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Hey guys.
I got back a few hours ago with my Splawn Quick Rod and have been giving it a quick run through at home with my Award Session 1x12 cab with a Classic Lead 80 speaker in it. I haven't been able to try my Marshall 2x12 with it yet.
1st off, this amp is LOUD!
Luckily, mine is 1 of the newer 1s that has the improved FX loop and control to allow it to be used as a master volume control for the whole amp and allow it to be bought down to more tolerable bedroom levels.
I'll start off with the clean channel:
I set all the EQ controls to 12 o clock, as I did in the shop when I 1st tried the amp, and was greeted with a perfectly usable, if not spectacular, clean tone. It's a full tone with plenty of bass and body, although I can imagine the treble getting out of hand if the EQ is pushed up much past 12 or 1 o clock. The clean channel has a control labeled as Gain, but it doesn't add any dirt to the sound at all, it just fills the sound out in the lower mids and warms the tone up. To be honest I much preferred the clean tone while I was testing in the shop, but that was at higher volume levels and through a 4x12 cab so that's to be expected.
Ok, onto the distortion channel:
I started with all the EQs and gain at 12 o clock with the amp set to Gear 1 (Modded Plexi style). The tone was a little thinner than when I originally tested the amp, again I'm assuming this is because of the difference in cabs and volume levels. 1 thing this amp has by the bucket load is clarity; every note in every chord at pretty much any gain level is as clear as a bell. I found myself pushing the gain upto 1 o clock to fill the sound out a bit more, which resulted in a really good 70s Rock heavy crunch tone. There's alot of bass on tap to fill the sound out as much as you want, and it didn't seem to get flubby at all. There's plenty of treble available too, which should be able to brighten up even the darkest sounding of guitars. Using OD 2 on these settings kicked the gain up a notch, much like adding a tubescreamer infront of the amp.
Gear 2 was next, which I believe is described in the manual as Hot Rod JCM 800 style. Even at the same settings as before the increase in gain is quite substantial. This Gear setting appears to have even more bass than Gear 1, but that could be the gain increase playing tricks on my ears, and gain wise it starts off at AFD levels of drive and goes upto and beyond Iron Maiden-ish levels. As before, there's plenty of Bass and Treble on hand as well as a huge midrange, so I'm pretty sure with more EQ tweaking this could be a very versatile channel.
Gear 3 was next, which is meant to be a Super Hot Rod JCM800 style setting. This setting had more gain than I personally use, so I didn't stay on it for too long. It's basically like taking Gear 2, upping the gain and then boosting it even more This gear had probably the most bass heavy tone to my ears, but I'm sure with more tweaking this could be sorted EQ'd better.
1 thing all the Gear settings had in common was that no matter how much gain you used, except until full gain on gear 3 and even then it still wasn't much worse, the distortion was very clear and articulate with every pick scr@pe and fret/string noise coming through. I'm definitely going to have to work on my playing!
I noticed that with the amp on and with the volume up, it was very quiet and didn't have much background noise. Just out of interest I tried the amp as being powered by the power conditioner in my rack and this also improved the background noise, so that explains why my other amps seem to hum: the electrics in my house aren't great!
I know I've not gone into too much detail as regards describing the amp tonally, but as I haven't spent that much time with it yet I don't feel it's fair for me to expand too much on initial impressions.
So here's a few more pics for anyone that cares!
I got back a few hours ago with my Splawn Quick Rod and have been giving it a quick run through at home with my Award Session 1x12 cab with a Classic Lead 80 speaker in it. I haven't been able to try my Marshall 2x12 with it yet.
1st off, this amp is LOUD!
Luckily, mine is 1 of the newer 1s that has the improved FX loop and control to allow it to be used as a master volume control for the whole amp and allow it to be bought down to more tolerable bedroom levels.I'll start off with the clean channel:
I set all the EQ controls to 12 o clock, as I did in the shop when I 1st tried the amp, and was greeted with a perfectly usable, if not spectacular, clean tone. It's a full tone with plenty of bass and body, although I can imagine the treble getting out of hand if the EQ is pushed up much past 12 or 1 o clock. The clean channel has a control labeled as Gain, but it doesn't add any dirt to the sound at all, it just fills the sound out in the lower mids and warms the tone up. To be honest I much preferred the clean tone while I was testing in the shop, but that was at higher volume levels and through a 4x12 cab so that's to be expected.
Ok, onto the distortion channel:
I started with all the EQs and gain at 12 o clock with the amp set to Gear 1 (Modded Plexi style). The tone was a little thinner than when I originally tested the amp, again I'm assuming this is because of the difference in cabs and volume levels. 1 thing this amp has by the bucket load is clarity; every note in every chord at pretty much any gain level is as clear as a bell. I found myself pushing the gain upto 1 o clock to fill the sound out a bit more, which resulted in a really good 70s Rock heavy crunch tone. There's alot of bass on tap to fill the sound out as much as you want, and it didn't seem to get flubby at all. There's plenty of treble available too, which should be able to brighten up even the darkest sounding of guitars. Using OD 2 on these settings kicked the gain up a notch, much like adding a tubescreamer infront of the amp.
Gear 2 was next, which I believe is described in the manual as Hot Rod JCM 800 style. Even at the same settings as before the increase in gain is quite substantial. This Gear setting appears to have even more bass than Gear 1, but that could be the gain increase playing tricks on my ears, and gain wise it starts off at AFD levels of drive and goes upto and beyond Iron Maiden-ish levels. As before, there's plenty of Bass and Treble on hand as well as a huge midrange, so I'm pretty sure with more EQ tweaking this could be a very versatile channel.
Gear 3 was next, which is meant to be a Super Hot Rod JCM800 style setting. This setting had more gain than I personally use, so I didn't stay on it for too long. It's basically like taking Gear 2, upping the gain and then boosting it even more
This gear had probably the most bass heavy tone to my ears, but I'm sure with more tweaking this could be sorted EQ'd better.1 thing all the Gear settings had in common was that no matter how much gain you used, except until full gain on gear 3 and even then it still wasn't much worse, the distortion was very clear and articulate with every pick scr@pe and fret/string noise coming through. I'm definitely going to have to work on my playing!
I noticed that with the amp on and with the volume up, it was very quiet and didn't have much background noise. Just out of interest I tried the amp as being powered by the power conditioner in my rack and this also improved the background noise, so that explains why my other amps seem to hum: the electrics in my house aren't great!
I know I've not gone into too much detail as regards describing the amp tonally, but as I haven't spent that much time with it yet I don't feel it's fair for me to expand too much on initial impressions.
So here's a few more pics for anyone that cares!
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