Wish Rivera Knucklehead Line Up

D

drewiawesome14

Member
I used to own a Rivera Knucklehead Tre and it was by far one of the most unique sounding amps I’ve ever had. Rivera is a boutique amp company and the way I could describe it as an amp with a fender clean and a Marshall dirty with an incredible amount of tone shaping ability with all of the various push/pull knobs and the built in attenuator on the back.

You can hear the amp in action off of Slipknots “All Hope is Gone” album (their most technical album) and it’s always been a tone I’ve searched for.

The issue is Knuckleheads are very hard to find.

I feel like a simulation of one of the models like the KR100, K Tre, or even Mick Thomson’s signature K7 would be a fantastic and very well used addition for the metal community.
 
I was a big Rivera guy in the late 90s, early 2000's
I started with an R30 and had an R55, then an original Knucklehead K100 head
Later a Fandango combo, which was actually my favourite as I'm more of a classic rock guy than chuggy metal.

Much as it'd be great to have some Rivieras in the Fractals. There's a lot of amps in a similar ballpark already in the units. I find the Bogner Exctasy models, Euro, get close
 
ak301 said:
I was a big Rivera guy in the late 90s, early 2000's
I started with an R30 and had an R55, then an original Knucklehead K100 head
Later a Fandango combo, which was actually my favourite as I'm more of a classic rock guy than chuggy metal.

Much as it'd be great to have some Rivieras in the Fractals. There's a lot of amps in a similar ballpark already in the units. I find the Bogner Exctasy models, Euro, get close
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. But how close is “close”? Maybe those amp models can be manipulated to match the tone but do you think there’s still that “off” feeling you get?
 
+1
However, since the wish for a Rivera Knucklehead model has existed since the Axe-Fx Standard I have the strange feeling that this will never happen 🤷‍♂️
 
Back in about 2005 I embarked on a quest with a bandmate to find the best guitar head available. He picked up a Soldano HR50, I bought a Rivera KR100. That amp worked really well for me at the time.

Surprisingly (because it wasn't what I bought it for), I found the clean-ish Fender-ish channel to be astonishingly versatile. It's just 5 knobs of the 17 on that front panel, but with all the pull bright/notch/contour/boost switch options, there's a lot of goodness to be had. It could deliver a lot of grit or a lot of clean depending on where the knobs on the guitar were set, and responded very well to playing dynamics.

When that amp broke*, that's what I missed the most, not the higher-gain channels that the amp is probably best known for.

(*) When the amp "broke" the treble knob on that first channel failed, it just didn't do anything and the sound from that channel was dull and lifeless and had no high end. I tore it apart, I reflowed solder, I scoured the interwebz for replacement pot/switch parts that aren't for sale anymore, and generally despaired and tore at my hair...

Ya know what fixed it after years of flailing? Aiming a can of Dust-off at the treble pot and blowing it out. :confounded:
 
drewiawesome14 said:
Thanks for the reply. But how close is “close”? Maybe those amp models can be manipulated to match the tone but do you think there’s still that “off” feeling you get?
Click to expand...

Well I haven't owned a Rivera for about twenty years, so "close" it what I remember it sounding like
 
+1 - "Chucklehead" or TBR-1M

Even though there are several amps that already get close to this, I think there's still something a little unique ("off" as @drewiawesome14 put it). IIRC, Paul Rivera worked for both Fender (designed the II Series amps in the early '80s) and Mesa-Boogie before starting his own company. Riveras might be his take on Fender/Marshall/Boogie, but there's a lot of the "custom hot-rod" stuff going on there from the mid/late-'80s, too, I think. As others have said, very versatile and tweakable.
 
Churchhill said:
+1 - "Chucklehead" or TBR-1M

Even though there are several amps that already get close to this, I think there's still something a little unique ("off" as @drewiawesome14 put it). IIRC, Paul Rivera worked for both Fender (designed the II Series amps in the early '80s) and Mesa-Boogie before starting his own company. Riveras might be his take on Fender/Marshall/Boogie, but there's a lot of the "custom hot-rod" stuff going on there from the mid/late-'80s, too, I think. As others have said, very versatile and tweakable.
Click to expand...
I’m just such a stickler for tone that maybe I get too focused on it. But the Knucklehead tone is one of the most unique I’ve heard and it’s too bad that there’s not a single good simulation of it anywhere. There’s no plugins, pedals or really anything that’s for sale out there that replicates it. It’s too bad.
 
drewiawesome14 said:
I’m just such a stickler for tone that maybe I get too focused on it. But the Knucklehead tone is one of the most unique I’ve heard and it’s too bad that there’s not a single good simulation of it anywhere. There’s no plugins, pedals or really anything that’s for sale out there that replicates it. It’s too bad.
Click to expand...
Ironically, I think I remember Cliff commenting that the Riveras weren't particularly distinctive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom