'59 Gibson Les Paul, Fender Relic Strat with '85 & '89 Trainwreck Express amplifiers
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- Glen Kuykendall in the recording studio comparing two original Ken Fischer built Trainwreck Express amplifiers. About as rare as they come, the late Ken Fischer only built around 100 amps in total. Played with an original '59 Gibson Les Paul Standard, and a Fender Relic Strat. NO pedals used, no EQ or dynamic compression applied, a touch of reverb added at mix down.
www.glenkuykendall.com
So great to hear 1. Someone who can play. 2. Beautiful Guitars 3. NO use of overdrive or distortion or delay pedals, 2 Stunning Amps. Shows what a Great Amp can add to your tone !!!
I am a jaded guitarist with tons of experience as you are... I am not impressed easily but sir you have amazing tone and are a very tasteful player.
I am a former student of his, it's always inspiring to hear and see Glen play. Tiago
RUclips thinks I like this video because they've been suggesting it for 10 years. Rather, I've been watching this video for 10 years so RUclips must think I like it.
Glen, This is the best video I've found demonstrating ANY amp on YT. I appreciate your use of right hand attack, bending a note to feedback without picking it, and using the amp as an instrument. Brilliant!. I play a 1961 Fender Showman and a modified JTM50 clone. Although we're after slightly different "beasts", I admire your playing and appreciate the time you put in (as I do) scrutinizing every nuance of your playing. It shows! Being a single coil guy, I love Lori. She sings like an angel!
Among the very best sound perfomances I had the real pleasure to ever listen ;-)
Mr. Glen... Thank you for your amazing playing.
great playing, precious amps and pure sound. Life does not get better than this. thanks for sharing Glen.
Thank you for uploading this video which made me a believer. I went and bought Trainwreck Express Cherry Lynne and Im really happy with it.
Like you, I have some Pre-Henry 1959 Les Paul's and there is nothing like a burst and a real Trainwreck Express.
Kenny was a genius! He puts a smile on my face every time I turn his amp on.
All the best to you in your musical endeavors. Your a great guitarist. I have done a few videos with my Trainwreck. Not as good as yours but it was just fun to document the tones. I wouldn't sell my Trainwreck for any amount of money.
That tone doesn't have a price. Nothing sounds like it or even comes close.
Kenny's amp has brought great joy into my life.
I'm very sad I did not get one in the 90's.
In those days, I was to hung up on my old Marshall Plexi's and small box 50's.
We live and learn valuable lessons in life. Ken Fisher will always be the king in my book.
Glen , I follow you on youtube for some time . Congratulations for your sound and musical ability ! The Trainwreck's are stupendous , thank you for keeping the memory of Ken Fisher alive and to share these beautiful sounds. Hugs from Brazil.
Can't get enough of that 59 les paul sound through that trainwreck. You really have a cool sound. Your playing seems smoother and more natural on the Gibson than the Fender. You have a connection with that guitar...
That strat in the beginning is all the money. Excellent sound!!!
Still the BEST guitar tones ever put in a video!
This is my favourite amp tone ever, thank you!
Sounds wonderful, so great to hear one of my first guitar hero here on RUclips. Thank you Glen for inspiring a bunch of kids from Herndon to play!
Spectacular demo. Great playing, GREAT TONES! Those Strat pickups are so clean! I feel Lori wins, that blues tone is INSANE!
Thank you! The early Express amps are known more for their bluesy character, where as the later amps are more rock amps. I agree Lori sure fits that style well, and has a great feel when you play it as well.
Very simple and tasteful skills young man demonstrating your wonderful toys. The right player, guitar and amp together with a stool and mic can give a show who needs a rhythm section. Certain guitars and amps prove that wood, metal and electronics in the right skilled builders hands can be a beautiful thing. Both these amps are great!
Thank you for demonstrating the amp and guitar sounds, and not showboat of your playing ability. Great tones and sounds from both amps and guitars, Lovely.
Yes I have Fralin "Vintage Hots" pickup sets in both my Callaham and Relic Strat. I have the optional steel plate on the bridge pickups like a typical tele would have. I also have a Suhr hum cancelling back plate on my Relic. Thanks! GK
Hi Glen, Great amps and great playing! Thanks for posting!
This is truly wicked guitar playing..I aspire to this. Thank-you!
Thanks for the beautiful new clip, Glen! I still listen to your album regularly! People interested can find it on Glen's website!
They both sound really fantastic!
