Love Tree Amplifiers

Name: Love Tree Amplifiers Year Established: 2013 Location: Lancaster, PA Website: www.lovetreeamps.com ES: How did Love Tree Amplifiers get started and what got you interested in building amplifiers? PadaukLTA: Love Tree was started by high school friends Jon-Paul Painton and Zach Sowel, along with Zach's father Greg. We are all gear enthusiasts and enjoy playing music. Zach is a skilled wood worker who decided to refinish some of his and Greg's amps in beautiful solid wood enclosures. This sparked a question between the two of them, "Do you think we could start building amps?". Eventually this question made it's way to Jon-Paul and from that question came the next question of "Why not?" So began the idea of Love Tree Amplifiers. Love Tree gets its name from the combination of both the craftwork and the belief that drives the company. "We build enclosures that show appreciation to the trees that they come from. The belief is that of the original 'Love Tree' on which our transgressions were paid for. Love Tree is based on Christian values. By Grace and through Faith we launched this company." ES: What makes Love Tree different from other boutique amps? Anything in particular that sets your company apart? LTA: We build our amps in solid wood enclosures. This opens up a world of different sounds and looks. Your amp is 50% of your tone and we feel it should look as nice. As a company we build to a standard, not a price point. ES: What type of user controls does your amp provide for the user? LTA: The LT12 is purely a tone amp that is perfect for pairing with pedals. We have a volume and tone knob, that"s it. There are two differently voiced channels (bright and normal) with a top boost option (switch). ES: Are there any particular tonal characteristics that you work toward when building an amp? LT_2LTA: We have been researching wood properties, speaker characteristics and artist preferences to determine how we proceed with an amp. We also want to allow for those pedal lovers out there to have a high quality platform for the various tones they can generate with numerous options in the current pedal market. To brush on an earlier statement, we build to a standard not a price point. This means we want to offer the highest level components, hand picked wood selections and industry standard speaker options; all to produce a product that our customers will cherish not only for the look but also because it sounds incredible. ES: What was your first impression of Eminence? LTA: We love how the company operates. It started small, feels small and works together like family. Through that they have created a top-notch company that professionals in the industry rely on. ES: Why did you choose Eminence for your amps? LTA: We have tried several companies and pretty much realized that Eminence has one of the largest selections, was used in countless amps that we own and enjoy, and is a tone seeking company. We heard several of the speakers through our amps and that was the answer we needed. ES: Which speakers did you go with and why? LT_3LTA: We have several options in our line but the 3 main ones are The Wizard, The Governor and the Lil" Texas. These 3 speakers we feel cover all of the tones that we have been looking for, from that great British break up to the American chiming bell tone. We felt these three matched the LT12 the best, they had the tones we where looking for. Each Eminence speaker is different so we have chosen to offer a few others as options because we feel that everyone hears different so why not allow you to make the choice yourself. If we don"t have an Eminence listed then we will get it for you, it is your amp and we want to help you have an amp you will cherish for a long time. ES: How do you evaluate the speakers you choose? LTA: We spent many hours swapping different speakers in and out until we found the most balanced tone and whether or not it kept that tone with various woods. We also looked at how they are made; when we toured the factory so that we could learn the processes, procedures and components that went into assembling the speakers. Needless to say we came away with a whole new view on speakers and the Eminence Company. ES: Where can people find out more about Love Tree online? LTA: Through our website, www.lovetreeamps.com, on facebook or by emailing us anytime info@lovetreeamps. ES: Where can your amps be purchased? LTA: Right now they are available through our website and on Reverb.com. We are working with a few more online stores and should have them listed on them soon.