Marshall’s new Origin amp is an affordable, vintage-voiced valve amp. Boss have been making a range of affordable drive pedals since the 70s.
And together, they sound pretty damn fine.
Reference: The Marshall Origin With No Pedals
As a reference point, here’s what the Origin can do without any pedals.
Thing is, if you’re playing at home, you’ll probably never hear your Origin sound like that. This amp needs to be cranked to deliver the dirt. That clip was recorded with both Master and Gain on 8. My 20W Origin head is just too loud to do that at home.
So, if you like what you’ve just heard, and you want that for yourself at home, you’re going to have to budget for some pedals to go along with your nice new Origin amp.
And that’s where Boss comes in. Their pedals are cheap (the most expensive one in this demo is the BD-2 at £85) and widely available (support your local guitar shop!). And they work really well through the Origin.
Overdrives: BD-2 Blues Driver and the SD-1 Super Overdrive
First up is the venerable Boss BD-2 Blues Driver.
It has the lowest gain out of all three pedals in this roundup, but don’t let that put you off. As you can hear in the demo below, if you’re playing the kind of rock that sounds best through this amp, you don’t need all the filth for rhythm work.
Next up, another classic Boss pedal: the SD-1 Super Overdrive.
This pedal will get you right up there, delivering the same amount of filth that the Origin can do on its own – only without having to crank the amp to do so. To my ears, the SD-1 sounds a little thicker than the Origin does, and maybe slightly softer clipping too.
Have a listen:
Distortion: Boss DS-1
The DS-1 is a legendary pedal.
Compared to the SD-1, it offers harder clipping and reduced mids for a more aggressive tone. As a result, the guitar will sound quieter compared to the other two pedals. Thankfully, the Origin has an immense amount of input headroom, so just turn up the pedal and rock out!
Setting Up Your Boss Pedal For The Marshall Origin
The common advice with these Boss pedals is to turn down the gain, and use them as a boost into the amp’s input to get the amp to naturally overdrive.
That doesn’t work with the Marshall Origin.
The Marshall Origin has a huge amount of input headroom. You have to crank a pedal well past its sweet spot to have any chance of getting the Origin to naturally overdrive at home volumes.
The good news is that you don’t need to. Turn up the gain on your pedal to taste, and then adjust the pedal’s volume until you’ve got the same volume when you turn the pedal on and off again.
As the Origin is a bright amp, you’ll probably want to start with the pedal’s tone control at around 10 o’clock. From there, adjust the tone control with your ears.
Final Thoughts
The Origin is one of those amps that has a big say in what a pedal sounds like. It’s very suited to pedals – like these three from Boss – that are designed to work with an amp’s existing colour.
I’d happily record with the Origin and these pedals. I think the results are very usable – especially for the money! And they felt nice to play through too, which is also important.
There seems to be two debates about Marshall’s new Origin amp at the moment: is it too bright, and is it Plexi enough?
To answer the second question, here’s some sound clips to listen to:
Sorry about my ugly mug – it’s because I’m too cheap to pay SoundCloud for access to their mini player 😀
Have a listen to all four demo tracks, and let your ears decide which you prefer. 3 of the tracks were recorded with the Origin, and 1 with my Metro Plex. Can you tell which is which?
Answers below. No cheating!
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Okay, here’s what you’ve just listened to:
The first clip is the Metro Plex.
The second clip is the 20W Origin, with a Carpe Diem drive pedal giving it a helping hand.
The third clip is the 20W Origin, this time with a TC Electronics Dark Matter helping out.
And finally, the last clip is the 20W Origin on its own.
The Origin Is Vintage Voiced, But It Needs Help To Sound Like A Plexi
To my cloth ears, Marshall’s Origin has 3 key characteristics that differ from the famed Super Lead sound.
It isn’t just that Origin’s a bright amp, it’s that more of Origin’s perceived volume is in those upper mids. Dial them back, and you’ll hear the amp start to thin out a bit. On its own, it doesn’t have a huge amount of meaty mids.
The Plexi sound is bright and aggressive. Although Origin is bright, it’s got very soft clipping (assuming you’re in a position to crank it enough to clip at all!). That stops it sounding as aggressive as a Super Lead can.
Finally, the Origin has so much input headroom that it just doesn’t saturate no matter what I try.
On its own, it’s not an affordable version of one of Marshall’s plexi reissues. But give it some help, and it can get close. Certainly close enough for us home tone chasers.
A Little Help From My (Pedal) Friends
For me, the Carpe Diem got pretty close – in part, thanks to the harder clipping that it has. It’s not a cheap pedal, and it can be quite hard to get hold of, but 2nd hand examples do turn up on eBay from time to time.
The Dark Matter also sounded pretty good – and I thought it sounded excellent considering they currently cost £40 brand new. The clipping is perhaps a little too soft to go head-to-head against a real Plexi, but I tell you what: out of all the pedals I’ve been using this week, the Dark Matter is the one that’s been hooked up to the Origin the most.
The end result still sounds like an Origin amp, no matter which drive pedal you use. You can’t radically change the sound of an Origin using drive pedals alone. But with a little help, the end result’s pretty nice – and a hell of a lot more affordable than a real Plexi 🙂
Last weekend, I picked up one of the brand new Marshall Origin amps from the friendly folks at AStrings.co.uk. One week in, how am I getting on with it? Let’s find out.
What Did You Get?
I bought the Marshall Origin 20W head.
It’s a one-channel valve amplifier, featuring a 3-band EQ (bass, middle and treble), plus a tilt control to simulate mixing the two channels on old Marshall plexi-style amps. Preamp gain and volume are controlled by a single gain control (which features a pull-out 20db clean boost). The power amp has its own master volume control, and I believe that the presence control affects the power amp and not the preamp.
This amp also comes with a FX loop (more about that later on), and 3 levels of built-in power soak / attenuation.
Why Did You Get It?
There’s three aspects to this: why I bought an Origin at all, why I went for the 20W head, and why I picked the head over the combo.
Why Origin At All?
Friends and folks who know me through Twitter sometimes ask me advice about guitars and gear. They’re not always in a position where they can – or want – to spend what it costs to get boutique-priced gear. So I’ve decided to put together a rig that’s much more available to my friends. That way, I can feel more confident that any advice I give is going to be useful to them.
Marshall’s Origin is one of the few valve amps around the £500 price point that you’re going to be able to find in your local guitar store (here in the UK). Which means you can go and try it for yourself before buying one. That’s great, because not only can you avoid the hassle of sending the amp back if you don’t like it, I get to recommend something that’ll help and support your local guitar store.
I’m also very much into guitar pedals, and Marshall’s Origin has the potential to be the de facto pedal platform amp for a whole generation. I kid you not. Right now, there’s nothing in that price point that is the undisputed King of Pedal Platform Amps. Will the Origin take that crown? My thoughts on that are at the end 🙂
Why Pick The 20W Head?
I actually went to buy the 50W head, and if it had been in stock, I would have bought one there and then. Sadly, even though Marshall had told me that they were sending out a 50W head to the shop, it didn’t arrive. That (for me) turned out to be a happy accident.
