 | Phil Jamison - Matchless Amplifers
I've recently had a small revelation when it comes to amplifiers. A friend of mine bought a clone of the Matchless DC30 and he asked me to bring mine over for a comparison. This should be interesting. The guy that built it had obviously done his homework. Good components, it all looked correct and he assured me it was 100% accurate. So we sparked them up and you know what, it was almost embarrassing just how much better my real Matchless sounded. 2 weeks later my friend had an original Matchless sitting in his lounge room with that same ridiculous grin on his face that I have on mine every time I plug into my beautiful C30 reverb. So here's the revelation. The circuit design and component choice of a great amp is just the start. Great amp builders not only know the circuit but know how a properly running phase inverter should sound, they feel it if the power section isn't 100%. |
| They know every component, every joint; they know what it's for and how it should sound.
I caught up with the legendary Phil Jamison from Matchless Amplifiers at NAMM who is without doubt one of the great amp builders in the USA today for his take on great tone and for a sneak peek into the past, present and future of Matchless.
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| Dan: Firstly, congrats on the C30 Reverb. Stonking amplifier. Is this really the first change to a C30 design in nearly 20 years?
PJ: Yes! I knew a lot of people wanted the C30 to come with reverb, but we never really got the formula right (without compromise) until now. I spent quite a bit of time working on this. Then once I sort of had that "Eureka" moment while I was driving my car, and thinking about the circuit I quickly started a whole new prototype. It was a huge success.
click here to read the C30 Reverb review
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|  | Dan: I took a look inside the amp and the effort that's gone into building it is pretty unbelievable. Have you ever been tempted to update the manufacturing process with circuit boards?
PJ: Only up until about two years ago when I realized a couple of things. One was that there are so many legitimate guitar amplifier companies out there building with either circuit boards or turret boards and they are charging prices similar to ours. Only our construction takes many more hours to build. The second thing I realized is that there are companies out there making a nice living at selling turret style kits cloning our circuits. So, they've taken the foundation and used a cheaper and more affordable construction method. So, we felt like if there is a market out there that people don't really care how it's built as long as it's a good quality and is more affordable then, why not! There's clearly a demand for it, and why should we be painted into a corner with only building things the way we do, while everyone else is making a higher profit margin using boards, cheap parts, and cheaper transformers. |
| So to remain competitive we've designed the Avalon that uses a combination of turret boards and point to point that delivers a fantastic amp at a more accessible price point. And it's been a HUGE success!!!! It really is a fantastic sounding amplifier, one of my favourites actually. The Matchless build quality is set in stone, when you by a DC30, or a Chieftain or a Clubman you're always going to get the true point to point construction, this will never change. These new amps just put the Matchless tone in the hands of a few more players.
Dan: Do you have a certain sound in mind when designing an amp or is it more a 'suck it and see' trial and error type process? What does it take to make a seriously fantastic guitar amp?
PJ: I always have a sound in mind or a goal. You shouldn't ever think of it as I'm just going to throw a bunch of parts together and see what it sounds like.
When I sit down to design something it's usually something that's been inside my head for a few months, and I try to construct the entire thing mentally, with a clear idea of what sound I like. Usually it's the sound tone from my favourite players like Gilmour, Blunt, Gibbons, EVH, etc but, most importantly I take sort of an opposite approach, so for example if I'm going to go for a Billy Gibbons sound I don't research the exact amp, on whatever particular recording, and then clone it and call it mine. I just listen to the tones over and over again and try to duplicate it with the circuit I'm creating. There are more than one way to something and you don't necessarily have to clone a circuit to try and get someone's sound because more times than not, you will ironically not duplicate it. There are so many factors involved in the sound you are hearing and most of which may not even be amp related. You know like, what mics were used, what console, was pitch detuning used in the mastering. And most importantly whose hands were on the guitar.
Dan: How important to you is the speaker matching process?
PJ: Speaker matching is critical. I've heard all kinds of speakers, and some are amazing with certain amps and some are not so good with the same amp. You have to think about wattage, impedance, and frequency response obviously. The speakers will completely dictate how the amp sounds in the end. A bad speaker can make a fantastic amp sound terrible. Great speakers can completely change the sound and feel of an amp as well.
Dan: I had a look in Dave Gregory's C30 head from 93 and it's got your signature on it!! So you've obviously been with the company a long time. Do you still love it? How has the industry changed for you guys over the last 20 years?
PJ: Very cool. I love that. Yeah, I've been with Matchless since the early 90's when we were in a tiny dirty little garage in North Hollywood, CA, and running it for the last 11 years. It's a huge part of my life, and I love it more now than I ever have before. It just gets better and better, constantly evolving and flowing in a positive direction. It's so important to love what you do, that way you make it personal, you take more pride in what you're doing. And all we do here is focus on what we do and how we can improve ourselves. We have a great crew here, it's a very, very small family environment and everyone cares and loves what they do, and that's everything. The business side of it is the most difficult, because it is a business, so you have to have checks and balances between art, love, and profit. You can have a great product but without the right people handling the business aspect of it you won't last long, especially in this day and age. There are so many new amp companies sprouting up all over the world that you really have to do things right.