Easily the best amp demo I have seen.
LOVING the tone from both amps and guitars.. Wow.
Amazing what a proper amp, guitar and player can do.
I'm more impressed by your fantastic playing Glenn than the amps. And I really love those amps!!!! Rock on brother!!!
Really solid demo. The WGS ET65 speakers are an immense upgrade for this style of amp. Those marshal celestions are way to harsh and have some fuzzy-ness but honestly this demo sounds bloody incredible, perfect spectrum of clean to overdrive throughout the GTR volume knob range.
Great touch.
Absolutely stunning tone and playing once again Glen! What a great way to kick off a Monday morning, listening to this!
J5
Glen, honestly you have inspired my tone, the way I use amps, and my guitar controls. Even though I don't own a Trainwreck, God willing one day I will. I really appreciate your love for tone.
Killer playing through some of the best sounding amps ever built. Well done as always!!!!!
I always enjoy your videos, Glen. Still listen to your CD, too. Unbelievable talent!
What a fantastic demonstration of two brilliant amps but above all, what a truly gifted tone player. Your style of playing, light and dark or airy then hairy is awe-inspiring. I would love to see you up there on an EC Crossroads stage because I don't see this sort of talent often enough. Producers should be knocking your door down to get you on records and on world tour. Amazing. More please.
Excellent video, Glen! Love your tone & playing!
Man this is some good playing!! Amps sound phenomenal and great dynamic playing. Can’t pick which guitar I enjoyed more. Hard to beat a LP but the strat was over driving nicely too. I would have a hard time figuring that was a strat. Great thickness from the amp overdrive. Awesome thanks for sharing this!! Rock on
Hey Glen, it Spencer, just thought I would drop by. I'm still playing! Thank you for all the lessons!
Soooooo sweet...!!! Incredible tone and dynamics
always good to check out yer vids greg,you demonstrate the touch sensitivity (magic) of these amps so well-thanks
Simply amazing, gorgeous tone!
Man this was very enjoyable to just sit down and listen to from start to finish. Thanks for this.
You're not kidding! I totally agree! Best tone on the Internet. Ever.
And the definition of "tasty playing!"
Great tone! I just aquired a Trainwreck express clone...sounds very similar to these amps... its the closest I can get right now... :) thanks for the fine demo Glen! cheers
Not 1 but 2 holy grail amps. Your an amazing player by the way 👏
Hi Glen, I am from Germany and I like your playing and your tone so much. I love your approach to great guitars and great amplification. You saved so many sleepless nights (beside my wife of cause). Have you ever thought about playing in Germany? We are so many players and enthusiasts here bored about the acts we can see here...
i like the clean in the '89, the shmutz from the '85. i knew ken, he was my amp repairman. he was selling those amps in that era for $600. unfortunately, i didn't have that kinda extra dough back then (obviously $600 was worth more then). anyway, nice playing, guy.
I come back every year to watch this video. Imo the strat tones into Orphan Annie are the pinnacle. I've never heard anything that even comes remotely close to the sound and harmonics coming from that pair. The 59 is a beauty but that strat and Annie are something special that I don't think can be duplicated.
Back for my yearly listen, never disappointed, greatest trainwreck tones recorded.
cant get enough... tone and your playn to match... thanks
Hey Glen,
I love your stuff. You're one of my unsung guitar heroes and I dig the Trainwreck. I can't stop listening to the stuff from 3:00 to 4:20-ish. Sounds great!
Great amp, but great player as well.
A totally earotic experience. Well done!
Great playing and extraordinary amps! I like that natural fat bottomed end. The amp followes the natural frequencies of the guitar and does not change the nature of it.
Crazy cool. The amps compliment your awesome playing very well. Well done!
Beautiful tone !!
That looks like it is about as much fun as you can humanly have. Holy shit that was awesome! Thanks Glen! I love the combination of ash and a maple neck strat and the Fralins just sound fantastic. I have a Vintage Hot in the neck of my strat and underwound Blues Specials in the middle and bridge. I would have to say though that I think the strat and the '89 and the Lp and the '85 was the best match up. They complimented each other, to my ears, the best. Thanks again, that was a great way to start my day!
I actually used to talk to Ken Fisher believe it or not the guy who built that amplifier..
I know exactly what it is and how he built it.
I know the exact schematic he copied it from.
People used to think he copied it from a Marshall plexi amplifier because that's the way it sounded.
But was simply copied from the bass channel of a roughly 1964 fender basman head!!
