Plug Into Something Special! New CME Exclusive Limited Black & Gold Bartel Amplifiers!

All three Signature Series amplifiers bring a new level of innovation and refinement to the crafting of vintage tones.  Distinctive design features like instrument-grade cabinetry, a purist multi-voice preamp, and interstage transformer based design set them part from conventional guitar amplifiers.   The result is a strikingly different kind of sound – deep and resonant,  detailed and present, but also smooth and balanced at the same time.  They respond like an acoustic instrument and fill the room with a lively, present, and totally unconstricted tone.    

The 28W Starwood is a purist design, all tube 1×12 combo with reverb powered by a pair of 6L6 tubes.  Its’ single channel Multi Voice preamp offers an incredibly wide range of voicings ranging from sparkly cleans to thick, woody tweed to driven plexi crunch and grind.   It includes tube driven spring reverb with both mix and dwell controls to fine tune the reverb sound to be as splashy or subtle as you choose.  The solid wood cabinet with unified baffle/body construction delivers a lively, deeply resonant, and unconstricted sound.  A unique master volume circuit is extremely transparent, maintaining the same sound and vivid presence all the way down to bedroom volume.

Designer Notes
As you might expect from the specs (cathode biased 6L6s, no negative feedback, paper bobbin layer wound output transformer, etc.) it can certainly deliver vintage tweed tones, but it can do so much more as well.   You can dial in a mid-scooped tone like a Deluxe Reverb, a chimey jangle like an AC30, or a crunchy, grinding tone like a Plexi.

The acoustic response of this amp is something special too.  It cuts through amazingly well on stage but never sounds shrill or piercing – it remains thick and full like a saxophone.  In spite of its powerful stage presence, it sounds fantastic in a home environment too – full and rich, with intense clarity but never sounding overly bright, even at very low volume.  

I should also mention the master volume circuit.  It’s incredibly transparent and really makes the Starwood so much more versatile and usable.  It preserves the harmonic balance and the dynamic response a lot better than a conventional master volume circuit, so the tone and feel remain consistent down to bedroom volume.  At the same time, it preserves the presence and immediacy of the sound better than a power attenuator does, so in my opinion it’s the ultimate tool for transparently reducing volume to any level.

On top of all this, the Starwood is built with bulletproof construction and instrument-grade craftsmanship inside and out.   I build each one myself here at my Baltimore shop, and I’m delighted to offer this model as part of my new product line.  

– Mark Bartel

Features

• 28W 1x12 Combo Amplifier
• All Tube, Handwired Circuitry
• Single Channel Multi-Voice Preamp
• Spring Reverb with Mix & Dwell Controls
• Innovative Master Volume Control
• Footswitch: Reverb On/Off
• Dimensions 22.5" x 18" x 11"
• Weight 42lbs

Construction Highlights

• Circuitry handwired on custom fabricated turret boards
• Paper Bobbin Layer Wound Transformers
• Silver Plated Wire
• Handmade Leather Handle by Brookwood Leather
• Custom molded knobs and other appointments
• Tweed covering material finished with 5 hand-brushed coats of lacquer

Cabinet

• Unified body/baffle construction
• Cabinet body: solid Eastern White Pine
• Baffle board: crafted from 12 pieces of solid Eastern White Pine and African Mahogany
• Special recipe coating compound applied to preserve natural acoustic behavior.
• Upholstery applied with natural hide glue for superior acoustic response.
• Celestion Alnico A60 Speaker

Design Highlights

• Tubes: 3x12AX7A, 2x12AU7, 2x12AT7, 2x6L6GC, 1x5AR4
• Interstage transformer coupled phase inverter
• Tube driven reverb circuit
• Ideal circuit layout for lowest noise floor and purest tone
• Cathode biased output stage
• No negative feedback

The Swingland is the ultimate home and studio amp for vintage tube tone. It spans a wide tonal palette with a comprehensive set of controls and features designed to shape and fine-tune its voicing and overdrive character. It’s loaded with proprietary innovative circuitry designed to deliver unmatched harmonic richness, depth and fullness in a small package. This 1x12 all-tube combo is meticulously masterbuilt by the designer and his small team of craftsmen using traditional hand-wired techniques, the finest materials, and the finest attention to detail.

Vintage Tone
The Swingland is decidedly vintage at heart. It’s the perfect choice for Jazz, Blues, Rock & Roll, Hard Rock, and Honky Tonk Country tones from the 50s through the 70s. For clean tones, it has a great deal of headroom and feels lively and dynamic even when playing squeaky clean without a hint of edge. The wide-ranging tone controls let you dial in a clean tone that spans from deep and lush like Ted Greene, to mid-forward and spanky, to mid scooped and glassy like Mark Knopfler, or anything in between.

