Ceriatone Forum

Hello all!

My son is already the proud owner of a Ceriatone DC30 amp and I recently purchased (via Craigslist) him a Marshall 1960 Angled Cab with 4 G12T75's.

He also owns a Fender Twin Reverb '65 reissue so he gets the cleans he needs from that amp and the chime he wants from the DC30.

We've been thinking a lot about purchasing him a Ceriatone OTS but we were wondering what Ceriatone OTS amp would go best with the Marshall Cab; or if not the OTS, what other Ceriatone you'd suggest.

He plays everything from John Mayer to alternative (Foo Fighters, Arcade Fire, Radiohead) to Led Zeppelin and he has a lot of different guitars to  choose from when trying to capture great sounds.

Thanks so much for your input!

Hello
To start every young man should have a father like you. That is really cool, I am trying to get both my 9 and 5 yr old boys into music as well.
As far as your question goes, heres my 2 cents.
I purchased the OTS FM50 pack 2 kit and built it with great success.
Just last Tuesday I brought the amp to my local music store to show it off to the owner Larry who is a huge Robben Ford and Larry Carlton fan. In fact hes the only person I've talked to that already knew who Dumble was, other than on these forums. Anyways brought the amp in for him to play just to get a non subjective opinion ( I built it so of course I'm gonna love it ). He plugged in his LP pulled a slide out of his pocket dimed the knobs ( He likes it loud as heck ) and made the amp sound better than I have heard it ever.
I told him I wanted to AB it with a Twin Reverb. He said it would be a waste of time hes gigged just about every holy grail amp I could name and none have sounded as good as the OTS just did.
The point of the story is you really cant go wrong with the OTS.
I have only played the FM50 so cant speak for all other models but can say they are the real deal.
Hope your decision just got easier.
BTW the cleans on the OTS are sweet as well, may sell that Twin to make room and help pay for the OTS

Todd

Thanks for your kind words and insightful advice Todd.....I've emailed Nik and he suggested the HRM for flexibility but the verdict's still out.... :)

I think we'll be deciding soon!

May I humbly suggest that the best amp to go with the Marshall cabinet would be a Marshall Clone...

...then get a different cabinet altogether to go with an OTS and then you have the best of all worlds  ;)

i'd have to agree with Nik. After emailing him for several weeks, and originally planning on having him build me either a Plexi 50 setup to run 6L6's or a JTM45 (both to allow my faithful Sovtek Mig50 to retire), i happened to mention to Nik how much I missed my modded original Princeton reverb amp that had a modified tone stack and a master volume added, but sounded great just cranked. He suggested that since i was thinking about the Plexi 50 or the JTM45, that I would probably really like the HRM Bluesmaster, since it has a nice Blackface thing going on the clean side that sounds killer cranked (which it does), and with the post OD (HRM) tonestack on the OD side it would be very flexible and versatile, and indeed it is. The only thing I don't like about the HRM is that the trimmers are internal, so if you do decide you want to change your sound a bit, you have to drop the chassis, but so far, i haven't needed to tweek em much at all. I am thinking about putting concentric pots for the tone stack though, so i can easily adjust both the main and internal tone stacks, though, just a thought. I don't think you can go wrong with any of Nik's amps, though, and his customer service is top notch, and will do some custom options (within reason).

Any of the OTS circuits will be fine with the 4x12. Remember, Robben Ford used a 4x12 with G12-75's for a while in the 80's and it sounded great. (His amp is a Skyliner NON-HRm BTW, AKA the "Ceriatone Ford Mustang 100w"). Joe Bonamassa also used 4x12 cab's at one point with his Two Rocks, Van Weelden's, and Carol-Ann amps (which are all Dumble clones with different circuits from HRM to NON-HRM, Skyliner, Bluesmaster, ECT.

 If you ever decide to add a Marshall type amp you can split the cab and each amp will have a 2x12.

IMO the OTS amps are better suited for 2x12 settups. 4x12 are a horrible design, actually not designed at all, Jim marshall originally built it because at the time he only had 25 watt speakers but was building 100 watt amps and needed a quick fix. 4x12s tend to beam treble and have a muddy bass. Stand right infront of any 4x12 and you know what im talking about, ice pick treble. Move 2 steps to the right and now the amp sounds muddy. 2x12's tend to spread sound better which I find better suited to the OTS's characteristics. Also not a big fan of G12T75's with dumble clones, they tend to scoop the amp's incredibly sweet sounding mids.