I love vintage Gibson Amps, this 1964 Gibson GA-5T Skylark 1x10, 10W combo can compete with any small combo in the world. We play it with a 1976 Gibson Les Paul Custom and a 1963 Fender Stratocaster.
Funny the timing on this video. Rhett Shull recently teamed up with Mythos Pedals to recreate this little beast of an amp in pedal form. They just publicly released it at Winter NAMM last week & it's aptly named the Lark. Probably a bit more road worthy than an original amp...HaHa! Would love to hear them side by side if you can get your hands on one. Thanks again for all the great content Johan...keep 'em coming!!!
Old Gibson amps are great and deserve much more attention... I recently got the one I wanted for years - the 1959 Gibsonette - dual single ended 6V6s, redwood combo.. an incredible sound !
Wow, what a great sounding amp! So cool to hear Kiss-esque and SRV-esque riffage from the same amp. So sad that the Gibson amps never got their due like the Fenders and Marshall's. Gonna have to drag out my Dad's '55 GA40 and see if I can make it sound like this....God Bless and Rock on bros :-)
I have the same amp save for the tremolo. I bought it in 1964. I replaced the electrolytic capacacitors years ago. I generally use a VOX D15 in my practice room. My guitar is a Gibson ES 125 thick body that I purchased in 1966. Of all my guitars, it remains my favorite.
I got to play through one of these amps at a recording studio I used to work at. They had a lot of cool vintage gear there. My favorite amp they had was a silver Marshall 2555. But I did see this little Gibson Skylark amp in there and wondered what it sounded like, so I tried it out one day. Thanks for making this video!
Very nice Custom Les Paul, I used to see these old Gibson amps in music stores but kinda ignored them. I figured Gibson's expertise was in guitars, probably passed up on some nice amps.....live and learn
Hi Johan & Simon! Loved your demo & your riffs, as always 👍 That Ludwig kit in the vid is gorgeous 😍 Do you think we can hear it in one of your upcoming vids?
I got what I believe to be the Epiphone version, A 1964 Pacemaker with the same top layout and only minor differences in styling (blue tolex instead of brown and different knobs) . I really like it but it gets a bit harsh at the top end with a bridge single coil. Nothing an EQ pedal could not fix though. Nice demo!
Hey Johan! Great content mate, please keep this up. Question: any chance you will be checking out the Koch amp The Greg (Greg Koch signature amp) please? thanks
Excellent video again! Has anyone heard of the Simms watts 100(an early 70s amp with volume and master I think) ? It sounded awesome on youtube videos and there is a dude selling one online in my country.
I had an old tweed Gibson Explorer amp. It was suppose to be the companion amp to the new Explorer guitar. 10” speaker, 6V6 GT pair, 12AX7 preamp, tremolo. It was okay, but the Fender Princeton or Deluxe was way better. I think Gibson used Valco/Supro/National to build their amps.
Andy, there are different mid-‘60s Skylark circuits. The later ones are cleaner and also kinda stiff sounding. This one OTOH is a lot like a tweed Deluxe!
I just bought a 1964 but the knobs are different. Mine look like Silvertone knobs, plain, bigger, ugly. Sound is a different thing. Mine is mostly original but has a 10" Eminence hemp speaker and a cap value change in the circuit that supposedly restores it to something older in the Gibson catalog. It can be super clean, or super driven and sustainy. Love it so far!
Johan and others, please give me your opinions on speaker replacement for one of these missing the original speaker. Would be looking to emulate the original tone. Thanks!
Gibson amps are fantastic! I had a GA-5 WT and the clean tone was really awesome you all can check it out on my channel and now I have a Thor and it's like I can't even describe it how awesome it is. The sound gets fatter as it's turned clockwise and has natural fuzz from it. It's just woah! Gibson Amps definently need more attention in my opinion.
Sounds terrific Johan!! I can't really afford a real one right now, so I actually just purchased some Kemper profiles of this amp from Rhett... Another RU-vid music blog gear aficionado type* 😂 ✌🏻❤️
Johan Segeborn - well for starters, he recorded them very well which will be the number one thing that makes profiles sound good... Unfortunately I don't have a RU-vid channel where I could demo sounds- but through studio monitors, headphones, Bose shelve speakers, a sound bar and a Roland JC 77... They have slight sound variance, but all sound really nice... Like you're choking a 10" tube amp... 😂
you should check out the supro blues king 8 If you can. Maybe do a video and compare it to the champ? that' would be cool, it's a nice amp. Great video!
I had one of these decades ago. Mine didn't sound that good cranked, but the clean sound was very nice. The tone is extremely compressed and punchy. And the amp has a bunch of weird tubes in it. Mine had a pair of 6AQ5 power tubes, which are similar to the 6BQ5 (EL84). I forget which preamp tubes it used, but they were also oddball tube types. For some reason I started taking the amp apart, but I couldn't put it all back together. My last memory of that amp was throwing its "remains" in the dumpster. I still feel bad about that. Oh, and the one time I brought my little Skylark to band practice I remember our drummer looking contemptuously at my amp and calling it a "piece of shit," LOL.
I feel the same way about Valco amps! Everyone knows about Jimmy Page using them. But you don’t see many others talk about or pay attention to them. It’s always the big 3 Fender, Marshall, Vox. Johan let’s see some more overlooked wonders like this! Do Valco amps next
I think that when a lot of amps are played at volume (to warrant headphones like Johan sensibly wears) then they sound better than at "bedroom" volumes. Thats not to say that all amps sound good, and any volume some sound awful. But when Johan brings the noise he brings out the best in an amp. His technique and pickups/guitar etc play a big part of course.
Hej Johan! Unrelated, but given that the lead 20 and bajs 20 have the same g10L35 speaker, can you do a comparison video where you play bass through both? Would be cool to see how they compare for bass. Thanks..!
My favorite Gibson related amp is the LAB series. I play one for years in high school. If it's good enough for BB...they should do a LAB series pedal platform amp...I just stated the least popular amp opinion on the internet ever
Hello! I am your fan from China, your video is very helpful to us, we hope to see more of your videos, can you allow me to reprint your video to the Chinese website, I will indicate the source, thank you!
Is there a way we can support you with money? Like a patreon or smth? I think you can make something like that on YT, it is a new thing. Come on, we want that! *PLEASE TAKE MY MONEY*
Thanks my friend, that’s very kind of you but we wanna keep this channel free from every commercial aspect. We’re not against commercial RU-vid channels in any way. We just want this one to be like friends gathering and discussing stuff.
Id say it has some desireable qualities,however i find its tone to be way too buzzy.But it does seem dynamic and has sum bite. I think most its charm is in its collectibility and vintage age....approaching antique at this point...lol
