I tried out the EVH 111 combo yesterday.
First guitar used was a Tom Anderson strat with P90 pickups
The clean channel can sound alittle thin unless you dial back the presence and gain, then it sounds just fine. Its bright but that can be dialed out with the resonance control on the back of the combo and with the amps treble knob. With the p90 split I got a nice Sultans of Swing tone out of the clean channel just fine. The mock attenuater knob on the front of the amp handles this problem wonderfully and realy lets you get good tone at a low volume. You can also set the clean channel to get a cool fat slight -break up tone-with a neck pickup. The amps reverb works great. I found it usefull and not over saturating at reasonable setings. You can get a good clean tone out of this amp. Its not hard to do. If you use a hot neck humbucker you can still dial back the gain and presence and use the resonance control on the back of the amp to fine tune the tone your after. I had people walking over to see what amp was producing the "nice clean tone" and were suprised to see it was an EVH 111 compbo doing it.
The mid channel is all the rage. This is the sweet spot of this amp. Its just plain wonderfull-lets face it. The channel is not overly compressed and the P90's still sounded like P90's in this channel no matter how much gain and presence I dialed in. It sounds like a boosted and hot rodded dsl Marshall. At bedroom low volume you can still dial in the most taisty clip tone out of this amp useing the Attenuator volume knob on the front of the amp. We did some volume testing between the knob at almost zero to half volume and the tone had more bass at higher volume but again this can be added in at low volume useing the resonance knob on the back of the amp. It has the most beautiful crunchy tones on this channel.
The red channel or highgain channel can be dialed back to sound almost identical to the middle channel at its gainier settings but then it takes off like a rocket when pushed with more gain. We found the reverb realy opens up this channel to get wonderful searing lead tones at any volume level useing again-the attenuator knob on the front of the amp. It even has that percussive push on the notes if you want to dial that in at low volume or with increased volume that amps lead tones just sing and the sustain rings out. You could very easily set the clean channel to be clean as clean and use the third or high gain channel as your rythem channel by useing your guitars volume knob to control the third channels distortion tone. It responds easily to taking the volume down to say 7 on the guitar and then tweaking it to 10 for solo's. This amp is not overly compressed. Each channel has its own voice and each setting on the guitar as well as each pickup can easily be heard. However when pushed, this amp has brutal rock and metal tones-all at any volume you want via the attenuator knob and the resonance control on the back. I have never played for this money an amp I liked more. You could easily spend 1,000 to 2,000 more to get this tone from an expensive boutique amp and I dont think you would get a significant increase in tone quality to justify the extra hefty price tag.
I will warn you guys-I checked the weight of this combo and its heavy. It does have casters and its built solid. Its around 84 pounds so to haul it out of your house and into gigs or jam sessions I would get some sort of amp dolly or cart.
side note we also plugged in a Tom Anderson HSS strat with hot pickups in it. The hot humbucker added a tight more pronounced bass tone and the hot singles were punchier then the p90's. The different pickups sounded different and with the amps controls and resonance switch were easy to work with and dial in good tones for them as well even again-at low volume via the attenuator volume knob on the front of the amp. It just sounded good. The amp does not over power the tone of the pickups but rather enhances it with great clean or dirty tones. It realy is a great platform to use for tone at a great price.
guitars used
one green Tom Anderson strat with p90's and a pickup spliting switch ($3200)
one red Tom Anderson strat with Hot HSS pickup configeration and split switch ($4200)
First guitar used was a Tom Anderson strat with P90 pickups
The clean channel can sound alittle thin unless you dial back the presence and gain, then it sounds just fine. Its bright but that can be dialed out with the resonance control on the back of the combo and with the amps treble knob. With the p90 split I got a nice Sultans of Swing tone out of the clean channel just fine. The mock attenuater knob on the front of the amp handles this problem wonderfully and realy lets you get good tone at a low volume. You can also set the clean channel to get a cool fat slight -break up tone-with a neck pickup. The amps reverb works great. I found it usefull and not over saturating at reasonable setings. You can get a good clean tone out of this amp. Its not hard to do. If you use a hot neck humbucker you can still dial back the gain and presence and use the resonance control on the back of the amp to fine tune the tone your after. I had people walking over to see what amp was producing the "nice clean tone" and were suprised to see it was an EVH 111 compbo doing it.
The mid channel is all the rage. This is the sweet spot of this amp. Its just plain wonderfull-lets face it. The channel is not overly compressed and the P90's still sounded like P90's in this channel no matter how much gain and presence I dialed in. It sounds like a boosted and hot rodded dsl Marshall. At bedroom low volume you can still dial in the most taisty clip tone out of this amp useing the Attenuator volume knob on the front of the amp. We did some volume testing between the knob at almost zero to half volume and the tone had more bass at higher volume but again this can be added in at low volume useing the resonance knob on the back of the amp. It has the most beautiful crunchy tones on this channel.
The red channel or highgain channel can be dialed back to sound almost identical to the middle channel at its gainier settings but then it takes off like a rocket when pushed with more gain. We found the reverb realy opens up this channel to get wonderful searing lead tones at any volume level useing again-the attenuator knob on the front of the amp. It even has that percussive push on the notes if you want to dial that in at low volume or with increased volume that amps lead tones just sing and the sustain rings out. You could very easily set the clean channel to be clean as clean and use the third or high gain channel as your rythem channel by useing your guitars volume knob to control the third channels distortion tone. It responds easily to taking the volume down to say 7 on the guitar and then tweaking it to 10 for solo's. This amp is not overly compressed. Each channel has its own voice and each setting on the guitar as well as each pickup can easily be heard. However when pushed, this amp has brutal rock and metal tones-all at any volume you want via the attenuator knob and the resonance control on the back. I have never played for this money an amp I liked more. You could easily spend 1,000 to 2,000 more to get this tone from an expensive boutique amp and I dont think you would get a significant increase in tone quality to justify the extra hefty price tag.
I will warn you guys-I checked the weight of this combo and its heavy. It does have casters and its built solid. Its around 84 pounds so to haul it out of your house and into gigs or jam sessions I would get some sort of amp dolly or cart.
side note we also plugged in a Tom Anderson HSS strat with hot pickups in it. The hot humbucker added a tight more pronounced bass tone and the hot singles were punchier then the p90's. The different pickups sounded different and with the amps controls and resonance switch were easy to work with and dial in good tones for them as well even again-at low volume via the attenuator volume knob on the front of the amp. It just sounded good. The amp does not over power the tone of the pickups but rather enhances it with great clean or dirty tones. It realy is a great platform to use for tone at a great price.
guitars used
one green Tom Anderson strat with p90's and a pickup spliting switch ($3200)
one red Tom Anderson strat with Hot HSS pickup configeration and split switch ($4200)
