I thought you all might be interested in this. There was some discussion on The Gear Page about the King Snake and Carlos' snakeskin amp - which does not have a cascading gain channel. Many people had never plugged into input 2 on the MK1 with the gain boost and found new and amazing tones. So - I asked Randall Smith to write up some things comparing the King Snake, Carlos' snakeskin amp, and later MK I's. Here it is:
Please allow me to shed some light on the early Snake Skin amps:
Carlos called me at home one night last year freaking out about having seen the 1973 Budokan video and having had Stubby go find that very amplifier which had been hidden away for posterity. He talked about it being like finding a long lost friend. He described its ability to add a dynamic “pop—pop—pop” on the attack of each note and he begged me to make him at least seven more just like it… and maybe some more that we could offer for sale.
So, once I got my hands on that very amp and pulled the chassis from the cab, I was shocked, SHOCKED to see that it did NOT have the cascading Input 1 stage. If it’s not the only one I built that way, there can’t be more than one or possibly two others built like that.
So here’s the story: I was working on three developments at that early time: small size, high power and increased gain. The size and power first evolved from modding the Princetons. The first major step toward increased gain was the Gain Boost switch that has its own little back-story.
A local blues man, Tim Kaihatsu (who later played with Robert Cray), had found a brown tolex Deluxe and was disappointed by its lack of gain and asked if I could help. I tried something real simple—so simple I had my doubts that it would work. Thus, I made it switchable so if he didn’t like it, his amp could return to bone stock. Turns out he LOVED it… in fact it became known locally as the Tim Kaihatsu tone.
Simply stated, this switch largely defeats and bypasses the tone controls and restores the signal amplitude lost in them. In the Budokan Snake this was accessed by a toggle switch on the rear. Not long after building that amp, I discovered the Cascading gain principle, though at first the “booster tube” was located at the very back end of the preamp chain. I still have one of those amps myself, which is a Snake and may have come back from Carlos. Don’t know for sure as he traded a few “older” amps for “newer” ones… that is, ones made a month or two later! That’s how fast I was evolving these things back then.
Looking at the Budokan amp was a real treat. It brought back memories of me in my little mountain shop hand-crafting every part: forming and punching the chassis, silk screening the front panel, screening, etching and drilling the printed circuit board, drilling and riveting the heavier power supply board on a piece of acrylic, and of course building the cab and hand wiring all the rest, pretty much as we still do. OK, understand I first had to create the “art” for the panel and circuit board, then burn silk screens to do the printing. I made a hot acid etch bath that I agitated with a wah-wah pedal I’d converted to a Leslie speed throttle. Right in that amp were some of the very first circuit boards I ever made, and everything was still working fine 40 years later.
It reminded me of laying out both the MESA Engineering and Boogie logos on my kitchen table! (And they haven’t changed one bit since!) Silk screening and circuit board fabrication were new skills for me but they allowed me to make a tiny number of “finished” amplifiers and be able to change things as I evolved. Plus, knowing these techniques would become very valuable later on when approaching actual “grown-up” suppliers—like after the hot acid got splashed in my wife’s eye and I vowed “never again”. (Sorry for the digression; can’t help it.)
Once we had the Budokan Snake back at the Tone Lounge, Doug (West) and I scrutinized every minute detail of that amp to sleuth out its magic. We literally A-B tested every part and wire to make sure nothing eluded us. We had the original power transformer recreated and when we couldn’t get the exact same Mallory signal caps, we listened to every one manufactured only to discover that some we already were using elsewhere sounded virtually identical. (Meaning, “couldn’t tell which was which under the blindfold test.”)
Understand that even with the Gain Boost, Carlos plays very loud and that’s vital to achieving his tone and sustain, especially in those days. Since that short window of time, every other Santana amp has included the Mark I cascading gain stage, and I’m sure that’s why the Budo-Snake was retired in favor of the added gain and versatility of the true Mark I.
So, plugging into Input 2 of the KingSnake accesses the exact same circuit as the Budo amp. Turning the Mid/Boost knob to 10 provides the exact same boost as the switch… and allows incremental settings that are real juicy, with absolute simplicity. Adding the 10-watt, single-ended Class A power option lets you crank the power amp without being deafened. Sixty and Hundred watt positions are exactly like the original, noting that the 8 ohm speaker should be plugged into a 4 ohm jack and set to 60 watts for Carlos’s main lead tone.
Two other features that round out the KingSnake are its inclusion of the Cascading gain stage and the switchable Presence circuit. This was another “solution” to all the changes I was making back then. The Budo Snake had a Black Face type negative feedback circuit. However Carlos’s main Mark I for decades has a different circuit and I was alternating back and forth for years as the amps evolved. Both are great circuits and heavily influence the entire amplifier tonality. It wasn’t easy to get both those circuits such that they switched quietly and remained faithful to the original.
So… with the KingSnake, you’ve basically got an exacting, faithful historical collection of the favorite and most used Santana amplifiers. When we auditioned the proto up in the Tone Lounge, Stubby yelled out, “That’s IT! Wrap it up… we’ll Take It!” to which Carlos exclaimed, “NO!... Don’t wrap it up… we’ll eat it here!”
Thank You Carlos! As always, it’s been soulful and inspiring!! Can’t imagine where I (we) would be if not for you!)
Randall Smith
Designer & President
Mesa/Boogie Ltd
.. What a amp! With that new mid/boost technology and the tweed thing going on, add channel switching (if possible) and a EQ and you might have the C+ reissue....... might...lol
