Praise for the "OG" JF VHT

I just picked up one of these in a trade (the second one built, in fact, way back in mid '09), planning to use it as a donor. But before shipping it out, I decided to throw some good preamp tubes in it and give it a whirl.

I'm glad I did. Apparently it's based on the VHT 50/ST amp, which, according to Rob, was Fryette's take on a hot-rodded JCM 800. It combines the best qualities of the latter with the tightness, cutting mids, and extremely articulate nature for which VHT/Fryette amps are known. As you might expect, it does demand technical precision, but the payoff is a unique, moderately heavy tone that works well for most anything short of drop F# Norwegian church-burning metal.

If you can track one of these relative rarities down on the used market (they were going for preposterously low prices, last I checked), I highly recommend trying it out.

Shred on.

How ironic. The KH3 you sold me in July of 2009 became exactly that. I still own it.

'Tis a small MTS world, after all.

Fore sure

The "OG" comment has to be the funniest thing I will see all day. I always had a soft spot for old school rap (essentially NWA/Public Enemy through early Death Row records west coast stuff mainly) and that made my day. I was a teen when all that stuff started and for some reason I always found that old gangster rap triggered an emotion similar to listening to Slayer or Pantera. They were all coming out around the same time and that was the angst-ridden soundtrack of my youth. :lol:

Dibs on the first Vernon Reid/Public Enemy "Sophisticated *****" module.

I too am a big fan of the OG JF Pit!

Between LoD21 and I, we have a ton of high gain hot rodded Marshall and Mesa tones, so it is slightly redundant in our collection, but I have always said there is something very special about that mod. We probably don't use it as much as we should, but every time LoD21 is looking for a new donor or module he wonders if he should use it as a donor or sell it outright. We pop it in and come to the same conclusion, "Wow, this thing really has a certain something to it!" and we end up not sacrificing it.

As soon as I finish my next order with Rob, an Ultra Lead and hopefully one of the new ones he's got in R&D, I would definitely pickup a JF Pit if one became available just to have it. I can't say it would be my main tone, but it would be handy to have around for the right recording situation.

Since I was sending in a donor for an Ultra Lead anyway, I decided to include the VHT for a little tweaking as well (specifically, a touch more gain and a tight switch). With those two modules in hand, I'm hoping to have the VHT/Fryette tonal spectrum pretty well covered.