For home use, the 20W head is more than loud enough. I’ve got the master somewhere between 2 or 3 at the most, and I’m surprised that my neighbours haven’t come round and complained yet. If I’d bought the 50W head, I think I’d be struggling to keep it quiet enough for home use.
It isn’t just that this amp is loud. You know how live guitar always seems to travel through walls a lot more than if you’re listening to a recording at the same volume? That’s exactly what this amp is like. It’s got a very cutting edge to it.
The brightness of this amp is going to be running theme throughout this article.
The only difference between the 20W and the 50W head (as far as I know) is the volume that it puts out. There’s no extra features on the 50W head. If you’re gigging, the 20W may be loud enough. The 50W certainly will be.
Why Buy The Head Over The Combo?
I don’t have the space at home for combo amps. They’re much bulkier than separate head and speaker cabs.
The weight of a combo amp can be a problem for me too. I was the victim of a careless driver some years ago, and my injuries limit how much I can physically lift in one go. With separate head and cab, I can split the weight. It’s the difference between me being able to own the amp or not.
And finally, I personally prefer the flexibility of separate heads and cabs. Speakers – and the cab that they’re in – are a big part of the overall sound of a guitar rig. It’s interesting and fun to mix and match, and explore the different possibilities.
You can do that with a combo using extension cabinets – and it’s very easy to do with the Marshall Origin combos. You just need the space at home for it.
What Speaker Are You Using?
I’m running the head through a 16 ohm Celestion G12M-65 Creamback speaker in an open-backed 1×12 cab. (It’s a stock Victory V112-CB). I’ve had it a few years, and the speaker is nicely broken in.
Historically, this style of Marshall amp is associated with both G12H Greenback and G12M Creamback speakers. There’s a lot of variety in how these speakers sound, as Johan Segeborn shows us in this video:
There’s no “best” speaker choice. It’s all personal preference. The G12M-65 Creamback has been my favourite in recent years, which was handy when I got my Metropoulos Metro Plex at the start of the year.
What Does It Sound Like?
The amp is ‘vintage voiced’. By that, I mean it is an amp where most of the output is in the mid frequencies. If you want to play metal or anything else that uses a mid-scooped tone (often referred to as ‘modern voiced’), this isn’t the amp for you.
If you like classic rock or blues, keep on reading 🙂
This is a bright and cutting amp. Well, mine is at any rate, and so are the other ones that I’ve heard in person. Most of the perceived volume from this amp is in the upper mids and treble.
You can test this for yourself. Take a Strat, plug it into a Marshall Origin, and roll the tone control down to zero. It won’t just sound like a blanket has been thrown over the amp – you’ll hear the volume drop substantially too. Repeat the exercise with a different amp, and you won’t hear the same volume drop.
My choice of G12M-65 plays a big part in taming the brightness. Being a 16 ohm speaker, it’s a little darker than the 8 ohm equivalent. It smooths off the highs just enough, and pushes the mids nicely.
I think the Origin 20W head works really well with a Creamback speaker. Let me know in the comments below what speaker you pair yours with.
How Do The Combos Compare?
The combos ship with a Celestion Midnight 60 speaker. I don’t know for sure what that is, as I can’t find it anywhere on Celestion’s website. I believe it’s a 16 ohm G12N-60, known as a Neo Creamback.
It may (or may not) be slightly revoiced over the stock design. Folks are reporting that it sounds closer to a Vintage 30 than a normal Creamback. These things are very subjective though, so keep that in mind until Marshall or Celestion publish something official about this speaker 🙂
When I was buying my Origin amp, I took my cab into the shop and ran the 50W combo both through its own speaker and into my cab for a great A/B comparison.
I found the stock combo speakers to be a little brighter, and have slightly reduced mids, compared to the G12M-65 in my cab. It isn’t a dramatic difference, and hopefully the combo speakers will mellow out as they break in.
If the combo amp is just too bright for you when you try one, you might want to budget for a speaker change. Or just get the head and a separate cab instead, like I did.
Can We Hear The Amp For Ourselves?
I’m going to make some sound clips over the weekend and post them up onto Soundcloud for you. Keep an eye out for them on the blog 🙂
Which Guitars Does It Suit?
For me personally, this amp suits instruments that are heavy on the mids, such as a Les Paul or a Telecaster with hotter pickups. This thing sounds lush with a Gibson Custom Shop Historic Reissue.
Plug in something with reduced mids – like your average single-coil Strat – and the amp’s too cutting for me. Maybe you can EQ it out. I didn’t try.
The Origin is fine with the bridge humbucker on an H-S-S Strat too.
What’s It Like To Play Through?
I really enjoy playing through it.
Even on the lowest power setting, the amp doesn’t feel compressed at all. There’s plenty of responsiveness to pick dynamics (how hard or how soft you pick). It’s forgiving without feeling lifeless. I don’t think it’ll be too revealing for beginner or intermediate players.
If you dig in hard and strike the strings at the wrong angle, the amp will produce sharp transients. They can be very ice-picky. After a week with the amp, they’re not happening very often, but I haven’t eliminated them completely from my technique yet.
Playing hard doesn’t really increase how dirty the amp sounds. This is not a dirty amp.
How Dirty Does The Amp Get?
Not very.
The amp gets most of its gain from the preamp tubes (unless you really crank it). You have to run the preamp gain on max to get much breakup, and even that is not always enough. If you’ve got low-output pickups in your guitar, the amp is still going to sound cleanish.
I say cleanish, because this amp never gets super clean (unless you turn it down so much that it becomes anaemic and usable!) The amp tone always has a little bit of a gritty edge to it.
If you want super-clean tones (for example, for your pedals), you probably want a Marshall DSL instead. I have one on order, and I’ll do a side-by-side comparison once I’ve got it.
With some amps, you can slam the frontend to get more overdrive from the amp by running a boost, compression or drive pedal (with the pedal’s volume way up) into the amp’s input. This doesn’t work with the Marshall Origin.
This thing has tonnes of headroom on the input circuit and preamp. I’ve run an MXR Micro Amp (which has +26 db of gain) into the front of the amp, and it has stayed cleanish. That’s impressive.
Engage the amp’s built-in clean boost, set the amp’s gain to 8 (I find this amp gets harsh if you dime any of the controls, but that’s just personal preference), run the Micro Amp at about the same, and there’s a nice amount of crunchy rhythm overdrive to be had. It’s quite a soft crunch, not quite your classic AC/DC tone. You might have to get the power tubes cooking to give you a harder crunch.
If you’re using this amp in a 2 guitar band, I think you’ll want to use pedals for your overdrive, and to switch between rhythm and lead tones.
How Well Does The Marshall Origin Take Pedals?
Very well – with one caveat.
Let’s get the caveat out of the way. It’s not a negative, it’s just the nature of the amp. And it’s a characteristic that many folks actively want.
Because this amp is cleanish, you’re running pedals into an amp that’s on the verge of breakup. For many people, that’s the holy grail amp setup. Watch any of the great YouTube pedal demo community, and they’re always setting their amps up like this for pedals.
There’s one consequence to that. The resulting tone is heavily flavoured by the sound of the amp. The drive pedal adds character mostly in the form of texture. There’s some colour added by the pedal, but (imho) at least half the colour of the tone comes from the amp itself.
