Li’l Dawg: Best Value in Boutique Custom Amps
I’m the proud new owner of a Li’l Dawg D-Luxe amp. First of all, let me give you a short backstory on how I wound up with this amazing amp. I was considering building a Tweed Deluxe clone from a kit, and I was pricing out different ones like Weber and Ceriatone, when I stumbled on Li’l Dawg. I first heard about him on a few forums, and people raved about Jim’s prices, customer service, and commitment to quality. So I checked him out. I found out that Jim could build me a Tweed Deluxe for LESS than I could build it myself!
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So, after consulting Jim about my needs, I placed my order. Only 2 weeks later I was playing my D-Luxe. I am truly impressed by the entire experience I’ve had with Li’l Dawg, and I just have to sing the praises of the man behind the amps, Jim Nickelson. He is extremely knowledgeable, flexible, and does excellent work. One thing that made me proud to support a small builder like Jim was that he takes personal interest in his customers. He sends you pictures of your amp at each step along the way. This is something that Dad and I do, and that told me something important: Jim takes as much pride in his amps as we take in our guitars.
Now, let’s talk about this amp. The tweed Deluxe amp is a very unique amp. It’s basic specs are simple: 12 watts, 2 Channels, 2x6V6GT power tubes, a 12AT7 preamp tube, and a 12AX7 phase inverter. The controls are simple: Volume, Volume, Tone. The Tweed Deluxe has a very unique preamp section. According to Gerald Weber:
If you are plugged into the instrument channel, the signal goes backwards through the microphone channel’s volume pot, through the microphone channel’s coupling cap, plate resistor, and filter cap to ground.
What this means, is that if you turn up the channel of the amp that you’re NOT using, the channel you ARE using gets gets cleaner. This can be confusing, but it gives you a lot of tonal options.
The D-Luxe amp is incredibly complex. One of the things I worried about, being a control freak, with this amp, is that I would lose some level of control over my tone by giving up controls for Treble, Middle, and Bass, thinking more knobs equals more control.
What everyone says about Tweed Deluxes is correct. They describe the amp as being alive, as having low clean headroom, as having a ton of “sweet spots” where you can get incredible tone, and the descriptions are confusing, but that’s really the best way you can describe this amp. I recommend EVERYONE spend some time playing one, if not owning one. You can and will spend hours finding all the tones it can give you, I almost feel like taking notes every time I play. And what everyone says about the tone is true too. But there’s little things you don’t realize till you’re messing with it.
One common modification made to the Tweed Deluxe is called the “Paul C” mod, which changes the phase inverter. I asked Jim if he could put it in on a switch, and he said he could. At first you think it’s a subtle change, but then you realize it changes the way the interactive volume controls work. In normal mode, turning up the unused volume cleans you up and scoops some mids. When you’re in Paul C, it scoops mids, but doesn’t really clean up. I’m really glad I got the mod switchable. It gives you two amps to explore.
At one point I was getting so many different dirty settings, I was worried that I couldn’t get a clean tone. I was getting such great drive, and I was lost in the settings. So I went back to the notes Jim sent me, set the “Bright” channel volume to 9:00, the “Normal” channel volume to 3:00, and backed off on the tone. BAM. Loud, beautiful, clean. I switched on the Paul C mod, into Paul C, and I could get clean tone all the way up to about noon. And the clean. Oh, the clean. Fat clean with a beautiful pop and compression, and if you REALLY dig in, it starts to get a little dirty, but not in the overdrive-pedal-set-on low way, and not even in a amp-about-to-break up way, in a, this-note-slaps-you-in-the-face way.
It’s very difficult to explain, but it’s all in this box. I got great tweed grind, early marshall crunch, fatter clean than I could’ve dreamed, and some major compression and sag going on. If you like notes that pop, this is your amp.
Some pedals don’t “like” pedals. The pedals sound terrible and you end up taking them out of the loop. Let me be clear. The Li’l Dawg D-Luxe loves pedals, especially my Clear Drive pedal. With the amp already driving, it sent me into marshall territory. I used a BYOC flanger which was a swirly delight through this thing, and even the Digitech Crossroads pedal set for the Leslie Effect was perfect. I was running tone circles around Clapton’s “Badge” on that one.
Bottom line, if you’re shopping for an amp, and you want vintage tone, check out what Jim at LI’l Dawg has to offer. He makes several Tweed amps, a “Brownface” Deluxe clone that is great, an interesting take on the Marshall tone, and he will literally make design changes to suit your tone. And to boot, he’s a great, nice guy. Check him out at http://www.littledawg.com