I am REALLY trying to get an OLD SCHOOL 21 Mad Pofessor amp!

[Bobby D]

that looks REALLY GOOD in black/white

[strings2wood]

that looks REALLY GOOD in black/white

Looks like the perfect place for your kitty kat to sit on Bobby D
(perhaps not when you're doing a demo).
There's a white H happening on the front there.
I think its a tonal Da Vinci code message possibly for Harri K???
Kinda got the crop circle left by tone aliens in the middle too.....
Kinda spooky huh?
I'd love aliens to land in my lounge room and leave one of those.
Sweet.

[mikepick]

So I got a chance to really turn it up yesterday and experiment.

It's not as loud as my DR, but I was playing with a drummer and had no problem keeping up. With the master all the way up and the gain to 1 o'clock it starts to break up. I hit it with a boost and was able to get more overdrive than I need.

Even with the gain all the way up and the master at 12 to 1 o'clock position if I played softly the amp clean up incredibly good. Just like one of my old Fender's if not better. This amp is very touch sensitive. The overdrive on it reminds me of my brownface. The distortion is smooth yet has some crunch to it. Kind of hard to explain, it just sounds really good.

As I stated before the amp has a pretty wide tone range especially due to the cut control.

There is something about the cabinet. It almost seems to have a slight echo when you play, which I find to be very pleasing. It sounded so much bigger and tighter than my DR. I tried some delay but once the amp starts to overdrive the delay just doesn't sound that great, even with the DBD.

It's not as pedal friendly as my Fenders, but all I really needed to do is crank it and use my volume knob, maybe a boost here and there for high gain and I had all my overdrive needs covered.

There is no rectifier tube in the amp. Bjorn said he left it out due to some unwanted side effects that rectifier tubes can produce.

I mostly played through my Tele with relatively low output Fred Stuart pickups. I used my buddies Grosh with p-90's and WOW. The amp screams with a higher output pickups, didn't even need a boost pedal.

I might try swapping the speaker with a Celestion Gold that I have in my brownface, but for now I will leave the one in there to break in.

I really love this amp.

[melodichaotic]

So I got a chance to really turn it up yesterday and experiment.

It's not as loud as my DR, but I was playing with a drummer and had no problem keeping up. With the master all the way up and the gain to 1 o'clock it starts to break up. I hit it with a boost and was able to get more overdrive than I need.

Even with the gain all the way up and the master at 12 to 1 o'clock position if I played softly the amp clean up incredibly good. Just like one of my old Fender's if not better. This amp is very touch sensitive. The overdrive on it reminds me of my brownface. The distortion is smooth yet has some crunch to it. Kind of hard to explain, it just sounds really good.

As I stated before the amp has a pretty wide tone range especially due to the cut control.

There is something about the cabinet. It almost seems to have a slight echo when you play, which I find to be very pleasing. It sounded so much bigger and tighter than my DR. I tried some delay but once the amp starts to overdrive the delay just doesn't sound that great, even with the DBD.

It's not as pedal friendly as my Fenders, but all I really needed to do is crank it and use my volume knob, maybe a boost here and there for high gain and I had all my overdrive needs covered.

There is no rectifier tube in the amp. Bjorn said he left it out due to some unwanted side effects that rectifier tubes can produce.

I mostly played through my Tele with relatively low output Fred Stuart pickups. I used my buddies Grosh with p-90's and WOW. The amp screams with a higher output pickups, didn't even need a boost pedal.

I might try swapping the speaker with a Celestion Gold that I have in my brownface, but for now I will leave the one in there to break in.

I really love this amp.

Hey Mike,
Thanks for the review! That all sounds very cool--wish there was one I could try around here--So I have a '57 GA 40 that sounds fantastic and two 50's GA 20's that are also little tone monsters...since you have a DR and a brown Vibrolux(I have a brown Deluxe at one point but the GA 40 blew it away), how does the OS 21 sit with them tone-wise aside from the master volume--you say the overdrive reminds you of the brownface--I would imagine that because of the solid state rectification, that it is tighter and more focused and doesn't get "splatty" at all(Harri's and Bobby's demo of the proto sounded pretty tight to me).

Also, how would you qualify the clean sound? Ha, Donnel is wondering about the psychology of GAS, and this is how it starts--asking questions, getting info, building up a simple and elegant reason to stay in denial and FEED the addiction.

[mikepick]

Hey Marty,

Wow now I have GAS for a GA-40.

Your right the OS-21 is much tighter than the Vibrolux. The solid state rectifier makes the overdrive tight with some crunchy goodness.

The clean is great. I don't like it as much as my Fenders, but I like the overdrive from the OS-21 much more.

The clean from my Fenders is more transparent and I think that's why they take pedals better than the OS-21.

If I had a choice of an amp without the use of pedals it would be the OS-21 because of the ability to go from clean to overdrive depending on how hard I strum.

[mikepick]

With my volume knob and the Ruby Red it covers all my overdrive needs. This amp is so touch sensitive it ridiculous. Much more so than my Fenders which really surprised me.