If you’re buying pedals – especially expensive boutique pedals – and you want them to be the main source of colour in your tone, you might be happier with the clean channel on a Marshall DSL instead. Or you might need to be looking at something like the Victory V40, Fender Deluxe Reverb, or a.n.other high-end clean platform.
Now that’s out the way …
If you’re looking for a pedal amp that’s on the edge of breakup, you need to check out the Marshall Origin. Thanks to that edge of breakup tone, and the huge input headroom, this amp takes drive pedals really well.
Especially affordable pedals from Boss.
Let’s not beat around the bush on this. Run a Boss DS-1 into a 3 grand boutique amp that’s set super clean, and the results are just awful. It’s asking the pedal to do all the work, whilst showcasing it with an amp that’ll let you hear every flaw in the resulting tone. Wrong pedal, wrong platform.
Now, run a Boss DS-1 into the Marshall Origin, and you’ll hear why the DS-1 is one of the best selling pedals of all time. The DS-1 adds that hard-clipping attack to the Origin’s colour, and the result works really well. Instead of pedal and amp competing with each other, the two circuits complement each other.
It’s not just the DS-1. It’s the same story with the BD-2 Blues Driver. And with every drive pedal I’ve tried so far that didn’t play nice with the super clean boutique amp.
I’m so impressed with the results that I’ve picked up some more affordable pedals to try. I’m excited by the possibilities – and surprised that Marshall aren’t making more of this.
The pedals arrived while I was writing this article. Give me a couple of days to play with them, and I’ll get some sound clips up so that you can hear them for yourself.
Drive Pedals And The Power Modes
Many drive pedals have a bass cut in their circuits. If you run such pedals into the Origin 20W head on low power mode, the bass cut is very noticeable. Probably sounds great in a mix, but not as much fun when noodling on your own at home.
Flip the power mode up to medium, and the tone shifts. The perceived highs are less emphasised, and the effect of the pedal’s bass cut is reduced too. There’s more mids, and the amp feels more open and dynamic.
The downside is that – at home volumes – you need very understanding neighbours to crank the amp up enough to get the power tubes cooking. Or you need to run it through an external attenuator like the Two Notes Torpedo Captor to throttle the output volume back a bit.
Would It Benefit From Changing The Values?
I’ve been wondering about this. I don’t know yet.
I haven’t had mine apart to see what Marshall have shipped it with. I also don’t know very much about the differences between different brands of 12ax7 preamp valves.
Depending on what’s in my amp, a preamp valve swap could make a difference. A different brand of valves might address the amp’s brightness a bit, thicken up the mids a bit more, and maybe add a bit more natural gain to the amp.
I foresee some experimentation in my future. I’ll also be keeping an eye on the Marshall forums to see how other people get on with this.
How Plexi Is This Amp?
A plexi amp is simply any Marshall amp made with a plexi-glass front instead of a brushed metal front. These amps were made between 1965 and 1969. There has never been a single Marshall ‘Plexi’ amp model. When someone talks about a plexi amp, they often mean a 100W Marshall Super-Lead, but they can sometimes mean a Marshall JTM 45.
There’s folks out there who have been hoping that this amp would turn out to be an affordable Marshall plexi-style amp. Wouldn’t it be nice to go and take an affordable Origin to a gig instead of a vintage Marshall or an expensive reissue or clone?
The only experience I have with plexi-style amps is with the Metropoulos Metro Plex module for the Synergy amp. In my opinion, that’s a special amp. If I ever had to downsize to just 1 amp and no pedals, it’d be the Metro Plex. It’s my desert island amp.
The Metro Plex is a reproduction of a specific 1968 Marshall Super-Lead amp. The Synergy module has two channels with a shared EQ. They’re basically filth and more filth. It does not clean up with the amp controls, and it is not an amp to run pedals into.
Even dimed, the Origin 20W head is much cleaner than the Metro Plex module will go. There’s no overlap there at all. Which means (for me) that the Origin plugs a huge tone gap. That’s a big win.
I haven’t yet done an A/B comparison with the two amps. (I’ll add that to the list of sound clips that I’m promising you!) Until then …
For me, both amps are in the same territory, but the different levels of gain make comparison tricky. A lot of people like plexi amps for the amp’s overdrive. The Origin just doesn’t have that kind of gain.
At the moment, I’d say that the Origin has much more top-end, and the mids are not as thick as the Metro Plex. Throw a pedal in front of the Origin, and I think you can get into the same ball park, as long as you’re not after an identical tone.
For me, that’s the key point in the Origin-vs-plexi debate. If you want to get your gain from the amp, like you can with a Marshall Super Lead, then the Origin isn’t what you’re looking for. If you’re happy to pair it with pedals, then it’s a much cheaper option than a vintage Marshall plexi-style amp, or any of the reissues or clones. I imagine its much lighter too!
One last word on this debate (for now). Marshall Super Leads were originally very bright amps, and it was common for them to be modified by their owners to tame that brightness. At this stage, we don’t know how mod-able the Origin amps are. Will we see equivalent mods appear for Origin amps, to reduce their brightness, I wonder?
Any Problems So Far?
The only problem I’ve had so far has been with the FX loop.
The FX loop only works if the (included) footswitch is plugged in. Unplug the footswitch, and the FX loop switches off. There’s no switch anywhere else on the amp to switch the FX loop back on. I’m not aware of any switch inside the amp’s chassis to change this behaviour.
There’s nothing about this in the manual (or on Marshall’s website), so I contacted Marshall directly about it on Monday. They’ve confirmed that my Origin amp’s FX loop is meant to work like this. It’s not a fault.
To be clear – the FX loop works. I just have to leave the footswitch plugged in to use it. It’s annoying. It stops me using the gain pull knob on the front panel, and it adds to the clutter in the room a bit.
It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? Was the FX loop always meant to work that way, or is it actually a screw-up of some kind that wasn’t caught early enough to rectify?
I haven’t had any other problems with my amp at all. Everything works, it isn’t noisy, and I think it sounds great.
Final Thoughts
I’m only a week in. This is very much still the honeymoon period. I haven’t yet done any recording with this amp. There’s a lot still to explore.
I’m very happy that I bought this amp. I’m getting more out of it than I expected. It gives me something I don’t already have.
I’m already covered for pristine cleans and crazy pedal platforms for the best in boutique drive pedals. I’m already covered for that quintessential Marshall amp gain tone. This amp nicely slots in alongside all of that.
I love how well this amp takes drive pedals, and I love that affordable pedals work great with this amp. It’s given me access to a whole bunch of tones and textures that I didn’t have before.
Is it going to take the crown of undisputed King of Affordable Pedal Platform amps? No. It colours the tone a little too much for that. But I tell you what – it might well end up sharing that crown with the 2018 version of the Marshall DSL amps. I’ll let you know once I’ve got my hands on both amps to compare.
I’ve just got back from a Marshall demo evening, put on by my local guitar store AStrings.co.uk. A huge thanks to them for putting on evenings like this, and to Marshall for coming out and demoing their amps.
