We took our 4th prototype of the White Stallion to Portland Tonefest 2011 this weekend and got some great feedback from other amp builders and some VERY formidable players. The most common comment was, “THAT’S LOUD!” Take a listen:

We also had a chance to meet and geek out with Conrad Sundholm, the founder of Sunn Amps! You can hear him in the background of the video asking how big our filter capacitors are; the caps are deceptively large because they are oil-filled motor run caps, which significantly outperform the standard electrolytics.

There were also many other cool amps there including 6+ modded Marshalls (one that George Lynch had taken on tour), some custom high gain amps, and some low gain combos.

Many thanks to Dan from Geraldi’s Pizza and Pasta for setting up the event and to John Bridges and Mark Sexton for demoing the amp!

Ryan from Christian Mistress got a chance to play through our final prototype of the White Stallion lead head at the Comet in Seattle last Thursday. I was in attendance and, as usual, was totally stoked on their performance. The band has really had time to meld in this lineup now, and as a result, everything comes off really tight and coordinated. The performance was well received by the greater part of Olympia, who was also in attendance…

The White Stallion was specifically designed to be clear and distinguishable while keeping the classic 80s high-gain tone. This makes your tone cut through even in venues with terrible sound. My friend who frequents The Comet was blown away at the show, because most guitarists end up sounding muddy in that space.

Christian Mistress is definitely a must-see if they come to your town, but beware of the hairnados. You can watch the rest of the show on our youtube channel.

Christian Mistress, the unholy raging metal quintet from Olympia, is currently on a month long US tour, shoving their 64 bar trade-off solos, wailing vocals, and haunting hooks down the throats of onlookers. And they took one for the road. A White Stallion, that is.

Ryan will be playing our prototype 100W EL34, British model, White Stallion head throughout the Christian Mistress US tour. If you are anywhere near the following places at these dates, get your sorry selves to these venues and get some metal up your ass! And if you want to try out a White Stallion head and are in the Seattle/Olympia area, drop us a line!

9/27/2010 Tube – Portland, OR w/ DJ Nate C
9/28/2010 Redroom – Boise, ID
9/29/2010 Club Vegas – Salt Lake City, UT w/ Dwellers, Bees
9/30/2010 3 Kings Tavern – Denver, CO
10/1/2010 Bourbon Theater – Lincoln, NE
10/2/2010 Turf Club – Minneapolis, MN
10/3/2010 The Borg Ward – Milwaukee, WI
10/4/2010 The Empty Bottle – Chicago, IL
10/6/2010 Southgate House – Newport, KY
10/7/2010 Mac’s Bar – Lansing, MI
10/8/2010 The Shop – Toronto, ON
10/9/2010 Playhouse – Montreal, QC
10/10/2010 Geno’s – Portland, ME
10/11/2010 O’Brien’s – Boston, MA w/ Kintaan
10/12/2010 Machines With Magnets – Providence, RI w/ The Body, Kintaan
10/13/2010 Acheron – Brooklyn, NY
10/14/2010 Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA w/ Serpent Throne
10/15/2010 Golden West – Baltimore, MD
10/16/2010 The Triple – Richmond, VA
10/17/2010 The Milestone – Charlotte, NC
10/18/2010 Caledonia Lounge – Athens, GA
10/19/2010 529 – Atlanta, GA
10/20/2010 Hi-Tone Cafe – Memphis, TN
10/21/2010 Nightmare – Dallas, TX w/ Deadsea
10/22/2010 Red 7 – Austin, TX
10/23/2010 ? – San Antonio, TX
10/24/2010 ? – El Paso, TX
10/25/2010 Solar Culture – Tucson, AZ
10/26/2010 Spaceland – Los Angeles, CA
10/27/2010 Blue Lagoon – Santa Cruz, CA
10/28/2010 ? – Oakland, CA
10/29/2010 The Hemlock – San Francisco, CA
10/30/2010 Alibi – Arcata, CA
10/31/2010 Oak St Speakeasy – Eugene, OR

The Christian Mistress debut LP Agony and Opium is out now and is available at 20 Buck Spin. Get a dose of heavy metal thunder and pick yourself up a copy.

On an interesting tangent from our usual R&D work, I had the chance to pump some life back into an old 1960s tube radio, Gnome-style.

The whole thing started out when the owner of the radio said something like, ‘can you turn this old radio into a super awesome guitar amp and maybe hook up the controls on the front and make the tuning eye do stuff?’ I said yes, and here’s what happened:

Here is a shot of the amp prior to rework:

She’s certainly a pretty thing with the wood box and gold accents.

After finishing my sneeze-fest, I snapped a shot of the inside…

Interesting technical details:

The output stage is in the left portion, with the output transformer mounted on the inside of the chassis. There are radio tubes on either side of the elevated tag strip, which provides some electrostatic shielding between stages. The yellow electrolytic cap in the bottom center is flanked by the external antennae connector…. which had matchsticks shoved into it.

