Category: Amp It Up

The magical beast that turns potential into sheer tone!

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Kammer TinyK Pedalboad Amp In A Produced Track

Henning’s just put up a quick demo of a very interesting piece of gear – a 40W that sits on your pedalboad. Not a drive pedal – a full-blown amp, complete with FX loop!

If you’re a gigging musician, having a backup amp of some kind is essential – especially if you gig with real valve amps. Lugging a spare amp around isn’t fun. And depending on what you buy, that’s a lot of money tied up in it, especially as you hope to never actually have to use it.

Some kind of backup that can sit on your pedalboad – just in case – has a lot of appeal.

And for us home tone chasers, if you can’t have / don’t want a traditional amp at home, this kind of thing is well worth looking at as an alternative to using modelling amps or software amp sims.

I’ll post the full review when Henning uploads it. This could be one to watch.

Please head over to Henning’s channel to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Henning’s video.

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Mercuriall Spark Demo

Pete Thorn has posted a demo of Mercuriall’s Spark Marshall amp-sim plug-in. Check out these tones!

The Spark plugin models 4 classic Marshall amps: a Super Bass, Super Lead, JCM 800, and the AFD. The JCM 800 and Super Lead heads are still in production. Looks like the Super Bass isn’t made any more. The AFD was (if memory serves) a limited run – Captain Anderton did a video about his.

Amp plugins are well worth looking at if you can’t afford a real amp, don’t want the hassle, or don’t have the physical space for a collection of big and heavy vintage amps. They run inside your DAW software (I always recommend Reaper – it’s great) and all you need is an interface (like the Focusrite Scarlett) to plug your guitar into.

And, as you can hear on Pete’s demo, they offer very usable tones these days.

Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Pete’s video.

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Blindfold Challenge – Affordable High Gain Amps

Chappers and the Captain have posted the 2nd part of their high-gain amp blindfold challenge. This time, they’re looking at 7 amps at £1,000 or below.

These kind of videos are a great opportunity to hear a bunch of amps side by side. Exact same guitar, exact same guitarist, and it looks like they’re running each amp into the exact same cab (so they’re all mic’d up the same). The only difference is the amp itself.

And these aren’t aspirational boutique sell-a-kidney amps. These are the kind of amps that you’d be looking at if you want a real valve amp for home and gigging.

Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed this video.q

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Positive Grid Bias Amp 2 Demo

Fluff has just posted a demo of Positive Grid’s new Bias Amp 2.

Bias Amp is guitar amp emulation software that you run on your computer.  You plug your guitar straight into your audio interface – no real guitar amp required. If you don’t want a real amp, it’s definitely an option to consider.

Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Fluff’s video.

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250 Dollar Rig vs 7000 Dollar Rig

Paul Davids (and … er … Paul Davids) is back with a video comparing his first rig to his current rig.

We don’t learn how old his Squier is, so please don’t refer to this when trying to decide whether or not to buy a brand new Squier today!  These kinds of videos are meant to be a bit of fun 🙂

Hopefully Paul will post a follow up where we hear both guitars into the Tone King.

Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Paul’s video.

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2018 Rig For Clinics

Sam Coulson has posted a short video, showing us the rig he’s using when he’s giving guitar clinics this year.

He’s running a modded Charvel into a Helix, out to the Yamaha THR-100HD. The Yamaha’s setup as a clean platform for the Helix. It’s a simple rig that looks very easy to load in and out without a lot of effort.

I’ve got the Yamaha THR-100HD myself, and for a couple of years it was my main practice amp. It takes pedals better than any other modelling amp did at the time. You can run two amps at once out into different cabs, and that gives you a taste of that two-amp blended tone thing.

My main complaint with the THR-100HD is that it felt like Yamaha abandoned it to a large extent. It’s been a couple of years since the last firmware update, and they haven’t added any new models – or improved the existing ones – since launch. It’s become a very much take-it-or-leave-it amp.

But – unlike some modelling amps – you can use it as an amp, without hooking it up to a computer. Which means that they’ll continue to be usable long into the future.

Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Sam’s video.

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Sounds Like – Modern Tones Rig

Matt and Rabea are back with another Sounds Like video for Andertons – and this time they’ve built a generic rig for modern high-gain tones.

If you haven’t come across it before, the Sounds Like series is a great way to see how to build a rig to achieve a given sound.

Many of the videos stick to a budget of £1,500, and it’s been educational to watch just how much prices have gone up since the Brexit referendum.

Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoy Matt and Rabea’s video.

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Marshall Origin Series Demo

These have to be one of the most anticipated amp releases of 2018 – and now we can finally hear them for the first time, thanks to Andertons.

Vintage-style Marshalls that are priced to go head-to-head with Fender’s Hot Rod series? That come in head or combo format? Yes please! Oh, and they take pedals really well? Take my money now!

Seriously, I think these have the potential to become the standard pedal platform amp. I’m looking forward to trying them myself when they arrive in the shops in mid-April. And there’s a good chance I’ll pickup one of the heads for an upcoming project that I have in mind.

Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed the Andertons’ video.

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Marshall DSL40CR In-Depth

When Shane recently demoed the new Marshall DSL amps, he liked them so much that he went out and bought one for himself. And he’s kindly gone and posted an in-depth look at what the 40W combo sounds like.

Watch it all the way through to the end for his honest pros and cons of his new amp. and some footage of him using the amp live with an ES-335 style guitar.

If you’re thinking of getting one of these, you’ll find his comments about the two master volumes particularly informative. They’re especially important if you’re thinking of buying this amp to play mostly at home tone volume levels.

Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Shane’s video.

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Load Box Shootout – Vintage Tones

Another one from Michael Nielsen tonight. He’s done a great video looking at how several popular load boxes sound for vintage tones.

Around the 7 minute mark, he talks about a surprising aspect of load boxes – that they drive the amp harder than the real cab does. He then goes on to show the captured waveforms side by side. There’s a few surprises hiding in there too.

Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Michael’s video.