Steve Smith from Marshall demoed three products: Marshall Code, the new DSL amps, and the new Origin amps. These are my personal thoughts and observations whilst they’re still fresh in my mind.
Marshall Code
Some of the audience were very interested in Code, both for the flexibility it offered and for being a complete all-in-one (amp + effects) at an affordable price. I think it got the most questions on the night. Certainly felt that way.
Even more interestingly, it was the amp that most people played during the break.
This amp clearly fills a need for some people.
Marshall DSL
Next up was the newly revamped DSL. I think it was the 20W combo. First time I’ve heard one of the new ones in person. I thought it sounded fantastic.
I think I was the only person to play a DSL during the break. I tried the 5W version. Honestly, I thought it was the 20W version, it sounded that good for a small speaker combo. Great clean tone, the gain was easy to dial in, and the amp felt very responsive to pick dynamics.
I would be very very happy with the 5W DSL as a practice amp in the lounge, or as an amp to chuck in the car to take on holiday with. I will probably get one soon exactly for that.
I wish Marshall made a 40W or 50W DSL head. It would probably be the amp I’d recommend for pedals. Alas, there’s only a 20W or 100W head, with only combos in between. I don’t know how much headroom the 20W model has for pedals.
Marshall Origin
Last up was the new Marshall Origin line. It was what I was there to hear. We got to hear the 50W combo.
I’m interested in Origin to see if it can be a great amp for pedals. On paper, the 50W Origin head ticks all the boxes: head format amp and enough headroom to take a wide variety of drive pedals well.
There’s quite a gap in the market for an amp like that. Fender doesn’t really do amp heads, and their combos don’t play well at home volumes (although the new versions are a lot better at that than they used to be!)
How did Origin sound? For me, it was more of a mixed bag than I was hoping for.
That vintage mid-range was definitely there. But there was a sharpness to the top-end that I found physically difficult to listen to. I found it really piercing, and my ears are still ringing from it over an hour later.
Now, that might have been down to the speaker in the combo. The 50W combo ships with a Celestion Midnight 60. Celestion doesn’t have this speaker on their website, and there isn’t a tonne of information about it online. I’ve got a 1×12 with a very nice G12M-65 Creamback that’s already broken in. I’m hoping to hear the 50W head through this at the weekend.
The other reason it was a mixed bag? The Origin doesn’t clean up quite as much as I’d hoped. Some people love running a drive pedal into an amp that’s starting to break up – and it’s a great way to get fantastic tones. I prefer to run pedals into a totally clean amp, to hear as much of the pedal’s colour as possible.
Sadly, there wasn’t an opportunity to play the Origin on the night. But stock is due tomorrow (Friday), and I’m hoping to get down there with my cab, pedal board and a Les Paul to see if I’m adding an Origin 50W head to the Hermit’s Cave or not.
This is a long read. The whole point of the HomeToneBlog is to go in-depth on getting great guitar at home, and understanding the choices available to us. The backstory is a big part of that process 🙂
I’ve been a very happy Redwirez Big Box user for years now. The sheer amount of cabs, microphones and placement options have allowed me to gradually figure out how everything that comes after the guitar amp affects my tone.
So why am I looking at Celestion’s impulse responses? Well, it’s all thanks to the Kemper …
The Need For Speakers
I’m currently running a dual-amp setup as my pedal platform. I’ve got a pair of Synergy SYN-1 enclosures running into the SYN-5050. I went with a Synergy setup partly for how compact it is … but also because the preamps are interchangeable modules.
Right now, I’ve got 4 different Synergy preamp modules: the Morgan AC, the Metropoulos Metro Plex, Synergy’s 800 and their T-DLX. The Morgan AC and the 800 module both pair well with the T-DLX for pedals. And the Metro Plex is just very special, and worth the price of admission on its own.
As with any amp, these modules need pairing with a suitable speaker to get the best out of them. I could just stick to using impulse responses. IRs are more than good enough for both playing and recording, and they have some serious advantages for home use.
But by getting real speakers – and cabs to put them in – I can mic them up and create my own Kemper profiles. I’ve already made a few, and for me they’re the key to getting what I want from the Kemper.
Choosing Speakers
When it comes to speakers, there’s a lot of choice out there. It’s also quite difficult to figure out how a speaker is going to sound with my amps. How do you describe a speaker tone using words? And how do you account for how a cabinet will influence the sound too?
So I’m playing it safe, and looking at classic speakers that are commonly used with these type of amps.
For the Morgan AC, the advice I was given was unequivocal: a Celestion Blue is the right speaker for that kind of circuit. I’ve also heard good things about the Celestion Gold, so that’s also on the list.
I’ve already got a G12M-65 and a V30. They’ll cover the Metro Plex and 800 modules just fine. I’m not really a big V30 fan, so I’m quite happy to stick that in storage and free up the cab for another speaker. On the forums I hang out on, the Celestion Cream has been getting a lot of love this year. I definitely need to take a close look at it.
That just leaves the T-DLX module. For pedals, I’m running in on the red channel, which is believed to be a Blackface-style circuit. Real Fender Deluxe Reverbs often use Jensen C12K speakers. However, the recent Hot Rod Deluxe MK 4 amps have started using Celestion A-Type speakers, and I’m really enjoying just how good that whole package sounds on the Andertons videos at the moment.
Whatever I choose, I’ll be getting 16 ohm versions of each speaker, and putting them into Victory V112 cabs. I’ve gone with 1×12 cabs because of how convenient they are, and I’ve gone with these particular 1×12 cabs because I’m very happy with the ones I’ve already got. 1×12 cabs are perfect for the kind of tones I’m after.
The nice thing about this whole process is that I can spread the costs out. I can pick up 1×12 cabs 2nd hand when they come up for the right price, and then buy a replacement speaker for it when funds allow. I’m not in any hurry, and the savings from doing it this way will basically pay for one of the cabs and its new speaker too.
I just need to figure out which speakers I want first.
Using IRs To Audition Speakers
Speakers vary quite a bit in price. They’re also physically bulky and heavy enough to be awkward to post if I don’t like them and want to sell them on again. Whatever I buy, I’d really like it to stick, so to speak.
That got me thinking. I’m largely looking at speakers from Celestion. Celestion have started selling impulse responses of their speakers, and those IRs have had favourable reviews. (I believe Brian Wampler uses them for his company’s YouTube demos.) And, to cap it all, Celestion have just launched a couple of bundles – any 3 IRs for a big discount, and any 5 IRs for another big discount.
It’s not going to be a perfect audition. We’re not told what cabs were used by Celestion, but there’s almost certainly going to be a difference. And IRs are a cab-speaker-mic combination. They capture what the mic hears, not what you and I hear. Oh, and I use the Sennheiser e906, which Celestion doesn’t use. So there’s that too.
It’s better than nothing, and – at less than 30 pounds for 5 IRs – it’s a lot cheaper and more convenient than taking a punt on the speakers themselves.
I ordered 1×12 open-cab IRs of the A-Type, Blue, Cream, and Gold to experiment with. I also ordered a 1×12 open-cab G12M-65 to act as a reference tone. I bought them from the Celestion Plus website.
