Wampler Triple Wreck Review

The mighty Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier! A favorite in the metal scene Mesa Boogie's Triple Rectifier is known for brutal scooped tones and boatloads of gain. I've spent time with both the Dual and Triple Rectifiers and they are extremely versatile amps. Clean sounds, crunch sounds, classic rock sounds and of course copious amounts of gain on tap. For a while I got tired of them, every local hard rock and metal band seemed to have a PRS guitar and a Rectifier on stage and they all scooped out their mids till you couldn't hear their solos?!?! But I like Mesa gear and have found that it takes a little getting used to and that you have to spend some time to tweak it till you get the absolute best sound out of it.

There are some people who are blessed and will own 7 different amps for various occasions but most of us will only have one or two. So what happens when you like that sound but it's not ever going to be your main sound? What do you do? Enter amp in a box pedals like the Wampler Triple Wreck. Brian Wampler has built a business around getting the feel and sounds of some of the more monumental amps, everything from blackface to Plexi's to Soldano's. To make it even better they are designed to sound great through less expensive amps. I picked up the Triple Wreck almost a year ago, and while it will never be my main sound I've found it to be a very versatile and useful tone tool.

The first thing you notice about the Triple Wreck is that it has a lot of knobs and switches. There is an active EQ section, volume and gain settings as well as a foot switchable boost contour knob. One of my favorite switches is the Voicing switch at the top that changes the gain from a hard tight sound to a looser "brutal" sound. One thing to note is that most of these knobs are very interactive so don't be surprised once you've dialed in the right amount of gain if you need to change it if you move the bass knob or vice versa. Like all Wampler products I've checked out these things are built like a tank, so no worries about them breaking down at a gig.

The first thing most people are going to try and dial in is a heavy shred-tastic sound that rectifiers are known for. I found the leaving the voicing switch on Hard and pulling back on the bass while bring up the mids is perfect for this. Interestingly I never had the bass above 1 o'clock. In fact I start all of the EQ knobs at noon and tweak from there. As I stated earlier this is a very versatile pedal. Roll back the gain for just a bit of breakup and set it up for a brighter in your face sound and you can nail Foo Fighter tones, now push it with a TS9 or a RAT type pedal for leads. I really love this sound

Of course one of the things I use pedal for is brutal downtuned modern rock sounds a la Slipknot. I talked about using this pedal for Jim Root type sounds here. Even though Jim is associated with Orange amps for the last few years he used a Dual Rectifier on the first couple of albums. Set the voicing to Brutal, put the gain around 2 o'clock pull back the treble and mids and bump up the bottom end a bit. Boom, now grab a guitar with EMG's or any hot pickups and play Before I Forget. (hint, it helps if your tuned down to drop B but you don't have to.)

While not useless I haven't found a lot of love for the boost switch on this pedal. Yes it gets a bit fuzzy, and it overdrives the bottom end of the sound. But it's not what I would call a great fuzz sound. I would love to see a version of this with an adjustable mid boost but we'll have to wait and see what Mr. Wampler has up his sleeve. So if your looking for a versatile modern amp sound check out the Wampler Triple Wreck.

This review was completely unsolicited, I received no compensation for it and all views and opinions are my own.

Joe Bonamassa Gear Guide

ADHD's Gear Guides at any Budget. I'm a firm believer that the tone comes from the hands. If your trying to achieve a certain guitar hero's tone you have to not just have the chops but you've got to get down their style of attack with your picking hand as well. That said every step you take toward finding the right gear is often very inspiring and WILL get you closer to “that” sound. I'm going to break these down into Guitars, Pickups, Pedals and Amps.

Joe Bonamassa Gear Guide.

Joe Bonamassa is perfect guitar hero for the modern age. He penchant for vintage and boutique gear, his DIY attitude in promotion and touring and his monster chops all come together to create a modern guitar hero in an era that struggles to find stand out musicians.

Guitars – Joe has used a lot of guitars, but is best known for his love of vintage Les Pauls. He has also used Strats, Flying V's and Music Man's. He owns several 59 burst, but usually takes copies on tour with him as the originals are worth six figures each.

Gibson Joe Bonamassa“Skinnerburst”- Holy Moly! For the price of a good used car you can own a limited run copy of Joe's #1 59 Les Paul. Even the most wealthy among us might pass on such an instrument but if you were to buy the real thing you'd probably pay 50 times that amount... ok maybe it's not such a bad deal.

Gibson Les PaulTraditional – With the Les Paul Standard changing quite a bit from the original die hard purist have turned to the Traditional line which is closer to what Les Pauls were in the early years. While not dead on to a 59 burst these are still everything you want in a Les Paul for the average guitarist. 

