Tatoo Amplification Custom 22 Watt Plexi Head

This amp was custom made for me in Oct 2003. Very versatile for my type of music which runs from the cleanest of cleans to the gainiest of gains. But I'm mostly a classic rock type player and this amp is great for that. This monster is a take on the 50 watt Plexi but with a twist, Tommy from Tatoo suggested an amp where I could swap different power tubes from 6V6s to 6550s and everything in between and with the external bias test points its as easy as pie to do that. Another cool thing is you can use either a solid state or tube rectifier. Its a single channel amp with the high treble and normal channels that I bridge like a Plexi or any four input Marshall. No loop, no channel switching, no reverb or anything else to clutter the circuit. I had Tommy wire the preamp to a Marshall Lead & Bass specs and let him use his knowledge for the rest. I'm not just a bedroom player so this amp also sees band use where it shines just fine.

Les Paul with EMGs, V with EMGs, Ibanez with EMGs and a Strat with Texas Specials all see use through this amp and they all sound great through it. As mentioned above, I play everything from clean to highest of gains and with the volume rolled back on my guitars, it has a sweet clean especially with the Strat. The EMGs push the heck out of the front end so you dont get as clean buts its passable in a band situation. When the Paul is plugged in and the amp cranked it kind of reminds me of a Paul Kossoff of Free type tone which I prefer anyway. Goose the front end with a Fulldrive and I can launch into Man In The Box without a problem. This amp can do just about any type of music you want but dont expect to get that from channel switching cause it aint in this one. Your going to have to use your volume and tone controls to manipulate this amp. Whats cool is the ability to switch power tubes as mentioned above. I like using the 6V6s at home to tame the volume but use EL34s with the band. I have also tried 6L6s and like them as well. I need to pick up a pair of 6550s and see how these work but suspect I would have the cops called on me for volume issues though I am WAY out in the boonies!

This is really a no brainer as the amp is hand wired PTP and the workmanship is just top notch. What I couldnt fix if there was a problem, Tommy would take care of it and turn around the repair quickly as he loves what he does and it shows in his work. I wouldnt take any amp to a gig without a backup. Thats asking for major trouble and if you can afford a backup amp, take it.

This is a category that cannot really rate Tommys customer support. His support is off the scale of 1-10. I can email him just about anytime and if I dont have a response within an 8 hour working day I'll be willing to bet you money I'll have a reply in the morning waiting for me. Whats cool is, not only has he built 2 amps for me, I also consider him to be a friend though I have never actually met him in person. Hes funny, easy to deal with and will work with you to deliver an amp that is of the highest quality at very reasonable rates. I cant see any other amp builder I would want to deal with for the simple fact that Tommy knows what hes doing and always delivers. I asked him some questions about cicuit changes and tweaking and he promptly sent me a schematic to have fun with. Cant beat that! Tommy is also working on some other cool designs and I look forward to hearing from him about them. I also have a couple of amps that need to have a checkup and will send them down to Tommy but I have a hard time letting 'em out of my sight!!

Been playing for 20+ years and have owned my share of amps and guitars. I would certainly have Tommy make me another if something ever happened to this amp. What I love about it is its simple and straight-forward without a million knobs. Its easy to get a great sound out of it with just a few knobs and some tube tweaking. Nothing I hate about it except taking the cover off to change power tubes when I'm in tweaking mode!!