23 Oct STORM or SCHAFFER REPLICA CLASSIC?
Which one should I get?
If you are wondering, here is the answer!
The Schaffer Replica Tag
11 Oct Volume Treble Bass’ “Builder’s Profile” features SoloDallas
Reproduced from: Builder’s Profile: Fil from SoloDallas
I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Filippo Olivieri the man behind all the stuff coming out of SoloDallas. Fil is a fun guy to talk to and one heck of a guitarist! He’s also extremely busy! Hope you enjoy this Builder’s Profile! (more…)
10 Oct ‘The AMPS & Axes Show’ interviews Ken Schaffer
A great listen!
Ken Schaffer talks to Mick Marcellino and Jeff Bober about his many adventures inside and outside the music industry.
Sit back, relax and enjoy.
10 Oct Premier Guitar’s AC/DC Rig Rundown
Not much to say. Just click, watch and enjoy.
09 Sep “Nothing is new…”
“… except what has been forgotten.”
Says he. And in fact, the core running underneath is always the good ole SoloDallas team. Same guys as always, but better (only Franz – former product manager – took a long pause, after being the real engine responsible for production and everything else, when we were back in Europe; seems like 100 years ago, now).
In these two+ years here in the US I (we) have worked so hard that I can hardly believe it. I forget how many hours a-day; every day, on Saturdays, Sundays included, non-stop. Hectically. Then I’d take off for a while – but could never not-think about SoloDallas stuff. Just got to do it.
09 Sep LA Talk Radio ‘All About Guitar’: Everything SoloDallas.
Just a note for you – the reader – as you approach this page: we suggest you click now on the media player and start listening to the audio interview and all the while, you read the preamble to the show as I wrote it below. Just read, look at the pics and listen.
Sit back, relax and enjoy your time here, as always. (more…)
20 Jan Getting that Classic Sound Back
The San Diego Union Tribune
Like many rock fans and aspiring guitarists around the world, Fil Olivieri had a musical epiphany the first time he heard the Australian band AC/DC’s classic 1980 album, “Back in Black.”
That epiphany turned into a decades-long quest for the Dallas-born, Rome-raised Olivieri, whose company, SoloDallas, will be an exhibitor at this week’s NAMM Show in Anaheim. For years, he sought to replicate the striking “Back in Black” guitar tones of AC/DC’s Angus Young, but didn’t know how.
“I became obsessed with it,” said Olivieri, 47, who now lives in La Jolla and was not yet a teenager when he became an AC/DC fan in 1978.
He bought the same guitars as Young (vintage Gibson SGs) and amplifiers (Marshalls). Still, the sound he wanted proved elusive.
Olivieri did not discover until reading an interview in 2012 that Young’s guitar sound owed much to a Schaffer-Vega wireless system. The same system had also been used by Eddie Van Halen, Peter Frampton and other six-string legends.
The long discontinued system, of which only 1,000 had been made, enabled guitarists to roam concert stages at will, without having their instruments plugged into amplifiers. The system included two controls that Young specifically credited for creating the over-driven guitar sound that is a trademark of AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”
After learning that Ken Schaffer had stopped making his wireless system in 1982, Oliveiri tracked him down in New York. They spoke several times at length.
Impressed by Olivieri’s enthusiasm, Schaffer gave the Italian-American his last two wireless units — and his blessing to create the Schaffer Replica, which Olivieri began marketing last year.
His company, SoloDallas, will display Olivieri’s Schaffer Replica wireless unit ($1,299 each) and foot-controlled stomp-box version ($399) at the NAMM show. That fact that AC/DC’s Young now uses Olivieri’s high-end product is an added bonus.
“Muse guitarist Matt Bellamy and Billy Idol’s guitarist, Steve Stevens, both have one now, and Lenny Kravitz, Keith Urban and other guitarists know about us because of AC/DC,” Olivieri’s said. “We made 850 units last year, and Angus has the first one. My company expects this NAMM Show to be really successful for us.”