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Friday I drove out to Splawn's shop just outside of Charlotte, NC. I was going out there to check out a Quickrod to replace my Splawn modded Marshall 1987X. I wanted effects loop, channel switching, etc.
When I got to the shop Scott was in the midst of mounting transformers and such to the chassis of a new amp and one of his guys was putting together a wiring assembly of pots.
Scott very graciously took the time to demo a Quickrod that was on his bench. He walked me through all the differences between the Quickrod and the Marshall he modded. The drive "gears" are awesome. And the newly voiced clean channels is a really cool hybrid of a Fender and Marshall clean tone. The Quickrod really sounds fantastic. It has great touch response. It's really impressive how even the dirtiest setting cleans up really well by backing off the guitar volume.
I was sold and told Scott I'd take one. But did he ring me up right then? Nope. Instead he took me around on a tour of the facility. Very cool! He showed me the amp chassis's and explained how he was getting them built from a local shop that was recommended to him from a customer. The PCBs are made locally. The logos are made locally. Nice!
Next we went over to where they build their own head and speaker cabinets. Yes, "where they build their own"! Brian #1 does all the wood working and showed me some cool in progress stuff - these cabinets are *extremely* well built - 13-ply baltic birch, killer joints, etc. They have a really sweet setup for this with a CNC machine to do all the cutouts. I am looking forward to what other things may come out of a CNC machine in the hands of a guy like Scott who is totally into hot rodded guitars and amps
Then we went over to see Brian #2 doing the tolex and finishing on the cabinets. He's *really* good at this. The tolex looks painted on. Even on a white cabinet you could barely see any seams. All the hardware is top notch. The overall fit and finish on these is simply fantastic.
So then it's off to front counter to order my amp. This is a much more involved process than I'm used to. You get to choose your tolex, the style and color of piping you want, what sort of head cabinet you want, what color control panel you want, what style knobs you want, and depending on which cabinet you choose you get to choose the type of front panel you want including custom graphics! How cool is that!?!?!?!?
This is an impressive operation. They are growing nicely - the shop looks a LOT different than it did a few years ago when I had my Marshall modded. Given how so many companies operating it was truly refreshing to see a company making amps like this. As much as possible is made on site or from a local business. This really enables them to build custom stuff without it being a custom process or the associated custom wait times.
The drive was about 3 hours each way and well worth every minute. I can hardly wait until my Quickrod is finished!
When I got to the shop Scott was in the midst of mounting transformers and such to the chassis of a new amp and one of his guys was putting together a wiring assembly of pots.
Scott very graciously took the time to demo a Quickrod that was on his bench. He walked me through all the differences between the Quickrod and the Marshall he modded. The drive "gears" are awesome. And the newly voiced clean channels is a really cool hybrid of a Fender and Marshall clean tone. The Quickrod really sounds fantastic. It has great touch response. It's really impressive how even the dirtiest setting cleans up really well by backing off the guitar volume.
I was sold and told Scott I'd take one. But did he ring me up right then? Nope. Instead he took me around on a tour of the facility. Very cool! He showed me the amp chassis's and explained how he was getting them built from a local shop that was recommended to him from a customer. The PCBs are made locally. The logos are made locally. Nice!
Next we went over to where they build their own head and speaker cabinets. Yes, "where they build their own"! Brian #1 does all the wood working and showed me some cool in progress stuff - these cabinets are *extremely* well built - 13-ply baltic birch, killer joints, etc. They have a really sweet setup for this with a CNC machine to do all the cutouts. I am looking forward to what other things may come out of a CNC machine in the hands of a guy like Scott who is totally into hot rodded guitars and amps
Then we went over to see Brian #2 doing the tolex and finishing on the cabinets. He's *really* good at this. The tolex looks painted on. Even on a white cabinet you could barely see any seams. All the hardware is top notch. The overall fit and finish on these is simply fantastic.
So then it's off to front counter to order my amp. This is a much more involved process than I'm used to. You get to choose your tolex, the style and color of piping you want, what sort of head cabinet you want, what color control panel you want, what style knobs you want, and depending on which cabinet you choose you get to choose the type of front panel you want including custom graphics! How cool is that!?!?!?!?
This is an impressive operation. They are growing nicely - the shop looks a LOT different than it did a few years ago when I had my Marshall modded. Given how so many companies operating it was truly refreshing to see a company making amps like this. As much as possible is made on site or from a local business. This really enables them to build custom stuff without it being a custom process or the associated custom wait times.
The drive was about 3 hours each way and well worth every minute. I can hardly wait until my Quickrod is finished!
Thanks for the details!
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