VOX GUITARS
The short story is that Vox amps ended up in the hands of the Beatles. It very quickly became apparent that if the Vox label was on anything ...it sold. Guitars are an obvious choice. They were for a short time made in the UK but were mainly cheap entry level guitars and not of historical consequence. Buy '65 they had Eko in Italy to take over production. The prime goal to crank out guitars cheaply and quickly.
In '64 Brian Jones discovered the first Vox VI better known by it's shape the Teardrop.
It was really a piece of sh@t so he found a tech and got it playable. Vox were not too long in seeing with a bit of effort they might enter the 'serious' club with Fender etc. do to this good luck.
 |
Apparently it is Rocket Science to reproduce this guitar ??? Will the 2021 model crash on it's first launch. |
By '67 it had bankrupt the company and VOX was dissolved. The name was bought by Thomas Organ at the fire sale. They simply put the name on total junk that they already made. It failed big time! So they farmed out the name.
The name was licenced out to different companies with different ideas and to compound that the licences were regional. One guy could only sell in Europe another in the States etc. No one for years had the will or capital to buy up the all the bits and pieces that got spread out thinner and thinner as each company before it made sure even more people not to buy a Vox labelled product.
Korg finally got it all but only recently have they started to bring out some really serious repro's of the best stuff. New stuff based on the classics would give them some serious cred.
VOX VII Teardrop is it another wannabe?
Since the 90's every 10 years someone with rights to the name has brought out a few Vox guitars. Sometimes the timing was wrong but when it was right the guitars were crap or were altered by some clueless moron when an authentic
replica with quality parts could have gave the company credibility.
There is always someone to even over pay for a well made guitar with a very high cool factor. Gibson? But junk that is cheaply made and looks like a cartoon replica is destined to tank.
The 2021 model is heading in the right direction. But attention to detail matters.
The pickups are right but not having separate mounting rings and a separate
pickguard sucks. The extra cost is minimal since it near guaranteed to be made in China. Chrome knobs are cool BUT chrome plated plastic knobs SCREAM cheap sh@t. Metal ones are less than $2 each retail! Or at least use white plastic.
WTF is the third guitar with the graphics all about. Is there a big market for this with preteens??? It totally kills making this a guitar with anyone over 15 with just a shred of what is cool. Even stupider is it should be just white.
It would then be the best seller of the 3 instead of the one the stores do not want
to stock.
ORANGE ELECTRONIC MUSIC COMPANY
Why did Orange manage to come back from the past when others totally f_cked up!
Well owner founder Clifford Cooper closed the company when it lost popularity mostly from dead cheap transistor MIJ amps and fashion. For a short time he had a deal with Gibson but he did not sell the company.
It did not go bankrupt and he had pride in what he had accomplished and would sell or license to a lot of clowns. He just kept everything at a small manageable scale but kept working on improving the sound with sensible innovation like designing his own transformers long before guy like Dave Friedman saw it was the way to go. A cheap transformer when used dimed looses headroom and will 'sag'. The most expensive transformers have little as it would be like a car that when you floored it it would nearly stall and then recover. From a transformer companies perspective sagging is very bad thing! But diming the transformer in a guitar amp gives you compression and sustain and when you really nail it the transformer recovers with a punchy boost and swell. A usable but cheap transformer will do this but too little or too much does not sound good.
Keep in mind when companies like Marshall made their first amps they were trying to make them affordable and they did not expect anyone to dime the amp as at the time players played both quieter and cleaner. The fact that the old Plexi's sound great is dumb luck caused by misuse. lol
By the time Ol Cliff made Orange amps it was understood what was going on. So he simply said. ...I'll design my own. Transformers that sag just right. Different ones for different amps with different purposes. Metal needs overkill but Blues much less etc. Many bass players like nearly none. None gives you killer punch and definition. Low end has very little to start with.
Guys that have an Orange amp love them and feel they are an unsung bargain. Surprise!!! They are actually right. Orange products are sold on low margins because Cliff believes his customers are young players with zeo bucks trying to 'make it'.
To keep the price down one Orange amp sold without a footswitch to switch between the channels. It was available only as a paid accessory. In an interview a young player said it sucked because when you got your amp home it became a total bummer as any amp is not just a big purchase and you are not just buying an amp ...but a dream. The next day Cliff had ALL amps shipped with the footwitch ...and there was zero increase in the price.
In contrast we have Vox nickel and diming with mounting rings and cheap looking knobs.
Worse yet they keep repeating the same scenario over and over. WTF!!! I could scream!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment