Thanks Joe, appreciate your feedback.
Yeah, Garland's custom shop is very small, actually it consists of only one person (the master builder), who does everything on his own. The great thing is that nothing is rushed and no efforts are spared - he just won't release a product until he is satisfied with it. Hence the long waiting list - the guy can just not handle all the orders he is getting.
The very strange thing is that I have ordered my custom amp through a message board just like this one - I don't even have his e-mail, or telephone no., everythig was done by personal messages. Yet, he made just what I wanted and there are a ton of options to choose from (from the circuit designs to the front grill and knobs your amp will have). Plus, he's a very nice chap to talk to as well.
The price depends on the features you choose. . . Being a cheapskate I only wanted a very basic rack pre/poweramp as a workhorse for my studio. The pre is housed in a sturdy 1U 19' box and has 2 channels - clean (based on some Fender amp (forgot which one) - it's really clean and chimy) and high-gain (it can switch between Dual Rectifier and SLO100 type of sound with the flick of a switch - you can check out the samples even though I don't think they are good enough now due to my incompetence in recording, lol - looking to improve). Being a metal guitar player, I skipped on the crunch channel (usually standard for his preamps) - I'm thinking I shouldn't have, but I am completely blown away by the 2 ch pre as it is anyways, so one solid sounding hi-gain channel is good enough for me.
Compared to my other two rack pre-s (they are both hand-made - in the USA and in Germany) I find the Garland suits me best, possibly because it was custom made to my preference.
Check out Shadow's posts, he had some pics and samples of his Garland - lookin' good.
These days and seeing your interest I'm thinking of starting an unofficial fan website for those amps (I am not affiliated with them in any way, hence the 'unofficial' bit) - it's a shame they don't have one up yet (but one guy can only do so much, you know - and I prefer him concentrating on his amps). However, I have to first make some good-sounding samples, perhaps some instrumental full mixes too - I think the samples section should be the first and most important thing on any amp-builder's site. So your opinions on whether the samples are decent is vital - I know there are a lot of people on this board with some good monitors and ears, so keep the comments coming guys.
Would also be a great learning experience for me, so thanks a bunch!