When you push it a little harder, the Swingland really shines with edgy clean tones. The complex proprietary overdrive circuit delivers the kind of edgy clean tones that you expect from a big tube amp played at full volume, where the notes begin to bloom with low order harmonics for a sound that’s “mean” without being gritty or distorted. This is a difficult technical feat to accomplish at low volume and the Swingland does it better than anything we’ve heard. One example of this kind of response includes the tones you might hear on one of the old Rolling Stones albums with Mick Taylor which are fairly clean but really carry an attitude. On the other hand, the Swingland also excels at more mid-scooped, edge of breakup Fender sounds like you might hear from Stevie Ray Vaughan or Roy Buchannan, for example.

The Swingland has plenty of gain for hard rock sounds and can be easily dialed in with the tones you might hear from bands like Deep Purple, Free, ACDC, etc., where the sound is rich with harmonics and has a nice edgy bite but the natural sound of the guitar still shines through. Achieving the proper harmonic profile of the overdriven signal to authentically achieve this tone is a difficult technical feat, and the Swingland performs it masterfully. It gives you a great deal of control, via the back panel Harmonic Balance control, as well as the Presence and Tone controls, to match the sound you hear on the records.

Tonal Versatility
The Swingland excels at a wide variety of vintage tube amp voicings, made possible by its unique and powerful tone control structure.

The “Midrange” control operates differently than a typical “Midrange” control you might find on a vintage tube amp. It can cut or boost midrange frequencies, with a flat response at the midpoint. The response curve of the “cut” settings (between 0 and 5 on the dial) differs from the response curve of the “boost” settings (5 to 10 on the dial), with both response curves tailored to delivering classic voicings of the 60s, and 70s. It’s a powerful and effective tool for easily dialing in the sound you need.

The “Tone” control is also very different from a typical “Tone” control you might find on a vintage amp. Although its primary purpose is to make the tone more trebly when tured up and more bassy when turned down, it does this in a more useful manner than usual. Technically, it operates as a “tilt EQ”, which means that it tilts the entire spectrum so that bass is reduced as treble is increased, and vice versa, treble is reduced as bass is increased. This makes its effect independent of the Midrange setting so you can make the tone darker or brighter without affecting the midrange voicing you have dialed in.

Overdrive Stage
There are several low powered amps on the market intended for home and studio use, but in practice, even a SW amp is often far too loud for many playing situations when driven hard enough for the output stage to add overdrive and distortion. Typical solutions to this problem include traditional master volume circuits and attenuators. But both of these solutions have significant technical limitations which prevent them from delivering authentic big-amp sound and feel at low volume.

The Swingland solves this problem with a sophisticated proprietary overdrive stage prior to the output stage. Technically, it’s constructed as a transformer-loaded complementary architecture with local feedback to refine the action of its tuned clamps, but the real magic comes from a proprietary circuit that modifies the behavior of the active devices to control the balance of harmonic content and the dynamic behavior. This operation of this proprietary circuit can be fine-tuned with the “harmonic balance” control located on the back panel of the amp. This is a genuinely unique feature that you won’t find on any other amp.

Technical details aside, this sophisticated approach produces a sound and feel that goes far beyond traditional methods. Harmonic content and dynamics are precisely controlled, so the transition between clean and overdriven tone sounds and feels just like a big tube amp. Whereas many modern amps (played at low volume) produce an edge-of-breakup tone which sounds like a clean tone with an overlay of crackly grit, the Swingland responds just like a pushed big amp — notes swell and thicken as you dig in, with low order harmonics making the sound “mean” without any grit. And as you dig in harder, higher order harmonics appear in a gradual, controlled manner to produce a rich harmonic profile just like a big tube amp at full volume.

The Harmonic Balance control allows you fine tune the harmonic content of the overdriven tone. At lower settings, the distortion produced is brighter and edgier, like a driven Marshall, due to more high order harmonics being present. At higher settings, the distortion is thicker and has less edge, like a driven tweed deluxe, due to the dominance of low order harmonics.

One important thing to note is that this behavior is all performed by controlling the harmonics produced by the overdriven stage, and is not done by simple EQ. This means that the Harmonic Balance control doesn’t affect your clean tone — it only affects the sound of the overdrive and distortion produced. This is important for players who like to play dynamically or to dial in a gainy tone and roll back the volume control on their guitar for cleans.

Spring Reverb
The Swingland includes an excellent tube driven spring reverb. Controls for both mix and dwell are provided, as on vintage external reverb units. Reverb is provided by a full sized 3-spring medium-delay pan. This pan has a deeper, more harmonically rich reverb sound than the 2-spring pan used in most tube amps. It also has more headroom and a less “splashy” sound than the typical 2-spring pan. This is important given the wide range of clean, overdriven, and distorted tones available, as it never sounds overdriven or metallic regardless of the tone dialed in. Although the mix and dwell controls give you a lot of options for dialing in the reverb sound from subtle to lush, it has so much additional headroom to adapt to different preamp settings that can choose to simply set both dwell and mix at ‘5’ to add the perfect reverb sound to just about any tone you dial in.

