Looks like Dimebag Darrell’s weapons grade metal guitar tone is back on the menu as his Warhead signature amp has been resurrected by KHDK Electronics’ David Karon as a 40-watt lunchbox sized head.
The Warhead Mini-Amp might be all-new for 2024 but its solid-state DNA can be traced back to the guitar amp designs he developed with Karon at Randall.
As Dimebag’s long-serving guitar tech, Grady Champion, says in the introduction video, they used some OG gear to dial in the sound of this amp. If you’re looking for a one-stop solution for crushing Pantera electric guitar tones, then this would be it – and at $529, it’s a relatively affordable amplifier.
While initial runs of the amp featuring the Dime-Slime metal grill and glow-in-the-dark logo have sold out (they only made 333 of them), you can pre-order the standard black edition, which is covered with black Tolex with snake-skin front, and signature details such as Dimebag’s signature in slime green above the 1/4” instrument input. The power light also illuminates green.
There’s no messing around with this. The control panel has everything you need, nothing you don’t You’ve got a single channel, controls for Master, Presence, Treble, Middle, Bass, and Gain. Feel free to keep the Middle to a minimum for that anti-social late ‘90s scooped tone. Absolutely crank it up.
But as Champion revealed to MusicRadar in 2019, there was more than meets the eye when it came to nailing that scooped tone, with a pair of rackmountable Furman EQs doing a lot of heavy lifting in shaping his tone, and a Rocktron Guitar Silencer on hand to keep things tight.
“The frequencies in the Furman PQ-3 and PQ-4 that were cut, were boosted with the six-band, and vice-versa,” he said. “The EQs worked like a giant gain stage. I kept the gate tight. The Rocktron Guitar Silencer was the favourite here.”
And originally, the Randall Warhead was deployed onstage for Dimebag’s clean tone, replacing the Mesa-Boogie Mk IV tube amp that was used for the job, complementing five Randall Century 200s.
We used some of Dime’s OG gear of course to create this tiny little powerhouse
Grady Champion
“That was the mainstay of the rig for some time,” said Champion. “When he did the Randall Warhead, we ended up just using it for clean stuff. We switched between using the PQ-3 and PQ-4, the PQ-4 getting most of the work. The Rocktron Guitar Silencer was the mainstay for the gate. An MXR Flanger/Doubler was used in the main ‘wet’ head loop 100 per cent of the time. We used two Whammy pedals (I had control of one), a wah, and also on the ‘wet’ head was a momentary reverb, switching dirty to clean with a Whirlwind A/B box.”
Champion described working on the refreshed Warhead was a “total labour of love”, and a project that also involved Dimebag’s partner, Rita Haney, and KHDK’s chief engineer Antonin Salva, undertaking several revisions until they settled on the final design, which was put through its paces during rehearsals for the Pantera reunion/tribute tour featuring Zakk Wylde on guitar.
“We used some of Dime’s OG gear of course to create this tiny little powerhouse,” he says. “Y’know, it’s like having a little piece of Dime everywhere.”
All in, the Warhead took two years to put together, and is described as “our homage to the man who has deeply touched all our hearts”.
Priced $529, the Warhead Mini-Amp is available now, and ships with a signed certificate of authenticity. See Warhead Amps for more details.
