I’ve been sick for the last week or so but a number of great new pieces of gear showed up at my house. I finally was able to play them after feeling a bit better and as usual, I’m very pleased with the new gear.
First up is a late 90s Rivera Bonehead, an amp designed either for or with Steve Lukather, and very similar to a Knucklehead Reverb. This amp is 100 watts, 3 channels, and has a really thick and full tone. The bass is quite loose but the transition from clean to distortion is very smooth as they share the same core tone and thickness. The clean channel, as expected from a Rivera designed amp, is a highlight with 3 pull switches and really fantastic tones. The drive channels both feel like they have a similar amount of gain, but with separate EQ’s they can be set up differently. They can nail a classic rock tone quite easily, and pushing into metal territory there is a characteristic grittiness to the tone that reminds me of the last time I played a Knucklehead - my best guess is the circuit is very similar between these just with some value and voicing changes in the Bonehead. All three channels also have a footswitchable boost which adds more volume and gain, as well as tightening up the bottom end on the gain channels, although it’s no substitute for a proper bass-cut boost pedal like a tubescreamer or SD-1 for more aggressive/modern metal tones. Overall, a very exciting amp and quite a bit different sounding from any other amp I have in the arsenal.
Next is a Ceriatone AH50 Deluxe, which is a point to point clone of the Friedman BE50 Deluxe. This amp has a much more sparkly clean channel, with a bright switch to make it even snappier. The two gain channels have that classic Marshall bark but with more gain, and adding the saturation switch on the rear panel pushes it well into modded Marshall gain territory although it may still need a boost pedal for heavier styles. The most noticeable difference after playing the Rivera is that this amp has far less bass and more upper mid cut on the gain channels. In fact, it feels almost anemic in the low end in comparison and I think this amp could probably use a bit more bass and low mids to thicken it up - but then I suppose the aggressiveness and tightness would be sacrificed. Still, I’m finding myself running the bass on 10 just to keep it thick sounding, and while I love the core tone it’s just a tad too thin sounding at my first playthrough. I’m going to keep tweaking though, and I can’t wait to compare it to the Ceriatone King Kong 50 that I also have - that amp has very aggressive gain and bright switches on the gain channel so I’m excited to test the two back to back. Two amps both designed to do that modded Marshall type tone but accomplishing it in different ways - awesome.
And the last thing - I picked up a new Mesa Mark IV medium head. Finally! I know have way too many Mark amps at this point but I really regret selling my original 1997 Mark IV medium head and this new one dates from 1999 and is a very close replacement - and sounds just as awesome as I remember my old one being. The combo amp has been sent back to Guitar Center, but I will sure miss that Celestion C90 speaker and will probably one of those speakers for comparison tests too.