What Do We Get
After checkout, the first thing I noticed was that there was no download link. I had to wait for the confirmation email to come through to get access to the downloads. That wasn’t a great feeling.
The downloads struck me as a bit weird. Instead of just offering a single ZIP file for each speaker/cab I’d bought, there were also links to download various subsets. I can’t work out the point of going to that trouble. IRs are tiny on disk, and Celestion’s offering is tiny compared to something like the Redwirez Big Box.
My advice: just download the ZIP file that contains everything. That way you’ve got it.
There’s something odd about the ZIP files as well. My Mac couldn’t expand them using Finder. I had to open a terminal and unzip them the old fashioned way, which worked without a hitch. I’d like to see Celestion improve their testing to spot problems like this.
Inside each ZIP file, we get IRs recorded at a number of resolutions from 44.1kHz up, and with durations of 200ms and 500ms. The different resolutions are there to match the audio quality you’re recording at.
The two durations? I’ve no idea, and I haven’t been able to find anything online to help with that. For now, I’m assuming that the 200ms IRs are a lower detail than the 500ms, and that they’re provided for use on machines that don’t have enough CPU to process the 500ms IRs. It’s just a guess.
Celestion have used three classic mics – SM57, R121 and MD421 – plus a TLM107 as a room mic. Each of the main mics have been close mic’d (yay!), and there’s six positions for each mic. These positions have names like ‘bright’, ‘balanced’, and ‘dark’, and they quickly become very natural to work with.
Using The Impulse Responses
I’m using MixIR as my IR plugin in Reaper. It allows me to load and blend IRs in multiple ways. I got it as part of the Redwirez Big Box, and I’m very happy with it.
That ability to blend multiple IRs on a single channel came in very handy.
What I ended up doing was running one of the ‘balanced’ IRs, and blending in a small amount of one of the ‘dark’ IRs to add in a bit more bottom-end. I picked which mic entirely by ear. Sometimes I’d use the same mic for the blended ‘dark’ IR, and sometimes I’d prefer a different one.
It took about an hour to hit on this approach. Once I had it, I found that it worked for me with all the different speaker IRs that I’d bought.
My final track setup was this:
track 1: Morgan AC panned 100% left
track 2: Morgan AC panned 66% left
track 3: room mic IR, panned 90% left
track 4: T-DLX panned 100% right
track 5: T-DLX panned 66% right
track 6: room mic, panned 90% right
Tracks 1-3 use mics from the same speaker. Tracks 4-6 use mics from a different speaker. The room mics are getting a mix of post-FX from the other tracks, plus the result of running those tracks through an Echoplex.
The idea is to build a bigger tone through the effects of audio summing, using the Echolex and room mics to give the sound a bit of life without losing the definition.
And, boy did it work. My pedals have never sounded better.
The Different Speakers
The T-DLX module was the easiest to sort out. I paired it with the A-Type IR and didn’t touch it for the rest of the session.
The A-Type didn’t give me those classic Blackface cleans. It didn’t have the same top-end glassy characteristic. That’s okay. It sounded great with dirt pedals, and I’m sure that I can get more out of this with a bit more time.
The Celestion Blue was a huge step-up in audio quality compared to the equivalent IRs from Redwirez. It exhibited a much wider frequency response. That’s very important with the Morgan AC module, as it is hampered by not having an EL84 power section to shape the tone.
I thought that the Celestion Gold was quite similar to the Blue, only with the highs a little more tamed. I went back and forth between the two, and I found that I preferred the Blue for humbuckers. The Gold – with the way I had the IRs setup – sounded a little dull for humbuckers. One thing I didn’t try at the time: I suspect the Gold may be the better choice for my bright Telecaster.
I did briefly try the Cream with the Morgan AC module. Er … no. That just sounded wrong. I’ll revisit that speaker in another session.
I didn’t try the G12M-65 at all. I wasn’t running any of the Marshall-esque modules, and I was having far too much fun with the Morgan to swap it out.
Great Sound Quality
I ran several of my pedals through the dual amp + Celestion IRs setup, and I was delighted with the results.
I always start with the Uber Bee, as it has become the core of my rhythm tone today. I thought it sounded great with the Redwirez IRs. Through the Celestion IRs, it sounded better still.
From there, I tried a bunch of different stuff. The Fender Pugilist was very happy, especially in serial mode. The Boss BD-2 Blues Driver sounded great. The Lovepedal Amp 11 sounded fantastic, but there again it always does.
The biggest leap though came for my Mad Professor Bluebird Overdrive. Once I had that dialled in, I lost a good hour and a half just jamming along to a backing track made by my friend Dave Page. Lovely thick lead tone that worked perfectly over Dave’s clean Telecaster rhythm work. So happy!
Some pedals didn’t sound so good. That’s to be expected when using an AC-style amp. That’s why I went with a Synergy setup, so that I can switch preamps to suit different pedals.
Conclusions So Far
The Celestion IRs are good. Once I figured out how to approach them, I was able to get better tones than I had from my Redwirez IRs. That was for noodling on a single guitar. I have yet to try them in a mix.
They’ve sold me on buying a Celestion Blue speaker. I am going to revisit the Celestion Gold to see whether it is the better choice with brighter single-coil guitars. I’m not sure that I want both speakers though. We’ll have to see.
I am going to look at whether the A-Type is right for the T-DLX, or whether a C12K would be better for me. I need to stop playing with the dirt pedals, and put some time into those clean tones.
Most of all, I’ve really enjoyed playing through them. Now, if only Celestion did their very own equivalent of the Big Box …
Back in January, my wife bought me an 8 ohm Two Notes Torpedo Captor as a birthday present. (It was going to be a Christmas present, but Two Notes can’t make these things fast enough to keep up with demand!) And last week, I added a second one to my rig, to go with my ridiculously-overkill Synergy Amps dual-amp pedal platform setup.
Two Notes Torpedo Captor
What Is It?
The Two Notes Torpedo Captor is both a reactive load box and a fixed-level attenuator. There are three different models available: in 4 ohms, 8 ohms (the one I have) and 16 ohms.
As a reactive load box, the Two Notes Torpedo Captor allows you to run your amp without having to have a speaker plugged in at all.
The -20db fixed attenuation allows you to turn your amp up to get the power tubes cooking and have a (slightly) quieter volume level coming out of your speaker cabinet.
The Captor is a completely analogue device. Unlike the Torpedo Live or Torpedo Studio, there’s no onboard computer to run impulse responses or power amp simulators. If you want to use it for silent recording, you’ll need to run a plugin in your DAW on your computer.
Why Is It Important?
It’s the first affordable reactive load box to hit the market, that I know of at any rate.
Before this, there was the Suhr Reactive Load (currently £399, twice the price of the Captor) – extra software required! – then the Torpedo range (starting from £560 for the Torpedo Reload and then the Torpedo Live at £680).
That’s a lot of money to spend on a reactive load box for a single amp setup. For a dual-amp setup, you effectively had to budget for a third amp, and then spend that money on a pair of Torpedo units.
Priced at £199, the Captor is a game changer.
Why Is It Useful?
Those of us playing and/or recording at home often want silent recording – the sound of our amp on 10 into our computers, but not coming out of a speaker cabinet at the same time. And that’s where the Captor comes in.
