George Dennis Mighty Mouse MkII 112 Combo

I bought this amp used. The features were described in the two reviews below. But my amp has a Celestion G12K 100 speaker.

At the beginning it took a little bit to getting used to the controls of the overdrive section. It has only three knobs (gain, contour, volume) and two toggle switches for treble boost and a three way mid shift. But this is quite enough.

I played many amps (Marshall, Crate, Engl, Kitty Hawk, Peavey). This amps were all good amps, but none of them was without drawbacks.

The Mighty Mouse, has a very clear defined sound and it is very versatile.

I play self made guitars with humbuckers, P 90 and lipstick PU.

This is my AMP!

Don't know. The amp is about 6-8 month old.

George Dennis is a very kind man! When I got the amp, I wrote George some questions by mail and he answered and helped on the same day.

A long amp odyssee ended with the Migthy Mouse!

I purchased this amp new a few weeks ago from a local vintage guitar shop that sells a few quality amp brands. I originally was going to check out a Groove Tubes Soul-O-30. But the guys who work there told me to check out this amp, cuz they thought it was better. This amp is very compact and not too deep. It is a 4xEL84 design with two channels 3x12AX7 including tube-driven reverb. The store orders their amps with the Celestion Vintage 30 installed, which is an upcharge according to the GD site. The amp has two channels (clean and overdrive), a high quality remote footswitch for channel 1/2 (red LED) and reverb (green LED). The cabinet is 11-ply birch and comes covered in either a salt/pepper tweed or a black tolex both with a silver grill and GD emblem on front. The s/p looks really cool but I opted for the black cuz I figured the tweed weave could be harder to clean (think spilled wine). This amp is designed with well thoughtout controls and switches that allow you to tailor the optimum sound to a single coil or humbucker type guitar. I cannot explain all of them here, but check out the GD website manuals for more info. On the back are controls and in/outputs for a parallel effects loop as well as a direct out XLR output for running into a board or PA. The only thing lacking is an extension speaker output. A closer look reveals very clean, tight, and sturdy build quality. The transformers are MASSIVE, which results in a total weight of nearly 50 lbs. This is by far the heaviest amp for its size I have ever come across.

Let me preface by saying that I have played guitar and keyboard for over 30 years. And I have owned many many guitars and amps. My first amp in a high school band was a Fender 65 blackface Vibrolux, and my current amp stable includes a Fender 57 Tweed Twin Reissue and a Mesa/Boogie F-50. My guitar stable includes a PRS McCarty Archtop, Fender CS 59 Esquire, 62 Reissue Strat, 66 Mustang, and 52 Telecaster. Back to the sound... Well, honestly, this little amp creates not one of the best--it creates THE best sound--out of my guitars of all the amps that have come before it. Starting with the clean channel: it sounds very very close to classic Fender blackface. And it can get LOUD LOUD LOUD clean sounds. The Mesa F-50 gets a lot of press about the great clean sound, and I agree that it is very good. But the MM Mk II has an even better clean channel and can go at least twice as loud as the Mesa (and I mean SOUNDS twice as loud--not 3 dB louder). The overdrive channel is just as impressive. The pure tone and dynamics of this amp create a sound that is just "right." You don't have to fiddle here, fiddle there to tweak a good sound. The MM Mk II works together with your guitar so that you can FEEL your sound. Clean spank with some reverb (think Green River)--it's there. Slight overdrive crunch ala RS Exile on Main Street--it's there. Full out ball blasting AC/DC type growl--it's there. Using the front panel toggle switches to refine the sound allows you to get ALL OF THE ABOVE SOUNDS ready and waiting by just using the channel switch and your guitar's volume pot. High-dB metal is probably a stretch, but I know of NO amp that can do metal and get the rest of the sound types I described right anyway. And the BIG bonus is that the amp is much quieter at idle in clean or overdrive mode than the Mesa. I really must applaud Mr. Dennis on the latest design of this little amp. It is a true performing and studio monster of an amp. I only wish I had found an amp like this years ago, but at that time the MM Mk II did not exist. Maybe it is the Vintage 30 speaker that he uses, I don't know. But everything combined together results in a true tone monster. Words really do not do this amp justice.

It is hard to give a rating here, since the amp is not old enough and been through enough abuse yet. However, I did have the amp in the back seat of my truck for over a week bouncing around quite hard. When I plugged it in, the amp had not one single rattle or hiss. I am giving it a 10 just because the build quality surpasses most of the amps I have have owned in the past, which is many.

I can't rate George Dennis, but the guys at Solid Body Guitars--Brian and Ken--were totally cool and receptive to anything I might need. The day I purchased the amp, they told me a number of times if there was ANYTHING I felt the amp needed they would be willing to check it, tweak it, change tubes, etc. until I was totally satisfied. GD can be proud of the way they represent his product!

