THE SQUIRE FILES

AMPS

FENDER


This amp is arguably the best in the world for a clean guitar sound. It is a Fender twin Reverb. These types are known as Silverface amps due to the Silver cloth and pre-amp plate. They were made in the early seventies by Fender who were then owned by CBS after a take over in 1965. These amps were probably the best thing Fender made under the CBS banner. They are basically 100 watt valve amps. Squires affinity with guitars etc of the 60's and 70's would naturally lead him to this amp at some stage. Valve amps are at times amazing, and other times a complete hindrance! They will give you a sound that no other type of amp can touch. It is smooth, warm, clean etc. The way a guitar sound should be. But usually the amps are heavy due to large speaker magnets, and every so often valves need to be replaced along with other components. So they can still cost you money even after you've paid for them.

All Squire's Twins had master volumes on them which was started by Fender in 1972. And in 1975 they started to make a 135w model!! Squire's amps were made sometime after 1974. This is identifiable by the fender logos on the amp. The twins before this time are graced with the fender logo underlined. (Picture shown below left.) Where as the later models just had the word fender with the trademark 'R' at the end. (picture shown right). So Squire's amps could either be the 100w or the 135w version as both types have the fender with the 'R' logo during the later years. His liking of over engineered amps and more volume than you ever need, pushes the debate towards the 135 models. In the early years Squire would use 2 of these amps together for a bigger sound.



"What type of speakers did he use?" Well, the thing with these amps is that when they were on sale in the 70's you had a choice of a few different types of speakers you could have in them. The ones that get the best ratings are the D120F JBL's or 'Orange Basket' speakers as they're sometimes known. (Left) is a pic of ones I have waiting to go into my other twin. For a pair of these in good condition you'd expect to pay £200 per speaker!! There were a couple of other types that were common to see. These were Oxford's and Utah's. The amp shown (above) is my 135w version with a pair of Oxford speakers in it. The problem with valve amps is that they never had large power handling capacity in the speakers. They didn't have channels for distortion so you had to push them quite hard to get the nice overdriven sound. However, the speakers weren't designed to be pushed in this way, therefor their shelf-life would be shortened quite considerably.










MESA BOOGIE


This is the 1st Boogie Squire is seen with. This is a Mark III (simul-class). The simul-class means that you can switch from (class A) to (class AB). Again the switching is from 60w to 100w. These amps are, like the twin reverb, classed as vintage. Again we have another valve amp. They stopped making them round about the early to mid 90's I think. My one (pictured left) was made in 1986. Mesa Boogie had now become Squire's main source of sound. He would use this amp along with his other twin/s to get an awesome, massive sound. Unlike the twin, the boogie can give an overdriven clean sound at slightly lower volumes. Although mesa amps can't really be played low. The mesa has a slightly darker tone compared to the twin, so you could get a great sounding spread having both amps mic'ed up. I have played venues where the capacity is a couple of thousand and I've never had the master volume past 2.5!! Unlike the amp above, this boogie also has a rhythm 2 channel for overdrive. As before the seperate lead channel gain and master controls are the same as the mk II. This would enable Squire to get the clean sound he wanted and then set his lead channel accordingly. I don't think he really used the rhythm 2 channel.

Mesa amps are the top end of the market. So don't expect much change out of £1000. It's usually the Mark I's or II's that are sought after by collectors as the Mark III's were said to be not as usable. The way this amp works is really complicated. Basically, some of the channels settings are dependant on other channel settings so you have to compromise a bit if you want to use all 3 channels. However, most people use just any 2 out of the 3 channels and replace any discrepencies with a stomp box. The 5 band graphic sliders are an excellent feature on this amp. You can have this active or not. If it isn't active then the eq will be taken from the dials instead. You either like the mesa sound or you don't. It's possible to get loads of different tones from the amp, but it's the distortion that is noticeably different. It's hard to describe, but it sounds different from Marshall and any other make. You have to really try it to hear the difference.





