The Vox AD60 amplifier circa 2002
The compact control panel layout
One of the problems playing live music is that most of us can only practically transport one amplifier to the performance. This rather limits your sound unless you have a helper that can rearrange your control knobs for each song!
The VOX AD60 Amplifier helped change that. It was one of the early 'modelling amplifiers' that allowed you to create and save a 'scene' or 'patch' settings of a sound you wanted to keep and to be able to recall as you played via a foot board controller or a bank of buttons on the amplifier fascia.
As Line 6 built on the functionality of the POD, so Vox used the Valvetronic Tonelab and Tonelab SE floor mounted amplifier modellers as the 'brain' for the AD60 and AD120 amplifers.
Using the classic 'retro' VOX AC series appearance of a dark blue grey tolex with a contrasting blue weave diamond pattern speaker cloth, the AD series amplifiers established themselves in the position of AC30 and AC15 rebooted.
The AD 120 is essentially a twin speaker version of the AD60 and I will cover that in another review.
The AD60 is of a size reminiscent of the original Vox AC15, what they called the 'Television cabinet' model. The 60 gives you a plethora of tasty classic amplifiers which lean more towards the vintage rather than the VT series which tend more towards the modern sound.
For those of you in to the retro sound of the 1950's and 60's, whether that be instrumental music of the Shadows and Ventures sound or Rock n' Roll or Rockabilly, this amplifier has the looks to match the great sound quality.
For those of you in to the retro sound of the 1950's and 60's, whether that be instrumental music of the Shadows and Ventures sound or Rock n' Roll or Rockabilly, this amplifier has the looks to match the great sound quality.
The choice of 16 amplifiers should not leave you stuck for choice and variety, allied to a 32 patch user editable memory as opposed to the rather limp 8 of the VT series. The 8 patch memory of the VT is something I cannot believe that Vox did, given the price of memory which is cheap these days.
That aside, the AD 60 is packed with a selection of effects such as Chorus, Flanger, Tremolo, Phaser and rotary speaker in the modulation department. A choice of Tape echo, delay and multi head settings in the Echo department are welcome and have tap setting.
Reverbs are Plate, Spring and Room, with depth control.
For those into Top Boost, that is also available on the Pedal rotary switch.
The rear panel of the amplifier has Send and Return, headphones out, line out, foot controller CAT5 cable socket input, a rotary volume sweep and an attenuator 1,5,30 and 60w settings range.
Quite enough to play in your front room even set on the 60watt setting and full sweep volume, the amplifier can be played manually via the controls or it can be set up and patches selected.
The AD series uses the optional VC-4 and VC-12 foot boards. The VC-4 is a less appointed unit whereas the 12 can store patches on an even can upload to amplifiers.
For those wanting the maximum patch capability, owners can purchase a Tonelab SE and either connect it to the send and return sockets of the AD60, once they have selected a 'clean' and 'neutral' patch or setting, they can then enjoy 96 patches of sonic availability. Or you could connect a left mono output from the Tonelab SE to the input jack of the AD60 and get much the same situation.
For live work where the audience cannot compare the AD60's output to the amplifiers it is configured to represent, they should be pleasantly surprised at it's authentic sound.
Even in the studio it should sound realistic, of course speakers will vary as on any amplifier, as will components which can influence the sound output.
Although produced for around 3 years, the AD series amplifiers are still out there secondhand, so try one and buy one if you can, they are really good. They did cost a lot of money when new, around £5-600 for the AD60 and the AD120 was about £800, the VC-12 pedal board can be picked up occasionally but they were expensive to buy back in the day and a used one can be around £200.
Expect anything from £100 to £500 for an AD60 and £200-500 for an AD120 depending on condition.
You can often pick up these amplifiers reasonably because they have 'faults' which are usually to do with dirty jack sockets, clean these with a standard guitar jack, spray in some switch cleaner and push and pull the jack in and out to clean, on rotary switches, take off the chicken head knob and put a piece of clear surgical tube over the pot shaft and spray in a dose of switch cleaner, then use a small screwdriver to turn the pot shaft via the slotted head, this works wonders and fixes most 'faults.'
In some cases, the input sockets may need replacing and earth tags on the circuit board may need re-soldering. I picked up an AD60 with a fault where it faded out, I cleaned the jacks and the pots and it is going well.
You can often pick up these amplifiers reasonably because they have 'faults' which are usually to do with dirty jack sockets, clean these with a standard guitar jack, spray in some switch cleaner and push and pull the jack in and out to clean, on rotary switches, take off the chicken head knob and put a piece of clear surgical tube over the pot shaft and spray in a dose of switch cleaner, then use a small screwdriver to turn the pot shaft via the slotted head, this works wonders and fixes most 'faults.'
In some cases, the input sockets may need replacing and earth tags on the circuit board may need re-soldering. I picked up an AD60 with a fault where it faded out, I cleaned the jacks and the pots and it is going well.
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