History of the Beatles Amplifiers

Freebird

An in-depth run through of all the Beatles amplification setups..

gringopig

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captainbeeffart

Very well put together and informative hats off to mr goose

ICBM

Excellent. I knew a lot of the amps already, but it's still nice and informative to see it all put together like that with the pics and extra historical detail.

One thing that strikes me even more seeing it is how rapidly their gear as well as their music evolved, from primitive amps that were little more than valve radios without the radio bit, to things like the Vox 7120 and then the silverface Fenders in only ten years.

It's maybe worth mentioning that none of the American amps they had in the early days could have been bought new - American amps were not available in Europe at that time, and most likely would have been brought over by US servicemen and then sold on. They would have needed step-down transformers or the power transformers replacing, since Fender amps were not made with export multi-voltage transformers until the mid 60s. (I'm not 100% sure about the Gibson GA-40, but I would expect the same.)

I'd love to know more about the coffin-logo JTM45 and 4x12" seen at 22'20" - that's the first time I've ever heard of a Marshall being used by the Beatles.

It's also amazing to realise that McCartney's "old" Höfner bass was less than six years old at the rooftop gig... they really changed the world so far and fast that it looks like something out of a completely different era.

Freebird

ICBM said:
It's also amazing to realise that McCartney's "old" Höfner bass was less than six years old at the rooftop gig... they really changed the world so far and fast that it looks like something out of a completely different era.

If you go through his other videos you would find this one..

JAYJO

The John Lennon one is worth a look also.

skay

Cool video. 

I watched it a couple of days ago, and noticed that incorrectly the Beatles Gear book has John playing a Fender Tweed Deluxe amp in the Hamburg era, but this video stated it was in fact a Tweed  Vibrolux. Also being rated at 10 watts, how distorted must this have been to be heard from the stage in a club, so that buzzed out Neil Young sound could have been heard first in the clubs of Hamburg, another 'Beatles first'!

The Beatles Gear book goes onto say that John gravitated towards the blackface Deluxe model from the bunch of amps Fender gave the Beatles in 1967, as it reminded him of his old Deluxe, so it kinda wipes out that premise as well.

Always love learning something new about the Beatles!

ESBlonde

I got to watch about the first 12 minutes of this the other day before I went to rehearsals. Fascinating, I shall have to watch the rest on Sunday if i get the time.