Bennett Custom Audio Lighthouse | Feat. Wide Sky Guitars P125C
The tremolo-equipped amplifier in a pedal — Bennett Custom Audio's Lighthouse is the most thoughtfully designed tremolo I've encountered. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.
In this episode the Bennett Custom Audio Lighthouse Amplitude Modulating Amplifier takes its channel debut — featuring the Wide Sky Guitars P125C Cutaway with Curtis Novak P90 Pickups, into the Benson Amps Monarch 2x12" via the Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander, with the Echo Fix EF-X3 Tape Echo and Meris Mercury X Reverb.
Mark Bennett of Bennett Custom Audio (Canada) has built the Lighthouse around a specific idea: not just a tremolo pedal, but a tremolo-equipped amplifier. An all-analog preamp with Gain, Presence, and Volume controls precedes the tremolo stage — capable of delivering edge-of-breakup and overdriven tones on its own. The tremolo then acts on that preamp signal the way tremolo circuits in vintage tube amplifiers did: as part of the amplifier, not after it.
Two tremolo modes, each with a separate individually-tuned signal path:
Bias Tremolo uses an additional long-tailed pair and push-pull amplifier stage to modulate the volume of the full signal — the LFO pushes the amplifier in and out of distortion just like an old tube amp's bias-varying tremolo. This is the tremolo of Fender blackface and brownface normal-channel amplifiers.
Harmonic Tremolo modulates bass and treble frequencies out of phase from one another — they fade in and out alternately, creating the lush, vibey shimmer of Fender brownface amplifiers from the late 1950s and early 1960s. The most sought-after tremolo sound in vintage amp history, now available with independent signal path tuning.
Three waveforms (Sine, Triangle, Square) combine with both modes for six distinct flavors. When Bias mode and Square wave are combined, Chop mode is activated — the Intensity control changes the duty cycle (ratio of on/off time) rather than depth, creating anything from subtle rhythmic pulses to full choppy stutter.
The Tilt EQ acts exclusively on the wet tremolo signal — adjusting the tone of the modulated signal independently from the dry signal creates interesting tonal contrasts between the two, an unusual and genuinely creative control. Tap tempo with quarter/eighth/triplet subdivisions. Holding either footswitch ramps the tremolo rate up or down and returns to the original tempo when released. Proprietary high-voltage internal power circuitry for massive headroom and low noise.
🎛️ Bennett Custom Audio Lighthouse: https://www.bennettcustomaudio.ca/lighthouse
🎸 Wide Sky Guitars: https://www.wideskyguitars.com
🎸 Curtis Novak Pickups: https://www.curtisnovak.com
🔊 Benson Amps: https://www.bensonamps.com/guitar-amplifiers
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🎸 Wide Sky Guitars P125C | Curtis Novak P90s
🎛️ Bennett Custom Audio Lighthouse | Bias + Harmonic Tremolo | 6 Modes | Tilt EQ | Tap Tempo | Ramp | Preamp
🎛️ Also: Echo Fix EF-X3 | Meris Mercury X
🔊 Benson Amps Monarch 2x12" | Boss Waza TAE
Recording: Universal Audio Apollo x4 | Lauten Audio LS-208 | Royer R-121 & R-10 | Sennheiser E906 | Ableton Live 11
