Re: Tweeeeeeeeeddddddd
Ah, that one's always been on my list of amps to own. Did you split the cost with your parents?
With a Strat, the FDII will sound great. With a LP, the OCD and tweak fuzz must be rockin!
Well I didnt exactly split the cost, it was more like they gave me a little boost. I had about $1400, maybe less, saved up from working and from my birthday. I worked all summer and into the school year and because I'm only 15 and don't have to worry about buying gas or food or paying rent or whatever, pretty much all of my pay went into my pocket. Then I got a deal at Guitar Center because I ordered it through someone I kinda know, I bought a lot of stuff from him including my R7 and Gibson GA5. So from normally $2100 it came out to be $2000 with all the tax and stuff included. Then I got some more money from relatives for Christmas and then my parents paid the extra $300 or so that was remaining as a part of my Christmas presents....
Anyway, some more about the amp and less about finances. First of all it was supposed to come in late January so I was really surprised/happy when my dad brought it up from the basement. Opened it up, everything was securely packaged. The thing was much bigger in person in the house and not in the store. even pictures of it on ebay do not do it justice of the size and the color of the tweed. The tweed itself looks very secure and covered over the amp in an organized fashion. Overall the whole amp feels very solid, even the leather handle doesn't seem like it's going anywhere for a while, despite it holding up all that weight (the thing's pretty damn heavy, but not too bad). However, the chasis is not lined up with the cab. The side where the switches are is lined up nice, almost flush to the cab. But the other side is really far away from the cab. It is very minor though and nothing is bent, it is just the way it is aligned. I will probably open the back cab board and see if I can fix it. It's hard to describe, so when I post some picture you will get the idea.
As for the actual sound, clean is the so awesome. I'm really glad about this, now I can actually turn the amp up a little so it sounds thick and warm and it still remains clean, still retaining the big quality. I never tried this amp with full-on PAF type humbuckers. I've played this amp in the store many times at all volumes with strats, a SG Classic (P-90s) and a LP Deluxe(minis), but never fullsized humbuckers. Its a very different experience, especially with overdrive which we will get to later. The clean sound is very ballsy, meaning it can really move some air and still be nice and chimey. Not as much growl as a Bassman, yet not as thin as other 50s era amps.
Overdrive is totally different from my experience with it in the store. Most of it is the crunch factor. The amp maxed is very different from a Marshall (by Marshall I mean AC/DC with the bad-ass JTM45s blaring and crunching). As the volume goes up, the sound gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It doesn't seem to crunch out much. Two main things probably attribute to this: Alnico magnet-loaded speakers and 6L6 tubes. Now, the speakers are awesome. I tried Victorias with the Jensen reissues and I think that the Eminence/Webers blow the doors off of them. A little stiff running new, but not as harsh as those Jensens. Because the speakers distort when the amp is cranked up, they offer that complex midrange and rugged tweed tone. The cranked up tones have a lot of "wood" to them. This amp cranked is like beating someone with a baseball bat rather than a Marshall which would just be shooting in the head with a pistol (sorry for the emo annalogy, I cant think of anything else :smack: )
As for features and flexibility, there are a lot more tones in this amp than one would think. Theres the 4 inputs (which could be jumped/bridged together) with bright channel volume, normal channel volume, treble, bass and presence. I'm still fooling around with the controls, but so far I like to keep the presence at as low as possible. The presence seems to just add a little midrange and twang to the tone. Being at 0, the presence knob makes the tone sound more like just the neck pickup (on a Les Paul) and being all the way up (12) makes the tone sound more like both pickups being used together. As for the treble and bass knobs, they are more of voicings for the amp, rather than just EQ. You can bright both the treble and the bass all the way down and get a tone with less midrange, slightly darker and more hollow and open tone. Then you can bring them both all the way up and get a dirtier (like a dab of pre-amp distortion), more mids, slightly brighter and wider tone. Putting these knobs anywhere is a useable tone.
