Vox (company)


Vox is a British musical equipment manufacturer founded in 1957 by Thomas Walter Jennings in Dartford, Kent, England. The company is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, used by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, Queen, Dire Straits, U2, and Radiohead; the Vox Continental electric organ, the Vox wah-wah pedal used by Jimi Hendrix, and a series of innovative electric guitars and bass guitars. Since 1992, Vox has been owned by the Japanese electronics firm Korg.

History

Beginnings

The Jennings Organ Company was founded by Thomas Walter Jennings in Dartford, Kent after World War II. Jennings's first successful product was the Univox, an early self-powered electronic keyboard similar to the Clavioline.
In 1956, Jennings was shown a prototype guitar amplifier made by Dick Denney, a big band guitarist and workmate from World War II. The company was renamed Jennings Musical Industries, or JMI. In 1958 the 15-watt Vox AC15 amplifier was launched; "vox" simply being the Latin word for "voice". It was popularised by The Shadows and other British rock 'n' roll musicians and became a commercial success.
Vox released the 12-watt AC10 in late 1959 as a student model, originally as a 1x10-inch combo and later as a 2x10-inch combo. Features simplified from the AC15 included a tremolo effect, a single, shared Tone control, and smaller output transformer. The AC10 was discontinued in 1965.

The AC30

In 1959, with sales under pressure from the more powerful Fender Twin, by request from The Shadows, who requested amplifiers with more power, Vox produced what was essentially a double-powered AC15 and named it the AC30. The AC30, fitted with alnico magnet-equipped Celestion "blue" loudspeakers and later Vox's special "Top Boost" circuitry, and like the AC15 using valves, helped to produce the sound of the British Invasion, being used by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and the Yardbirds, among others. AC30s were later used by Brian May of Queen, Paul Weller of The Jam, Rory Gallagher, The Edge of U2 and Radiohead guitarists Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien. The Vox AC30 has been used by many other artists including Mark Knopfler, Hank Marvin who was instrumental in getting the AC30 made, Ritchie Blackmore, John Scofield, Snowy White, Will Sergeant, Tom Petty, The Echoes, Mike Campbell, Peter Buck, Justin Hayward, Tom DeLonge, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, Noel Gallagher, Matthew Bellamy, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Dustin Kensrue, Tame Impala, Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi and many others.

Other amplifiers

Once The Beatles became tied to Vox amplifiers, the quest for more power began. John Lennon's first Vox was a fawn-coloured twin-speaker AC15, while George Harrison's was a fawn AC30 with a top boost unit installed in the rear panel. They were later provided with twin black-covered AC30s with the rear panel top boost units. Paul McCartney was provided with one of the first transistorised amplifiers, the infamous T60, which featured an unusual separate cabinet outfitted with a 12" and a 15" speaker. The T60 head had a tendency to overheat, and McCartney's was no exception, so he was then provided with an AC30 head which powered the T60's separate speaker cabinet.
As the crowds at Beatles shows got louder, they needed louder amps. Jennings provided Lennon and Harrison with the first AC50 piggyback units, and McCartney's AC30/T60 rig was replaced with an AC100 head and an AC100 2×15" cabinet. Lennon and Harrison eventually got their own AC100 rigs, with 4×12"/2-horn configurations. In 1966 and 1967, The Beatles had several prototype or specially-built Vox amplifiers, including hybrid tube/solid-state units from the short-lived 4- and 7-series. Harrison in particular became fond of the 730 amp and 2×12 cabinet, using them to create many of the guitar sounds found on Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Lennon favoured the larger 7120 amplifier, while Harrison preferred the 730 and McCartney had its sister 430 bass amplifier.
Image:Vox Super Beatle amplifier, Beatles Ludwig drumset, Museum of Making Music.jpg|thumb|180px|Vox Super Beatle
In the early 1960s, the Brothers Grim became the first American group to use Vox Amplifiers. Joe Benaron, CEO of Warwick Electronics Inc. / Thomas Organ Company, the United States distributor of Vox, along with Bernard Stockly, importer of Challenge pianos to the United States, arranged for the boys to have full use of the tall Super AC 100 Vox amps. The solid-state version of this amp was produced to cash in on the Beatles-Vox affiliation, but was not nearly as successful as the valve AC30 and AC15 models.
A modern popular rock artist known for use of the Super Beatle is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, although in the April 2008 issue of Premier Guitar, lead guitarist Mike Campbell revealed that the Super Beatle backline was, on their thirtieth anniversary tour at least, primarily used only as a stage prop, though Petty used his "on a couple of songs." In the group's early days, the Vox equipment was chosen because it was relatively inexpensive in 1976, yet had a handsome appearance. A photograph included in the article showed Campbell's guitar sound was coming from other amplifiers hidden behind the large Super Beatles, which Campbell stated were "a tweed Fender Deluxe and a blackface Fender Princeton together behind the Super Beatle, and an isolated Vox AC30 that I have backstage in a box."
The Monkees concealed themselves in large empty Vox cabinet and emerged from them as a grand entrance to the opening of the shows on the 1967 tour and they used real Vox amps for the performances.

