At NAMM, the ‘60s &#8212 and Pat Quilter’s amps &#8212 are still with us

Pat Quilter remembers what he considers the glory days of rock ‘n’ roll.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, the varying sounds of the genre, from Jimi Hendrix to the Beach Boys, filled the airwaves, the Laguna Beach resident recalled.

“When I was growing up, once a decade there would be a recognizable shift in the style of music,” said Quilter, 69. “The last thing I would have thought about in the ‘60s was that we would be listening to the same songs 50 years later. It seems to me that all the music today are all branches of the music that was done by the superstars of the 1960s, like Hendrix, Clapton and other people like that, who poked their noses down every avenue there was.”

He argues that nowadays, instead of wanting to become rock stars, young people are more interested in video games and other outlets for creativity and because of that, music is, in a way, suffering.

So he decided to do something about it.

With an interest in engineering, Quilter developed his first guitar amplifier in his 20s by fixing an old radio with a $1 tone arm he found at an electronics store.

“One thing led to another, and by the end of a couple years, I was starting to actually hand-build small, low-power amplifiers,” he said. “I was going to take over the world with giant guitar amps in the ‘60s, but we kind of missed the boat on that. But now I’m back at it.”

In 2011, he founded Quilter Labs, a guitar amplifier company based in Costa Mesa, to involve himself more in what he considered a changing music industry. Before that, he had owned Quilter Sound Co., which made professional-quality audio equipment for movie theaters, stadiums and concert halls.

Quilter was attending the National Assn. of Music Merchants (NAMM) trade show at the Anaheim Convention Center last week. It ends Sunday. The exclusive annual convention — not open to the public — draws tens of thousands of musicians, vendors of musical equipment and others in the music world.

He said he has been attending NAMM shows since the 1970s.

“It’s your chance to show off all your latest toys,” said Quilter, who usually dresses in a costume. This year he was in a blue and black Mad Hatter-style hat and last year a gold and black pharaoh hat to match the amp he was promoting then.

Quilter’s new Pro Block 200 was making its debut at the latest event. The small, 400-watt amp head is blue and black, weighs only 4 pounds and has reverb and limiting capabilities, which makes it a flexible amp for any kind of guitarist, Quilter said.

“It’s a high-power mini-amp that you could actually just use as your only head, even if you didn’t choose to have a pedal board,” he said. “A guitar player that was just going to stick with a certain style doesn’t need a pedal board, but they might like reverb and an amp with tonal range. The Pro Block will be the perfect amp for people like that who just want to dial in a sound and run with that all night.”

Nowdays, musicians have three kinds of amps to choose from — tube-based, class D and solid state. The latter, also known as a transistor, was the most prevalent in the rock ‘n’ roll era that Quilter looks back on with reverence. He said his company has built all three types to keep up with the different styles of music.

“Transistors came out in the ‘60s and were going to replace tubes,” Quilter said. “They’re smaller, more powerful, lighter weight and don’t get so hot, so everybody thought this was going to be the new technology. All the consumer electronics we have now have been transistors for 40 years now. It turns out transistors don’t sound as good as tubes, so tubes are still around. Transistors just don’t have the warmth and brilliance of tone.”

With his 20 models of amps, which are made in the United States and range in price from $299 to more than $1,000, Quilter aims to bring back that old-time sound he was used to while still supporting the music of today.

“Our amps sound like cool, old vintage amps, and yet they’re powerful, lightweight, play anywhere and have all the modern conveniences that we expect with the old-fashioned classic tone,” he said.

They are sold online and at more than 70 small guitar stores throughout the country. Locally, they are sold at OC Archery in Mission Viejo, CB Hill Guitars in Huntington Beach, FP Logistics in Anaheim and Jim’s Music Center in Tustin.

Musicians from outfits like Zac Brown Band, Rascal Flatts, Pierce the Veil, Iration and Black Sabbath have used Quilter’s amps, which are adjustable — offering distortion or smoother sounds — for different styles.

“I like the versatility to be able to combine both outputs to get better gain,” said Travis Toy, guitarist for platinum-selling country band Rascal Flatts in a statement on Quilter’s website. “The Steelaire Pro is super loud. Tonally it sounds great. It is unbelievably light. I love how the head is modular and can pop out the combo. It is the warmest solid state amp I have ever played through. Other popular solid state amps I have used are sterile and do not inspire me.”

Even with the development of new technology and styles of amplifiers, Quilter said it’s tough to be in the music industry.

“Electric guitars are pretty stable,” he said. “It’s not like the ‘60s when every kid wanted to be a superstar. They go into video games or something now, I guess. One of the great ironies in our industry is amps don’t cost any more in dollars than they did back then. If anything, they’re less. But musicians don’t get paid anymore either. The music industry is not really healthy, at least at the local level.”