What makes this amp interesting and probably historically important is that it was one of the first Valco guitar amps to use 6L6 power tubes. It cost $165 at the time and produces about 16 watts of power. This same McKinney amp can also be found in the 1949 National catalog as model 1260. We’re talking about the dawn of rock ’n’ roll here! Then, in the late 1940s, Valco started to produce amps voiced for more powerful guitar pickups, crystal microphones, and changing musical styles. If you study old Valco catalogs, you’ll notice that many of the amps of that time were sold with a lap-steel guitar, so most of these early amps were low-powered and voiced for a certain style of music. This line was sold through the McKinney School of Music in Peoria, Illinois. Back in the day, the Valco Company of Chicago was making amps and guitars under many different brand names, and this McKinney is just one example. But they give modern guitarists’ two different, delicious breakup flavors McKinney 1260ĭating from 1948, this amp is the oldest of the group and probably the most ferocious. On the Valco-made McKinney 1260, the separate volume controls for the microphone and instrument channels reveal the amp’s original all-in-one design as a vocal PA and guitar amplifier. Use your own ears and create that noise! Here are seven nearly forgotten models worthy of that cause. And finally, don’t rely on the opinions of others. You have to go second- and third-level thinking here: Think about miking smaller, low-powered amps, and think about pairing two amps via a switching box. To find sleeper amps, you need to venture into old shops and look for gear that has been there so long it’s become part of the store’s décor. If you can somehow avoid name recognition or snobbery, there may be a ton of good old amps to be found and probably a ton of songs to be written. To my mind, guitar amplifiers are instruments, just like guitars, and each amp offers a voice and soul that contains a handful of songs to be mined. I like this story because I’ve often felt that way about amps. It didn’t matter what kind of guitar it was, as long as it was affordable and playable. Krist said every time Kurt was able to find a new guitar, he became infatuated with it, and his obsession with his new instrument would spawn 10 new songs.
In the clip, Krist talked about searching pawnshops for left-handed guitars for Kurt. A few years ago, I saw a video clip of Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic describing his relationship with Kurt Cobain.
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