Sunday, September 8, 2019

Pignose Amplifers - The Whole Story

Kimbell and Edlund
The Pignose Amplifier was invented by Richard Edlund and Wayne Kimbell back in the late 1960’s, during the days when they were both working for a graphics agency.

Back in 1968, they were doing a photo shoot at a Rock ‘n Roll trade show, when Edlund saw a 5 watt battery powered amplifier made by an audio visual distribution company called Pacific Radio. There were plenty of 5 watt amplifiers back in the day, but most were AC amps in larger cabinets.

English Leather Box

Edlund came up with the idea of a creating small battery powered amplifier. English Leather Cologne was popular back then and it was packaged in a small hinged wooden box. Edlund used one of these as a chasis for his small amplifier.



Warren Zevon 
During this same time period, Edlund was hanging out with his friend Warren Zevon,  Zevon was recording an album and was cranking his Peavey amps up to get feedback. This drew complaints from other artists at Wally Heider’s studio.

 Edlund asked him to try out his homemade amplifier and Zevon wound up finishing all the sessions using the tiny amp.

Original Pignose Knob
It is questionable how Kimbell and Edlund came up with the name Pignose, but after the decision they ordered rubber snout-shaped knobs to be made. One of their friends, producer/director gave them an advance, got a copyright attorney, and with the money they made 65 amplifiers.


The guys came up with “The Legendary” moniker by giving all 65 amps away, in hope someone would take interest and offer funding. It paid off.

Jimmy Guercio
At the time Record producer Jimmy Guercio was having a lot of success with the band Chicago. Guercio had recieved one of the Pignose amps and got Chicago's guitar Terry Kath use it on a recording. Kath fell in love with this little amp, going so far as to imagine a wall of Pignose amps.

Terry Kath of Chicago
Guercio, Kath, and the rest of the band offered to invest in the manufacturing by becoming partners and set about to fund Pignose Industries Inc.

Edlund redesigned the amp to look much like it does today, and named it the 7-100. Pignose Industries set up production. They used Martin guitars for distribution, and  printed thousands of red, white, and blue stickers to advertise the amplifiers.

Vintage USA made Pignose7-100
The amp made its debut at the 1973 Summer NAMM show, as The Legendary Pignose Amplifier. The earliest amps were covered in real pigskin.

The company made and sold over 50,000 amplifiers the first year.

The amp is in a 9 x 6 x 4” case, and weighs about 5 pounds. It pumps 5 watts into a 5” speaker, and is powered by six AA batteries, or an optional 9 volt AC transformer.

The cabinet included two guitar strap hooks, to allow the player to put a strap on it and wear it over their shoulder.

JCM2000 with JCM900 cabinet
and a Pignose 7-100


The Legendary Pignose 5 watt amp was sort of thumbing its snout at guitar and bass players that were obsessed with Marshall Stacks, and other huge amplifiers. And a lot of artists, including Frank Zappa, Eric Clapton, and John Lennon recorded with a Pignose amp.



Micro Amps
Since 1974, there have been a few imitators. In this era, there are many tiny modeling amplifiers, including the Roland Micro Cube, Vox, Yamaha, Smokey Amps, and quite a few others. But the Pignose amp was the granddaddy of them all.

Vintage Pignose 7-100


This little piggy may not have the bells and whistles of the newer amplifiers. And it not just a one trick pony. This little piggy gives a down and dirty distorted guitar sound, but you can actually get a clean and chimey sound out of it if you try.





Preamp out jack
When it is miked, the Pignose can sound huge. It also has a preamp output on the back that allows it to be plugged into a larger amplifier.

You can get a slightly different sound by playing with the cabinet opened or closed. If you have a friend open and close the cabinet while you are playing, you can get a sort of Wah-wah sound. The portability of the Pignose allowed electric guitarists to strap the amp over their shoulder while busking.

1974 Pignose Ad
with Terry Kath




The accountant for Chicago ran Pignose Industries from 1974 until 1982.






Howard Chatt



In 1985 the company was purchased by Howard Chatt. He has owned and run the company since 1985.






Keith Richard's Vintage Pignose
The original price of the Legendary Pignose 7-100 was $79.95. The price rose to $159.95. Later on it was reduced back to the original price. It currently sells for $110 directly from the company, but is available from many stores at only $75.  Most other mini amps are now retailing at $160 to $300. Vintage USA made Pignose 7-100 are still available, and are selling in the $160 range.


Pignose Hog 20


Pignose currently offers two other portable battery powered amplifiers; the 20 watt Hog 20, and the 30 watt Hog 30.







Pignose Hog 30



Both of these amps come with a rechargeable battery that allows the amp to run for 6 to 10 hours on a single charge.






1980's Pignose 30/60 amplifier
There are a few discontinued Pignose amplifers that were ahead of their time back in the day. One is the Pignose 30/60. This was a 30 watt solid-state amplifier with a 12" speaker. This 1980's amplifier was designed Patrick Quilter, who now sells his own Quilter amplifiers. It was not a big seller back in the day, but I am told that Chet Atkins owned one of these. It can go from clean to dirty with it's Squeal Control.

Pignose G40V



The Pignose G40V was first offered in 1997 for $199.00. This all tube amplifier was designed by amp guru Dennis Kager. Sadly, Mr. Kager passed away in 2018.





