No love for Rivera Amps??

  • Thread starter Thread starter Francorossi
  • Start date Start date
mortega76":1af5fpgp said:
I would venture to say... part of it may be in the manufacture's name... Rivera... as sad as that may seem, it has something to do with it. If I'm not mistaken Mick from Slipknot even played Rivera's for a while until he went to Orange amps... even "Orange" is a cooler name that "Rivera"... that's the world we live in when you don't want an amp with a stupid name... honestly... I think Axe-fx is a dumb name... but damn, the sounds that come out of that thing!
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If this was the case Fryette would be out of business
 
threadkiller":3t9hkrmq said:
mortega76":3t9hkrmq said:
I would venture to say... part of it may be in the manufacture's name... Rivera... as sad as that may seem, it has something to do with it. If I'm not mistaken Mick from Slipknot even played Rivera's for a while until he went to Orange amps... even "Orange" is a cooler name that "Rivera"... that's the world we live in when you don't want an amp with a stupid name... honestly... I think Axe-fx is a dumb name... but damn, the sounds that come out of that thing!
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If this was the case Fryette would be out of business
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I was going to initially type something regarding Fryette... but they already established themselves with a lot "cooler" name... VHT... so technically, this does not apply.
 
guitarslinger":3rdqg8ve said:
Are you kidding me?

I think "Rivera" sounds fucking awesome. Like a Cuban Drug Dealer who shoots people. Like Scarface.

Orange sounds like a fucking Fruit basket.
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Or the best closer of all time.
rivera.jpg
 
I have a Rivera K-Tre, pulled two power tubes, use the loop levels like a MV. Nice amp, really great clean channel, it also takes a pedal well on the clean side, and the high gain channel is just high gain evil. It was dirt cheap used since Rivera is happy to have a nonexistent marketing presence. A Rivera can be a huge bang for the buck used amp buy.
 
On the Rivera name: It may be age-related. The Paul Rivera Fender era set up his reputation for a lot of us, so the name Rivera = Great tone, quality, and design/engineering. Rivera has been one of those names that has been long respected in the guitar community.
 
Here's how I modded my Venus 5 cosmetically. I think it's a gas now.

First is a picture of how it originally looked. The grille cloth was too sophisticated for me so I tore it out.

94.jpg


Ordered a piece of black expanded metal from a speaker shop and put it in giving the guts view which has always appealed to me. When I play heavy metal it sounds better now! Hmm....

DSCN0420.jpg


Then, in the spirit of some other amp makers who use some internal lighting, a set of LED's with seven different colors built it. I can set them to stay on one solid color, change sharply from one to the other in a loop, blend slowly from one to another in a loop, or off of course. Here are the seven different looks I can get out of it now. The pictures don't caputure the true colors but you get the idea.

compositesmaller.jpg
 
guitarslinger":1711agxp said:
Are you kidding me?

I think "Rivera" sounds fucking awesome. Like a Cuban Drug Dealer who shoots people. Like Scarface.

Orange sounds like a fucking Fruit basket.
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+ 1 :lol: :LOL:

Ktre and KR7 love here, nice build nice sound. :rock:
Only petty thing is, I don't really care for the fender style knobs and push pull gain. Prefer switches!
 
Well, I don´t think Rivera as a name turns off customers... but as to why a contemporary like Boogie took off big and Rivera stayed less well known I have no idea. A whole bunch of killer players used Riveras, but somehow it never translated into brand recognition... could boil down to marketing, I suppose.
 
I have and have had 3 Knucklehead reverbs
Best clean tone imaginable
 
Dave L":3vluptvc said:
Well, I don´t think Rivera as a name turns off customers... but as to why a contemporary like Boogie took off big and Rivera stayed less well known I have no idea. A whole bunch of killer players used Riveras, but somehow it never translated into brand recognition... could boil down to marketing, I suppose.
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Absolutely no interest in marketing. I called Rivera looking for an owners manual for my K-Tre. They don't have one. The tech was a great guy, gave me some good ideas for tube swaps and some info on how the amp is built. On the reason why Boogie is so big......

I think some hate to admit it, but a little band that starts with the letter 'M' has alot to do with the explosion of brand recognition for Boogie. They have a great amp, but when Metallica exploded, and sang Boogie praises, how great was that for Mesa..... It was fucking awesome....
 