MESA BOOGIE (RACK SET UP)


In 1989/90 Squire had firmly grounded his liking of mesa boogie amplification. This was a company who were arguably leading the field in valve amp technology. Squire had ditched the limitations of the twin reverbs and wanted to immerse himself in the more versatile mesa boogie tone. Having used a Mesa combo for the past few years. Squire decided to rack mount his set up with even more versatility. Mesa Boogie had released a rack pre-amp called the 'Quad'. This encompassed almost all the tones available from mesa amps. It had rhythm and lead channels of the Mark II and Mark III amps built into one.

This lay many options wide open for creating lots of new fundamental guitar sounds. Something Squire always seemed to do well was be creative with the tools he had at his disposal. And this pre-amp certainly gave him plenty of scope to do that. The speakers were powered by a 295 simul-class power amp. The speaker cabinets were also mesa, but the configuration changed a bit depending on the performance. The first showing was of 2 2x12's on the infamous 'Late show' performance of 'Made of Stone'. Then on mimed performances of One Love on satellite tv he is shown to have 2 4x12's. And then, at Glasgow Green and Spike Island he had 4 mesa cabinets (2 2x12's and 2 4x12's). The other 2 cabs are out of view in this Spike Island pic, but they are there!! When you're  playing a stage that size you might need 4 cabs to give you a good backline spread of sound.



 
ALESIS QUADRAVERB GT

This is 1 of Squire's 2 rack effects units. Why he had 2, exactly is a bit strange to me! One unit is extremely adaptable so I can't quite suss out why he would have 2 of these. I did wonder if one of the units was maybe used as a vocal effects unit and the patches were changed via midi simultaneously with guitar patch changes.
ALESIS QUADRAVERB GT (2)

Possibly used for vocal effects or set up for some odd delay taps across 4 speakers.
MESA BOOGIE MIDI MATRIX

This piece of equipment is called the 'brain'. Basically it connects all the pieces together so that they can all communicate. For example, you would step on a button on the foot controller and it would change the amp channel from clean to dirty, change patch on the Quadraverb, activate 2 pedals (e.g Chorus and delay) that are connected to analogue loops of the midi matrix. All this lets you concentrate on playing whilst getting the most out of your gear.
MESA BOOGIE QUAD PREAMP

This is the main tone shaping section. The idea behind this rack preamp is that it has the best channels from all the 'Mark' series of Mesa boogie amps rolled into one.  There's probably no sound you can't get with all this at your disposal!
MESA BOOGIE SIMUL 295 STEREO POWER AMP

This is the amp that powers the speakers which are housed in seperate cabinets. The '295' means it gives 95w per channel (2 x 95w) . This is combined from 30w via the Class A and 65w of Class AB. I should point out that all Squire's amps are valve technology and these two pieces (pre and power amp) use a load of valves. Very costly indeed when you come to replace them as a set!

 

MESA BOOGIE 4X12 CAB

These are the type of cabs John used along with the rack from the same period. They are half back angled cabinets which means that the bottom two speakers are sealed off by a panel but the top two are open/accessible and also that the top half of the cabinet is angled back the way. This is all to do with the type of sound produced and in what direction etc. In fact, this is actually one of John's old cabs. More detail below.....
MESA BOOGIE 2X12 CAB

Again, this is an actual cab John used with the rack. I'm not quite sure why he opted for a pair of both 2x12's and 4x12's. Extravagance more than anything probably!! Again, they are angled cabs like the 4x12's.














By the looks of things, he housed his whole rack setup in a 'sus4' MESA BOOGIE 16u rack case. These are solidly built and specifically for mesa rack products. At the time he ordered all that stuff it must have cost about £5000 - £6000 and then you've got the 2 custom made guitars on top of that. Checking out this link from the recently posted footage of Spike Island sound check (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsmI1E-0etc) you can see all his cabs and what looks like his rack plus a back up rack (and possibly at Glasgow Green).  I'm assuming this was all hired for the events..............ouch for the roadies!!! In the picture (above right in colour) you can see Squire using both 4x12's and a 2x12 on his far left. I'm guessing he's got the other 2x12 at the far right, just out of shot.

I couldn't resist the chance to own a piece of roses history so I managed to pick up 1 of each of John's cabs (a 4x12 and a 2x12) from a guy who bought John's whole rack setup from Music Ground, Doncaster in the early 90's. The cabinets have had plenty use so are a bit battered but still in their original flight cases and still sound great! I've put a few pics below.





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