Search Results for: G12 H

We’re very excited to welcome a new endorsing artist to the Partners in Tone family: none other than instrumental rock guitarist and multiple Grammy Award nominee Joe Satriani.

Early in his career, Satriani worked as a guitar instructor, with many of his former students achieving fame, such as: Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons and Alex Skolnick.

In 1987, Satriani’s second album Surfing with the Alien produced radio hits and was the first all-instrumental release to chart so highly in many years.

In 1996, Satriani founded the G3, a concert tour intended to feature a trio of guitarists. The original lineup featured Satriani, Vai and Eric Johnson. The G3 tour has continued periodically since its inaugural version, with Satriani the only permanent member. Other guitarists who have performed in G3 include among others: Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robert Fripp, Andy Timmons, Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, Adrian Legg, Paul Gilbert, Steve Morse and Steve Lukather.

In May 2013 Satriani completed his fourteenth studio album, Unstoppable Momentum.

Joe plays through G12T-75 speakers.

After being retired from use for some time, Santana’s original, snakeskin-covered 100-watt Mesa/Boogie is back onstage with the master. Santana also plays through a pair of Dumble Overdrive Reverbs and a pair of Bludotone Universal Tone heads, one of which is a prototype.

The amps drive a pair of paisley-covered PRS 4×12 cabs. One cab is loaded with four Celestion Vintage 30s, the other sports two Celestion Vintage 30s and two Celestion G12-65s.

Clayton Mitchell, lead guitarist from Kenny Chesney’s band and Zeke Clark, the principal guitar technician who looks after the entire guitar backline for Kenny’s band, took some time out from the recent leg of the “No Shoes Nation” tour to talk to us about tone.

We sent over some Vintage 30s for the band, and they also tried out some G12-65s, and some Creambacks, just for some additional tonal flavor.

Clayton and Zeke were kind enough to tell us about themselves and what it is they love about Celestion. It’s great to officially meet you fellas – thanks for the endorsement and welcome to the Celestion family!

Clayton says: I’ve always used cabinets loaded with Celestion speakers because they always deliver a great guitar sound. Out on tour with Kenny Chesney I run my Top Hat 100 watt Emplexador through a pair of Celestion Vintage 30s which gives my les Paul a warm crunchy tone. I also have a Top Hat 30 watt Vanderbilt that I run through a pair of Celestion Blues that just have that chimey thing that sounds great with my strat. I’ve tried other speakers but I’ve always stuck with Celestion, because to my ear, they sound fantastic!

Zeke says: I’ve been a music professional for the past 38 years, I’ve worked on albums with such artists as Eric Martin, Journey, Jefferson Starship, Van Halen, Heart, Poison, Faith Hill, Clint Black as well as Kenny Chesney. On all the records my speakers of choice have always been Celestion, they have the best tonality of any speaker on the market and they’ve always been very reliable on tour, easily handling the power of my 100-watt amplifiers. For me, you just can’t beat the overall performance and sound!

Available in 8 or 16 ohm, this steel frame, ceramic magnet guitar speaker comes with a 70-watt power rating and 98 dB sensitivity.

The V-Type produces an exciting, modern vintage sound, described as “airy and open, while delivering a formidable low end.” It’s a speaker that provides authentic Celestion tone whatever your style and just makes you want to keep on playing. Clean sounds are true across the lows, mids and highs. It has just enough upper-mid chime and HF sparkle to add clarity and definition. Crank it up for a sizzling overdrive and raw rock tones. And expect plenty of mid-band warmth to give body and substance to lead note playing.

To achieve this, Celestion’s guitar speaker experts have carried out extensive work to refine the traditional manufacturing process. They applied advanced engineering know-how together with the application of modern materials, including innovations first used with the best-selling Creamback.

This has enabled the exploration of new tonal possibilities without compromising power handling or sensitivity, and still remaining faithful to the sonic spirit of Celestion’s greatest guitar speakers. The result is something that offers a different “flavour” compared to a G12M or G12H.

The V-Type is a sweet-sounding speaker with a superbly balanced tonal signature. It imparts a real vintage musicality but is built with the modern player in mind. A cool retro look complements the authentic Celestion tonality, so no-one should be in any doubt of this speaker’s family history. The V-Type truly is a modern guitar speaker with a vintage pedigree.

The Creamback H satisfies the higher power demands of modern guitarists, while channeling the vintage mojo of the original G12H.

Find out where to buy here.

Listen to tone samples here.

Back in the 60s, Celestion took the moving parts of a G12M guitar speaker and put them together with an “H” (Heavy) magnet, to increase power rating. This resulted in the G12H, which had significantly different tone as well as more power handling.

