Guitar power amplifiers have been getting smaller and smaller over the years, and now they’ve gotten downright teensy! Meet the world’s smallest – the Electro-Harmonix 22 Caliber power amp.
This baby is the size of an effects pedal, but it’s a full function 22 watt power head – that’s the same amount of wattage as my Fender Deluxe Reverb in a housing that fits in your pocket!
Electro-Harmonix is a New York-based company that’s been around since the late sixties. They were pioneers in fuzz and sustain pedals (remember the Big Muff sustain pedal?). They say that they’re “currently researching and developing breakthroughs in shrinking the guitar amp without sacrificing an ounce of tone” on their website, and let me tell you – it’s working.
The 22 Caliber can power up a 4×12 speaker cabinet and convincingly make those 4 12” speakers growl
. You can plug the amp into a cabinet with 1, 2 or 4 speakers, and it’s safe to use with 4, 8 or 16 ohm resistance which makes it compatible with just about everything.
The controls are simply a volume knob and a normal/bright equalization switch. At low volume the amp has a clear, clean sound that’s quite pleasing. Middle volume gives you a good distorted rhythm sound with long sustain. When you top the amp out to saturation you get a Hendrix sound with lots of screaming overtones. Big fun! And you can add whatever delay or reverb you want in front of it to tailor your sound.
Here’s the punchline: The price is $106.50 (at guitarcenter.com). That’s an amazing value for this amp, and the price includes the A/C power supply.
What do you do with a pocket-sized power amplifier? You can throw it in your gig bag when you’re going to a jam and leave your heavy amp behind, confident that you can get a great, reliable sound through whatever speaker cabinet you plug into. And if you’ve ever had an amp stop working at a gig you know it can be a show-stopper – but not if you have this handy back-up amp.
For about $38 you can upgrade to the 44 Magnum version which is the same Amp with 44 watts of power ($144.75 at guitarcenter.com).
I love playing in open tunings. When I first discovered them as a teenager, I spent hours exploring them and I still do so today. Open tunings allow you to create chord voicings that are more mysterious and colorful than you can get with normal guitar tuning. But there are a couple of downsides to open tunings. For one thing, if you want to switch between normal tuning and open tuning you either need two instruments or take the time to re-tune your guitar between songs. Another problem is that if you re-tune your instrument frequently the strings stretch out and lose their vibrant sound.
Practicing with a metronome is the long-established method for learning to keep solid time. Playing scales and chord progressions with the metronome forces you to recognize any tendency you might have to speed up or slow down while you’re playing and helps you correct it. Metronome practice also allows you to gradually and effectively improve the speed of all your techniques.