Bonamassa With Buddas – Sick Tone!
Joe Bonamassa seems to be one of those guys with golden hands. Don’t think I’ve ever heard him with bad tone, even when he was a a flashy youngster. And as with all tone hounds, the amp – or in his case “amps,” since “there can’t only be one” – is a huge part of that tonal magic.
What he uses changes – Joe has bad GAS. He’s used, owned, still owns, etc. more gear than probably everyone reading this post put together, so his gear now in many ways is significantly different than even a few years ago. Going back further still, it really changes, especially on the amp side.
In about ’05 (to maybe ’07?) Joe used Budda amps. Back then Budda was an independently owned boutique manufacturer, and a well-known one. It was bought by Peavey around ’09.
Joe’s moved on since then, probably a combo of tonal evolution (plus love of 100w headroom), playing bigger venues and the GAS epidemic. But I gotta say that Joe sounded KILLER through Buddas, as the vid below demonstrates.
Does it get much better than that?! (How ’bout that riff at 1:17 – sweet.)
That’s a Superdrive (SD) 45, which has KT66 power tubes (two) like the old, old Marshalls and the Hendrix reissue Marshall. But Joe apparently mostly used SD 30 (4xEL84) and 80 (4x6L6) heads, the 30 for some dirt and the 80 for some cleaner, higher-headroom stuff.
Though not in the above vid, he also apparently used or worked in his old-reliable, now-always-on Marshall Silver Jubilee head with the Buddas:
He appears to be using Budda 4×12s, which had then and still have Budda Phat 12 speakers. Four Phats get you 300w, so that’s 75w per speaker. Pine cab, which Budda co-founder Jeff Bober has always preferred, at 8 ohms.
Apparently one or more of the Buddas were used almost exclusively on Joe’s You and Me album – but I couldn’t get that confirmed.
All for now gents!
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This vid is different than the one above!
Category: Budda, Joe Bonamassa, Marshall
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