We didn’t Stark the Fire…

beckstriad

Administrator
Staff member
Well, maybe a little. Voodoosound and I hounded Adam until he built new 2025 Fire amps. I hear he’s only building three of them. One lucky person will get the third…

I don’t think I have to tell this crowd how great Adam’s amps are. Mine will be on its way next week. I can’t upload pictures because the files are too large for here, but I’ll plan to upload clips when my amp gets to me.

Oh, and huge shout out to @Stark for the new logo! Looks rad!
 
The thread title is perfect. Haha. We didn’t start the fire. However for the last 12 years or more since I made the stupid mistake of selling my first fire amp in 2012 or so. I’ve been bugging Adam to build again. And here we are. I only hope even though there are only 3 of these these. There will be futures of more Stark amps. They truly belong on this list of the greats.
 
Yes sounds great in those clips!
I feel there’s a particular “bounce” & “bloom” in the touch & playing, great tone character and harmonic complexity, with a nice balance of compression & dynamics, sustain, warmth yet plenty of bite, clarity, “openess” & depth; that “breathes” well.
And seems to take pedals/boosts very well.
All what I like and look for in “great amps”.
 
That 2025 Fire amp sounds amazing. Stark is one of those guys who really knows tone. A long time ago I learned a cool trick from Stark that he posted on TGP many years ago that I think Alexander Dumble showed him. I have a small Pedaltrain Nano pedalboard with a just an original Roger Mayer Voodoo-1 pedal in front of a vintage Ibanez TS10 Tube Screamer with a JRC 4558 chip. The Voodoo-1 is used as a boost, with the Gain control all the way off. The Voodoo-1 adds some additional smoothness, harmonic complexity, sustain and compression. I use this board whenever I am recording with a Tele and the two pedals together just sound killer. Michael Landau uses the same sort of rig except with a Maxon SD-9 or a Venuram Butter Machine, and with the pedals stacked in reverse.
 
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That 2025 Fire amp sounds amazing. Stark is one of those guys who really knows tone. A long time ago I learned a cool trick from Stark that he posted on TGP many years ago that I think Alexander Dumble showed him. I have a small Pedaltrain Nano pedalboard with a just an original Roger Mayer Voodoo-1 pedal in front of a vintage Ibanez TS10 Tube Screamer with a JRC 4558 chip. The Voodoo-1 is used as a boost, with the Gain control all the way off. The Voodoo-1 adds some additional smoothness, harmonic complexity, sustain and compression. I use this board whenever I am recording with a Tele and the two pedals together just sound killer.

Thank you! I agree. Adam has been nothing but gracious to me, and has helped me understand tone better. Incredible player and clearly also incredibly talented at both building and hearing what great tone is.

I’ll have to try that with those pedals!
 
That 2025 Fire amp sounds amazing. Stark is one of those guys who really knows tone. A long time ago I learned a cool trick from Stark that he posted on TGP many years ago that I think Alexander Dumble showed him. I have a small Pedaltrain Nano pedalboard with a just an original Roger Mayer Voodoo-1 pedal in front of a vintage Ibanez TS10 Tube Screamer with a JRC 4558 chip. The Voodoo-1 is used as a boost, with the Gain control all the way off. The Voodoo-1 adds some additional smoothness, harmonic complexity, sustain and compression. I use this board whenever I am recording with a Tele and the two pedals together just sound killer. Michael Landau uses the same sort of rig except with a Maxon SD-9 or a Venuram Butter Machine, and with the pedals stacked in reverse.

Yes great “trick”!
Picking and stacking pedals in front of a good tube amp to fine tune the sound and feel you’re looking for is one key to me in achieving whatever I can have in my head; I find it opens a whole another infinite universe of possibilities to really develop one’s sound & style.
That’s also often a revelator of how good an amp is to me = how fine it can take pedals in front, and being “augmented” by doing that.
 
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