“This thing is a RIPPER. No B.S. One channel. One tube-buffered effects loop”: Butch Walker and Divided by 13 team up for signature head with switchable EL84 and 6L6 power sections

NAMM 2026: The tube amplifier might be driven by a technology that was developed in a bygone era, but that doesn’t mean that the more radical ideas coming out of R&D departments are all digital. Divided by 13 Amplifiers and Butch Walker’s new signature collaboration is proof of that.

In one sense, Walker’s signature guitar amp, the BW 1969 head, which can be paired with Divided by 13’s 2x12F cabinet, is born of old-school tastes.

The name all but gives it away. Walker, himself, admits, this is a guitar amp voiced for the seminal electric guitar tones coming out of the UK in the late ‘60s, through ‘70s and ‘80s (though Divided by 13’s tasting notes also mention an American voicing).

But the BW 1969 does something quite different to your common or garden variety head; it has not one but two power sections, each running independently, both selectable, that you can ultimately combine should the mood take you.

One of these power sections features a pair of EL84s running cathode bias at 18-watts gives you “speed, harmonic complexity, and immediacy” – much like a good cup of coffee – while the other power section, tooled up with a pair of 6L6s in fixed bias, is there to be your no-messing, rock-solid low-end, and 45-watts to play with.

Altogether, that’s 63-watts, and we’re talking tube-watts, so lots of volume to play with. And as Walker’s brief but revealing demo on Instagram reveals, this amp is more versatile than you might think (it’d need to be, when you consider the stylistic peregrinations Walker has embarked upon in his music/production career).

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It has a six-position input gain dial for adjusting the response and voicing on the front end of the amp.

There is a three-position toggle for selecting the power section – EL84, 6L6, Both – and a set of controls that speak to the simple things in tone-seeking, Presence, Master, Gain, plus the three amigos, Bass, Middle and Treble.

There’s no reverb or anything like that. Divided by 13 says it didn’t want to complicate things unnecessarily. There is, however, a push-pull Bright switch on the Treble dial. And, come on, it’s 2026, we have a tube-buffered effects loop out back so you can integrate your pedalboard with no dramas. That, too, has a Bright switch and defeat (bypass) switch.

The cabinet is worth mentioning here, too, because we have a pair of Divided by 13 454 guitar speakers in there, a Celestion-built variant of the 40-watt Greenback that is voiced to complement the amp with “clarity, compression and headroom”.

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You can get it in Ivory or Black vinyl finishes. All amps are point-to-point wired in the USA. This is a boutique, high-end electric guitar amp, so expect the price (when we get it) to reflect just that.

Find out more at Divided by 13 Amplification.