barbarianbrute
New member
alright i couldn't resist. the laney tt50 jumped up and bit me. all the specs looked just right, but i never actualy played it - blind faith. so it came in today and i played it for a couple of hours. this won't be a complete review until i spend a few weeks with it, but here's a preliminary assessment.
why should you care? well, because this amp must be underrated and overlooked. i don't know why because it's such a great sounding amp. it's a good build and it looks cool too. the construction is solid and good quality components are used. the handle is very sturdy and the amp isn't but about 60 lbs, so you can carry it around pretty easily. there are two vent slots on the top and a nice looking grill. the laney logo stands out boldly in huge white letters. the back is covered by a steel mesh and it's loaded with a celestion speaker, two el34s and 12ax7 preamp tubes.
the spring reverb is pretty good, but i prefer the reverb on fenders and mesas. it's better than the digital reverb on my marshall jvm for sure. maybe there's something cool about it though because the reverb doesn't get in the way. it kind of blends in nicely.
the amp is equipped with 3 channels: clean, crunch, and crunch 2 (i guess). there are some cool buttons you can use to shape your sound. each of the gain channels has a "modern" button that gives a little modern edge to your tone. with it off it sounds more like classic distortion.
channel 2 seems to really shine. with the gain around 12 o'clock, you don't get a lot of crunch. it sounds a little dirty kind of like texas blues or something. once you get the gain up around 1-2 o'clock, you start getting some real nice british crunch. with the drive full on, you get a solid brown sound.
it's weird, but this amp sounds like a cross between a marshall and peavey 5105. it's very brown sounding. it's definitely a british tone, but much more articulate than a marshall. even more articulate than the jvm.
the third channel was kind of lackluster at first. i immediately bonded with the crunch 1 channel, but this one was a little different. like crunch 1, it doesn't start getting real gainy until around 1 o'clock. full on gain is a little more distorted than the crunch 1 channel, but there is a modern button and a boost button that can take you beyond to a pretty heavily distorted tone. there's an expand button that smooths out your tone in high gain, but i haven't really figured out how to really use it yet.
there are a few other useful tone buttons, but i have yet to discover those. one thing about this amp is that it's the first time i've played an amp where i felt like it doesn't scream for high gain like say a marshall does. it sounds very good at medium and low gain settings. laney seems to favor rock distortion mostly. with the amp alone, it is definitely a hard rock amp. not for metal without a pedal though.
the clean channel is immaculate. you can turn it up all the way and it won't get dirty. very sparkly and chimey. i really like this clean channel a lot, but it's hard for me to tame since i don't play clean very often. this clean is up there with mesa and fender whom i think have hte best cleans.
you can get a really nice gritty clean with crunch 1 if you put the gain at 10-11 o'clock. very very good for floyd and srv type stuff.
i tried a few distortion pedals on this amp but wasn't impressed a whole lot with my metal muff or jeckle and hyde. my ds-1 turned out pretty good once i added more bass. the ds-1 was still pretty british sounding, but smoother than the amp distortion. i'm starting to like my $25 ds-1. i haven't even got any mods on it yet.
overall, i'm surprised that i bonded with this amp so quickly. furthermore, i'm surprised how much i actually enjoyed playing with a lot less gain. iron maiden, evh, eric johnson, malmsteen, motorhead... you name it and this amp can nail it. i'm pretty darned impressed and it's quite possible that i'll be keeping this amp.
why should you care? well, because this amp must be underrated and overlooked. i don't know why because it's such a great sounding amp. it's a good build and it looks cool too. the construction is solid and good quality components are used. the handle is very sturdy and the amp isn't but about 60 lbs, so you can carry it around pretty easily. there are two vent slots on the top and a nice looking grill. the laney logo stands out boldly in huge white letters. the back is covered by a steel mesh and it's loaded with a celestion speaker, two el34s and 12ax7 preamp tubes.
the spring reverb is pretty good, but i prefer the reverb on fenders and mesas. it's better than the digital reverb on my marshall jvm for sure. maybe there's something cool about it though because the reverb doesn't get in the way. it kind of blends in nicely.
the amp is equipped with 3 channels: clean, crunch, and crunch 2 (i guess). there are some cool buttons you can use to shape your sound. each of the gain channels has a "modern" button that gives a little modern edge to your tone. with it off it sounds more like classic distortion.
channel 2 seems to really shine. with the gain around 12 o'clock, you don't get a lot of crunch. it sounds a little dirty kind of like texas blues or something. once you get the gain up around 1-2 o'clock, you start getting some real nice british crunch. with the drive full on, you get a solid brown sound.
it's weird, but this amp sounds like a cross between a marshall and peavey 5105. it's very brown sounding. it's definitely a british tone, but much more articulate than a marshall. even more articulate than the jvm.
the third channel was kind of lackluster at first. i immediately bonded with the crunch 1 channel, but this one was a little different. like crunch 1, it doesn't start getting real gainy until around 1 o'clock. full on gain is a little more distorted than the crunch 1 channel, but there is a modern button and a boost button that can take you beyond to a pretty heavily distorted tone. there's an expand button that smooths out your tone in high gain, but i haven't really figured out how to really use it yet.
there are a few other useful tone buttons, but i have yet to discover those. one thing about this amp is that it's the first time i've played an amp where i felt like it doesn't scream for high gain like say a marshall does. it sounds very good at medium and low gain settings. laney seems to favor rock distortion mostly. with the amp alone, it is definitely a hard rock amp. not for metal without a pedal though.
the clean channel is immaculate. you can turn it up all the way and it won't get dirty. very sparkly and chimey. i really like this clean channel a lot, but it's hard for me to tame since i don't play clean very often. this clean is up there with mesa and fender whom i think have hte best cleans.
you can get a really nice gritty clean with crunch 1 if you put the gain at 10-11 o'clock. very very good for floyd and srv type stuff.
i tried a few distortion pedals on this amp but wasn't impressed a whole lot with my metal muff or jeckle and hyde. my ds-1 turned out pretty good once i added more bass. the ds-1 was still pretty british sounding, but smoother than the amp distortion. i'm starting to like my $25 ds-1. i haven't even got any mods on it yet.
overall, i'm surprised that i bonded with this amp so quickly. furthermore, i'm surprised how much i actually enjoyed playing with a lot less gain. iron maiden, evh, eric johnson, malmsteen, motorhead... you name it and this amp can nail it. i'm pretty darned impressed and it's quite possible that i'll be keeping this amp.
