The Falcon (GA-19RVT) was a guitar

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It may increase the power significantly, or its main effect may be to boost the v ...

made by

Gibson Guitar Corporation Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation) is an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was forme ...

in 1961. With the Falcon and a few other models, Gibson was ahead of Fender in bringing an amplifier with

reverb Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abso ...

on the market. In addition, the Falcon also had

tremolo In music, ''tremolo'' (), or ''tremolando'' (), is a trembling effect. There are two types of tremolo. The first is a rapid reiteration: * Of a single Musical note, note, particularly used on String instrument#Bowing, bowed string instrument ...

. The Falcon got 14 watts out of two

6V6 The 6V6 is a beam-power tetrode vacuum tube. The first of this family of tubes to be introduced was the 6V6G by Ken-Rad Tube & Lamp Corporation in late 1936, with the availability by December of both Ken-Rad and Raytheon 6V6G tubes announced. ...

tubes (the same tubes used in the comparable Fender Deluxe), and had a Jensen 12" speaker. The pre-amp was powered by three 6EU7 tubes, and a

7199 The 7199 is a vacuum tube, combining a pentode and triode. Typically, the pentode was used for the input stage, and the triode as a phase inverter. The tube was used in a number of American guitar amplifiers; the Gibson Guitar Corporation, for insta ...

for the reverb circuit. It also has a 5V3GT rectifier tube in the V7 socket. Unlike Fender's later reverb amps (such as the Princeton Reverb), the Falcon had a fairly unusual placement of the reverb circuit: rather than being placed after the pre-amp section and having the wet signal mixed with the dry, the Falcon's reverb circuit taps the signal before the volume and tone control, and mixes it with the dry signal via independent volume controls. In addition, the Falcon had a separate monitor output at line level, to connect the amp to a separate "Regular Amplifier" (the Falcon being referred to in the brochures as "Reverb Amplifier") and create a stereo effect. The Falcon's sound is described as "full, rich" and "sweet-sounding", with a "raw, gnarly, compressed tone" at higher volumes. It is relatively rare: according to Gibson's records 204 were sold in 1961; the next year, the Crestline design was introduced, involving a redesign of the control panel as well as the circuit.

References

There were three variants of the Crestline version of the Falcon, all with similar specs that lasted until 1965-1966. The next version of the Falcon, and the last tube version was released in 1967-1968. This last version was similar in specs to the previous versions but had different cosmetics, with a taller cabinet sporting a larger front mounted control panel with two rows of knobs. This version used 4x 12ax7, and 2x 6bq5 tubes, with a solid state rectifier. Few of this version were made. There was also a solid state version of the Falcon released in the early 1970s. {{DEFAULTSORT:Falcon, Gibson Gibson amplifiers