Valve amplifiers need to be connected to a speaker cabinet, so that the signal generated by the output transformer has somewhere to flow to. If you forget to plug your amp into a speaker, you’ll blow the output transformer (if you’re lucky).
A load box like the Captor allows us to run a valve amp without plugging in a speaker cab.
Buy the Captor that matches your amp’s required output impedance, and plug the amp’s speaker out into the Captor. Now you can safely turn your amp on without blowing anything up.
From here, you’ve got a couple of choices on how to get the sound out of the Captor.
As An Attenuator
I originally got the Captor to use as an attenuator.
I’ve been making my own Kemper profiles, and I wanted to crank the amp as much as possible so that the source signal sounded as good as possible. Power tube saturation plays an important role in the overall quality of the tone, and to get it to kick in, you have to turn the Master volume up.
However, my little home project studio The Hermit’s Cave is just an ordinary room in an ordinary house. A cranked amp – especially my Blackstart HT-100 – will wreck my hearing in here. Not to mention the problems inflicted on my family and my neighbours!
That’s where an attenuator comes in.
An attenuator takes the cranked signal from your amp and bleeds some of it off. What comes out the other end is a quieter signal, to save your hearing and your marriage!
More expensive attenuators offer variable power soak levels. The Captor offers a fixed -20db attenuation. To put that in context, that’s roughly the difference between 2 and 4 on the HT-100’s Master volume control.
Which is just enough to get the power tubes cooking nicely.
The end result? A big difference to the quality of the tone captured by the Kemper Profiler – without a louder volume coming out of the speaker cab. There’s more definition to the tone, with the power tubes filling out the mids nicely. And that’s exactly where the Kemper’s internal algorithms seem to work the best.
However, I’m not ready to sell off all my pedals and stick exclusively with the Kemper just yet. Which is where my new Synergy Amps dual-amp setup comes in … along with the Captor’s other useful function.
For Silent Recording
Right now, I’m using a pair of Captors for silent recording.
I’ve just built up a dual-amp setup: a pair of Synergy Amps SYN-1 enclosures, with different modules in each, running into the two channels of the Synergy SYN-5050 power amp. I’m running that in stereo mode, with each channel running out into an 8 ohm Captor.
There’s no speaker cab plugged into either Captor. Instead, I’m using the XLR line out to run a mono signal from each Captor into my Apollo Twin unit. With two Captors, I can run two mono signals, and effectively have a dual-amp setup for blended pedal tones, a la That Pedal Show’s usual setups.
The only noise? The fan on the SYN-5050 power amp, and (if I crank the power amp too much) some sympathetic noise from each Captor. The noise was annoying when I had everything out on top of a speaker cab. For now, I’ve bundled them under a desk and out of the way, and that’s cut down the noise just enough to be able to ignore it – most of the time at any rate.
Both channels at the Apollo run into my DAW (I use Reaper – it’s excellent). There, I record onto two separate channels – one for Channel A, and a different one for Channel B from the SYN-5050. I have different impulse responses loaded onto each channel, chosen to match both the preamp module and the guitar I’m using.
The Captor comes with a license for Two Note’s highly-regarded Wall of Sound (WoS) impulse response plugin. I’m actually using something else – mixIR and the Redwirez BigBox collection.
I’ve been using the Redwirez BigBox for the last 4 years, so I know it well and I’ve had a lot of practice getting the results I want from it. It has great, phase-corrected impulses that suit all the Synergy preamp modules that I’m using. I’m really happy with it.
The end results are excellent.
I found that I got the best results using the XLR output of the Captor, rather than the TRS Line Out. You need to be able to provide phantom power – which the Apollo Twin does.
The Line Out doesn’t need power to operate. I struggled to get a signal that I liked from the Line Out. The output volume there seems to depend on how loud you run your amp. The Captor is rated for 100W amps, and my amp is 50W. Even cranked, I found I was having to crank the preamps on my Apollo Twin too. The end result was too noisy for my tastes.
Your mileage may vary.
What’s The Competition?
The Captor is the entry-level model for Two Note’s Torpedo line of units. There is nothing entry-level about the results you can achieve with it.
On one of the forums I hang out on, someone else posted that the Captor sounds identical to the more expensive Torpedo units. If you don’t need the features of those units – and at home, you probably don’t – then the Captor is an excellent choice.
Almost any other competitor – the Suhr Reactive Load, or Fryette’s Power Station – still relies on impulse responses running in your DAW. You might prefer how these units affect the tone. Each load box uses a different design to bleed off the power, and each design has a different effect on the end tone. We all hear things differently, and which unit you ultimately prefer will be a subjective matter of personal taste.
The only way you’ll get a substantive improvement over what impulse responses offer is to use a proprietary modelling solution like Universal Audio’s OX amp top box. If you want to know more about that, here’s a recent blog post comparing it to the other options.
Final Thoughts
I’ve only just finished wiring up the dual-amp pedal platform. It’ll probably be Easter weekend before I have the time to sit down and really explore what it can do. I’m excited for the possibilities.
There’s no two ways about it. I wouldn’t have been able to build this before the Captor came along.
Because there’s no software running on the Captor – and therefore no software drivers to worry about as time goes on – not only is the Captor cheaper, it should also outlive its more capable big brothers.
If you’re recording at home with valve amps, and you don’t have anywhere to run a real speaker cab at volume, the Captor + impulse responses should be on your list of options.
This is a first look at the Synergy Amps system now that it’s home, where I can hear it through my cabs and with my guitars.
I’ve been away for work this last week, and whilst I over the other side of the country, I managed to pick up a set of Synergy Amps modules, enclosures and the power amp.
Now that I’m back at the Hermit’s Cave, time to unbox everything … just to make sure it survived the journey, right? 😀
So what have we got here?
2 x Synergy SYN-1 module enclosures
1 x Synergy T-DLX preamp module
1 x Metropoulos Metro Plex preamp module
1 x Synergy SYN-5050 4x6L6 power amp
They’re sat on top of a pair of Victory Amps 1×12 cabs. The top cab is a V112-C with a G12M-65 Creamback, and the bottom cab is a V112-V with a V30.
Let’s talk about the power amp first. I have a lot more to say about it than I expected to.
Synergy SYN-5050 Power Amp
The power amp is deceptively heavy. The SYN-1 enclosures aren’t exactly featherweights either. It’s all solid stuff. If it was all mounted into a rack, I wouldn’t want to be moving it around much.
When I switched the power amp on, first thing I noticed is that the internal fan is loud. Loud enough to be heard when playing at home tone volume levels. It’s loud enough to be an issue for my environment. I’m hoping that it’ll be less noticeable once it’s properly racked. Failing that, the sound reminds me of one of those old 90s computer fans. Maybe it’s possible to replace it with something more acoustically engineered?
(I’ll do a follow-up post at some point talking about why fan noise is important.)
I’ve owned a few rack-mount power amps over the years. This one’s a little different to what I’ve seen before. This isn’t a dual mono-block power amp. It took me a bit of fiddling to get both channels working, and at first I really thought that Channel B wasn’t working. It was working, it’s just that Channel B’s volume control isn’t always active.
