Guitarists have been trying for the past few years to condense their onstage contraptions. One way to achieve this is to purchase an amplifier which will serve the purpose of Special effects devices like sustain, fuzz, and other distorting feedback mechanisms. If you want that English flash rock ’n roll hoochie koo, getting an amplifier with enough meat to feed an army is a way out. But the problem becomes "how much meat does it take to feed an army?”

Many moons ago when Randy California was playing lead for Spirit, he figured out a relatively cheap way of getting endless sustain and distortion. He used an old Silvertone electric, which had contact pickups — you backof-the-shop type people might like to know that pickups are really “electromechanical transducers” — but anyway, contact pickups, known as “cheapos” by guitar players, are simply microphone elements placed under the guitar’s strings, and they tend to pick up any surface vibration caused by the strings (clothing rubbing on the surface of the guitar, for example). But due to the high gain required to make this type of pickup function, it is ideal for feedback and distortion and weird mike squeals even through a low powered amplifier, thus feeding an army on soybeans. Today, most pickups are of the magnetic breed, as opposed to this contact type system.