Dennis Kager with Sundown Amplifiers

Kager spent his younger days working for Ampeg,  then went out on his own, setting up his shop called Central Jersey Music Service in Edison, New Jersey. It was there he created a line of amps he called Sundown Amplifiers.

One of these was the small but powerful Sundown AC50 watt amplifier. It also came in a 100 watt version. Dennis Kager worked with Yamaha, assisting with the early Michael Soldano amps, and was instrumental in creating Gorilla Amps, which was another Pignose Industries product. Kager was hired by St. Louis Music/Loud Technologies to help recreate the Ampeg SVT-VR reissue. He also worked for Joe Naylor, and created the Reverend amplifiers.

Mr. Kager inked a deal with Pignose Industries to create an affordable small 40 watt all tube amplifier. This amplifiers electronics loosely mirrored a Tweed Fender Bassman, which became the PIgnose G40V.

Pignose G40V front and back
The amps tube complement consisted of two 6L6GC power tubes, and three 12AX7 tubes (a phase inverter, and two for the preamp). They were all inserted in ceramic sockets. They powered a special design 10" speaker capable of handling 80 watts.

Controls included volume, master volume, middle, treble, bass, and presence.

This amp was LOUD. Unfortunately, when it was first offered, the G40V was very underappreciated, due to the fact it was made in China during an era when Chineses products were considered inferior.  Today Fender, Vox, Marshall, Gibson/Epiphone, and other companies make most of their products in China.

The Pignose G40V weighed in a 28 pounds, which was a few pounds less than a 15 watt Fender Princeton Reverb, but the Pignose sold for hundreds of dollars less, and was as loud as a 50 watt Marshall amp.

Pignose G40V

The only issue I had with the G40V was it was a little too bright through the internal 10" speaker. However, the speaker could easily be unplugged. In fact the amp has two speaker jacks. One was for a 4 ohm load, and the other was for an 8 ohm load. One could plug it into a larger speaker cabinet for a most impressive sound.




Pignose G60V

Around 1999 Pignose offered two other Kager designed amplifers; The Pignose G60V, which featured a 12" special design speaker, spring reverb, and effects send and receive loop, and an additional 12AX7 tube to power the reverb.




Pignose B100V Bass Amp

The other amplifier was the B110V bass amp. This one featured a 15" speaker. These amps were covered in a thicker black tolex material. The G40V was covered in the thinner brown material used on most Pignose amps. All of these amplifiers were discontinued, however on the used market, the G40V sells for $200 to $350.00 USD.



Kager K50-15 Amplifier

Though Mr Kager is no longer with us, Pignose Industries now offers a Kager designed amplifier called the Kager K50-15. This is a hand-wired tube powered amplifier that is switchable from 15 to 50 watts. The controls feature, volume, master volume, treble, middle, bass, presence, and reverb. It also includes twin inputs, a power on/off, and a standby switch.

Kager K50-15


The amp powers a 12" high output speaker. It is covered in white tolex, and comes with a cover.  It sells new for $1850.00 USD.  Considering it is a hand-wired amplifier, this is comparable to other guitar amplifiers in that category.



Pignose Travel Electric Guitars


Under Howard Chatt's direction Pignose Industries has offered some very innovative projects including travel guitars, with built-in Pignose amplifiers.





Pignose 7-100's

I believe that when most of us think of a Pignose amp, we remember the epic, little piggy 7-100.

Click on the links below the pictures for sources. Click on the links in the text for further information.
©UniqueGuitar Publications (text only)







6 comments:

revfish said...

Always wanted a Pignose but have never made the decision to purchase one. Years ago, the first time I visited California I went with my cousin to the Redondo Beach Pier for dinner and saw a guy performing on the pier with an acoustic/electirc guitar and microphone plugged into two Pignoses. I thought that was pretty clever and he sounded great.

marcusohara@aol.com said...

They are amazing little amps. I think Deny had one when I first met him.

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genericman said...

I had a pignose in 1975

I played all of the municipal Parking garages in Downtown Berkeley CA with it.

that was the amp...and those were the days

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Unknown said...

I've had a Pignose 7-00 (ex-display) for a couple of years which I use when playing my harps and had issues with the build but I sorted that out and so long as I'm using freshly charged batteries, the hum is minimal and it does work great!

The 7-100 has a very specific power adapter, which as with all these components is made in china for most likely about $5US, if that.

The problem is that firstly the amp (ridiculously) does not come with a power supply by default and secondly, regardleess of the unbelievably inflated prices I see them selling for online, the power supplies which are made in china, would cost very little, like up to about $5US to produce.

Everyone's entitled to make a profit, but with the prices I've seen that start at nearly $25US, they're being sold at about 6 or 7 times the manufacturing cost.

Then when you want it shipped to Australia which for that size component also could cost up to $5US, the cheapest shipping cost I've seen is $20.80US, which I see as price gouging.

Even at say $30AUD delivered to Australia, a decent profit would be made from a power adapter made in a chinese sweatshop. Unfortunately the cheapest I can find for the power supply delivered to Australia is a little under $68AUD, which is just diabolical just for a power adapter made in china.

So I'll just be sticking to using freshly charged batteries and having a spare set on hand because the 7-100 can rattle and hum a bit when batteries start to get low on charge.

Power banks are getting smaller, more powerful and cheaper every day. So what would be even better would be a power bank that could easily fit inside the 7-100 and would hopefully have two 9V outputs so I could use one to plug my mini Blues pedal into which gives an even better and grittier sound. :-)