 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2022) |
| Type | LLC |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1945 |
| Founder | Mat Mathias |
| Headquarters | United Kingdom |
| Products | Amplifiers, speaker cabinets |
| Website | www |
Matamp is a British electric guitar amplifier manufacturing company, best known for its handwired amplifier heads and speaker cabinets. It was established in 1964 by Mat Mathias.
Matamp founder, Mat Mathias, started the company RadioCraft by 1946. [1] What started as an interest ultimately developed into a fully-fledged business building amplifiers for the burgeoning music scene in the early sixties. Behind his wife’s retail shop, selling accessories to young musicians, Mathias’s workshop/manufacturing facility also extended into a fully fledged recording studio complete with disc cutters for young bands to record and cut their own demos. This resulted in the formation of MAT Records. His customers would come and see him, tell him what they wanted, and he would build it and/or record it. Patterns would emerge, and trends soon changed into product lines.
Long-term friend and hi-fi amplifier designer Tony Emerson joined with Mat in the early 1960s, shortly after the name MATAMP (Mat and Tony amplifiers) was coined. As word got around Matamp would soon be working with such musical luminaries as Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac (who Mathias joined on their US tour in the late 60’s) and recording early demos with the likes of Graham Gouldman who would go on to form 10cc.
After Emerson’s departure and Matamp's subsequent development work with Fleetwood Mac, Matamp formed a partnership with Cliff Cooper. Cooper owned the Orange music store and the new partnership began producing Orange Matamp amps from Mathias's Huddersfield workshop. In 1971 Orange Matamp outsold Marshall, giving Cooper a taste of high volume sales. However Mathias was not prepared to forego quality standards in favour of mass-production [ citation needed ], so the Orange Matamp partnership was dissolved. Orange Amps went on to be a major international amplification company so Matamp has also become widely recognised due to this early collaboration with Orange.
Their mixing console Matamp Stereo Supernova was named one of the world's best mixers by Mixmag in a 2012 list, [2] and features on the cover of the 2013 compilation album 12"/80s/Club Classics. [3]
Matamp also made P.A. amplifiers in the late 70s and into the early 80s. These were known as Clubmans. There were 2 versions of these; the Clubman 1 with 4 inputs and the Clubman 2 with 4 inputs and selectable Echo which was run through an external effects unit. There were approximately 245 solid state 100 Watt Matamps made between 1974 and 1980. These consisted of Clubman 1&2s and Slave amplifiers. In 1981, they switched to Hitachi MOSFET Technology. Between 1981 and 1989, around 90 Mosfet 100 watt units were made.
Davesounds is believed to have the single biggest collection of Matamp amplifiers. He bought his first pair in 1988. In 2018, he famously sold all 9 of his 120 watt Valve Slaves citing " I can't carry the ruddy things anymore". In 2019, he also sold most of his Transistor Matamps leaving him with around 18 Mosfets, 2 Transistor slaves and 3 Matamp X6 Mixers. He still uses them for his sounds company to this day and they are still, as of March 2022, in use for Disco and P.A. use.
An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal. It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power supply to increase the amplitude of a signal applied to its input terminals, producing a proportionally greater amplitude signal at its output. The amount of amplification provided by an amplifier is measured by its gain: the ratio of output voltage, current, or power to input. An amplifier is defined as a circuit that has a power gain greater than one.
An operational amplifier is a DC-coupled high-gain electronic voltage amplifier with a differential input and, usually, a single-ended output. In this configuration, an op amp produces an output potential that is typically 100,000 times larger than the potential difference between its input terminals. The operational amplifier traces its origin and name to analog computers, where they were used to perform mathematical operations in linear, non-linear, and frequency-dependent circuits.
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semiconductor material, usually with at least three terminals for connection to an electronic circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals controls the current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be higher than the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify a signal. Some transistors are packaged individually, but many more in miniature form are found embedded in integrated circuits.
An audio power amplifier is an electronic amplifier that amplifies low-power electronic audio signals, such as the signal from a radio receiver or an electric guitar pickup, to a level that is high enough for driving loudspeakers or headphones. Audio power amplifiers are found in all manner of sound systems including sound reinforcement, public address, home audio systems and musical instrument amplifiers like guitar amplifiers. It is the final electronic stage in a typical audio playback chain before the signal is sent to the loudspeakers.
A guitar amplifier is an electronic device or system that strengthens the electrical signal from a pickup on an electric guitar, bass guitar, or acoustic guitar so that it can produce sound through one or more loudspeakers, which are typically housed in a wooden cabinet. A guitar amplifier may be a standalone wood or metal cabinet that contains only the power amplifier circuits, requiring the use of a separate speaker cabinet–or it may be a "combo" amplifier, which contains both the amplifier and one or more speakers in a wooden cabinet. There is a wide range of sizes and power ratings for guitar amplifiers, from small, lightweight "practice amplifiers" with a single 6-inch speaker and a 10-watt amp to heavy combo amps with four 10-inch or four 12-inch speakers and a 100-watt amplifier, which are loud enough to use in a nightclub or bar performance.
A power semiconductor device is a semiconductor device used as a switch or rectifier in power electronics. Such a device is also called a power device or, when used in an integrated circuit, a power IC.
