Prestigious Uk Amp Builder Cornford Teams Up With Respected Us

Transcript

GBREVIEW AMPLIFIER CORNFORD RK100 Signature Sounds PRESTIGIOUS UK AMP BUILDER CORNFORD TEAMS UP WITH RESPECTED US ROCKER RICHIE KOTZEN TO CREATE HIS PERFECT TONE. PAUL SALTER ASKS – WHAT’S IN A NAME? There’s a partnership between our guitars and our amps that produces the tones we like. It sounds obvious when you say it like that, but the thing is, I’d say that most of us place more importance on the guitar as far as the personality of the tone is concerned: it is the ‘instrument’, after all. However, thinking this way can lead to the opinion that an amp is merely a tool, and is just there to fulfil the function of making your treasured instrument sound louder. Well it ain’t necessarily so... For many guitarists, their amplifier is every bit as important in shaping their tone as their guitar. That’s why it’s great to see a rock guitarist that’s as renowned for his great tone as he is for his frighteningly good playing, team up with one of the UK’s best amp builders to produce the Cornford Richie Kotzen Signature amp. Richie is a player who knows the importance of having not just a good amp, but the right amp, and here it is to see if it’ll suit some of us, too. ... PRE & POWER AMP As the Cornford RK100 is a totally hand-wired, boutique-style amp with a basic collection of controls, you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s got to be a one-tone relic for the old blues fellers. After all, a single channel set-up with no reverb let alone a digital effects section – we want 80 GUITARBUYER APRIL 2005 bells and whistles and a light show, don’t we? Apparently not, if you’re Richie Kotzen. In this case your main requirements would be big tone and smooth overdrive without hassle, although we’d venture you’d still appreciate the glorious view of a quartet of glowing EL34 valves through a metal grill – much better than any amount of flashing LED and LCD displays. So, elegantly simple in appearance and use it may be, but there’s far more going on behind that brushed-steel front panel than you might think. For a start, this isn’t just one of Cornford’s regular amps with a bigger output stage and some new graphics – the RK100 has been built from the basics up, with Richie’s requirements taking priority all the way. Paul Cornford told us that as an earlier experiment to match a 100-watt power amp section with the preamp of their MK II amp didn’t have the desired feel, a complete redesign was the only way to go. The culmination of this uncompromising work has resulted in a new direction for Cornford, and a very versatile amp. A big part of the versatility is down to the switching arrangement. Rather than have a volume/gain boost, it was felt that the most natural-sounding way to get two workable sounds was to have a footswitchable option of dropping the drive level instead; just like rolling back on the guitar’s volume control. A somewhat lost art perhaps, and one not so readily practised on a master volume set-up like this. Which brings us back to ➔ the somewhat ambiguous APRIL 2005 GBINFO CORNFORD RK100 HEAD PRICE: BUILT IN: TYPE: POWER: VALVES: £1799 UK Valve head 100 Watts Four 12AX7, four EL34 FEATURES: Single channel, Hot/Cool modes, effects loop, impedance switch, two speaker outs, footswitch socket, bias switch, output valvefailure fuses FOOTSWITCH: Hot/Cool mode footswitch supplied DIMENSIONS: 280(h) x 650(w) x 240(d) mm WEIGHT: 23kg GBINFO CORNFORD RK412 CAB PRICE: £699 BUILT IN: UK SPEAKERS: Four Celestion Vintage 30 DIMENSIONS: 750(h) x 740(w) x 360(d) mm WEIGHT: 42kg CONTACT: Cornford Amplification PHONE: 01227 280000 WEB: www.cornfordamps.com GUITARBUYER 81 GBREVIEW AMPLIFIER CORNFORD RK100 ■ The Cornford RK100 has been developed and refined with Richie’s full input LIKE THE HEAD, THE CAB SCREAMS QUALITY, IT’S OBVIOUSLY BUILT TO A HIGH STANDARD TO LAST A LIFETIME RICHIE KOTZEN CHECK OUT THIS GUY’S TONE ■ Richie Kotzen has had a career to be proud of to date. From stints with acts like Poison and Mr Big, and working alongside greats like Stanley Clarke, to an impressive solo career – all of which have been accomplished with great style and taste. The Cornford RK100 has been developed and tweaked to suit his expansive style with a great deal of input from him throughout the process. If you’ve not heard any of Richie’s work before, you can hear samples of his current album, Get Up, on his website, www.richiekotzen.com ■ Both the head and the cab boast obvious quality, and are ready for life on the road characteristics of the RK100 – are we talking modern or vintage tones here? Well, the four 12AX7 preamp valves might suggest the former, but the overall impression so far is of an amp that’s not going to be pigeonholed too easily. The back panel shows more concessions to versatility with an impedance selector alongside the two speaker outputs, and a valve-driven effects loop. Peering through the back grill reveals