I’ll do a dedicated post about the SYN-5050’s 3 modes of operation shortly.
One reason why I want to make that a separate post is the manual that comes with the SYN-5050. I didn’t find the manual any help at all. I’m hoping it’s just that the manual is a draft, and that they’ll improve it as time goes on. The diagrams aren’t labelled, the text refers to sections that aren’t included, and the description of MONO, MONO-BRIDGED and STEREO modes wasn’t clear enough for me.
On the front of the power amp, the STANDBY/ON switches for Channel A and Channel B are next to each other. I’ve already switched Channel B on by mistake at least once. Fortunately, I had a cab plugged into Channel B, so no harm done. But be aware of it. It’s an accident waiting to happen.
The amp itself sounds great. It’s 50W in MONO and STEREO modes, and 100W in MONO-BRIDGED mode, I believe. The volume range is very usable for home use – already a bonus compared to many Fender amps! I’m looking forward to running it through the Two Notes Torpedo Captor so that I can crank it a bit and hear that lovely power tube saturation.
I’ve been after a rack-mountable 6L6 power amp for many years. The old Mesa Boogie 2:90 was on my wishlist for a long time. The sheer weight of it always put me off. That, and how much it would cost to revalve! I’ve been using software-based emulation in the mean time, which certainly does a job. I’m very pleased that I don’t have to any more 🙂
So what are the two modules like?
Synergy T-DLX Preamp Module
This module takes drive pedals really well. Especially on the red channel, which I believe is voiced like a Fender Deluxe. Some pedals just don’t shine through the Blackstar HT-100. I’ve had a couple of them out the cupboard and through the T-DLX, and so far I like what I’ve heard.
Early days yet. I need to do some recording and mixing before I can say that this is definitely a great pedal platform.
The module sounds good through the G12M-65. I would like to pair it with a Celestion A-Type soon, to get even closer to that Fender DRRI tone. I’m going to take a looat at how easy it is to swap speakers in the Victory cabs. Not sure yet whether I’ll swap out the V30, or just pick up a third cab and swap the speaker in that.
Metropoulous Metro Plex Preamp Module
The Metro Plex doesn’t take drive pedals at all. When I kick in the pedal, all the bottom end disappears. And I don’t care.
Because this thing sounds utterly glorious with a Les Paul.
I lost what – an hour and a half? two hours? – last night just playing straight into it. Hit the front end with a compressor (like my favourite, the Forest Green Compressor from Mad Professor) or a Wampler Tumnus, and it’s amp drive heaven. I’ve never been a fan of amp drive before. This module has converted me 🙂
Well … almost. I haven’t yet managed to dial in a touch-sensitive kind of crunch. Hopefully I’ll find it. If not, it’s still a special sound, and this module is a keeper regardless.
So Is This A Great Pedal Platform?
I bought this rig to be a completely-overkill pedal platform. The plan was to run pedals into both modules at the same time – a la That Pedal Show and their dual-amp setup – to get the best blended tone possible.
Then I got sidetracked a bit, because I had the opportunity to get the Metro Plex module. The early YouTube demos had deeply impressed me. I didn’t think there were any in the country, so when Peach Guitars said they had one, that was a no-brainer. I really don’t care that it doesn’t take pedals. It’s worth having for what it does.
So, going forward, I’ve got a couple of options.
Get a third preamp module (like the B-MAN or Morgan AC) to be the second amp for my pedal platform.
Keep the Blackstar HT-100, and use its preamp as the second amp.
I’ve already got the HT-100, and I know it takes many drive pedals very well. I’m going to wire that up into the SYN-5050 and give that a go first.
I don’t have a second Torpedo Two Notes Captor atm, and once again they’re on backorder at the retailers. I’m going to have to wait a few weeks before I can try this out.
And let’s not kid myself. I’ve been looking for a platform like Synergy ever since I decided that I’d had enough of digital amps. Unless I run into some big disappointments once I start recording this setup, I am going to collect the other modules over time.
Final Comments
I’ve spent years building a sound around my pedals into the Blackstar HT-100. Getting the Synergy Amps system has blown that up to a certain extent.
It’s going to be a few weeks before it’s fully integrated into my little home project studio here at The Hermit’s Cave. Probably won’t be able to get that done until Easter weekend. After that, I’m going to need time using it to learn how to get the best out of it.
I’m just back from a visit to Peach Guitars over in Colchester. I went over to try out the Synergy Amps modules in person, and Peach Guitars are the only UK stockist right now.
tl;dr: the Synergy Amps are exactly what I was looking for
What Are Synergy Amps?
A quick introduction to Synergy Amps: they’re an American company making a modular amp system. They make a range of preamp modules, a couple of different housings to put them in, and a 50/50 6L6 1U rack power amp too. Some of the preamps are made by Synergy themselves, and are re-creations of classic amp circuits. Some of the preamps are made by folks like Friedman and Metropoulos. If you’re uncomfortable with the economics of Kemper profiles (basically, the original amp manufacturers get nothing), Synergy is a way to get a range of real valve preamps and for (some of) the original amp manufacturers to get paid too.
The system came out just before Christmas. There’s a whole heap of YouTube demos online. Here’s a playlist of just some of them:
(There are hours and hours of demos there. What can I say? I was ill in bed with the flu over Christmas and New Year, and needed something to cheer me up …)
Why Am I Looking At Synergy Amps?
There’s a couple of reasons.
I’m looking for classic Fender cleans, but I don’t have the space for a real Fender amp.
Some pedals – especially Marshall-in-a-Box (MIAB) types – don’t work well through my existing rig.
I’ve been frustrated with MIAB pedals through the Blackstar HT-100 for the last 4 years now. Yes, frustrated is a fair word there. Nearly all of them have sounded dark or dull through the Blackstar, and nothing I’ve tried has solved that one for me. Many pedals sound fantastic through that amp. Just not MIAB pedals. Not for me, anyway. Having tried everything else, it’s time to try a different amp.
When I’ve seen pedals demoed on YouTube over the years, especially official demos done by the manufacturer, more often than not those demos have been done through some kind of Fender, Marshall, or a clone amp. And that got me thinking. I’m sure that pedal makers test their pedals with a range of amps before launch. But they’re probably designing those pedals through Fender and/or Marshall-style amps. It’s those amps that’ll get the best out of those pedals.
Over the last 18 months or so, our little music project has been moving away from palm-muted power chord riffage heaven and trying to be a little more … well, musical. The very properties that make the Blackstar HT-100 a great pedal amp also make for a very uninteresting clean channel. It isn’t something I’d use for clean tones, and I haven’t found a pedal that can bridge that gap.
What Did I Look At First?
I looked at the Fender Deluxe Reverb Re-issue (DRRI), and the Kemper.
There’s a fantastic-sounding DRRI in my local music shop. Sounds great at low volume, and it sounded even better cranked a little bit for product demo nights. The only reason I haven’t bought it is that it’s a combo.
Combos are simply too big, too bulky, and too heavy for me and my circumstances. I need separate head and cabs, and the head can’t be a 20+ kg monster like the the HT-100 is. I need a lunchbox head or better. Anything bigger, and it’s not for me.