Instruments

Guitars

Vox's first electric guitars, the Apache, Stroller and Clubman were modeled after solid-body, bolt-neck Fenders, which at the time were not available in the UK. A four-string Clubman Bass followed shortly after. These first guitars were low-priced, had unusual TV connector output jacks and were produced by a cabinet maker in Shoeburyness, Essex. Vox president Tom Jennings commissioned London Design Centre to create a unique new electric guitar, and in 1962 Vox introduced the pentagonal Phantom, originally made in England but soon after made by EKO of Italy. The first Phantom guitars were given to The Echoes to trial in 1962 and were used by them until 1970. They can be heard on many of their recordings and records they did with other artists such as Dusty Springfield. Aside from the unusual body and headstock shapes, Phantoms featured copies of the Fender Stratocaster neck and its attachment, the Strat's three single-coil pick-ups and standard vibrato bridge that in this case copied a Bigsby unit. Aside from being a bit awkward to hold for seated playing, the Phantom guitars now approached professional quality, performance and price. Phil "Fang" Volk of Paul Revere & the Raiders played a Phantom IV bass. It was followed a year later by the teardrop-shaped Mark VI, the prototype of which had only two pick-ups and was made specifically for Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, again using a Bigsby-like "Hank Marvin" bridge. By the end of the decade, Stones bassist Bill Wyman was shown in Vox advertisements playing a teardrop hollow-bodied bass made for him by the company, subsequently marketed as the Wyman Bass. Many guitar gear authorities dispute that he ever actually used the instrument for recording or live performance.
Vox experimented with several built-in effects and electronics on guitars such as the Cheetah, Ultrasonic, and Invader. Ian Curtis of Joy Division is known to have owned two white Vox Phantom VI Special effects guitars which had push button switches on the scratch plate to activate the effects circuits.
Another innovation was the [|Guitar Organ], which featured miniaturised VOX organ circuitry activated by the contact of the strings on the frets, producing organ tones in key with guitar notes in one of three ways. A switch on the instrument allow choosing between guitar only, organ only and a combination of both. This instrument was heavy and cumbersome with a steel neck and external circuit boxes. The initial production run proved unreliable due to the fact that JMI production engineers, eager to put the instrument into production, had used Denney's prototype as a template for wiring the instrument in Denney's absence. As a consequence, the instrument gained a negative reputation, but was a hallmark of the ingenuity of the company.
In the mid-1960s, as the sound of electric 12-string guitars became popular, Vox introduced the Phantom XII, which was subsequently used by Tony Hicks of The Hollies, Captain Sensible of early English punk band The Damned and Greg Kihn; the Mark XII electric 12-string guitar and the Tempest XII, also made in Italy, which featured a more conventional body style. The Phantom XII and Mark XII both featured a unique Bigsby style 12-string vibrato tailpiece, which made them, along with Semie Moseley's "Ventures" model 12-string Mosrite, the only 12-string electric guitars to feature such a vibrato. The Stereo Phantom XII had split pick-ups resembling the Fender Precision bass, each half of which could be sent to a separate amplifier using an onboard mix control.
Vox produced a number of other models of 6 and 12 string electric guitars in both England and Italy.
The Vox Mando-Guitar is a type of 12-string guitar fitted with a short-scale neck and a small solid body. It is tuned one octave higher than a standard guitar, giving it the tonal range of a mandolin and enabling a guitarist to emulate the sound of a mandolin sound without learning new fingering patterns required for actual mandolins. The effect is similar to that of applying a capo to a standard 12-string guitar at its twelfth fret.
Guitar pedals and other effects, including an early version of the wah-wah pedal used by Jimi Hendrix and the Tone Bender fuzzbox pedal, a Vox variation on the famous original Gary Hurst Tone Bender, were also marketed by Vox and later on manufactured in Italy.
In 1967, Vox introduced a series of guitars which featured built in effects such as Distortion, Repeat Percussion, Treble/Bass Booster and a wah-wah operated by the heel of the picking hand pushing on a spring-loaded lever over the bridge. The Delta phantom style guitar and bass, the Starstream teardrop 6-string, and Constellation teardrop bass had such effects.
Vox also pioneered the first radio microphone system, which freed singers from having their microphone connected to their amplifier or PA by a cable.
Vox Standard 24Vox Virage DC

Vox had experimented with Japanese manufacturers at the end of the sixties with the Les Paul-style VG2, and in 1982 all guitar production was moved to Japan, where the Standard & Custom 24 & 25 guitars and basses were built by Matsumoku, the makers of Aria guitars. These were generally regarded as the best quality guitars ever built under the Vox name. They were discontinued in 1985 when production was moved to Korea and they were replaced by the White Shadow models. A number of White Shadow "M"-series guitars and basses are clearly marked as "made in Japan", suggesting a phased production hand-over.
In 1998, Vox Amplification Ltd Korg reissued many of their classic Phantom and Teardrop guitars.
In March 2008, Vox unveiled the semi-hollow Virage DC and SC at the NAMM Show. Notable characteristics include a 3D contoured ergonomic design which not only had an arch top, but also bent back from the neck toward the base of the guitar hugging the player's body. The guitar body was milled from a single block of wood and had a fitted face in combinations of mahogany and ash. A new triple coil pick-up system designed by DiMarzio, called the Three-90, emulates a humbucker, P-90, or single-coil tone.
In 2009, Vox refined the Virage design with the Virage II series of guitars. This series repeated the double and single cutaway bodies of the earlier Virage series, but also included the Series 77, the Series 55, and the Series 33. The Virage II series featured CoAxe pick-ups which resembled the earlier Three-90 in functionality, but were claimed to be less noisy. The one-piece cast MaxConnect bridge of this series is aluminium and provides both a saddle and anchor for the strings.
For 2012, the VOX Phantom and Teardrop guitars appeared again as the APACHE Series travel guitars with a host of built in features including a 2-channel guitar amplifier, speakers, dozens of rhythm patterns, even a convenient E-String tuner.
In May 2013, a Vox guitar used by George Harrison and John Lennon on the Magical Mystery Tour album sold at a New York auction for 408,000 USD.
In the later years of Prince's life, he primarily utilized several versions of the Vox HDC-77 guitar, after being introduced to it by 3rdeyegirl member Ida Kristine Nielsen in the year of 2012. Some of the guitars the artist used included a Blackburst version, a White Ivory version, and a multicolored version.