In addition to the fire hazard provided by the matches, the power transformer looked like it could fry a burger faster than a George Foreman.

The transformer got so hot at some point that its black coating bubbled and cracked. You can see lines on the surface where wires had melted in with the coating. Yikes..

After spending a bit of time looking at the output stage wiring and transformer, I discovered that it was a very interesting configuration; EL84 Single-Ended, Ultra-Linear, Cathode Biased. With this stock configuration, the output of the radio would have been around 5W.

Here is the output xfrmr:

You can see the standard primary connections on top (for A+ and anode of EL84), and a third connection on the bottom for the primary ultra-linear tap.

After pulling the transformers I decided to completely gut it and rework it with the following specs:

• Preamp: (1x) 12AX7 using both stages
• EQ: High shunt connected to front panel ‘tone’ control
• Gain: Connected as a shunt to reduce gain of second preamp stage
• Output Stage: (1x) EL84, single-ended, cathode biased, screen connected to B+
• Tuning Eye: (1x) EM81, connected to output of first preamp stage through a blocking cap + diode

My goal for this amp was to create a very direct signal path with no series EQ or Gain controls. This would allow for maximum gain with minimum tubes. Also, I decided to reuse the OT because it was matched appropriately to the stock speakers, which I would also be keeping.

Here is a photo progression from cleaned up chassis to finished product:

I was able to add the IEC mains connector, fuse, and input jack on the back panel and line them up with existing cutouts on the rear panel. Enough talk, give her a listen:

In an effort to road test the hell out of the most recent GNO100 ‘White Stallion’ prototype, we have been taking it to all the shows our band, Funerot, is playing. The results have been loud, proud, and in your face! The thing I really love about this design is that even at super high volumes and high gain, this amp cuts through the haze to deliver shred solos UP YOUR ASS.

We video taped one of our recent shows. Take a listen.

We are also very stoked that our new album, ‘And Then You Fucking Die Man’, is out on Inimical Records as of last week:

Check out a sound sample here , and buy it here. The album was recorded with me playing a very early incarnation of the GNO-100, proto #0, Ben playing a Sovtek Mig100H, and Max playing a Sunn Beta Lead. A toxic trio indeed.

When Max dragged us out to an old hazelnut grove, at the edge of a cemetery, on a freezing winter day, I was a bit skeptical. But HOLY HELL did it pay off!

Local photographer Rachael Lang and husband Rodrigo came out and took some very sexy pictures of our prototype White Stallion, 100W lead guitar amp, and matching 4×12 straight cab. Check them out:

We are very stoked about how these turned out! Rachael has some very cool stuff up on her site, so check it out.

This rig will continue making its way through the Olympia area music scene, so look out for it! Some bands that have played it recently are Christian Mistress, Gun Outfit, Funerot, Milk Music, and Dry Ink. We are getting some great feedback on the design and some good road testing. This rig is getting around…

We’re working on our first production White Stallion amps. To the chagrin of neighbors across the Pacific Northwest, they will be rearing their heads in the next couple of months! Equipped with brand new, redesigned steel chassis, artwork, boxes, boards, and transformers, they will be ready to STAMPEDE YOUR ASS TO PULP!

This is just a reminder that Funerot will be playing a show this Saturday (tomorrow) at the Squid & Ink (1128 S. Albro St., Seattle) with Raw Nerves and Arctic Flowers. Funerot will be playing on a couple of new Gnome prototypes, including the finished Prototype 3, so don’t miss this opportunity to see a rad show and hear some Gnome amps live. The show starts at 8pm and costs $5. Beers and vegan food will be available for purchase, courtesy of Squid & Ink.

It’s been quiet this last month in the cold, rainy Northwest, but only because we have been hard at work finishing Prototype 3, finalizing the design of what is to become the “White Stallion” production model. What about the original White Stallion? After surviving a van crash on tour with Gun Outfit, Prototype 1 will soon be returned to guitarist Dylan Sharp after undergoing some upgrades and modifications at the Gnome workshop in Olympia.

Tonight in Olympia the new prototype will be playing live with Funerot at Northern, 321 4th Ave.  Both guitarists in the band will be playing on Gnome protos, including the new Prototype 3 and an unmarked modified 5150.  The show starts at 9pm and also features Laudanum from Oakland, and Black Ganion from Japan.

And if that’s too short of notice, you can also see Funerot playing Gnome prototypes this Saturday the 28th of November in Seattle at the Squid & Ink, 1128 S. Albro St.  We hope to see you there!

The newly completed Prototype 3 “White Stallion Production Design” contains a fine-tuned preamplifier section for a clearer, stronger, crunchier tone out of only three preamp tubes. This new circuit is even more versatile, allowing the gain character to be changed dramatically simply by substituting different preamp tube types for the input tube. More details will follow, but for now suffice to say that a lot of hard work developing the preamp section has really paid off! We’re excited by the results and invite all to come to these shows to experience it live.

