outlier52's Reviews
6 reviews Back to outlier52's Equipboard
195
Awesome tone but a couple of issues
First of all, I just bough this amp and have only had it for a few days, but right out of the box it sounds FUCKING FANTASTIC! You can just look at it the wrong way and it breaks up. The "classic" channel is nice and has that classic blackface Deluxe tone and is a bit cleaner and "Fendery" than the "custom" channel. But to me the real treat is the "custom" channel with the Bassman tone stack. It breaks up sooner and has a darker, angrier tone than the other channel. It is thick, creamy and just beautiful. I have a ton of dirt pedals, but why mess with perfection? If you're looking for clean headroom, look elsewhere. But at 22 watts,. it's perfect for what I do and just loud enough to play in practice settings with my band. However, I haven't tried it yet., but I don't suspect that it's loud enough to play clubs with and will require mic'ing. It doesn't channel switch, but I use a Morley ABY box to switch channels and also run both together with no phasing issues whatsoever.
A lot of people have complained that this amp is noisy and hissy, but mine is dead quiet. It was manufactured in August 2015, so maybe Fender has fixed this problem I do have a noise that is either tube or cabinet rattle that I haven't located yet, but it's probably not going to be an issue when playing with the band. Also, the reverb to me just isn't that classic Fender sound. It has a very long decay time and is basically unusable past a very minimal level. I'm just turning mine off and going with either the spring or plate verb from my Hall of Fame.
I still highly recommend this amp because the tone is so good that it outweighs the minor issue. If you are purchasing one I would make sure you try it first and make sure it doesn't have the noise issues others have had.
41034
it should be plenty loud for club use, then again, a real deluxe reverb has a lot of headroom for its conservative 22 watt rating.... good review
41034
and what you're describing is exactly what a vintage fender reverb does.... long pan with a long decay, sounds best low unless you are in a surf band.... only the outboard reverb from the 50s and 60s sounds different and that's because it has more controls and a different driver tube... I never understood why guys go nuts for the fender reverb amps, I've owned a few from the 60s, the reverb is overbearing compared to ampeg's reverb.... on the other hand the fender reverb seems to record really well, sounds completely different on tape... cheers!
195
Great observation about the reverb. Maybe a reverb tube change would improve the sound, but it's just not THAT spring sound. Sort of so-so
Just this morning I played it in a small room with a loud drummer friend, and it was plenty loud. Definitely loud enough to sit nicely over the drummer, but I worry about how well it would project in a decent-sized club with people in it.
195
Not a good expeience
This pedal really made me mad. To me, the usable tones were very limited, the pedal was noisy (especially with boost on), and the contour and tone knobs could only dial in only a narrow spectrum of useful tones. I like a dark tone, but this pedal is too dark in vintage mode and the modern mode was not the Masrhall sound I was looking for.
I was using this pedal with a Mesa Boogie with 6L6s, a Les Paul and a Strat. I tried countless permutations of amp settings, ranging from utlra clean with Twin-like headroom, to slightly broken up and moderately overdriven. It responded best with the humbuckers on the Les Paul at moderate gain levels, but there are so many other Plexi-sound pedals out there that do mid-gain Marshall tones that are for the most part less than this $230 price tag. This pedal pissed me off so much that I sold it in favor of JHS Charlie Brown for mid-gain sounds and the amazing Xotic SL Drive fo high gain Marshall Super Lead tones. A lot of people like this pedal, but for my particular setuup it served a limited purpose that did not warrant the price tag.
41034
I didn't think this was supposed to be plexi-ish, doesn't wampler make a plexi-drive that is plexi flavored that's a similar BSIAB2 derived circuit like the Charlie brown and DLS? I was under the impression this was soldano/bogner flavored.
195
My understanding is that it is an "EVH-in-a-box" type pedal. The Wampler website includes an endorsement from EVH"s former tech. His so-called "brown sound" was achieved in part with a modded Super Lead. But regardless of what the pedal was intended for, it didn't achieve a whole lot for me that was pleasing.
I'm really looking at the Charlie Brown for a less gainy JTM45 type tone. This experience kind of soured me on Wampler.
41034
even trying to do early EVH, I gotta say the best way to do that is with a superlead on a variac and a loadbox through a big crown power amp plus effects.... its not that big a deal, I've done it sans-variac back when I played superleads all the time, definitely a cool tone
41034
I don't know about the Charlie brown, but having owned a lot of old marshalls I really can say the catalinbread DLS in ANY version gets a fender blackface type amp pretty close to plexi turf.... the JTM45 isn't much less gainy than a 50 watt plexi, its just not voiced the same, so the 50 watter seems to break up faster on the volume knob due to the split cathodes and the larger value bright caps with no adjustment of the volume knob tapers... it actually has more headroom because of the substantially increased output power and no rectifier sag.... put a JTM45 next to a black flag 50 watter and be amazed and how much faster the 45 breaks up... the metal face amps are another story because around 70 they reduced the negative feedback... the difference you're thinking of is more of a voicing thing
195
It's really an overdrive. Or is it?
Sure you can use it as a clean boost, and it sounds great and transparent. But give it just a bit of gain and it produces a really full, compressed sounding tone that's not quite overdrive, but not quite clean. I have two overdrives and two distortions, but this little pedal surprised me. Now I'm using it as much as any of the other drives. It also does a fantastic job of goosing the overdrive and distortion pedals. Xotic is killing it with some awesome products!
195
Keeping it simple
Sounds great, three easy knobs. I simplified from a feature-laden digital delay. I miss the tap tempo. but I don't miss all the futzing with knobs to get the sound I want. Stupid easy to use and sounds great. A relatively short delay time and regen setting with the modulation adds a wonderfully subtle shimmer to chords and arpeggios. Always on.