I would give this amp a 12 rating if I could. The sounds I can get out of this little loud box are nothing short of stunning. I am critical about tone and have a good ear. My sister plays first flute with the symphony, so it is "in the family." I know everyone has their own opinions, but to me the Mighty Mouse Mk II is a near perfect example of design and execution in an amplifier. If lost or stolen, I would not hesitate to go back to Brian and Ken and lug another one out of their store. George Dennis should really be proud of this amp!

I purchased the Mighty Mouse MkII (MM2) in August/September of 2004 on Ebay. New, in the box with Manuals and registration cards. Completed reg' cards and the manual was couple of sheets of A4 paper with very simple and extremely easy instructions of use and care.

The MM2 is a little bigger than a Mesa Boogie Subway but not as deep. The one I have is finished in dark blue tolex and a denim type looking speaker cover. The amp is an EL84 Tube amp but doesn't sound like 'just a vox' even though it can easily produce the vox sound. The tone that I have managed to get out of it vary from warmer than normal Boogie MkII to U2 Edge to Brian May tones.

It has two channels with independent volumes. The Clean channel has Treble, Middle, Bass, Volume and three toggle switches; Treble Shift, Mid Shift and Treble Boost. The Lead channel has Gain, Contour, Volume and two toggle switches. Treble Boost and a three way Mid Shift. Although both channels have independent volumes, all EQ and Toggle switch settings are carried over to the Lead Channel.

On the rear of the MM2 and a Parallel FX Loop with blend control, one 8 Ohm speaker out, reverb sensitivity for Lead Channel, a footswitch socket for both reverb on/off and channel select and it has a balanced DI (probably post pre-amp and pre-power amp, not tried it yet as mic'ing a cab is always best!).

Because the toggle switches are really useful and all configurations produce very usable tones, I wish this amp had footswitches that allowed you to patch in different configurations of the toggle switches.

Marked as an eight as due to comments in the previous paragraph otherwise would have been a 10. Come on George - a little more imagination please.

Guitars - PRS Custom, Fender Strat '57 reissue with Kinman Vintage pickups, Fender Tele '72 Blondie with Bill Lawrence Pickups, Gibson Les Paul Gary Moore signature MkI.

My style ranges from Folk/Country to Blues (preferred style) to Rock (no grunge crap!). TO me, it's all about Tone! The amp is not noisy until you kick in the spring reverb - the FX Loop is silent so if you have a digital reverb, use it!

Like I mentioned in the previous section, loads of differences in tone are achievable from this amp.

Does the clean channel distort at high volumes? This is 48W of Class A (some argue A/B) EL84 Tube, this amp is way too loud to crank up all the way even in a band practice. However, the amp did come with a JJ ECC83 preamp Tube for the Clean channel and these are thick and very clean sounding so the distortion is late. I have changed this for a Harma 12Ax7/7025 tube that is more of the U2 Edge/Queen/Radiohead tones and breaks up earlier. This tube does work well but I do find myself swapping between the two in the studio depending on material.

The Lead channel is not "Heavy Metal/Grunge" World thank goodness. This is a quality amp intended for tone not shredding. The amp came with an Electro Harmonix 12Ax7 tube for this channel and I was not impressed with it at first. I have since swapped this out with the GrooveTube/Mullard 12Ax7/ECC83 remake tube and this little baby really does rock. The only thing is with these two tubes now is when the Lead channel Gain is cranked pass 8 on the dial, you start to get that wonderful crunched, compressed blues type tone. This can be limiting and does make this channel a "Lead" channel rather than a 2nd Rhythm channel.

I have also changed the speaker from the stock Celestion G12H 50W to a WeberVST speaker. This little amp really does rock now. The only I would say is that if you are going to get one these, get a decent attenuator, this little gem is too loud for small clubs.

Not needed servicing yet but the insides look very well put together and care in assembly is very visible. I would be confident in using just this amp in any gig without a backup.

I have e-mailed the company a couple of times with questions about Tube configurations and the details of how the toggle switches work so I can investigate building a custom footswitch with MIDI for the toggle switch options.

The first time it took a few days to get back to me. It has only been a couple days since I ask about the toggle switches and I haven't heard anything yet.

Please keep in mind that there are loads of boutique amp builders out there all selling the same product and they all sound different. Just because I am happy with this amp doesn't mean that the next person will be. Try it out and when you do, crank the volume passed 2.5 and this will give you an idea of what the amp really sounds like without blowing your ears.

I would have this amp up against a Boogie Maverick, Cornford, Marshall BluesBreaker, Vox AC30 and a Fender Bassman and using different toggle switch settings, you would hear strong flavours of them all in this little amp.

At the low price that I purchased this amp for, it is amazing. If I were to pay full price then I would expect a better speaker and better tubes along with a more versatile footswitch. This amp has loads of potential and for another #120, this little gem sings! I am very happy with this little amp and for all my playing years, this is yet the best amp for tone I have had, better than my old Hughes and Kettner and old Boogie Studio 22 - although they still have there place in particular types of music. Marking this section as a 9 due to limited footswitch.