Custom Amp for Isaac Brock / Modest Mouse
09.01.07

This was a custom guitar amplifier designed by me for Isaac Brock of the band Modest Mouse. The original idea was to make an amp inspired by the classic Fender SuperSix that didn’t sound like a sick horse digging it’s own grave when pushed past 5. The amp became a whole lot more than that…

Built out of solid Black Walnut with a Baltic Birch front baffle and Walnut veneered Baltic Birch rear baffle, the amp consists of 4 Weber AlNiCo 10″s in a partially open-back section and 2 Weber british-voiced Ceramic 10″s in a fully sealed closed-back section. This addition of a sealed speaker system gives the amp tight and responsive low-end even when pushed with multiple distortion and boost pedals (Isaac’s notorious for utterly decimating the front-end of his amps). All speakers are wired fully parallel to have maximum headroom before speaker distortion takes place. The output transformer is custom designed to interface properly with the abnormal load presented by the speaker configuration. The wood used for the wrap-around on the front is Mahogany.

The amplifier itself is 100 Watts, featuring a point-to-point construction built on G-10 turret boards, mostly all Mogami wire (all signal/low current ground wire), anindependent reverb system that allows you to play the reverb fully wet if you wish, and custom designed transformers built in America by Heyboer Transformers. The output section is a quad of 6L6 power tubes. The preamp circuit was designed from scratch exclusively to match Isaac’s playing and tone requirements.

The result is an amplifier that feels almost directly connected to the picking hand, responding with attack and punch that I’ve never heard any amplifier ever have before. The way that Isaac plays is very percussive and has a huge sense of immediacy to it and I wanted an amplifier that would exemplify that same feel and response.

All wood is finished (by Isaac) with a smooth tung oil finish. The logo on the front is branded into the wood.
All of these pictures so far are without the front and rear control panels done, which recently Isaac decided he didn’t want them.

By far the most startling feature of this amp is it’s inherent ability to make mispelled words properly understood. (Majic).