[NAMM] Metasonix G-1000 "Fucking Fucker"

The G-1000 consists of two totally independent amplifiers, with very different preamp sections. One channel is called the HAPPY channel. The other is called the ANGRY channel.

The HAPPY channel is a more-or-less conventional instrument amp. It has plenty of gain and distortion (if desired), it has a conventional guitar-amp tone control section, and it has reverb. Everything else about it is deviant. It has a phase control, which allows mixing of normal and inverted signals—or it may be adjusted to cancel out the original signal and pass only the distortion products…and, it’s all made of unusual tubes : mostly pentodes.

The angry channel is designed for instability and raw, berserk distortion effects. It, too, has typical guitar-amp tone controls and reverb. It uses a 6BN6 and two remote-cutoff pentodes.

Despite the identical output stages of the two channels, they sound totally different in all settings.

The output tubes are 6BK5s. Obscure, but great and forgotten. Phase inversion is done with 6GU7s. Various types are used throughout the preamp stages: 6AU6, 6BJ6, 6CB6, 6BN6, 5BQ7, 6AK5, and others. No 12AX7s, of any brand. In total, there are twenty-three tubes, Including eight 6BK5 outputs. It might be the most complex tube guitar amp available today…

The output tubes are in a special self-balancing, self-biasing circuit. It is unique to the G-1000 among guitar amps. It does not need matched tubes, nor is any kind of bias adjustment needed. Output power is 15 watts per channel, and two speakers (or a stereo speaker) are needed.

Vast ranges of tone are available from the G-1000. It is intended for the intrepid experimenter, not the pathetic imitator.

Artwork on the amp’s front panel by Dave Lovelace, of “Retarded Animal Babies” infamy. (http://www.umop.com)

The idea of the the amp’s name came from Mike Brown of Livewire Synthesizers and came from one of Dave Lovelace’s cartoons.

G-1000 is made on a custom basis only and should be available in late 2008. Expected retail price is US $ 5000.