Episode 4 - Rift Amplification
I first became aware of Rift Amps when I played through a Rift Vibro 35 that my partner’s Dad owned. I’ve always been a fan of vintage Fender amps and fell in love with a brownface Fender Concert amp at a shop in the USA, particularly the warmth and lushness of the harmonic tremolo (unfortunately being a 4x10 there was no way I was going to hump it back on the plane!). Finding a hand built brownface clone from a UK amp builder was definitely of interest to me and the amp sounded stunning, especially when you cranked the volume up. Again fate intervened when I discovered Rift was based only a few steps away from the ThorpyFX workshop in Farthinghoe and I met Chris Fantana, the man behind Rift Amps, when I was there filming with Adrian Thorpe. A few months later I found myself heading back to Northamptonshire to film an episode with Rift Amps.
Much like filming the previous episode with Patrick Eggle working building guitars there was something very therapeutic about filming Chris wiring up the amps, a huge amount of time was spent making sure every component was positioned perfectly and you could tell Chris really enjoyed the process. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine the amp builders of the 1950s working in much the same way and it definitely gave me a some sense of nostalgia. One of the things that making this series has taught me so far is how many great guitar brands are out there that are still truly handcrafting their products; every part of Rift’s amps are produced in the UK including the cabinets which are made my hand in Wales. If you’re in the market for a truly handwired point-to-point amp make sure to check Rift Amps out!
Many thanks to Chris for having me, you can check out episode four of Six String Tales with Rift Amps over on YouTube!
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