Building the Rocket: Don Morris of Electroplex Amplifiers

Don Morris spent 23 years at Yamaha. In 1993, while still working there, he started building amps in his garage at night. He and his neighbor Trevor Wilkinson set out to build a "Twin Reverb killer": an amp with all the clean headroom of a Twin that could still overdrive without clearing the room. The result was the Electroplex Rocket. It sold well in Japan before it caught on in the US. Then Guitar Player's February 1997 boutique-amp shootout named the Rocket 50 one of its three favorites, and the phones started ringing the day the issue reached mailboxes. Rockets went on to record with the Rolling Stones and tour with Paul McCartney's band. Don built them while keeping his day job at Yamaha. In this episode, Don talks about: Watching a tech plug Keith Richards' fuzz pedal in backwards at a 1965 Stones show Why he kept the output stage clean and got the overdrive from the preamp The PCB vs. point-to-point debate, and why a well-designed board can match a hand-wired amp Why early high-gain amps sounded harsh, and why solid state took so long to win players over Speakers: Celestions, custom Eminence 10s, mixing Alnico and ceramic, and the 12+10 cabinet nobody bought Putting the business on hold to be with his family, and starting it up again in 2009 Why a 12-watt setting can be almost as loud as 22 watts (his explanation uses people clapping) Vintage vs. modern components in restorations and clones How the Blonde Bassman shaped the original Rocket design What he's building now: the Retro Rocket pedal-platform amps and the Triplex, which runs EL84s alongside KT66s We also talk about Pacific Transformer's NAMM builds, including the side-by-side test where swapping only the transformers in a '65 Deluxe Reverb reissue changes how it sounds. Read the full story on our blog: https://www.pactran.com/blog/electrop... Chapters 00:00 Welcome, Don Morris of Electroplex 00:44 1993: starting Electroplex while at Yamaha 04:24 First guitar and amp: a Guild Starfire and a Power Sonic 09:13 Hendrix, Clapton, and the Stones fuzz story 15:28 The Rocket 90: overdrive from the preamp 17:58 Why Japan bought them first 22:08 The Rocket 50 and the Guitar Player shootout 26:05 PCB vs. point-to-point 29:16 Why solid state struggled 32:39 Contract manufacturing and final assembly 36:36 Speakers and mixed-speaker cabinets 41:23 Putting family first 43:47 The Rocket 35 and output transformers 45:49 The move to low-wattage amps 50:39 Wattage vs. volume 52:42 Vintage vs. modern components 56:40 Favorite amps: the JTM45 and Bassman 1:01:40 The NAMM build poll 1:03:41 Electroplex today: Retro Rockets and the Triplex 1:09:07 Swapping transformers in a Deluxe Reverb