Greer Amps Black Mountain Crunch Drive
Brand new from Greer Amps — and it's one of the most natural, amp-like crunch drives I've played. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.
In this episode the Greer Amps Black Mountain Crunch Drive takes center stage — stacked with the Greer Moonshot Treble Booster for the second half of the demo — featuring the Frank Brothers Ultralight with Lollar El Rayo Humbuckers and Lollar Firebird on a Blender Pot, into the Benson Amps Monarch and Benson 2x12" Celestion G12H cabinet via the Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander.
Nick Greer of Greer Amps built the Black Mountain around a specific tone quest — the sound of one particular modded Marshall amp he encountered visiting a close friend, from the post-Plexi era metal panel period that came just after the great Plexiglass-panel amps of the late '60s. From simply adding crunch to getting that famous midrange snarl and growl of those metal panel amps, the Black Mountain gives up the goods in a way that has a natural, amp-like crunch to it. The whole thing was developed with The Darkness' Permission to Land blasting in the background — prime British crunch territory.
The two clipping diodes responsible for the drive in this circuit are purposefully imbalanced, selected to impart the proper texture and crunch. This intentional mismatch is what gives the Black Mountain its characteristic asymmetric bite — crisping up even at relatively low gain settings in a way that symmetrical clipping simply cannot produce.
Three knobs: Volume, Gain, Tone. Can be powered from 9V to 18V for additional headroom. The pedal is used here in two very different contexts: into a breaking-up Monarch (where the Black Mountain adds texture and character on top of amp-derived distortion), and as the sole gain source into a clean amp (where it drives every note of the distortion on its own).
The Greer Moonshot Treble Booster enters later in the demo, pushing the Black Mountain's input from the front for additional gain, midrange emphasis, and focus.
🎛️ Greer Amps Black Mountain: https://www.greeramps.com
🎸 Frank Brothers Ultralight: https://www.frankbrothersguitars.com
🎸 Lollar El Rayo & Firebird: https://www.lollarguitars.com/lollar-pickups
🔊 Benson Amps: https://www.bensonamps.com/guitar-amplifiers
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🎸 Frank Brothers Ultralight | Lollar El Rayo Humbuckers + Lollar Firebird (Blender Pot)
🎛️ Greer Amps Black Mountain Crunch Drive | Imbalanced Diodes | 9-18V | 3 Knobs
🎛️ Greer Amps Moonshot Treble Booster (stacked)
🔊 Benson Amps Monarch | Celestion G12H 2x12" | Boss Waza TAE
Recording: Universal Audio Apollo x4 | Royer R10 & R121 + SM57 + Sennheiser E906 | Ableton Live 11