Output Stage
The Swingland uses a unique configuration of push-pull triodes (6SN7) in the output stage in combination with a custom designed output transformer made in the USA by Lenco Electronics. This is the perfect complement to the sophisticated overdrive stage, since it simply adds fullness and fatness to the sound as it approaches maximum output power without adding any grit or obvious overdrive of its own. In early versions of the Swingland design, a single ended 6V6 or 6L6 was shown to be a poor choice since it added its own raspy, buzzy overdrive sound as it approached maximum output power, ruining the finely tuned harmonic balance of the overdrive stage.

In order to provide additional flexibility and to help get the best response from the speaker at all volume levels (down to whisper volume), a presence control was added to the output stage. This presence control has roughly the same effect as the presence control on a typical vintage amp — it adds “air” and “transparency” to the tone by boosting the high frequency content. In addition, it also affects the source impedance of the dual triode stage in order to allow the speaker’s natural impedance curve to manifest itself more prominently in the sound heard by the speaker.

Speaker Cabinet
Drawing on 35+ years of experience in cabinet voicing design, the Swingland cabinet acts as an instrument unto itself. It delivers an ideal balance of focus, depth, and resonance to create a much bigger sound than you would expect from a small cabinet. The difference is in the details of construction, and so cabinets are built and upholstered in-house by designer M. Bartel to maintain absolute quality and adherence to the design specs.

Chassis Build
The Swingland chassis is built using traditional handwired methods and the finest quality components. This is the first chassis layout we’ve cone using 3D CAD, and this approach has enabled meticulous planning of component placement and wiring as well as implementation of our comprehensive grounding scheme. The result is the lowest noise floor and highest degree of stability at every setting and every level of gain. Chassis build is performed in-house by our highly skilled technicians Mike and Nate, who both work to the highest standard of quality and precision.

Specifications

• Tube Complement 1x12AX7, 2x12AT7, 1x12AU7, 1x6SN7
• Speaker 12” Celestion Alnico Blue, 15W
• Speaker Impedance 8 Ohms
• Output Stage Push-Pull Triode (6SN7) w/ custom designed output transformer
• Output Power 3W R.M.S.
• Reverb Full-size 3-spring reverb pan, tube driven
• Line Out 5-pin XLR carrying both primary signal path and reverb, for use with add-on LOI devices
• Dimensions 19° Wx16’Tx11”D
• Weight 32|bs

All three Signature Series amplifiers bring a new level of innovation and refinement to the crafting of vintage tones.  Distinctive design features like instrument-grade cabinetry, a purist multi-voice preamp, and interstage transformer based design set them part from conventional guitar amplifiers.   The result is a strikingly different kind of sound – deep and resonant,  detailed and present, but also smooth and balanced at the same time.  They respond like an acoustic instrument and fill the room with a lively, present, and totally unconstricted tone.    

The 45W Roseland is a purist design, all tube 1×12 combo with reverb and tremolo  powered by a pair of 6L6 tubes.  Its’ single channel Multi Voice preamp offers an incredibly wide range of voicings ranging from sparkly cleans to thick, woody tweed to driven plexi crunch and grind.   It includes tube driven spring reverb with both mix and dwell controls to fine tune the reverb sound to be as splashy or subtle as you choose.  Its bias modulation tremolo has a particularly smooth and round effect.  The solid wood cabinet with unified baffle/body construction delivers a lively, deeply resonant, and unconstricted sound.  A unique master volume circuit is extremely transparent, maintaining the same sound and vivid presence all the way down to bedroom volume.

Features

• 45W 1x12 Combo Amplifier
• All Tube, Handwired Circuitry
• Single Channel Multi-Voice Preamp
• Spring Reverb with Mix & Dwell Controls
• Bias Modulation Tremolo
• Innovative Master Volume Control
• Footswitch: Reverb On/Off, Tremolo On/Off
• Dimensions 25.25" x 19" x 11.75"
• Weight 48lbs

Construction Highlights

• Circuitry handwired on custom fabricated turret boards
• Paper Bobbin Layer Wound Transformers
• Silver Plated Wire
• Handmade Leather Handle by Brookwood Leather
• Custom molded knobs and other appointments
• Tweed covering material finished with 5 hand-brushed coats of lacquer

Cabinet

• Unified body/baffle construction
• Cabinet body: solid Eastern White Pine
• Baffle board: crafted from 12 pieces of solid Eastern White Pine and African Mahogany
• Special recipe coating compound applied to preserve natural acoustic behavior.
• Upholstery applied with natural hide glue for superior acoustic response.
• Celestion Alnico Cream Speaker

Design Highlights

• Tubes: 3x12AX7A, 2x12AU7, 2x12AT7, 2x6L6GC, 1x5AR4
• Interstage transformer coupled phase inverter
• Ideal circuit layout for lowest noise floor and purest tone
• Tube driven reverb circuit
• Bias Modulation Tremolo Circuit
• Fixed bias output stage
• External bias test points and adjustment
• No negative feedback