Fat Jimmy Amplifiers is honored to have built a custom rig for guitarist Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead to play on the Dead & Company summer tour of 2016! Bob’s rig consisted of a two-stage custom voiced stereo amplifier, rooted in the VOX style universe with EL84 power tubes and a personally voiced guitar circuit.

Mike Pascale of Fat Jimmy Amplifiers and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead with Bob’s Custom Fat Jimmy

The Custom Stereo FAT JAC15 fed separate L & R guitar signals through a stereo tube preamp, into an adjoining all-tube stereo power amp.  This fed separate L & R speaker cabs each consisting of 4 x 8″ Fat Jimmy Vintage Series C825 speakers. The summer tour began with two 4 x 8″ cabs (one on each side) and ended with four 4 x 8″ cabs (two on each side).  So in a nutshell; two parallel FAT JAC 15w circuits delivering approx 30 stereo watts through 16 x 8″ custom speakers.  On arena stages.

A key consideration was Bob’s desire to utilize stereo guitar effects, but not have to worry about having two different amplifiers to control each side of the signal.  In true Grateful Dead fashion of equipment and gear evolution (“Here’s what I’m thinking : can you build it?”), Bob approached us with the concept of designing one stereo amplifier with separate parallel L and R signals being controlled by one set of controls on the face.

Weir’s full Fat Jimmy stage rig. Stereo preamp, stereo power amp, four x 4 x 8″ speaker cabs

Front panels read: PREAMP: parallel inputs (L&R), bright/off/brighter switch, volume, treble, bass POWERAMP: master volume (added by mod), chime, jimmy control, jimmy in/out switch (later modified to be footswitch activated).

Weir’s custom foot switch activated “Jimmy” feature.

Scroll down for more Dead & Company pics from the 2016 summer tour!

We are proud to offer authentic replicas of any version of Bob Weir’s Fat Jimmy stage rigs. You can order the full ‘big stage’ stereo version with stereo preamp, stereo poweramp, and separate L & R cabs, the ‘mono’ version with separate single channel head and single 4 x 8″ cab, or the compact single channel 4 x 8″ combo!

Dead & Co. live on the big stage!

Dead & Co. live feat Bob Weir, John Mayer & Oteil Burbridge

Dead & Co. stadium crowd

Dead & Co. live 2016