Santana Amp KIT? anyone?

[anthony8i]

hello everybody,
I'm here because I need some help; I want to build an amp that can get Santana's tone or close to it? I want to achieve that early tone (europa, song of the wind, incident at neshabur, and aqua marine) can any one point me in the right direction for an amp kit? I was thinking about weber amp kits? like a Fender Narrow-Panel Bassman kit; but not sure which one?? please let me know what amp kit is best? I want to spend around $1300? I think I can work an intermediate kit? thanks!
https://taweber.powweb.com/store/kits.htm

Should I just buy the Mesa boogie mark V?? I want to; but I really want to build a kit; something with good sustain, good drive and for it to be around 15-25 watts if possible?

[selloutrr]

Mesa boogie mark 1 was santanna's early sound. It is a heavily modified fender Princeton amp. It's cheaper to buy a boogie mk1 then build it from scratch.

[leadfootdriver]

Mark I's have a thick lower midrange with an almost sparkling topend at the same time. It's a cool sound to roll the volume on.

A Mark V can do it, but you get the other Mark tones with it. It's a lot of amp.

[brewdude]

I may be a little off base, but I think my D'Lite gets a pretty convincing Santana vibe going.

[Lynxtrap]

The key to that sound is the high gain preamp, which you won't find in any stock Weber kit. You'd have to crank that Bassman as loud as she goes and still not get the sound.
You could mod a Fender kit, but that requires more skill.
Cascaded gainstages with preamp- and master volume, a Fender tonestack and 6L6 in the poweramp will get you in the ballpark, of course.

Santana's sound has also changed quite a bit over the years, when you really start listening. It's a bit like "the SRV-sound", unmistakeable but really lots of different sounds played by the same man.
The general nasal, high gain, sustaining sound with delay and reverb can be achieved by many means, IMHO.

[funkmeblue]

that "europa" sound was a 100 watt boog mk1 through a single altec 417 1x12 cabinet cranking loud. Stand in front of that and hold on. He used a twin for a lot of the clean stuff when recording.

[M Fowler]

Well selloutrr has a good point that buying the Boogie amp might be cheaper.

But no reason why you couldn't get a blackface Weber kit or mojo kit, etc. and roll your own. As long as you go with a BF bassman or higher power section you can modify the front end to suit the Boogie template.

I don't like Boogie amps but it can be built. There are PCB's for sale on Ebay from Russia or you could follow the turretboard version SLOclone forum has built. Not sure if those guys got the bugs out of the layout I had a hard time getting back into the forum and since then rarily go there.

Mark

[selloutrr]

Another trick to his sound is using a 50ft guitar cord. It adds phase shift and Impedance.

PRS later added a switch to his signature model for people to get the "tone" without needing to use 50ft of cord.

[vibratoking]

I always thought the easiest trick to get there without going too far out of the way is the following:

Almost any loud amp. Add pedal or preamp distortion to incorporate a lot of gain. You need enough gain. When you have enough, you'll know it. Do not scoop the mids. Get a Les Paul or other dual humbucker solidbody, completely roll off the neck tone, leave the bridge tone full on, and use the neck pickup alone or both pickups together. He really isn't far from the singing 'woman' tone on many of his classics. The bridge pickup alone with the volume turned down some seems to work pretty well for his rhythm work, which is not so clean. Then it's a matter of style. Santana's style is not that hard to cop compared to a lot of other well-known guitarists. Lot's of Dorian without the 6th goes a long way.

[Structo]

Yeah and use a large triangle pick and only up-stroke with it.

[rfgordon]

Loud is one key. I saw Carlos do a sound check once. When he's all alone you get a sense of just how loud that thiele cab is when the Mark I or Mark IV is cranked! He walks around and marks the floor with tape where he gets certain notes to ring.

That's how he gets that one note to sustain for 11 beats in Europa.

[tubelectron]

Hi anthony8i,

I thought I was the only old-fashioned guy to love again that Santana's smooth and sustained overdriven tone. I see hopefully that I am not alone ! We're almost 2...

I play in the Santana tone style with a Gibson ES-335-TD from 1980 or a brand new chinese Hagstrom Viking. The amp I use is a Boogie MKIIA from 1979, on which I corrected all the bugs :

[img:480:640]http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/222157IMG8718.jpg[/img]
[img:480:640]http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/840562IMG8719.jpg[/img]
[img:600:800]http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/210916IMG8569.jpg[/img]

I bought it to have the kind-of-Santana lead sound and that MKIIA does it all. Listen to "dance sister dance / baïla mi hermana" : it's faithfully that sound that I have with my gear.

MKIIA are unfairly disregarded. The MKI is "Santana", period. Only the MKIIB seems to have a good recognition, and the hype-must-to-have is the MKIIC+, but not for me.

A (wealthy) friend has a MKI Rev Eq 60/100, a MKIIC+ simulclass and a brand new MKV. We spent many hours in A/B comparisons along with my amp, and the closer to the MKI was the MKIIA without the need to dial much the knobs to set it in quickly.

So I would buy a MKIIA (or B at least) and work on it to debug the factory misconceptions. It's worth the job, trust me, and it's probably simpler and cheaper than building a kit, IMHO...

A+!

[tictac]

His REALLY early sound, AKA "Black Magic Woman Tone" was a Big Muff into a Fender Twin Reverb...

Not too difficult to reproduce...

TT

[dreric]

Here's some old Boogies. Prune Music Boogie Princeton, one of the first 200. Boogie #7, I think Carlos used #8 for Abraxas. #1172 Mark I head, I have out the box for a new power cord.

#1178 gets the Santana tone.

Eric

[anthony8i]

Another trick to his sound is using a 50ft guitar cord. It adds phase shift and Impedance.

PRS later added a switch to his signature model for people to get the "tone" without needing to use 50ft of cord.

Yes! brandon from bludotone has told me the same thing! to use a 50th guitar cord!