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Vintage threads from the first ten years

previous: R.G. Bill Webb, the designer of the Full... -- 6/7/2000 12:55 PM

Re: Fullton-Webb

6/7/2000 7:35 PM
MBSetzer	Re: Fullton-Webb I met Steve Fulton when he was in Houston last year with some merchandise from his Austin music store during our small local guitar show. He had a nice Fulton-Webb combo with excellent high-quality appearance and attention to detail. It slightly has the appearance of a mixture of Marshall & Fender influences. I talked to him casually a bit but moved on to let him cater to a serious guitar buyer that showed up. Over an hour later, I was way at the other end of the aisle, after having tried my first Dr. Z & Matchless, impressed by both. Then I heard something coming from Fulton's general direction. It was a highly desirable tone, instantly recognizable as pure tube, not very loud but cranked about as much as could be expected at a show. I also knew it was not from an amp I was familiar with, I might have expected it was the Z which was at a booth halfway to Fulton's, but I had just become familiar enough with the Z to know that was not it. It was coming from much further away, and cutting through the chaos incredibly well. I was not the only one then moving in that general direction. When I got there it was another guitar buyer testing a natural Strat through the Fulton-Webb boutique amp. He worked it out pretty good, and IMHO it does the difficult task of giving superior tone for either clean or distorted playing. After a few minutes the guitarist went to check around if he liked any other Strats better, and Steve, who is an excellent player himself, jammed a little on the same guitar to show us more of the amp capabilities. We talked more and he wanted to try my prototype overdrive pedal for vintage-style amps. As I had hoped, it was highly compatible even with an amp it had never been tested with. Might as well toot my own horn, one of the best applications for the Setzer pedal is to set the amp clean about as loud as posible, with the pedal bypassed, then kick it in for leads with the pedal volume anywhere from slight overdrive to maximum, we were about halfway up. Steve was very enthusiastic, he wanted one, but I couldn't part with my one-of-a-kind unit. Maybe I will find a way to select enough components to build some copies, but I have still been delayed by the need for an extra internal RF shield to be custom made. In the meantime, the first guitarist we had seen came running back when he heard the overdrive, and bought that natural Strat before it was gone, he wanted my pedal too, but I'm just not doing instrument sales at this point. It's nice to get some good feedback though . . . Anyway, at this year's show I didn't see Fulton, this Houston show seemed smaller this second year in exhibitors & visitors overall, probably simply because the Dallas one is so extensive, they may never get this one off the ground until they get a hall with free parking & admission. Almost forgot why I was posting, I do have a couple (blurry) pictures from my digital camera of his amp, but right now AOL is too crowded for me to upload to the web. If anyone wants me to email the Fulton-Webb JPG's I could do that, let me know, if they were great pictures I would have posted them last year though. If someone else wants to post them after I send by email, that would be fine too. As for schematics, I get the idea that this is much like vintage construction, and most likely it would not be necessary to even have a schematic in order to build, test, maintain, or repair. Plus, if a schematic does exist, I would hope it remained as confidential as the designer would want. Some circuit designers are proud to distribute their drawings while others consider that a trade secret. Either way there is proven confidence that a truly superior amp can not be built from schematics alone, with the help of a layout diagram and original of the amp to copy you might come close, but not for an amp using custom transformers. And of course it is well known to cost more to clone than to buy all but the most overpriced amps. As much as I am a tubeheaded gear wanker, I try to leave that behind and just LISTEN when I hear a new sound. I did not even make a point to remember what tubes he had. If I thought my building abilities were adequate enough to produce an amp of that quality, but my circuit design abilities were lacking, I would work to try and improve the latter. Actually, I've been working on both to an extent over the last few decades Once I had the right balance, then if I still really think an established amp design is what I want to build, I would basically just need to know the tube types and general features of the amp. You would already be aware of the sound another designer had achieved with those tubes as a benchmark, I would see no reason not to use your imagination to build the best circuit you could come up with, then tweak it to be more to your own liking than that provided by someone with different taste or style. Hope this helps, Mike

6/7/2000 7:35 PM

MBSetzer

Re: Fullton-Webb

I met Steve Fulton when he was in Houston last year with some merchandise from his Austin music store during our small local guitar show.

