).

The Gibsons do have a different voice, and my Duo-medalist kinda looks like a dehumidifier, but they have been the most versatile amps of any I have worked with. Granted, finding a tech that knows how to service one can be a challenge.

Ignore this post. I don’t want them getting expensive.

I wish people would stop bashing these for being something they aren’t. It’s like people who hate hot dogs bashing hot dogs for not being hamburgers, without every bothering to understand the hows and whys of the difference between the two. So you want an amp that distorts more? Fine, but that doesn’t make a clean amp a bad amp. It just makes it something outside your preference. As you say, this is a fantastic pedal platform and provides some absolutely lovely clean sounds of its own.

The first channel was basically a microphone channel, back in the days when microphones were unabalanced as well.