FIRE & BRIMSTONE

Cheltenham, Victoria is home to a 20,000 square foot facility where a small team of professionals, trained in-house, are dedicated to producing amps and pedals equal to anything built anywhere. In his quiet down to earth way, Dave discussed everything from music and musicians to point-to-point wiring. Plate voltages and $150 rolls of solder.

So Dave.... Where did Ulbrick sound come from?

I was always a professional guitar player, from the early Seventies untill 1992. But I was also an eletronics technician and I had a go at making pedals, first becuse you could'nt get them. You either had to make them yourself or know someone who was flying to the states and could bring something back. In about 1978 I made a few amplifiers but during the eighties, valves were really difficult to get and people started using a lot of the solidstate amplifiers. Then, when the guitar thing completely died., there was no one playing even a lead break. In that period, with amp and pedal making, I thought I'd just give that a complete miss.

Well. the valve manufacturers in America shut down nd synthesiser took off at the same time.

Yes. But very quickly, the Russians and the Czechoslovakians started producing very good tubes so I got back into repairing and modifying amps. The valves were very, very, good and people like Marshall were able to produce a more reliable product, people started buying them again, and then the guitar thing happened again.

Tell us about your general philosophy?

Well, we had such a very healthy valve manufacturing industry here in Australia so I actually tracked down one of those guys whose now nearly 60, from Philips, who was very used to hand-making valve radios and valve stereos. Tha's Mike Bannister, and I employed him straight away. We can get ultra high quality engineering done here, which we do, with the chassis folding and stainless steel inserts, and we can get all the really good parts, we've got really good technicians, artisians - so it's not too difficult to make a bit of gear that's better than all the American boutique stuff.

What type of circuitry did you go for, at least intially?

Initially I went for class AB because you've got quite a large amount of headroom available for a particular tube count The most important thing ofcourse, is getting the tone right so we were constantly in and out of studios getting all that sort of thing right. Once you get Engineers and Producers and the Artists themselves saying "that sounds really good." you think "that'll be the fixed production sound."

Your range includes both class A and class AB amps. Whats the most popular?

Within Australia, the biggest seller is Venue 30, which is a 30 watt, 6L6, Class A. It's got tremolo and reverb, dual preamp and sort of like a dual class of power amp. Everything is tube driven and with a full Accutronics 3-spring reverb.

The type of artists that use your amps?

We wanted to produce amps that can go anywhere from hardcore metal to country or jazz, so we've got well known players from jazz, country, rock, metal - but they're using differnt amps. Larry Carlton has got one of our Class A Venue 30s. Robben Ford liked the class AB Stadium amp. They ordered the amps and paid for them, and they use the 12AXE pedal as well.

Tell us about the pedals.

I make about six different pedals but there is really two that are in production because they sell so well. There's the 12 AXE overdrive - big seller, very smooth, it's not boxy and middy like a lot of them are - and the other one is a dual-class pre system called the MEGALODON Super Solo - very transparent, it's not going to affect your tone at all, to the point where a lot of the good players here just leave it on and ride their volume control. Years ago, one got to the states and Guitar Player gave it 10 out of 10 and it just took off.

What did you want to achieve with these two pedals?

The Megalodon Super Solo will absoloutely keep your original tone, not lose anything at all. But you can drive the amp harder - very transparent. You can hear that a lot of the Living End stuff is Megalodon. It's bright , it's got grit but it's not boxed up. The 12AXE Overdrive is as smooth as I could make an Overdrive - Use it for anything from Rock to Blues. At the Basement, Robben Ford got rid of all his pedals, used the 12AXE, did the tour, took it home and still uses it.

What's in the pipeline?

The Fire Bottle 5, which is a 5 wat, single ended, Class A recording amp. Thats the same deal... handmade transformers, point-to-point wired - properly - aluminium chassis, all handmade. Just finished testing that last week and that'll be in production in the next week or two.

Any other plans to expand the amp line?

We're flat out. Every single thing we do is sold so, what i'm trying to do now is.... just see what happens. The LA guitar centre has taken on our gear - all our amps. all the cabs, all the pedals into the system and barcoded. They have one of everything (we make) on display as their premium top-of-the-range amp, etc. So if they order 50 amps or 200 it'll be pretty interesting.