At Roadhouse Vintage we are huge fans of Trainwreck amps. Through our friend, John Mark, we have learned a ton about Trainwreck and the history of these legendary amps with Ken Fischer, but also about the way they have evolved into the new models as well. These are one of, if not THE most incredible, truly handmade amps on the planet, and what follows is a chat with Danny Muro and John Mark, who not only worked side by side by side with Ken on the original amps, but is the man who has taken Trainwreck Amps to the next level.
Q: Give me a little bit of insider’s history as far as Ken Fischer’s original Trainwreck amps.
A: The older Ken Fischer amps were very thoroughly thought out. They were all hand wired and built for hard road-worthiness. The cabinets were usually made from simple cherry, and as you know they have a unique design, simple and easily recognizable as “Trainwreck”. The amps had FMV type tone stacks, but Ken had chosen component values that gave both the Liverpool and the Express their own sound. The placement of the tone stacks in both of those amps is similar to the classic Black Face Fender and early Boogie amps, just after V1a, the first gain stage. But because of the FMV tone stack topography the tone controls do not have a lot of tonal range as with any amp using this tone stack configuration.
Ken added an additional gain stage to both the Liverpool and the Express, a single stage biased “cold”, meaning the operating center of that gain stage was off-set so when the stage begins to saturate the clipping is A-symmetrical. Half of the signal stays clean and the other half saturates early. This is a huge part of Trainwreck’s success, It adds the classic touch sensitivity Trainwreck is known for. It was also, to my knowledge, a Ken Fischer first. All of that being said, because of the phase inverter design (Express is ’59 Fender Bassman, Marshall Plexi, the Liverpool similar but with a higher value tail resistor) both amps use negative feedback to the phase inverter and a classic Presence control to the tail. I’ve found that the optimum Master Volume placement must be AFTER the phase inverter using ganged dual pots. Unfortunately this gets dicey when negative feedback is part of the PI circuit. So no MV for those amps would work well. The result, a very very loud amp with a beautiful sound, strong gain and great harmonic feedback, very bluesy and not really a good metal amp. And tonally each one is unique, beautiful in its own way, but has no versatility. It does what it does well, but that’s all it does. The pros: great sound, great touch sensitivity, beautiful smooth blues type gain. The cons: impossible to use at any volume other than deafening, pedals never seem to like the amps, and not much ability to dial in sounds other that the one “sweet spot”.
Q: Tell me about the new line of Trainwreck amps.
A: Our New line of Amps has combined John’s knowledge from his history in electronics schooling with Devry Tech Institute in the early 80’s, then his history with Ken Fischer immediately after. This was before Ken started Trainwreck Circuits and the first official Trainwreck Amps were produced until Ken’s Passing in 2006. And my almost 50 years of amp building. When vacuum tube quality and operational parameters began to change (probably 20 years ago), I had to start designing circuits that could take the best out of the tubes and keep them within their now smaller limits.
Our new Trainwreck Models do not utilize negative feedback, which makes the dynamic response exact-to-touch. You play light, it comes out light, you play hard and the amp reacts immediately without compression or sag. The Presence control on the older amps depends on the negative feedback to the PI. Since our amps don’t have NFB, I came up with a very unique Presence control that has better sonic tone and a wider control range. Regarding tone control, there is no tone stack. We’ve placed discrete tone filters in optimum locations in the gain stage progression to insure a very wide range of control that really augments beautifully cleans and high-gain settings. Our Phase Inverter is also unique. I call it a long tail pair with a short tail. This Phase Inverter is biased with tremendous headroom, so it saturates only when it’s driven hard, sonically working like the output tubes work in their push-pull configuration
This is why our amps sound the way they do at very low volumes. I currently know of no other amp with this PI/MV build. For gain staging we’ve incorporated the similar “cold cathode” biasing that Ken used on his V2, except we have run both halves of the 12AX7 in parallel. Ken only used 1 side. The result is quieter noise, warmer tone, and exponentially more harmonic content.
Q: What about the components of the amps?
A: Our transformers are built to spec by Pacific Transformer or Heyboer, both companies specialize in vintage transformer construction. Our vacuum tubes are mostly sourced from Tung-Sol, which we find to be the best performers and very consistent. All wiring is done by hand, point to point (as are Ken’s amps) So the pros: an amazing wide range of sounds, beautiful clean tones and great high gain at any volume, strong touch sensitivity, low white noise at idle, harmonic feedback at very low volumes if summoned. All this adds up to make the amps costly to build, but they also yield incredible tone and build quality.