Epiphone Joe Bonamassa LesPaul– This Pelham Blue Les Paul takes the place of the Bonamassa Gold Top Epiphone put out a couple of years ago. It comes with Gibson Burstbuckers that Joe likes in his own guitars and is better built that the standard Epiphone Les Paul.

Pickups- While almost any PAF style humbucker will work Joe seems to like a slightly hotter than PAF humbucker in all but his original 59's

Gibson Burstbuckers- While the new Standards have Burstbucker Pro's Joe perfers the Burstbucker 2 in the neck and Burstbucker 3 in the bridge possition.

Seymour Duncan Joe Bonamassa Pickup Set- Joe's 59 Skinnerburst took a ride over to the Seymour Duncan custom shop where it was then measured and tested to get as close as possible to the real thing. The were released in a limited run with only 1959 sets of them being made. Contact the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop for more info.

Seymour Duncan Vintage Blues Set- This is a great sounding replacement set for any lover of classic blues rock. For a bit more grit try the Pearly Gates set, a copy of reverend Billy's 59.

Pedals- Joe likes to switch up his pedalboard quite a bit. But his basic sound is very straight forward. A wah, a fuzz, a few different low gain overdrives and a delay or two. He talked about his lack of need for pedals here.

Ibanez TS808- This pedal into a cranked up clean amp is the sound of everyone from Stevie Ray Vaughn to Gary Moore to... well, Joe Bonamassa of course. Not everyone is a fan of these but every guitarist should have one in their stash.

EHX East River Drive - My favorite budget version of the TS808 pedal. Period. When looking to make the best TS clone EHX founder Mike Matthews reached out to renowned TS808 expert Mike Piera of Analogman fame. They nailed it!

Way Huge Pork Loin – A very tweakable pedal, it features a blend knob to mix your clean and the new drive. It also has several internal trimpots to change the sound.

Dunlop Joe Bonamassa CryBaby- One of the flagship wah pedals from Dunlop it features full sized electronic components and none of the surface mounted components that some people feel robs tone. It also has a switchable buffer, which Joe leaves on but you can turn it off if your fuzz doesn't play well with it.

Dunlop Joe Bonamassa Fuzz Face- Fuzz Faces don't always play well with humbuckers, Joe's Fuzz Face is the exception. It sounds fantastic with a slightly hot humbucker and now there is a Mini Fuzz Face version.

Fulltone Supa-Trem – Many people including Joe consider this be the most natural sounding Tremolo sound outside of a Fender Deluxe Reverb.

BossDD-3 Delay- Hold on a minute, this isn't vintage or boutique. Nope this is as straight forward a Digital Delay pedal that is made. And it rocks.

Fuchs Cerberus Tri-Mode Overdrive- This isn't used by Joe but his main sound is a blend of Marshall's, Dumble's, and Fender's. This pedal by renowned amp builder Andy Fuchs is designed to give you all three.

Wampler Plexi-Drive- Wampler's amp in a box pedals are a great way to expand your tonal pallet without spending money on another amp. This one does everything from a JTM45 to JMP. Their Euphoria is a great alternative to the Dumble.

Amps- This is a tough category. Joe relies Marshall Silver Jubilee heads and Dumble clones. These can get expensive, especially with Jubilee heads being bought up by Mr. Bonamassa and Mr. Slash and Alexander Dumble's amps running the price of a house in some places. But don't worry I've got some ideas

Marshall DSL100H – This thing is a favorite not only of metal guys but blues rock guys like Gary Moore and Joe Bonamassa. It sounds great at low volumes, but also comes in a 40w and a 15w. Crank up the clean channel and throw a TS9 up front and the magic starts to happen.

Fender Blues Junior- These are great little amps used by people for more than just blues, it covers the Fender spectrum in spades, add a Wampler Euphoria pedal and your gold.

Fuchs Full House 50 - The casino series from Mr. Fuchs covers Dumble sounds and vintage Marshall-y tones all day long. With a built in boost, channel switching, fantastic sounding reverb and amazing touch sensitivity this may be the only thing you need other than a guitar and a cable.

Egnator Tweaker- When these came out they were all the rage in internet chat rooms and for a good reason. They are well built, flexible, and take pedals well. They also sound good at lower volumes which can't be said about all tube amps.

Obviously there are a lot of alternatives out there but these are a great place to start your tone search. 