All he did was modify the caps and resistors to get rid a lot of the bass added a mid-range control and presence that in the original schematic were resistors.
And obviously was obsessed with other factors like using solid core wire, and layout..
You could tell easily because it goes from clean to dirty with one knob.
That fender bassman schematic the way fender did it on the fender bass side had the tone controls in between the gain stages.. that's why fender amplifiers didn't have as much gain as Marshall the tone controls would take out the gain as you use them.
So if you turn the tone controls it would actually turn the gain up and down along with the frequencies in the normal channel they would be very little gain because of this.
But in the bass channel Leo fender added one more gain stage after the tone controls to get some gain back!!
This setup was excellent to make an high Gain amplifier and that's exactly what Ken Fisher did.
If you notice in a typical Marshall plexi the tone controls are at the end which is why they don't do a lot and don't affect the gain as much therefore you get more gain more distortion.. but you also got a lot of uncontrollable bass that's why a lot of people put a distortion pedal in front of Marshall amplifiers to tighten up the low end with the tone control..
You will notice with the fender design with the extra gain stage at the end and the tone controls robbing one of the gain stages. When you turn the bass down you can actually get rid of the loose bottom end and some of the bass gain.. this is also case for the middle and treble controls.. with this type of design you really don't need a distortion pedal in the front of the amplifier to tighten up the low end cuz you really can control the gain in the tone at the same time in specific frequencies..
KEN FISHER WAS SMART BY USING THIS DESIGN FOR A HIGH GAIN AMP.
It really is crazy how people went nuts about this very simple design that Ken Fisher stole from fender bass channel on the fender bassman head and made an amplifier out of it..
Such a simple design he really didn't do much more than basically copy the plexi capacitors and resistors and keep the fender design just to strip out some of the bass and just made a whole amp out of it.
I think he was selling these amplifiers for around $2,000 back in the day
Now they're worth $10,000 because he died and there's a mystique about them
Ken was great a great amp builder known as a guru you really thought a lot of things made a difference like solid core versus stranded wire where is other engineers think it doesn't make a difference.
But anyways just thought I'd give you my insight.
FYI on my 1964 fender bassman head I actually installed a pot on the gain stage and took the resistor out so I can get as much gain as I need.
A true powerhouse virtuoso amplifier and the genius Leo fender did it again was ahead of his time and he didn't even know it.
😂🤣😂🤣
Thought I would add that Fender did make an attempt at an overdrive amplifier. It was the Fender Prosonic. Like all amps, they have a great back story. The highly sought-after amps are the ones Bruce hand built in at the Lake Oswego plant. I have two. The half stack Lake Oswego and the Lake Oswego combo amp. These amps just rock. They sustain forever. Have you looked into them?
Glen, you are a master player.
Nice job Glen. Cant wait to hear the new CD. Let me know when you are coming home to the DC area. Would love to see you play.
Thanks for the post! My CD is actually sold out, however it's all up on ITUNES for digital download.
Lovely player and great sounds.
Wow. Beautiful! And I like the padded vault. ....er .....recording studio.
That Strat sounds phenomenol. I'd love to know which Fralin pickups you have in there. That is one fat sounding bridge pickup.
I think they're Vintage Hots if I'm not mistaken (he said it in another video). I have the VH's also, they're great sounding.
Awesome,Two express"s yet very different.Really cool.Your vidios inspired me to build 3 ,Thanks Man
the best sounding amo ever!!!!!! both of them i like the 85 clean and the 89 rock like you said!!!
Hi Glen. They´re like two beautiful sisters. One of them just had a few whiskeys more :-) Like them both. You can play, man!
You are the King of tone........................I read around you also have a '68 superbass 100, I have the same amp, I would love to hear it with a '59 LP if one day you'll record it...I'm desperately searching for a 52 conversion, I have already the PAFs to slam in it, your videos are one of the reasons of my GAS ;-)
Gorgeous set up!!
When it's all about how it sounds. Terrific sound, ditto on the playing.
Damn that´s some juicy tones and some fine playin´ !!!!
Hey Glen! sounds fantastic as usual! . I really love the sound of the new amp1 seems a little tighter or more focused than O.A ! both are insane great sounding.
Anyway, thanks for the clips !
Mr Scratch.
great playing ... great ton... amazing...
So sweet. I'm about to build an express clone, and this gets me so pumped.