Sadly, Fender just don’t make those kind of amps. I think that the only all-valve head they sell right now is the Bassbreaker, which is basically their take on the JCM800 circuit. No joy there.
I did look at getting the DRRI converted into a separate head and cab; that’s something the folks over at Zilla Cabs do, for example. It’s not a cheap option, and at the time a second-hand Kemper would have cost a lot less. Plus, as Adam once asked me – why not go Kemper, and have all the amps?
So I did more than look at the Kemper – I found one second hand for a good price. I’ll say a lot more about the Kemper in other blog posts. I’m nowhere near as in love with it as some folks online. Buyer’s remorse? It’s more complicated than that.
I think it’s good at what it does, but I don’t think it’s a good dirt pedal platform. If I dial up a clean amp model and run dirt pedals into it, the breakup doesn’t sound convincing at times. That was a real shame.
I’d love to get value-quality tone without the sheer hassle that valve amps bring. The Kemper can do that, as long as you’re plugged straight in. The more you throw at it, the further away you go from what it’s designed to be. That’s just its nature.
(There’s a couple of issues too, but I’ll save them for their own blog posts.)
Has it solved my Fender cleans need, at least? Not really. The Kemper doesn’t re-create the full frequency range of a real amp. It sounds like a very-professionally recorded amp. That’s great, as long as you record everything using the Kemper. The moment I try and mix and match Kemper profiles with recording my own rig … you hear the difference. I don’t have the mixing skill to overcome that. And the Kemper can’t re-create all the tones and textures I get from pedals.
My Kemper sits right beside my desk, and its what I play through most of the day when I’m taking breaks from my work. It’s not going anywhere. But neither are my pedals, and at the end of the day, I enjoy them more.
Why Synergy?
Synergy offers me everything I’m looking for:
real valves!
small
light
Fender cleans
6L6 power tubes
range of classic preamps
I like that the Synergy system is modular. If I’ve got a pedal that I’m struggling with, I can try it with a different preamp – or even with try it through a couple of different preamps at the same time. That’s awesome for me.
I can get the Fender cleans that I’m looking for, without having a big heavy combo taking up space I just don’t have. When it’s time to get things serviced, I’m not going to have any problems struggling with the weight. I’m dreading when I have to move the HT-100 for its first service. So much, in fact, that I rarely use the power amp on it, just to avoid that day for as long as possible.
The matching power amp uses 6L6’s. I think that, at heart, I’m a 6L6 person. Since I got the Kemper, I’ve been making profiles of my rig. I’ve switched from software emulation of power amps to using the HT-100’s real power amp and its quartet of evil-glowing EL34s. I just prefer the tone of a 6L6 myself.
And because it isn’t a digital system, the Synergy amps should last decades, if not the rest of my lifetime. Other than the TV, I don’t think there’s anything digital in the house that has lasted more than 5 years. Even if the device itself doesn’t fail, manufacturers drop support, and eventually you upgrade your computer’s operating system and the old drivers stop working.
Digital gear has a built-in obsolescence. It’s one area where analogue gear still has a clear advantage. My music gear is a hobby. It doesn’t earn me money at all. I’d rather spend money on gear that’ll last the longest, all other things being equal.
What Did You Try?
I played three modules:
B-MAN
Metro Plex
T-DLX
through the Synergy Syn-50/50 out into a Friedman 1×12 loaded with a G12M Creamback. For guitars, I used a 2018 Les Paul Standard fitted with Burstbucker Pros, a Suhr Strat and an Xotic Californica Classic Strat.
My main cab at home is a Victory V112-C 1×12 loaded with a G12M Creamback. The Friedman cab is physically larger, and seemed to put out more bottom end than my cab at home does. It was very helpful to play through something that’s in the ballpark of what I’m used to.
I picked a 2018 Les Paul Standard because I own a 2013 Les Paul Standard. There isn’t a lot of difference between the two models. I turned down the chance to use a Tom Murphy-aged Custom Shop True Historic 59 Les Paul. Gear at that level always sounds different from instrument to instrument, making it harder for me to assess what the amp might sound like with my guitars.
The staff at Peach Guitars selected the Suhr Strat and the Xotic California Classic for me. That was very kind of them, as it gave me a chance to try both brands for the first time. I grew up playing Strats and cheap knock-offs, and I’m more comfortable trying different ones than I am with Les Pauls.
I had the choice of running the SYN-1 modules directly into a Friedman FRFR cab instead. I went with the power amp because it’s one of the things I’m interested in. Very glad that I did.
I picked the B-MAN module because the staff thought it was the only Fender-type module in stock. I went with the Metro Plex module partly because they didn’t have the Synergy Plexi module in stock, and partly because it was too good an opportunity to pass up. All the demos have said that the Metro Plex module is something special, and they weren’t kidding. The staff found a T-DLX module out the back whilst I was trying the other modules.
(I’m saying “the staff” because I am crap with names. If you’re reading this, I’m really sorry. You looked after me really well.)
I started with the Les Paul into the B-MAN module. Not unsurprisingly, a lot of bottom end. Way too much. Splitting the coils, playing with the dip switches and bass knob on the front … still too much bottom end. Was it the cab?
Best way to find out was to switch modules. Man, the grin I had on my face from the first chord. Les Paul into the Metro Plex module … oh yes. IIRC, I said straight away that I was sold. I wasn’t even there for a Plexi module! It was just so easy to dial in my kind of crunch tone. And no boomy bottom end problems at all.
Switch back to the B-MAN module, and tried it with a Strat. This was my first time playing a Suhr Strat. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch the exact model. Still lots of boomy bass, and a lot of high end too. Maybe that was the stainless steel frets? I think that’s the first guitar I’ve played with stainless steel frets, so I don’t have much experience to help me out there.
The Suhr Strat was very nice to play. Loved the neck carve and fingerboard radius. Action was right where I like it. I’m definitely interested in playing more Suhr guitars one day.
I can’t remember if switched to the Xotic California Classic Strat at that point, or if we switched to the T-DLX module first. I think we switched modules first. Either way, the Xotic into the T-DLX was just as much home to me as the Les Paul into the Metro Plex. Instantly found the tone I was looking for. And what a guitar.
It had a beautiful baked flame maple neck and matching baked flame maple slab fingerboard. A 2-piece neck. Perfect neck carve. Lower-output pickups than the Suhr. They reminded me of Abigail Ybarra’s work, they were that good. If I wanted a top-end Strat, that would have been the one.
Did You Get Anything?
I got the T-DLX module, the Metro Plex module, a SYN-1 for each of them … and the SYN-50/50 power amp.
You’ve always got to be careful with going on YouTube demos alone. Many of those demos are made by professional musicians who can make a rusty tin can sound amazing. Us mere mortals, strumming away at home, don’t have those skills.
In person, the Synergy amps sounded great. That’s with me playing through them! (It isn’t false modesty. My enthusiasm makes up for a serious shortage of musical talent and technical ability). To my ear, they had the sounds that I was looking for.
I’ve a lot going on right now. It might be Easter weekend before I’ve got time to sit down with them, hook them up to my pedals, and really get into what they can do for me. I’m already looking forward to it.