Dan: What's your favourite ever guitar sound?
PJ: Without question my favourite guitar sound is David Gilmour, and specifically David on the entire album of Wish You Were Here. For some reason that album and its tones for me was the cornerstone of what it's all about.
Dan: Just one final question Phil. There are questions about 'Sampson Era' Matchless amplifiers. You obviously know the full story but what's the difference? Is there a difference? As I've said my new Matchless has all same components and exquisite build quality of the 93' one , and both of these amps have your name on them to start with, so why all the buzz and chatter about this period of amp?
PJ: As far as the whole "Sampson Era" myth goes its absolute nonsense! The biggest perpetuators of this myth are a couple of competing amp companies who did everything in their power to try and discredit the reopening of Matchless. The other perpetuators of the myth came from people trying to sell their used amps for an over inflated price based on an idea.
Back when Fender was bought out, the production standards had to change, some believe those standards went down so then everyone started yelling about Pre CBS this and Pre CBS that, and everything in later years was looked down upon. Now this same sort of cynical ideology has carried over to Matchless as if a giant corporation in league with the "boogie man" had taken over the company in the middle of the night and now all the amps are made by a giant greedy corporate empire and we make everything out of computer parts and circuit boards. We even had one guy call us and say, "Hey I just talked to one of your competitors and 'He' told me that all of your new amps are made with circuit boards, they are all solid state, there are no tubes inside them, and no one at the new factory knows how to build amps... so buy one of mine instead, because Matchless isn't up to spec."
That was just one of many phone calls I got for the first two years of being back in business. It was absolutely absurd. So, I made a huge effort to make certain that the amps were exactly identical to the way I had always made them in my tenure at Matchless.
As for the greedy corporate empire that we heard every other week, well, back in 1996 I had 75 people who I was directly responsible for their productivity, there were 6 people in the business office, and about 7 others that handled other operations... that's 88 people who were employed by Matchless, now there are a total of 6 people in this entire factory. I'm not sure that really counts as a massive greedy corporate empire. Now we are no longer bleeding money left and right. The factory is managed and ran the way it should have been all along.
Let's put it into perspective... There were only three actual founders of Matchless. They were Rick Perotta, Mark Sampson, and Chris Perotta. Rick, Mark, and John Jorgensen all saw a great potential to improve and build a better and stronger amplifier, one that would last on the road and sound great. So, John, Rick, and Mark took designs from many different companies and figured out ways to improve the build quality. It was never about stealing someone else's work and then making it cheap and selling them for cheap. It was all about, how do we make an amp with no expenses spared! Cut no corners, don't buy cheap caps, and don't buy cheap switches. They had in mind to build an amp that was as solid as a tank. This meant all new stronger transformers, triple thickness on the chassis, when other amps called out for 1/2 watts they used 1 watt resistors. When others used 1 watt they used 2 Watt. The pots are 2 Watt carbon pots, the rotary switches were the most expensive money could buy. Very strong and durable, and very over spec'd for what they needed. Chris Perotta came up with the idea of a light up logo and that eventually became our trademark.
Combined with the overall look of the DC30 it was a new and fresh look. It didn't look like a Fender copy, it didn't look like a Marshall copy, and it didn't look like a Vox copy. It opened a whole new era of amplifiers.
This was in 1989, when all this started to happen. Prototypes and tons of R&D were flowing, then the all the field testing. So, in the end it was a successful product. But, as everyone knows it takes more than just a good product to make it. So, by 1992 they brought in a guy who invested a bunch of money and began marketing and sales. He got the DC30 into a combo shootout in Guitar Player Magazine, and it was hugely successful.
Later on in 1993 he was out of the picture and a couple of the production guys left to play in bands, and I was hired by Rick Perotta to come into the production line. There were about 12 people in the factory at that time in North Hollywood. It was a tiny dirty garage like building, freezing cold in the winter and boiling hot in the summer... good times.
Then to everyone's shock in 1994 Rick and Mark announced they were selling the company to a giant corporation called US Music, and we'd be moving about 30 or 40 miles away.
So, in late 94 everyone lost their jobs and only Rick, Mark, Chris, myself, and a guy named Paul stayed with Matchless and went on to our new home.
And when that happened, oh man the fireworks started! Not more than 6 months into production a whole bunch of the cynics started climbing up a flagpole that you don't want a "Randall Era" amp (that's what they called it back then) you want a North Hollywood Era amp! So throughout 1994 to 1995 all we heard was "Randall Era this and Randall Era that", and it was such a travesty to what was really happening. The quality of our amps actually went up! They looked better on the inside, they sounded better, and they were better made all around compared to the North Hollywood amps. We all sat scratching our heads try to figure why anyone was trying to say the North Hollywood amps were better, because they just simply were not.
