Hi Jim,

We met at the Guitar Festival on Sunday. I bought one of your Micro Amps, and mentioned to you that I planned to use it in an actual performance situation.

I sing three days a week on the Skunk Train, an excursion railway line based in Ft. Bragg, CA. I portray a strolling blues-shouter called “The Walkin' Blues Man”. As you can imagine there are many challenges inherent in trying to do a show inside a moving rail car. The floor dips and bobs about, lurching and bumping along as I try to sing and play guitar. Also, the passengers are free to move about, so I have to watch for them and try to stay out of their way. I have a strong singing voice, so I am able to fill the car with it—but an acoustic guitar just gets lost in all that racket.

I have performed for many years in parades and other outdoor events as the Walkin' Blues Man character, and have developed an amp system using a small belt clip pre amp coupled to a Pignose portable amp for those situations. But this was different. The Pignose would be very cumbersome inside cramped spaces in the train. I needed something smaller and lighter.

I first tried a Danelectro Honeytone amp. It actually worked, but the 9V battery ran down too fast and after a while the amp itself started to develop anomalies—going off into overdrive squeals, and cutting out occasionally. Next I tried a Fender Mini Deluxe. It was better than the Honeytone—with a larger speaker and 3 watts of power—but it still suffered from the battery problem and was not really reliable.

One day I got to thinking about what was different about the Pignose amp, and realized that because it uses 6 AA cells to create 9 volts, instead of a transistor battery, it has more amperage and is much more reliable. I searched around through my myriad of dead audio components and found an old drum machine that included a battery holder for 6 AA cells. I cut it out of the drum machine and attached a plug so that I could plug it into the AC jack on the Fender mini amp. It worked great! The power was smooth and reliable and lasted long enough for 4-5 days on the train (two trips per day—approx. 2 hours of performance per trip).

By the way, 6 AA batteries cost about the same as one 9V battery.

Today I used the Dean Markley micro amp (with my power pack) for the first time and it worked better than the Fender for a number of reasons:

1) It is smaller than the Fender amp, but just as powerful.

2) The Overdrive control is a switch instead of a pot. One problem with the Fender amp is that the OD control can easily be accidentally turned up and is hard to control. With the Dean Markley micro amp, I can use it without worrying about the OD control, which is safely turned off when I don't want it on.

3) The Tone control works. The Fender tone control goes to high frequency somewhere near the middle of the turn, instead of at the top—that makes it hard to find and keep the highest setting. The Dean Markley tone control works the way you expect a tone control to work.

I just thought you would be interested to know that what you sell as essentially a [Small Practice Amp], can actually be put to work in a professional environment. The Skunk Train draws visitors from all over the world—I normally perform for about 300 people each day, three days a week. Most buskers (street entertainers) that I have talked to over the years have a disdain for belt—clip amps because of the shortcomings I listed above. There is an untapped market of working professional musicians out there that Dean Markley could do well to get their hooks into.

If your company is interested, I would be happy to formerly endorse your product. Perhaps you could consider developing a line of battery packs to go with your micro amps...

Just a thought...

Regards, Earl Oliver


For information about Earl Oliver, go to: www.EarlOliver.com


For information about Dean Markley Strings’ full line of musical products, contact us via the info below.

Dean Markley's MicroAmp with
Dean Markley's Tuner taped to the top