Q: Tell me a little bit about the different models.
A: Many players that I receive requests for original Trainwreck amplifiers aren’t always aware of some of the characteristics of these early designs. These amps were originally designed when Good NOS tubes were readily available. Ken used to tell me, “My amps are becoming Obsolete.”
I didn’t fully get it back then because tubes were still around and at a reasonable cost. Things have changed. These days, manufacturers of those tubes have dried up and the leftover stashes are being price gouged and coveted by many individuals. What most individuals/guitar players don’t know, is that Ken and I would hand select each tube for each position. That is great when you have a selection of tubes available to do that. However, again, times have changed. Not all tubes from the same manufacturer will sound great nor work in a particular position. These early Trainwreck design amps weren’t made to be tube friendly but rather very tube picky. Now with the lack of NOS tubes readily available and the ongoing price gouging for those that have them, to do the amp any justice can be a real task Unless money is no object. If you don’t mind spending over $2000 and up to re tube your amplifier, then we won’t have a problem. So, we opted to tweak the amp around current production tubes. This way we can achieve optimal performance for that particular tube. Therefore, anyone can easily swap out the new tube for another because they are readily available. With the original Express and Liverpool Amps, the tubes played a major part to tweak the circuit for optimal performance. With the new Express and Liverpool Models, we tweaked the circuit to bring out the optimum performance of the tubes.
Q: So, this is what led to the new Express and Liverpool models?
A: Well, one of the main dilemmas that many players encounter with the original Express circuit is the volume. An original Express on a 4 x 12 cabinet can clock in at 115-117 Decibels.
Interestingly he had over 100 different types of Master Volumes that he could use but not on a Trainwreck. Yes, on a Fender or Marshall or another manufacturer Amp. Why? Because they don’t sound good with the circuit Topography of the early Express and Liverpool circuit design. They ended up sounding like a fuzz box. I know because I own one of only 3 or 4 amps that I had Ken add an attenuating method using a rotary switch so that I could use my amp at home and at bedroom levels. And it is still loud even at the lowest setting. It was a cool way that Ken figured out how to draw current off of the output tubes. It worked but it was a one trick pony. At lower settings I wasn’t able to clean up the amp. Why didn’t we use a Master Volume? Because as mentioned earlier, they do not sound good in the original Liverpool and Express Amps. The rotary switch attenuator worked better but it still was a compromise. Why did we end up using a Master ‘type’ control in the new Trainwreck amps then? Because the Gain control that my work partner Danny figured out hasn’t been done in any other amp design that we’ve seen to date. And that is another reason we had to reconfigure the circuit Topography. You will most likely not hear the low-end chunk that you will get at lower volume from another Master Volume amp. We worked years at it to refine it. It is a unique feature to Trainwreck.
Q: What about pedals?
A: The third dilemma that is often raised to me by players is the use of guitar effects pedals. The majority of guitar effects pedals do not work well when plugged directly into the input of an early Express and Liverpool. There are some that will work, but keep in mind these older Trainwreck amps are noisy already. This is due to the circuit design. It has to do with the gain structure. When you add a device that will boost the guitar signal it is too much for the first stage that sees that signal. The amp will get noisier. However, some pedals will work but you still have the noise to contend with. Some Guitar Players that use many guitar effects pedals usually run the amp using a wet dry or wet dry wet set up. Another amplifier device would be required. We decided to build the circuit in a manner that it would still accept the use of guitar effects pedals directly into the input without driving the amp crazy and still to run quiet. You will notice a huge difference in the ground floor noise between an early Express and Liverpool amp and the new Express and Liverpool amps. We have figured out some of the reasons that create such noise and addressed them without sacrificing tone quality.
The big question then is why did we alter the amps and come out with 5 new Designs? They are still based on the original Amplifier’s. The 3 new el34 Expresses are still based on the original el34 Express and the 2 new el84 Liverpool amps are still based on the el84 Liverpool. I kept the names similar to help eliminate confusion. However, I wanted a more user-friendly amplifier that was more cost effective so it could be reachable by more individuals and still maintain the characteristics that are intrinsic to a Trainwreck amplifier. I also wanted to cover more bases by having the controls being more active, making the amps more versatile. Another reason is that Trainwreck amps have been around since 1983, they haven’t changed and I still offer them. Everything in life grows, I wanted to move forward and have a more modern up-to-date offering from Trainwreck that would keep up with the genres and playing styles of modern music.