He had a nice Fulton-Webb combo with excellent high-quality appearance and attention to detail. It slightly has the appearance of a mixture of Marshall & Fender influences. I talked to him casually a bit but moved on to let him cater to a serious guitar buyer that showed up.

Over an hour later, I was way at the other end of the aisle, after having tried my first Dr. Z & Matchless, impressed by both. Then I heard something coming from Fulton's general direction. It was a highly desirable tone, instantly recognizable as pure tube, not very loud but cranked about as much as could be expected at a show. I also knew it was not from an amp I was familiar with, I might have expected it was the Z which was at a booth halfway to Fulton's, but I had just become familiar enough with the Z to know that was not it. It was coming from much further away, and cutting through the chaos incredibly well.

I was not the only one then moving in that general direction. When I got there it was another guitar buyer testing a natural Strat through the Fulton-Webb boutique amp. He worked it out pretty good, and IMHO it does the difficult task of giving superior tone for either clean or distorted playing.

After a few minutes the guitarist went to check around if he liked any other Strats better, and Steve, who is an excellent player himself, jammed a little on the same guitar to show us more of the amp capabilities. We talked more and he wanted to try my prototype overdrive pedal for vintage-style amps. As I had hoped, it was highly compatible even with an amp it had never been tested with.

Might as well toot my own horn, one of the best applications for the Setzer pedal is to set the amp clean about as loud as posible, with the pedal bypassed, then kick it in for leads with the pedal volume anywhere from slight overdrive to maximum, we were about halfway up. Steve was very enthusiastic, he wanted one, but I couldn't part with my one-of-a-kind unit. Maybe I will find a way to select enough components to build some copies, but I have still been delayed by the need for an extra internal RF shield to be custom made. In the meantime, the first guitarist we had seen came running back when he heard the overdrive, and bought that natural Strat before it was gone, he wanted my pedal too, but I'm just not doing instrument sales at this point. It's nice to get some good *feedback* though . . .

Anyway, at this year's show I didn't see Fulton, this Houston show seemed smaller this second year in exhibitors & visitors overall, probably simply because the Dallas one is so extensive, they may never get this one off the ground until they get a hall with free parking & admission.

Almost forgot why I was posting, I do have a couple (blurry) pictures from my digital camera of his amp, but right now AOL is too crowded for me to upload to the web.

If anyone wants me to email the Fulton-Webb JPG's I could do that, let me know, if they were great pictures I would have posted them last year though. If someone else wants to post them after I send by email, that would be fine too.

As for schematics, I get the idea that this is much like vintage construction, and most likely it would not be necessary to even have a schematic in order to build, test, maintain, or repair. Plus, if a schematic does exist, I would hope it remained as confidential as the designer would want. Some circuit designers are proud to distribute their drawings while others consider that a trade secret. Either way there is proven confidence that a truly superior amp can not be built from schematics alone, with the help of a layout diagram and original of the amp to copy you might come close, but not for an amp using custom transformers. And of course it is well known to cost more to clone than to buy all but the most overpriced amps.

As much as I am a tubeheaded gear wanker, I try to leave that behind and just LISTEN when I hear a new sound. I did not even make a point to remember what tubes he had. If I thought my building abilities were adequate enough to produce an amp of that quality, but my circuit design abilities were lacking, I would work to try and improve the latter. Actually, I've been working on both to an extent over the last few decades

Once I had the right balance, then if I still really think an established amp design is what I want to build, I would basically just need to know the tube types and general features of the amp. You would already be aware of the sound another designer had achieved with those tubes as a benchmark, I would see no reason not to use your imagination to build the best circuit you could come up with, then tweak it to be more to your own liking than that provided by someone with different taste or style.

Hope this helps,
Mike

Replies:

Joe T. Wow! Thanks very much R.G. and Mik... -- 6/7/2000 10:20 PM