Tatoo Amplification Flash 50 Combo

I've got a custom-made Flash 50 combo amp (made March 2003). I designed the cabinet myself, and Tommy at Tatoo Amplification had it built for me. It has 2 Celestion Vintage 30's in it. At the heart of this combo is the Flash 50 amp: a single channel, 50 Watt, all-tube, high gain monster of tone! Providing this sonic nirvana are three 12AX7 preamp tubes and two EL34 output tubes. This amp is completely handmade with all the best components available. Tommy made no compromises regarding tone. Therefore, this amp doesn't have all those extra bells and whistles that pure tube tone enthusiasts don't need (effects loop, line out, channel switching, blah blah blah). What it does have is an advanced EQ section for you to dial in your signature tone, including: Resonance, Presence, Bass, Middle, Slope, and Treble. The Slope control is the secret weapon that makes this amp so unique and extraordinarily versatile! It is like a midrange frequency control, which sets the mids from a darker to a brighter tone. The gain control can take you from clean to crunch to all-out balls to the wall tube saturation! There's a master volume as well. Features 4, 8, & 16 ohm speaker impedance outputs. I also had Tommy install an external bias knob on the back panel ('cause I like to swap tubes a lot). I give this catagory a 10 because this amp truly allows me to get the exact tone that I desire without the added distractions of extra features that I don't need and don't want sucking away my tone!

SOUNDS AWESOME !!! My setup is nice and simple: Wolfgang guitar - Budda Wah (w/ true bypass) - Flash 50. I run this amp at full gain and use my guitar's volume knob to go from cleaner to dirtier sounds. This amp gives me the exact tone I'm looking for, which is somewhere between Jimi Page's tone and Eddie Van Halen's tone from his early years (with the Marshall Plexi head). I play all types of ROCK music from one extreme to another (mostly original music with my band). I've played a lot of great sounding amps, but this amp has much more bite and attack to it than anything else I've played. I use it as my main gigging amp, and it cuts through my band's extremely loud mix with headroom to spare! To put it simply this is the best sounding amp that I've ever played, hands down! And I've played 'em all!

So far, so good! This amp is handmade with reliability in mind. The circuit card is very well soldered, and Tommy's work is extremely NEAT and TIDY. All wires are neatly tied together making even the inside of this amp aesthetically pleasing, hehehe. I can tell that a lot of care was taken in the making of this amp. I gig without a backup (although I'd like to eventually have Tommy make me a backup), but always with spare tubes. Although, in the 9 months that I've owned this amp, so far no tubes have blown.

Tommy at Tatoo Amplification responds to emails so quick, I can't believe it. He loves what he does, and it shows in the way he treats his customers. When I first was interested in buying a handmade amp, I had dozens of questions, and Tommy answered each one in detail! When I received my amp the casters on the flight case (that another company made for Tommy to ship it to me in) were destroyed, but Tommy reimbursed me for the cost of new casters, no questions asked. So far, the amp has performed without any problems, but if it did have a problem, I know Tommy would fix it right away for me.

I'm 22 years old and have been playing since I was 12. I play in a very serious gigging band... I'm not just playing in my bedroom. Unlike most tube-amp enthusiasts, I didn't grow up in the golden age of vintage hand-wired tube amps. But in my search for good tone, I inevitably found myself looking back to the roots of guitar amps. It just seems that lately most amplifier manufacturers are going about things all wrong. I'm extremely proud of my guitar playing, and I don't like amps/effects that hide it! I love this amp because it is honest. You hear what I play, nothing more, nothing less. By the way, although this amp is handmade with the best parts you can find, it doesn't cost you a fortune! It costs about the same as any other high-quality tube amp. What's with those $3000 Soldanos and Mesa Boogies? They don't even compare to this thing!