tone4days
Heel Whacker
well, folks ... Scott_F sent me his Franklin 15 to put through its paces so i spent the better part of the afternoon playing it with my tele-clone, my PRS, my brian moore, and my ibanez artist ... i gotta tell you, right off the bat, it looks like total class sitting on an amp stand in my practice room / computer room ... as soon as i turned it on, i knew it was going to be a top shelf experience because i heard ... nothing ... absolutely nothing ... it was dead quiet with the amp on and the volume on my tele clone (pickup switch set for neck and bridge together in parallel) turned up to about 8 ... i set all four of the controls to about 9:00 ...
strumming a Bmin7 chord at the 2nd fret with a medium R.H. attack, the amp bloomed forth with a very warm sound ... very well balanced, each note of the chord was clear in the blend ... noodling around some minor pentatonic licks showed that the amp was very responsive to pikcing dynamics and very unforgiving of sloppy chops (partners in crime with a tele in that regard) ... i flicked to the neck pickup and rolled the tone pot down a tiny bit and started some jazzy comping (fingers only) ... very clean and warm sound without a hint of brittleness or hollowness or muddiness ... the middle was most pronounced and the notes of the chord gave a organ-like quality where each note dissolved somewhat into the others, exactly what i hope for when playing with fingers only ... clicking over to the bridge pickup only, it got clucky clean and i started my poor approximation of chicken pickin' and country-esque steel guitar licks ... brought the tele to life as each note snapped out of the speaker with clarity and punch ... not even a hint of ice-pick, yet plenty of 'sting' on those bent 15th fret notes ... cranking the tone and volume both up to 8 revealed the first fun surprise ... this amp gets gritty very easily ... put me right into 'early stones' mode and i was hammerin' on the 'honky tonk woman' and 'brown sugar' riffs very convincingly ... some might say that this reveals 'limited clean headroom', and i suppose that is true ... but for recording and for bedroom practice, it was plenty loud before breakup .. and once it broke up, it was hella fun
so then i decided to give it a kick .. cranked the 'volume' (i thought of it as the preamp, or 'gain', control) up to about 12:00 ... i put the 'master' up to about 10:00 ... the gritty overdrive grew into a real roar, but it didnt have as much mids or lows as one might want .. so i notched the master up to 12:00 and OMG !!! ... clicking over to neck + bridge, serial (it's a 4-way), the tele became a monster (i had to back up a couple feet) ... it was amazingly thick, like i had never heard it ... i actually played the main riff from AC/DC 'back in black' and got a smile on my face ... i am not saying that it sounded like an SG through a huge marshall, but i am sayin that it sounded very heavy and clear even in its grind ... it wasnt buzzy or fuzzy or sizzly, just very excellently heavy ...
i tried to find something that it wouldnt do .. so i tried for a santana/gary moore tone .. bingo, i found the first thing it couldnt do .. but after all, it was a tele ... so i went for the brian moore (it has an AIIP neck, if that wont do it, nothing will ... (tbd)
strumming a Bmin7 chord at the 2nd fret with a medium R.H. attack, the amp bloomed forth with a very warm sound ... very well balanced, each note of the chord was clear in the blend ... noodling around some minor pentatonic licks showed that the amp was very responsive to pikcing dynamics and very unforgiving of sloppy chops (partners in crime with a tele in that regard) ... i flicked to the neck pickup and rolled the tone pot down a tiny bit and started some jazzy comping (fingers only) ... very clean and warm sound without a hint of brittleness or hollowness or muddiness ... the middle was most pronounced and the notes of the chord gave a organ-like quality where each note dissolved somewhat into the others, exactly what i hope for when playing with fingers only ... clicking over to the bridge pickup only, it got clucky clean and i started my poor approximation of chicken pickin' and country-esque steel guitar licks ... brought the tele to life as each note snapped out of the speaker with clarity and punch ... not even a hint of ice-pick, yet plenty of 'sting' on those bent 15th fret notes ... cranking the tone and volume both up to 8 revealed the first fun surprise ... this amp gets gritty very easily ... put me right into 'early stones' mode and i was hammerin' on the 'honky tonk woman' and 'brown sugar' riffs very convincingly ... some might say that this reveals 'limited clean headroom', and i suppose that is true ... but for recording and for bedroom practice, it was plenty loud before breakup .. and once it broke up, it was hella fun
so then i decided to give it a kick .. cranked the 'volume' (i thought of it as the preamp, or 'gain', control) up to about 12:00 ... i put the 'master' up to about 10:00 ... the gritty overdrive grew into a real roar, but it didnt have as much mids or lows as one might want .. so i notched the master up to 12:00 and OMG !!! ... clicking over to neck + bridge, serial (it's a 4-way), the tele became a monster (i had to back up a couple feet) ... it was amazingly thick, like i had never heard it ... i actually played the main riff from AC/DC 'back in black' and got a smile on my face ... i am not saying that it sounded like an SG through a huge marshall, but i am sayin that it sounded very heavy and clear even in its grind ... it wasnt buzzy or fuzzy or sizzly, just very excellently heavy ...
i tried to find something that it wouldnt do .. so i tried for a santana/gary moore tone .. bingo, i found the first thing it couldnt do .. but after all, it was a tele ... so i went for the brian moore (it has an AIIP neck, if that wont do it, nothing will ... (tbd)