ADHD thoughts on Clones and Forgeries

Clones vs Forgeries

 It's no secret that a lot of pedal makers have taken Tube Screamer circuits and changed out certain components to achieve a similar, but different sound. They've done the same with Big Muff circuits, Fuzz Face circuits and a host of others. This is taking an idea and adding something that they felt is lacking in the original design or using better components and trying to create a better version of it. It's fun and creative and a lot of pedal builders seem to start off this way, as more and more people become aware of what they are doing. Analogman and Keeley both offer their version of the tweaked Tube Screamer with slightly different sounds than the current reissue. So, if you buy a current reissue TS-9 and would like it sound slightly different you can do the research and send it to someone to tweak.

For the purpose of this discussion I'm going to refer to clones as something where they have copied a circuit often using cheaper components, but are naming it differently and the pedal looks very different than the original. I've talked about the Joyo Ultimate Drive which is a clone of the Fulltone OCD. The parts are cheaper, the battery door doesn't close and I wouldn't expect it to stand up on the road like a Fulltone. I've also read that some of the Joyo pedal clones are closer in sound quality than others.

A forgery on the other hand is made to look identical and may or may not be sold to an unsuspecting buyer as an original. The forgery often uses inferior components and it may sound similar, but is rarely as good the real thing. Once again, I wouldn't expect it hold up if your thinking of touring with it. 

But I know the argument

Several years ago I worked for an artist supply store where we sold a brand of airbrush that was very expensive, at one point one of our sales reps brought us another airbrush that was identical for less than a third of the price. As it turns out, the more expensive brand was having this company build their product for them and now the manufacturer was re-branding it under another name and undercutting them. A lot of our artists were thrilled to have a high quality airbrush for $60 instead of paying the premium price of almost $200.

With a little bit of research you can find instructions for building fuzz pedals for $25 in parts. So, if a pedal builder is doing this and selling it $200 I can see where people would be upset. Visual Sound is a company who make no bones about the fact that their pedals are built overseas, they make a very good sounding and durable product at an affordable price. Most companies buy at least some of their parts overseas because they are not manufactured in the USA.  MXR and EHX both use overseas parts, but do their final assembly and quality testing in the US. Both are very affordable. 

What to look out for

So what about the forgeries? I read a sad story the other day from a dealer who said that a guy brought in his new guitar for a setup. He had just bought what he thought was used, but good condition Gibson Zakk Wylde Bullseye signature guitar off of eBay. It was a fake. This guy had spent a great deal of hard earned money on this guitar and it was not a very well built guitar. These new forgery pedals have the logos and looks and possibly the similar sounds, but are not built well. If you got a great deal on a used Wampler Triple Wreck on eBay only to get it and realize it's not as good as the one your friend has would you be upset? Or worse, if you got one and didn't have one to compare it to and it broke or didn't sound good would you then trash Wampler to your friends? Then talk about what a piece of junk it was? Now, you're hurting an honest guy who has worked hard to build a great business. You might even like the real product. Do you see where this goes? No where good. Nothing good comes of it. Something else I would like to add is that I believe that this happens in the Vintage guitar market more than people would like to admit. If someone can fake a guitar that sells for 30,000 dollars for under $1200 I'm pretty sure someone is doing it. 

It comes down to: know your product, know your supplier, know the return policy, and if a deal looks to good to be true, it probably is. I'd like to add that while we hear a lot of about these awful Chinese companies who are ripping off companies, I think that there are a lot good companies in China who are trying to better their quality and make an honest living. 

Know your product

A Few Things to Think About

A few companies like Lava Cable and VFE pedals make every effort they can to buy quality parts from US manufactures. This of course creates more jobs in the US, but you may have to pay a higher price. It should be noted that both Lava Cable and VFE have more affordable options in their lines that are priced at similar price points to their overseas competitors.

Having a pedal won't make you a better player. I really do believe that the sound of your guitar and amp is the most important thing. If you're not happy with that sound you probably won't be happy when you add in a pedal. If you like to learn and research stuff, there is a lot you can learn about building circuits so can you build a pedal that sounds the way you want. 

I've read a lot of interviews with smaller builders and they often talk about tolerances in electronics. They may specify a certain value in an electronic component but when they receive their shipment they often find that they have to test and sort each little component one by one to find the ones that actually are within acceptable limits. 

 Something else to think about is that if your not supporting the creative people who are creating and designing these products they won't keep doing it if they aren't making a living. They will be forced to go do something else. Most of these guys aren't making a fortune, they are creating a business that supports their families and sometimes a handful of other people. 

I think that there is a market for most of these different types of builders. Whether they are tweaking a circuit, building a clone, or trying to come up with something completely original. If their goal is to provide affordable quality options for real world musicians that is a worthy goal. If their goal is to only buy parts for their products from their home country, whatever that country is, I think that is awesome and patriotic. I personally would like to see more transparency from companies, I appreciate what Visual Sound does, as well as companies like MXR and Wampler and Analogman. But I drawn the line at forgery.