So, during that time of 94 to 96 Rick Perotta was the plant manager who had to oversee three or four other companies including Matchless. Mark was doing R&D for US Music and had little to nothing at all to do with Matchless. We saw Mark about once every 6 months, then he would hand me new designs for new products and we'd build them and we wouldn't see him for a while again. At that time US Music had him working on all kinds of projects. So Mark was never involved with quality control, or running the production lines and training the crew how to build them, that was my job. I was in charge of all the production so there were absolutely no Matchless products that went out the door without passing through my hands for QC or final inspection. I trained every line worker how to build the amps. I inspected each chassis. I turned on every chassis. I loaded every chassis into their cabinet. I sound tested every amp. This was the deal 8 to 10 hours a day 5 days a week for years!
Then in early 96 US Music offered to sell Matchless back! So Sampson then decided he wanted to take Matchless back and run it for himself, and Rick and Chris left. We kept the huge infrastructure that US Music had put into place, we had a great building, tons of equipment, and an amazing crew of skilled workers.
It sort of put the wind back in the sails and it was great. I was still running production and quality control. Mark was back and he was just flowing with great products. It was an honour to work with him. I had to build all of the prototype amps, Mark would come up to me and say, I want this this and this and put something like that in there, and I would build it, and he and I would cross our fingers. It got pretty crazy. I had so much fun in those days. Everything was very positive and upbeat. He had me making all kinds of stuff.
Then as we grew larger and brought more people in, things seemed to change. The vibe was very different and suddenly seemed to be a heading to a dark place. Then we lost our building in Santa Fe Springs because the land lord wanted too much money. So, we moved to Pico Rivera. Things got really dark at that time. The environment at Matchless just wasn't healthy or happy.
The day before Thanksgiving in 1997 Mark took me aside and said I was no longer needed here anymore. And I left.
I found out a year later Matchless went out of business.
So, the rest is History. A private investor who had been investing in Matchless and giving legal advice felt it was wrong to see this happen to the company. After careful investigating into the business and how it was run he realized it could still have a chance if it was just run correctly.
So, in late 1999 he called me and we had a series of meetings and all of the legal details were worked out we were back in business by 2000. He brought me back for the one specific purpose of recreating the amps exactly the way they always were, which actually turned out to much harder than I expected. You have to source the right parts for starters, and the parts are insanely expensive because of their quality, so the margins were very very slim.
And then by 2001 the "Randall Era" thing disappeared and it became the "Sampson Era", which was so strange considering he was not the only chief principle designer, there were others involved in the process. He did not sit and build amps on the production line with us. He did not inspect the amps on the fire up bench, he did not QC the amps before they left the door. I was the one who did all that. Sampson owned the company with Rick Perotta and Chris Perotta from 1989 to 1994, then US Music owned Matchless (Randall Era) from 1995 to 1996. Then Sampson gets the company back in 1996 and it went bankrupt in 1998. Now guys are calling amps made in 95 and 96 Sampson Era when the same kinds of people were calling the same time frame Randall era. They would tell people you don't want a Randall Era you want my amp made in North Hollywood so buy my North Hollywood era amp for $6,000 (as if it were some kind of Pre CBS thing).
Same guys saying you don't want a Jamison Era amp you want a Sampson Era amp so buy my Sampson Era amp for $6,000... all I can say is I started at the bottom I was making them, training all the workers, doing the fire up, doing the quality control from 1993 to 1997, and from 2000 to 2010. So, what exactly is a Jamison Era, and what exactly is a Sampson Era. I think what it really boils down to is it makes people feel better that they are getting an amp from a this or that era. There is just so much bitterness about what happened to Fender that people believe that that's the way it is with Matchless and it just could not be further from the truth. Their cynical side about business has just made it easier to put a label on it that they feel like they can relate to. Musicians against the Suits! And that's just complete nonsense.
Fortunately we didn't lose our minds worrying about all the absurd and negative disinformation out there and we focused on the positive and just making a great product exactly the way it always been made.
I have had to make some small improvements here and there but that was years later. I first wanted to show that indeed the exact same amp could be made before I so boldly said, hey I can do it better. That would have been easier to just change everything that I wanted to, but I needed to respectfully follow and understand the formula that Rick Perotta, Mark Sampson, and John Jorgensen had created. I knew its pluses and minuses and tweaked the very little that needed to be tweaked.
I've introduced many new models that have been hugely successful. Models I wanted to do since 1997 and was never allowed to, so all this time later I got the chance and Matchless amps have never been better in their entire history than right now.
Phil's Top 5
Players:
David Gilmour
Eddie Van Halen
Robbie Blunt
Mike Landau
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Albums: (Pink Floyd) Wish You Were Here
(Pink Floyd) Dark Side of the Moon
(Elliott Smith) XO, Figure 8, Basement on a Hill
(Fleetwood Mac) Rumours
(Calexico) Pretty much ANYTHING by Calexico!!!
Tones: SRV, Eric Johnson, Gilmour, Blunt, Old Billy Gibbons, Old AC/DC Angus and Malcom, EVH from Fair Warning!
clich here to go to the Matchless website |
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