Considering he owns more amps than most players have lost guitar picks down the back of their couch, Joe Bonamassa is quite rightly something of an authority on amplifiers. And he believes too many players get one major thing wrong.
He knows the highs and lows of his tube-amp obsession all too well. Recently, he was left with acute hearing loss after an incident on the road, and says he has been forced to rethink the sheer scale of his vintage gear collection in the wake of the L.A. wildfire.
But then there’s the joy of tracking down Lowell George’s famed Dumble Super Overdrive after 15 years of searching, and the thrill of gigging with “the world’s most expensive three-channel amp.”
Article continues below
What all that amounts to is experience — and with it, the besuited bluesman has begun questioning why so many players take the same approach when it comes to mic’ing amplifiers.
“I have this thing — and here comes the clickbait — called the Full Sail flashlight,” he says during a recent appearance on the No Cover Charge podcast, referencing Full Sail University. “Tell me you went to Full Sail without telling me you went to Full Sail.
“Every time I see the flashlight coming out when someone's mic’ing the cab, I go [shakes head],” he continues. “Because whoever said that the best sound coming out of any speaker is dead center?”
Instead of a cut-and-paste formula, he believes players should break with tradition and trust their ears to “season to taste.”
“If the amp’s dark, you move it more inside,” he says. “But to start dead center is rough.”
As ever, Bonamassa’s analytical brain whirs away. He sees the value in understanding speaker cabinets on a practical, nuts-and-bolts level.
“All the high end’s coming out of there,” he says, referring to the center of the speaker cone. “So none of the bass response is coming out of the cone. You're not really hearing what this cabinet [itself] is doing, because that’s part of the bottom end.
“It’s about finding where the amp and the mic meet and represent the sound in your head. Putting a mic dead center of the cone is like plugging one ear and putting that ear to the middle of the cone.”
“There are so many links in the chain,” he adds as he winds toward his conclusion. “It starts with the guitar and the amp, and you get a good sound. But there are a lot of ways for that sound to go south if you don’t understand these little details. It shouldn’t be an accident. It should be a well-executed plan.”
Elsewhere, Bonamassa has reflected on the overlooked aspect of B.B. King’s playing, arguing that the blues legend was a true virtuoso, as he promotes his tribute album to the late great.
He has also spoken about the blues giant who made him the guitarist he is today, and says players should learn to read the room when it comes to standing out at jam sessions.