Orange Music Electronic Company is an English amplifier manufacturing company, noted for their products' distinctive sound and the bright orange Tolex-like covering of their heads and speaker cabinets. The company was founded in 1968 by Cliff Cooper, who decided to build his own amplifiers when vendors refused to supply his West End musical instrument store, Orange Store, due to Cooper's youth and countercultural image. The brand's early amps were adopted by Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac and were used on Stevie Wonder's Superstition, which brought Orange worldwide recognition. The brand's "Pics Only" models—nicknamed for their use of symbols rather than text on their control panels—were released in the early 1970s to much success and established a signature "Orange sound." However, large-scale production of Orange Amps ceased in 1978 and Cooper spent the '80s building and selling amps in limited numbers. After a line of reissue models licensed by Gibson in the early '90s proved unsuccessful, Cooper regained control of the brand and found new success with the 1998 release of the AD30, with notable fans like Jimmy Page. In 2003, Orange released the Rockerverb series, which has become a favorite amp among heavy metal guitarists.
PS Audio is an American company specializing in high-fidelity audio components equipment for audiophiles and the sound recording industry. It currently produces audio amplifiers, preamplifiers, power related products, digital-to-analog converters, streaming audio, music management software and cables.
A class-D amplifier or switching amplifier is an electronic amplifier in which the amplifying devices operate as electronic switches, and not as linear gain devices as in other amplifiers. They operate by rapidly switching back and forth between the supply rails, using pulse-width modulation, pulse-density modulation, or related techniques to produce a pulse train output. This passes through a simple low-pass filter which blocks the high-frequency pulses and provides analog output current and voltage. Because they are always either in fully on or fully off modes, little energy is dissipated in the transistors and efficiency can exceed 90%.
The cascode is a two-stage amplifier that consists of a common-emitter stage feeding into a common-base stage.
Hiwatt is a British company that manufactures amplifiers for electric guitars and electric basses. Starting in the late 1960s, together with Marshall and Vox, Hiwatt contributed to the sonic image popularly termed "British sound".
A bass amplifier is a musical instrument electronic device that uses electrical power to make lower-pitched instruments such as the bass guitar or double bass loud enough to be heard by the performers and audience. Bass amps typically consist of a preamplifier, tone controls, a power amplifier and one or more loudspeakers ("drivers") in a cabinet.
In the field of electronics, a technique where part of the output of a system is used at startup can be described as bootstrapping.
AHED was a Canadian company owned by Phil G. Anderson that produced guitar amplifiers, as well as guitars. Its main product line was the GBX amplifier, which could reach 180 watts with 4x10", 4x12" or 2x15" speakers. The GBX amplifier had a pre-amplifier that could change the gain, brilliance, depth, contour and response of the output.
Watkins Electric Music (WEM) is a British company known for manufacturing PA systems, the Copicat tape echo unit, guitar amplifiers, and electric guitars.
A transistor is a semiconductor device with at least three terminals for connection to an electric circuit. In the common case, the third terminal controls the flow of current between the other two terminals. This can be used for amplification, as in the case of a radio receiver, or for rapid switching, as in the case of digital circuits. The transistor replaced the vacuum-tube triode, also called a (thermionic) valve, which was much larger in size and used significantly more power to operate.The first transistor was successfully demonstrated on December 23, 1947, at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Bell Labs was the research arm of American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). The three individuals credited with the invention of the transistor were William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The introduction of the transistor is often considered one of the most important inventions in history.
Tube sound is the characteristic sound associated with a vacuum tube amplifier, a vacuum tube-based audio amplifier. At first, the concept of tube sound did not exist, because practically all electronic amplification of audio signals was done with vacuum tubes and other comparable methods were not known or used. After introduction of solid state amplifiers, tube sound appeared as the logical complement of transistor sound, which had some negative connotations due to crossover distortion in early transistor amplifiers. However, solid state amplifiers have been developed to be flawless and the sound is later regarded neutral compared to tube amplifiers. Thus the tube sound now means 'euphonic distortion.' The audible significance of tube amplification on audio signals is a subject of continuing debate among audio enthusiasts.
Steven Howlett, aka DJ Froggy, was an English DJ who worked as a 'beatmixer DJ' on the British club music scene in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. He was a member of the Soul Mafia group of DJs which included Robbie Vincent, Greg Edwards, Jeff Young and Chris Hill.
A keyboard amplifier is a powered electronic amplifier and loudspeaker in a wooden speaker cabinet used for amplification of electronic keyboard instruments. Keyboard amplifiers are distinct from other types of amplification systems such as guitar amplifiers due to the particular challenges associated with making keyboards sound louder on stage; namely, to provide solid low-frequency sound reproduction for the deep basslines which keyboards can play and crisp high-frequency sound for the high-register notes. Another difference between keyboard amplifiers and guitar/bass amplifiers is that keyboard amps are usually designed with a relatively flat frequency response and low distortion. In contrast, many guitar and bass amp designers purposely make their amplifiers modify the frequency response, typically to "roll off" very high frequencies, and most rock and blues guitar amps, and since the 1980s and 1990s, even many bass amps are designed to add distortion or overdrive to the instrument tone.
In electronics, power amplifier classes are letter symbols applied to different power amplifier types. The class gives a broad indication of an amplifier's characteristics and performance. The classes are related to the time period that the active amplifier device is passing current, expressed as a fraction of the period of a signal waveform applied to the input. A class A amplifier is conducting through all the period of the signal; Class B only for one-half the input period, class C for much less than half the input period. A Class D amplifier operates its output device in a switching manner; the fraction of the time that the device is conducting is adjusted so a pulse-width modulation output is obtained from the stage.