Let's get the easy part taken care of first. It's pronounced "wah-kah-ROO-sah".
It all starts with a move to a farm in a tiny town in Northern Indiana. I'd been designing and repairing guitar amps on the side for years, but there was this old pole barn there... A few thousand nails, lots of lumber, and a whole lot of concrete later there was an amp shop where the rusty old pole barn used to be. And that's where things stood for about four years.
In the Spring of 2007 I moved the whole mess to Newnan, Georgia. This time the barn was already built. I'm busy supporting the Atlanta area with parts, supplies, repairs, and tuning and have a steady flow of repair and mod work from as far as Texas, California, and Canada (I'm on a first name basis with the UPS guy). For those interested in the resumé, I've been doing electrical/electronics work professionally since 1981 and playing guitar since 1986.
As far as the amps go, I'm a definite Fender junkie. It's not that I don't get or don't like the other gear out there, I'm just really into the sparkle and smoothness you get from a Strat jacked into some classic Blackface or Tweed. You'll tend to see that reflected in my custom designs. Whether or not a particular design has killing distortion on tap, or stays clean forever, you can bet that the basic tone of the amp will be rich and full. No muddy bass, no pinched highs. The credo here is "You can pedal to dirt, but you can't pedal to clean". In other words, the clean tone of the amp is the foundation that everything else is built from -- best to get it right.
I'm not really set up as a normal retail environment. My schedule is very flexible, but it also means no set shop hours, no waiting room, etc. If you need to bring an amp in for service, want to sample some of the wares, or just see what's going on here please call first and set up an appointment.
Todd Shock
July, 2007