Vintage Filmosound amplifiers have become more and more popular lately, with now even a couple of analog or digital emulations available (these old projector are really hard to find, so it’s much easier to play with emulations).
Thanks to The Guitar Channel, I had the opportunity to have one of these in hands (the 385 Overdrive by Walrus Audio). So I thought it would be nice to compare the tone of this analog emulation to the digital models that I have created for the release of Axiom V2 (search for “Filmo Tone” on the presets to get a few of these).
Since there are as many mods of these vintage amps as there are guitarists playing them, it is likely that each amp will sound different, and so will emulations. But it is quite interesting to compare the tone you can get out of these. Some tones in the video below seem to be pretty close… What do you think?
Audio Setup
In order to compare apples to apples, both the amp simulation and the pedal are goin thru the same cabinet filter in Destructor (Axiom’s Amp simulation engine). The pedal indeed does not include a cabinet emulation, and you definitely do not want to hear the raw sound of the amplifier without a cab to dampen it quite a bit!
They also go thru the built-in Reverb plug-in and a master compressor, and that’s it! I have tried to made sure that the output level of the amp simulation and the pedal was roughly equivalent.
Guitars
I have used two radically different guitars on purpose: a quite bright Fender Custom Shop Telecaster with single coils, and a darker sounding Epiphone ES 339 (roughly the same as a 335 but smaller) with humbuckers.
It is a good way test an amp (simulation), as it helps you “feed” it with wide variety of tones.
About the Filmosound Amps
These vintage amplifiers built by Bell & Howell in the 50s and 60s have been initially popularized by Blake Mills, as far as i know. They have become more an more popular lately, so much that it is pretty difficult to find original amps to modify yourself, and you can now find more and more analog or digital emulations.
These amps are parts of old film projectors built in the 50s and 60s by Bell & Howell and are usually heavily modded to become usable as guitar amplifiers. So there is a wide variety of models in the wild, which tone may vary quite a bit depending on the original model and how they have been modified. The tone also depends a lot on the cabinet used after the amp.
Want to know more about modded Filmotone amps? You can find quite a few articles on the Internet, such as this one.
Enjoy!
