I recently picked up a Mojotone Tone Machine amp from a Mojotone E-bay auction a couple of weeks ago. After an intervening business trip and knee cap dislocation (I'm never going near a damn ski slope again), I finally was able to use the Tone Machine at a band practice this past Thursday night.

It sounds *incredible* in the context of my band – better than any amp I’ve tried in recent memory – or, perhaps, ever. First, I’ll go through my set-up on Thursday night. I used a Robin Wrangler Tele-style guitar (made very well by the same guys that make Rio Grande pickups). It has a Tele body, thick Strat neck, Tele bridge pup, and Strat middle and neck pups. I was in the bridge most of the night. I also briefly used a Godin LG with Seymour Duncan P-90’s. I used only 2 effects – a Tech 21 Double Drive and an E-H Deluxe Memory Man delay pedal. I used a Loooper A/B/Y box to switch between the two channels on the amp, as the channels are not footswitchable in the modern sense of the term.

My band, Medicine Hat, is a pretty straight-forward 4 piece bluesy rock band playing mostly originals now but occasionally digging into some Hiatt, Stones, Midnight Oil, etc. tunes for fun. I play mostly rhythm guitar in the band, and the lead guitarist uses a G&L S-500 through a Carr Slant 6V 1x12. OK, now for sounds…

Both channels were incredibly easy to dial in for a good rhythm sound with the Robin. The Loud channel (I’ll call this the “clean” channel from now on) is very Fender-y, with a lot of top end sparkle and bass thump if needed. It has no master volume, and I had to dial the volume up to about 11:00 to get to band rehearsal level. We practice rather loudly due to an acoustically-challenged rehearsal space. I was amazed that 2 10” ceramic speakers could produce such a big, warm clean sound. The reverb, even when cranked up quite high, was very light sounding. That’s OK for me because I’m not a reverb-junky. The manual depicts a mod to increase the reverb amount, and I may or may not try it. My Double Drive pedal did not like the clean channel much. It sounded rather harsh and artificial. That’s OK, though, because we have…

…the Really Loud channel! I’ll call this the “gain” channel from now on, even though that’s kind of a misnomer. As I had suspected before, this is where the fun begins on this amp. Like the clean channel, the gain channel has no master volume. It is definitely *not* a distortion channel, but rather seems to be a hotter, more British clean channel. This is perfect for me, as I like a variety of clean-to-almost-clean sounds and can use pedals to get more intense drive. I was only able to get this channel to about 10:00 on the volume dial before drawing the ire of my bandmates. It has a thicker, more middy sound than the clean channel and sucked in the Double Drive pedal like a black hole. In other words, the pedal sounded like it became part of the amp and thickened up the tone even more without discoloring. This channel was also very touch sensitive. I was easily able to control the amount of grit in my sound simply by changing my playing dynamics. I’ve never quite experienced this before, and it was nice. The gain channel produces a very warm, vintage-y drive sound when cranked up a little.

The amp sounded so good through the two internal Mojotone 10” speakers that I was never even tempted to hook-up my Jenkins 2x12 cab. I’m planning on selling that cab now. As I said above, I used the Robin most of the night because it sounded too good to put down. I did try the Godin for one tune, but it was much, much louder than the Robin, and I did not have the patience to dial it in. I’ll have to experiment more with this guitar soon.

The amp was hand-wired by Greg Germino before he embarked on his own amp company venture, and the build quality is outstanding. The only quibble I may have is that the tolex is not up to the snuff of high-end boutique amps. This is just a minor point to me and the tolex is definitely passable.

In sum, I *highly* recommend this amp if you go for non-master volume, vintage rock and blues tones. It is definitely not a bedroom amp, but rather an honest-to-goodness stage worthy combo with a perfect amount of power for mid-size gigs. I got mine for $675 off of E-bay from Mojotone, and I think this is the deal of the century.

Now that you've had it for a while, is it still as good sounding as you thought? I'm most likely getting one as part of a trade, and it sounds like my style. Just currious how you feel about it after having it for a while
Thanks Joe