So today while Dan was doing some final testing on Proto Two*, which is now owned by Seattle area musician Chris Gallegos, I posed the insightful question: “So what’s up with the power supply?” This is what was up…

Dan: Well… the power supply is very precisely regulated to maintain a constant voltage at all times except for when our Precision Current Limiting Circuit (which Max did a bang-up job on, by the way!) senses that you are drawing too much power, in which case it slowly reduces the volume of your preamp until it’s in a safe operating range.

Kelly: So… it basically protects your amp from damage that could be caused by stuff shorting out?

Dan: Right, exactly. It provides a very robust protection system for your output tubes, your output transformer, and adds an extra level of protection for all the circutry in your amp.

Kelly: Wow, are shorting situations typically a real problem for tube amps?

Dan: Ya, well traditionally in tube amps there are a number of things that could go wrong that cause a cascading effect on your other components. The most common point of failure is the power tubes, which could take out your whole output transformer. So, you know, frying a $40 set of tubes could also mean you need to replace a $200 output transformer. But in our case if your tubes start failing the current limiter will roll back the output to protect your output transformer.

Kelly: Yikes, and other amps don’t do that?

Dan: Right, most tube amps don’t have any kind of solid state regulation or current limiting.

Kelly: So why are we doing it?

Dan: Well, the main reason to have current limiting in your power supply is to keep you from blowing fuses a lot or destroying your tubes in different shorting situations. It also reduces the risk of fire and protects your output transformer when your output tubes die.

Kelly: I noticed you said “when” your output tubes die, not “if” they die…

Dan: Ya, that’s the most common failure in tube amplifiers. Typically you need to replace your tubes every 6 months. So, this power supply design is meant to extend, even double, the life of those tubes. But also in the case that they completely fail, this will prevent the output transformer from dieing along with them.

Kelly: Sweet, Gnome Amps rule!

* Proto Two has been dubbed by Max as the Black Thunder, along the same vein as the late White Stallion which sustained some minor face plate damage and a few broken tubes in an unfortunate van wreck on the Gun Outfit tour. Van, gear and band careened into a semi-truck after an unlucky tire blowout on the freeway. Fortunately everyone in the van was able to walk away with only a few non-life-threatening injuries. Proto One, code named White Stallion, is in for repairs before rejoining Gun Outfit. Speaking of Gun Outfit, check out this nice review of Gun Outfit from PostPresentMedium.com.

It’s been over a month since the completion of the first prototype, and we’ve been hard at work setting up a new workshop dedicated to the development and production of new Gnome prototypes. In that time, Gun Outfit returned from a successful and eventful tour, and I started on the newly designed second prototype. It represents a redesign of the power supply section for greater reliability, and a more versatile power amplifier section. Seattle-area musician Chris Gallegos will soon be the lucky owner of the second ever Gnome prototype, codenamed “Black Thunder.” The color scheme this time around is, you guessed it, all black, from the knobs to the case hardware. As seen in the previous post, the new case sports black hemp canvas covering and recessed fold-out side handles for ergonomic carrying.

So what is this redesign all about? Our mission is to develop an amplifier that can be enjoyed for a lifetime. The most common culprit in long-term amplifier failures is the ubiquitous electrolytic capacitor. In past decades, it was the only choice of component for power supply filtration: large capacitance value in a small package. The problem is after 10-15 years of use, even a high quality electrolytic begins to drift from its rated value, and performance suffers. In extreme cases, the capacitor can fail into a short circuit, disabling the amplifier and necessitating major repairs. It is common to replace every single electrolytic when overhauling vintage amplifiers. At Gnome amps, we decided to do better. This latest design incorporates oil filled high voltage polypropylene capacitors that will outlast any electrolytic. The best high reliability electrolytic we found was rated for a 5000 hour load life; the polypropylene capacitor is rated at 60000 hours load life- at a load current five times greater! There’s no electrolytic fluid to dry up, so it will continue to perform at its rated value for decades. On top of it all, the performance is much better.

If the above tech talk was too much for you, it can be summarized as follows: this amp can go 30 years or more without any major service, other than a new set of tubes when needed. While other amplifiers might try to sell you on the latest and greatest, or a repeat of design mistakes from the past, a Gnome is built to be the last amp you ever buy.

Speaking of tubes, the quality and selection of new production power tubes has been on the rise in recent years, and we couldn’t be happier. Why wouldn’t you want to try that new set of Tung Sol reissue EL34B’s? Or perhaps a quad of TAD 6L6GC? We think you should try all of the above, and be certain that they’ll all work great in your Gnome. The versatile high-performance bias circuit in the new Gnome prototype is compatible with all common power tube types. Run them hot if you want searing rock breakup, or cold to extend tube lifespan, with a conveniently located bias control accessible from the rear of the amplifier. Gnome amps’ simplicity and clarity bring out the unique character of each tube type and model, so you can keep up with all of the exciting new developments in current tube production.

Stay tuned for the completed second prototype, coming soon!