So we repeated this process for the Creamback, carefully incorporating an H magnet with the existing Creamback moving parts. The result was the 75-watt Creamback H. It delivers towering G12H tone with Creamback levels of power handling.

G12H fans will already know what to expect from this speaker: characteristic Creamback tone with a more structured bass and a harder edge. It adds focus and body to make single notes sound thicker while remaining dynamic and articulate, and provides an extended low-end that gives smaller cabinets the feel of a 4×12.

Creamback H is designed to be weapon-of-choice for uncompromising players who know how to handle a high-performance tone machine. It has a gargantuan sonic presence, tailor-made for the big occasion. So load up your best gigging cabinet and let rip!

Featuring a retro-styled cream can, Creamback H is built with an eight-hole chassis for hassle-free upgrading. Available now in both 8ohm and 16ohm impedances.

Getting ready to go into rehearsals for the next few Wretch 32 shows; Tim Steer’s guitar tech is loading Tim’s 4×12 cabs with Creambacks and Heritage G12Ms.

A Day to Remember were formed in 2003 and mix emo, hardcore, and metal into a blend affectionately referred to by their fans as “pop mosh”. The band consists of vocalist Jeremy McKinnon, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Neil Westfall, bassist Josh Woodard, percussion and drummer Alex Shelnutt with Kevin Skaff on lead guitar.

The band recently announced a US tour, “Back at it Again” which launches March 20 in Atlanta and currently runs through a May 4 finale in Miami.

Kevin recently took delivery of some shiny new Creambacks – expect to hear more soon!

As developers of the world’s first dedicated guitar loudspeakers, many Celestion speakers have been in production for a long time, helping to define the sound of popular music along the way.

During these periods, the precise design and raw material specifications have changed to accommodate new manufacturing techniques and technologies as they have become available. Typically, the shape of the coil former might be simplified to reduce waste material, the adhesive used on the dustcap would be changed to a faster curing and sweeter smelling type, and the dustcap material itself would be changed as suppliers came and went. Magnet sizes changed when standards were altered and even the formulation of the cone edge treatment changed over time as easier-to-apply and better performing compounds were discovered.

The effect of each of these entirely worthwhile developments on the sound and response of the speaker was almost imperceptible. But taken collectively the shift was more significant, resulting in a thriving market for the limited supply of ‘original stock.’

We begin the Heritage process by deciding which ‘version’ of a speaker to re-create. Then, the exercise is to re-visit as closely as possible this example of the speaker by regressing speaker development back to its fundamental origins. In doing this, we strip away the changes like those listed above to recapture the particular tonal qualities of the speaker of that era.

The discovery of a large archive of information, drawings, blueprints, parts-lists and specifications during a factory move in 2003 proved invaluable in this process. We were also fortunate to be able to call upon the expertise of a former Celestion engineer who was able to qualify much of this archive information.

The original adhesives are no longer available, and have been superseded by modern equivalents. With some record of what compounds had been used in the early years, we are able to replicate with a reasonably high degree of accuracy the formula that would have been used at the time. Of course, the methods of application, drying time and so on are kept as close as possible to how it would originally have been.

Similarly the original edge treatment is no longer available. Thankfully, Celestion has a great deal of experience in tailoring edge treatments to specific applications and so we are able to mix a very similar sound-alike formula here in Ipswich.

The magnet assembly is critical to the tone of any speaker and any variation in magnetic flux (the amount of magnetism produced) will affect the sound. Accordingly, considerable time is spent finding exactly the right kind of magnet and perfecting the magnet assemblies, better to replicate the magnetic effect and hence the original tone.

Listening forms a vital part of the Heritage process. The objective is to replicate the tone of these speakers as they would have sounded out of the box many decades earlier but even an original sounds different as it is played in and suffers changes in humidity over time. Even so, we spend hundreds of hours in our purpose-built listening room, auditioning speakers of the era and comparing them with Heritage models in development.

We also speak to a wide range of interested and knowledgeable parties; former and long-standing Celestion engineers, customers who have used the original speakers and our Partners in Tone who, through listening and playing experience, have strong ideas about what the tonal qualities of these speakers should be. Input from Robben Ford, for example, was highy influential in shaping the final tone of the G12-65.

Finally, manufacturing and assembly processes are conducted by hand at our facility in Ipswich, England, and are largely the same as they were in the 1960s. Indeed some of the production staff have been working at Celestion for more than 30 years.

The result of this painstaking process is a range of speakers that evokes the sound of some of the most influential guitar speakers of all time. The Celestion Heritage Series currently comprises of four models; the G12M, G12H (55Hz and 75Hz version) and the G12-65.