School me on matamp and their modern clones

[aawshred]

I'm very very into the doom/stoner genre, and i love the big fuzz tone that bands like Sleep have, and i'm fairly sure they use matamp heads and stuff, which deliver their own extreme fuzzy distortion. What are the most accurate clones of the vintage matamps? i know matamp actually still makes amps, but there's also electric amp. should i just try and find a sunn model T? any input is appreciated.

[solitaire]

Am I missinformed by thinking of Matamp as being based off of an Orange design, which in turn is kind of a big iron Vox?

[6AM]

Model T's are overpriced for what they are. I'd say the same thing about Matamps and Oranges, though. That fuzzy tone isn't coming from the amp, it's coming from pedals. You could get similar tones from say a silver face Fender Bassman and a Big Muff.

[paulg]

There are a few Matamp/Orange derivitives. White and Green come to mind. Maybe a Red? Whatever. They are pretty rare in the USA. I'm thinking those amps could be characterized as being a loud,clean -EL34 based amp. HiWatt?

[MadFrank]

Am I missinformed by thinking of Matamp as being based off of an Orange design, which in turn is kind of a big iron Vox?

I believe that the story is - late 60's London, a couple of entrepeneurs open a groovy music shop called Orange, decked out in vivid colous and all. They wanted to stock their own brand amp's among their catalogue, so they make a deal with northern amp manufacturer Mat Mathias - Matamp. He supplies them with his amp's and re-brands them 'Orange'. This is the connection between the two companies and continued into the 70's, when they went their seperate ways. The first Orange/Matamp was, I think, a re-branded Series 2000, which was the amp of choice for Peter Green, although I think he played a Matamp version.

The guy's at Matamp told me a story about how, in the 60's, Mat was obsessed about clean tones and hated distortion, and how he would visit bands playing his amp's live and jump up on stage to fiddle with the eq and volume during song's! (I'd like to see Jim Marshall try that!).

Those early Orange/Matamps had a very distinctive loud clean tone, which is still there in some of their respective models and is funny considering that they are now known for being rock and 'Stoner' amp's.

[Zounds Perspex]

yep, the first Orange amps were built by Matamp.
They've been separate quite a long while now.

Then there's also Electric amps, who make the Green amps mentioned previously.
These guys were originally the US distributors of Matamp but they had a falling out.
There's still lots of hard feelings between the two, I think.

that said, if what you want is the sound of a hot-rodded early 70s OR120,
an Electric 120 MV Unit is probably the closest you'll find today to that amp, imo.

and finally, none of those dudes are still using Electric or Matamp, I think,
and not all of their classic stuff was done using Electric or Matamp.
Is the sound you like Holy Mountain? Pike's main amp for that was a Laney AOR, which can be had for super cheap these days.
Pike uses a mix of Marshall and Soldanos now, I believe,
and for the recent Sleep reunion shows he's been using backline-
they show I saw he was using a couple of Orange stacks.

Any of these will work great for what you want -
so will a Peavey VTM120 for almost no money.
so will an Ampeg V4 for around $600 or $700.
and there are lots more options.
getcha something that pushes a lot of watts and won't break
and some high quality fuzz pedals and you'll be good to go.
that said, if you WANT to spend the dough, all these companies make good products.
I think the Electrics will last the longest and be the easiest to service 10 years from now, however.
one other thing about Electrics, though - 6 month wait for 'em, MINIMUM.

[Mr. Bertha]

Am I missinformed by thinking of Matamp as being based off of an Orange design, which in turn is kind of a big iron Vox?

The old Orange and Matamps are definitely not big iron vox copies. Orange/matamp use a baxendal tone stack more like old ampegs. To my mind an orange/matamp is kind of like an Ampeg tone stack with a Marshall or hiwatt el34 based power section (take that description with a big grain of salt).

[amp boy]

also you could check out : http://www.verellenamplifiers.com/

[mikethedigimon]

Diabolical amps also make some Matamp-esque tones:

http://www.classaelectronics.com/diabolicalamplification.html