They have stellar support via phone - none better. But as we all seem to say, they could probably have been a bigger name just by marketing and capitalizing on some key users. As for me, I´m pretty happy the way things are... I bought my Riveras for a combined total that´s less than what a similarly used Single Recto would have cost me. As long as they sell enough new amps to comfortable stay in business I wouldn´t want them to be any bigger on the used market ;)
 
I owned the MIGHTY KR7 Rivera.....
it really kicked ass!! But it was a victim of amp flipping.....and is long gone! :lol: :LOL:

Here was a little video I done of it.....

This amp had countless tones..... :rock:

 
Mailman1971":396gv2vx said:
I owned the MIGHTY KR7 Rivera.....
it really kicked ass!! But it was a victim of amp flipping.....and is long gone! :lol: :LOL:

Here was a little video I done of it.....

This amp had countless tones..... :rock:

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That was fokin brutal dude.......
 
Yeah.......it is one of the most VERSATILE amps I have played to date! :thumbsup:

From great cleans to Death metal......
KR7 kicks some ass!! :yes:
 
Hi guys, interesting thread...... :thumbsup:

What I wanted to add is the following:

I was a Fender Concert owner/Rivera era for +10 years and made a "shocking" experience:

In the early 80-ies ( yes, I´m THAT old......) I had a Dumble Overdrive Special Combo, i.e. the version that came to Germany via Kitty Hawk Distribution.

I sold this amp to someone due to GAS on Marshall (I´m also not THAT blues afficionado.......) :yes: , but could never forget the cleans and the nice blues crunch this Dumble amp delivers.........

I believe I got good ears and know about tone, and I remembered when gigging the Fender, that this tone reminds me of something!!

There is a guy in the neighborhood who also got a Dumble from the same state ( and still owns it and is NOT willing to sell......... :gethim:

So we made a shootout: He brought his Dumble, I hooked up the Concert and guess what?

There was ABSOLUTELY NO difference in the cleans and the crunch/lead.........also the famous 3D-tone was there, on the Dumble AS WELL AS with the Concert, we hooked up different cabs on these two amps, but there was NO difference to be heard............bummer, huh?

I´m planning to do the same again with the TBR, with the right tweaking I´m absolutely sure that a dumble tone can be achieved due to its versatility AND beyond.....

I thought I share this "secret" about a +20.000 $$ amp............

Best wishes :)

Franco
 
Mailman1971":2d3n2b2r said:
I owned the MIGHTY KR7 Rivera.....
it really kicked ass!! But it was a victim of amp flipping.....and is long gone! :lol: :LOL:

Here was a little video I done of it.....

This amp had countless tones..... :rock:

Click to expand...

Is the difference between that amp and a K-Tre the 3rd channel? Can anyone attest to the manufacturing quality of these amps? I'm assuming they're USA made PC board amps right? Tubes and pots mounted to chassis hopefully?
I'm surprised that I don't hear more metal dudes talking about the K-Tre or KR7 amps?
 
I never heard the K-tre but know that the KR7 was based off it and Mick Thompson had it tweaked for his tones.
It was really well rounded and was discontinued shortly after it came out.
They are Built in the USA but I am not sure about the parts/boards your talking about where they originate from.
 
I had a KR7 for a month or so.
It was just too goddamn loud, and bold.
also, so different when you tweaked it, I found myself tweaking it nonstop trying to find the right sound.
unfortunately, I couldn't deal with the squishy Rivera distortion and sold it.
built strong, good foot pedal, tighter than the K-tre, but just...too much amp.
I really wanted to like it...
and had a hell of a hard time trying to sell it...no one even wanted the damn thing.

unless I get a k-tre dirt cheap, and have a use for it, I'll probably never own a Rivera again.

Just won't take the chance on resale the way I go through things...
 
The KR7 came out before the K-Tre, I think. Both are essentially tweaked Knucklehead Reverbs, and the K-Tre is a bit simplified and therefore doesn´t have the middle crunch channel - which originated as the lead channel on the old non-reverb two-channel Knuckleheads. They are fairly similar on the high gain channel, I understand.

To confuse matters more, there was also a short-lived Knucklehead II which gave way to the KH Reverbs.

As for the construction, it´s absolutely top notch PCB construction. As bomb proof as anything.
 
mightywarlock":34uduc78 said:
I had a KR7 for a month or so.
...
and had a hell of a hard time trying to sell it...no one even wanted the damn thing.

unless I get a k-tre dirt cheap, and have a use for it, I'll probably never own a Rivera again.

Just won't take the chance on resale the way I go through things...
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I found a K-Tre head on Craigslist for $1500 and the guy got all offended when I asked if he was negotiable on the price. His reply was something to the effect of "good luck finding another one". I replied back and showed him the eBay links where people can barely get $1200 for one if they can get it to sell at all.
 
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