I'll have to be very careful to , never ,compare my build to this video 😂
Man I've been watching this video every year since he put it out. These are some of the best tones recorded period. That strat into Orphan Annie are what dreams are made of. No pedals, just a cooking amp, guitar, and hell of a touch. Just straight up nasty. If you come anywhere near any of these tones you're a lucky man and have succeeded. Good luck man, post your success if you feel good about it.
It even sounds heavenly on my phone lol. I'll be building a clone as.close to exact as I can manange. And I plan to build a cheap version in a hammond organ chassis for comparison. It will take me some time. But maybe a comparison video will be in order !
Great great sound Glen !!
You got it, I'm running NO pedals here! However once it was tracked I added a little bit of reverb during mix down, though I didn't add any compression or EQ. GK
Zeven years ago already......................where are you Glen? I am also a Trainwreck player and I love your original Ken Fisher's build.
Thank you!
There is one real guitar player! awesome man
Amazing Glen!!
Awesome playing man !
Very good chops!
Great video ! It would also have been fantastic to have seen a Tele and 335 included .
@Scottcrestline If you have to ask what it cost, you probably don't want to know.
There where about a hundred Trainwrecks built by the late Ken Fischer. If you are able to source an original it'll cost well over 20.000 USD. There are some pretty nice copies out there, some DIY (starting at around a grand) and some built by name brands.
These amps sound awesome, but aren't the most practical as they know only one setting and that's about 116dB
The '85 sounds way better. They both are clean up very nice and seem to be very responsive. I just like the tone of the Lori quite a bit better.
The BEST molten lava tone ever! WOW!!!!!!
Man the '59 sure is sweet!
Tasty playing, GK.
Just great! Much sustain! Nice greetings from Germany!
Wonderful!
Thanks for watching!
Lovely - all of it.
RIP Ken Fischer. Those amps do have a certain something different about them, but there is NO mistaking that Trainwreck TONE! I've never been in the presence of either, but I would choose one of those over a Dumble any time....probably have a better chance of getting Ken to work on it, too from all I've read about Go....I mean Mr Dumble. lol
I check out your vids for many reasons. sometimes to try to pick up a technique, sometimes for inspiration to build amps ... but mostly to keep my ego in check
i enjoyed listening to this video
Hi Glen. It's Lori!
So good. So very good.
I'm currently trying to build a express style amp for my own personal enjoyment. I know you built some clones. did you source all your own parts? kits? I was wondering what might be good to go with in your opinion. I was looking at the triode electronics kit and the rj kit. the rj comes with pacifics and the triode with classic tone. just curious about what serve me well in the personal use and enjoyment only realm. the rj seems to come with all the right stuff so to speak
wow no pedals? best amp made ever!
They really truly are. So many amp builders claim to capture this kind of sound but sadly,vanishingly few succeed and there aren't many T.W's left for us tone starved tube hounds. (even assuming you had the bread to be able to afford one!)
Sounds awesome!
No disrespect to the obvious great amps in use but 99% of the magic is from incredible playing!!
The amp volume changed a little from clip to clip. No less than 1/2, but as much as 2/3 on the '89 and 3/4 on the '85. The pots in the '85 are different than the '89 and come on a bit slower. All the tones stayed on half and the bright switch was off throughout, though I think the bright switch might have been useful for the LP slide clips as a LP is pretty dark without a pick. No I didn't use any attenuator, short of some ear plugs that is!
Thank you for sharing this with all of us, Glen! Outstanding playing and amazing tone throughout!
Could you let us know what tubes were in the amps when you made this video? I'm curious.
I'm pretty sure in this video I had RFT EL34 output tubes in both amps. I had old long plate Sylvania 12AX7s in all 3 positions on my '89 Express. Not NOS by a long shot, as I've been juggling a few old Syvanias in that amp I've had since the early 90s. They are pretty microphonic (but still sound good) so if I'm in the studio I usually don't stack the amp on the cab. In the '85 Express I'm not sure what preamps tubes are in it, but that amp came to me with those tubes and I haven't been tempted to mess with them. That said V1 & V3 are "RCA" labeled tubes that say Made in Great Britain (perhaps they are Mullards?) and V2 is an "A.R.C." labeled tube that says made in West Germany (perhaps it's a Tungs Ram?). Other may know more but all three preamp tubes are probably made by different companies then their respective labels indicate.
Glen, have you had a chance to play through the recent John Mark Trainwreck for comparison? Curious to know how they compare to an original Ken Fischer TW..