an even greater opportunity to change the basic tone – a bias switch for the output valves. If you fancy a slightly more Fender-like feel you can change over to a set of 6L6s in a couple of minutes. CABINET & SPEAKER The RK100 head is more than capable of driving pretty much any cab you’d want to partner with it, though it’s designed to sound at its best with the Cornford RK412 cab. Not surprisingly given its name, this is a 4x12 loaded with the ever-reliable Celestion Vintage 30s. Like the head, the cab screams quality, it’s obviously been built to a high standard and it’s a handsome – if heavy – piece of gigworthy gear that should last a lifetime. The cabinet itself has been crafted from solid pine finished with decent-grade Tolex and chunky metal corner protectors. We particularly like the fact that ➔ ‘ROUND THE BACK SAFET Y AND SERIAL FIRSTS ■ The back panel of this handsome amp has a handy pair of output valvefailure fuses. Not the most exciting bit perhaps, but as well as being a safety feature, it’s a great help in pinpointing the source of trouble if the amp does happen to fail. The back panel on this sample also reveals the serial number RK0001, this is the first of the production run and as Paul Cornford told us, belongs to Richie himself. We’d like to thank Paul for lending us the amp and inform Richie 82 GUITARBUYER APRIL 2005 that if he wants it back, he’s going to have to come and get it. In fact, it’s not here any more anyway – we’ve, er, lost it. Or maybe it was abducted by aliens. Or something... GBREVIEW AMPLIFIER ... CORNFORD RK100 DETAILS BLENDING ASPECTS OF BOTH MODERN AND VINTAGE AMPS, THE RK100 BOASTS PLENT Y TO MAKE RICHIE PROUD ■ The Hot/Cool mode footswitch is supplied ■ Cornford, Kotzen and a bunch of tubes: sounds great so far GBCONCLUSION IT MAY BE HIGH PRICED, BUT IT HAS QUALITY TO MATCH the two metal side handles are recessed flush with the side of the cab – nothing to get snagged – and that the input socket is one of those flashlooking, locking Neutrik types. SOUNDS GBOPINION CORNFORD RK100 & RK412 GOLD STARS Fantastic tones Very high build quality Easy to use BLACK MARKS Very heavy IDEAL FOR... Enviable pro rock tones spanning cleanish crunch to full-on filth 84 Part of Richie’s criteria for this amplifier was that it should be easy to use. The universal instant reaction that it seems to get from everybody within earshot, would suggest that Paul Cornford and his team have scored bigtime on this one. It doesn’t appear that there’s a bad tone anywhere here, however those chicken head controls are set, and you can’t get much more user-friendly than that. This might suggest that the controls are limited – not a bit of it. Even at the considerable higher volume levels that are available, all of the controls are impressively effective. Small GBRATINGS CORNFORD RK100 & RK412 PRE & POWER AMP CAB & SPEAKERS SOUNDS VALUE FOR MONEY GBVERDICT GUITARBUYER APRIL 2005 increments make noticeable changes to the tone in the sweetest way, with the result that this feels like an EQ section that’s designed for this particular amp, not some standard circuit that just serves the purpose. The overall character is definitely British. It’s smoother than the classic Bletchley vibe, but with more bite than we’ve come to expect from Cornford while retaining the excellent definition and sophisticated edge of that ‘expensive’ amp tone. That definition is retained when the footswitch brings in the Cool mode to offer more open textures for a natural crunch or clean sound with loads of character; exactly what you’d expect when rolling back your guitar’s volume pot with a responsive amp, in fact. The range of tones is impressive not only in its scope, but the fact that throughout that range the quality is so consistently high, be it dynamic classic rock and expressive lead tones, or powerful metal drives that are full of energy and sustain. This really is compelling stuff that will appeal to all manner of rock and blues guitar players for its incredible responsiveness and dynamics, not to mention the visceral power on tap. ■ Our earlier question about where this head should be placed along the vintage/ modern metal amp scale can be answered pretty easily – just about anywhere it wants. It does lean toward the modern with the tight bottom end and smooth drive, but the dynamics and richly-detailed midrange shift perceptions back a few decades. Best of both worlds then? Well for my money certainly, this is exactly the kind of sound that appeals to me personally – great character and punch without the drag of power-amp sag on the heavier tones, and still loads of warmth and dynamics for the cleaner stuff. It may be relatively expensive, but this is an amp that’s been built without compromise, something that becomes apparent when you crank it up alongside a cheaper, albeit similarly specced amp. The RK100 simply shines, and leaves you wondering why all amps don’t have tones that feel and sound this good. GB