Fab Amp Scamp Combo

Rob Franklin (the FabMan) made me a custom stereo Scamp power amp. That's two completely separate channels each involving a small amount of tube preamp gain driving an SE 6V6 poweramp.

Rob and I e-mailed extensively (the archive is a 60 page word document, so far) about features; selected some, left out others intentionally. It has pentode/triode switching, tube/SS regulator switching, regulator sag resistor switching, hi/lo inputs, tube-driven line out, preamp FB control, and power amp phase switch. It does not have tone controls (on purpose). The regulator controls make less difference than I thought they would. If I were to do it again I'd leave these off. During the design discussion, I did not appreciate the large voltage swing required at the input to a power tube; thus the low-gain input requires ~50V or more to really drive the 6V6 tube. If I were to do it again I'd leave off the low-gain input and concentrate on an exceptionally clean pre-amp stage.

Powerwise, it sings its little heart out. It does have to breathe pretty hard to keep up with the band, though. But you can't expect any different from a SE 6V6 amp.

The amp was conceived and designed to be an exploration of SE 6V6 tones and does that very well. I play mostly Fender tones with a Fralinized Strat and use AlNiCo Eminence and Weber speakers.

The line-out of a THD Univalve drives the high-gain input nicely.

The amp has very good sensitivity and dynamics and moves very smoothly between clean and moderately overdriven tones. The overdriven distortion is characteristically (for an SE amp) mild, and to my ears at least, sounds great.

It is slightly noisier than my Univalve but not so much so to be troublesome. It is much quieter than the average regular Fender or Marshall tube amp.

Rob and I chatted about build quality as a result of another HC post. He agreed that it was a concern in his early amps but that practice was making perfect. That's pretty well borne out by my inspection of the amp as it arrived. Nice twisted leads, well-dressed wires, well done all in all. No breakdowns but have only had it a few months.

Rob is a great communicator, a talented amp designer/builder, and genuinely wants his customers to be completely satisfied. I haven't had any troubles with the amp but have no doubt that he'd stand behind the product.

I've been playing for about 20 years off and on. I use both tube amps and digital (Line 6) gear and each has its place. While sampled amps can expose you to an incredibly wide range of playing and listening for next to nothing, tube amps (especially combinations of amps set for different tones) generate the tones I always come back to and allow for my most rewarding playing. Enough soapboxing, back to Fab Amps:

If lost I would certainly replace this amp with a very similar unit from Fab. Fab has proved to be true to its name, both in the quality of the amp and the overall experience, at a fraction of the cost of other boutiques.

Amp handbuilt to order in 2005. 1 channel. Bright/low switch. Gain control. Speaker out. Slave out. 1x EF86 and 1x triode connected EL84 (Single Ended, Class A, 2 watt output). 8" speaker. I rate this a 10 because Rob Franklin builds the amp to your own specs, you get the features you want.

I wanted an amp to play at home and get a dirty blues tone at an acceptable volume level.

I play a Reverend Slingshot (P90's). Blues (clean and dirty) that's what I play and the Scamp produces just that. You can get a classic AC/DC sound too, no metal. That overdriven fat blues tone without getting deaf, a dream for everyone who plays at home. I almost never use my overdrive pedals anymore.

Sounds good with a Jensen 8" speaker: 8
Sounds better with an unknown 12": 9
Sounds best using the slave output into a 2x10" transistor amp (neutral eq settings, clean channel): 10

It's the best overdrive "pedal" I've ever heard.

I don't expect any problems.

Rob Franklin is very helpful. We wrote dozens of emails to nail down the specs of the amp. Rob answers any mail immediately and shares his knowledge easily. He was very helpful to get the amp to Europe for acceptable shipping costs.

Overall a 9 for the amp; a 10 for the overdrive pedal. Everyone should should try to obtain a (very) low wattage amp, they can deliver that overdriven powertube tone, without an angry neighbourhood. I just love it.

Gain, Master, Tone, Clipper, F/S Boost

Tone works sort of oddly. It interacts with the gain in nonintuitive ways -- in some gain/master positions, tone has virtually no effect on the sound and in others, it has a drastic effect.

Overall, pretty good. Every one should have a low powered tube amp. This is a single 6v6 amp running at triode mode for 2.5 watts.

First the negatives: the "clipper" dial that Fab installed claims to be something of an attenuator. It sounds pretty bad at anything other than the off position. It takes the fullness and meat out of the sound. I'm also not crazy about the gain range. If you turn the master fully up, and turn the gain up until the amp is just audible (i.e. gain on 1), you can here some preamp distortion in there. I would prefer to have at least some range over which the amp is clean.

The positives: You can get great power tube saturation at reasonable volumes. Too few people really how good this sounds. The amp has typical noise level -- not too bad, but not like a hifi either. With master at full and gain halfway up, you get a nice growling rock and roll tone. The amp seems to have a greater frequency response than some others I'm used to (a variety of new and old Fenders), rather than "smooth" and "midrange chimey" and "glassy" (if any of these make sense) I get a different sound. More of a growl, with greater string separation (again, if that makes any sense).

Everyone should have a low wattage tube amp. It just sounds so much better to have power tubes working hard, and you risk your hearing if you play with a 15 watter for too long. 15 watts is enough to play with drums, and is just not right for practicing by yourself.

This leaves a dilemna. Who makes something low wattage with tubes? Crate makes the VC508, which doesn't sound good. Electar makes the tube 10, which doesn't sound good. This leaves the boutique guys, which is a very expensive route, or buying used. Fab is a reasonable alternative.