NAMM 2018

NAMM 2018 is finished and there is ton of new stuff that is out there. There is still a load of stuff that is yet to be released. Digitech was a big hold out this year. They didn't show us anything new, but they have promised much more stuff later this year. Several other companies showed some pretty exciting working prototypes, so we still have a lot to look forward to in 2018.

There is so much stuff out there that I can't wait to dive into. Milkman came out with a pedal based amp as did Victory. Vox expanded their MV series to include a 150 watt head. Line6 gave the HX multi effect pedal. There are more new guitars from major bands than I know what to do with. Marshall showed us the Origin series. I'm really looking forward to taking a much closer look at a lot of the stuff that has been announced as well as the stuff the I just mentioned.


NAMM is a super busy time, and I've been trying to cover most of the stuff that I've found interesting, but if there is something that you've seen from NAMM and I haven't mentioned it, then let me know in the comments. I'll try to check it out and be sure to let you know what I think.

Hands On Review: Fender Mustang GT Modeling Amp

Recently I was able to sit down with not just one, but all three model of the Fender Mustang GT. There is a lot of information out there about these amps. Some rave about the features (and there are some innovated and ambitious features in these amps). Others complain about performance. The best way to navigate all the information out there is to spend enough time to get to know these new amps form Fender. That's exactly what I did. Here's what I've found:

Fender Does Fender Well

Fenders Modeling amps have always done their clean tone the best. This may be because they know their particular tone better than anyone, or maybe they just aren't that good at doing models of other amps... The Basic 65 and Bassman models are my favorite. Now, this is across all version of the amp. The clean tones are standout, but that is partly due to the fact that the dirty channels don't really hold up. Marshall type tones aren't hitting mark here. Vox tones don't come across convincing either. Although the worst offender here is the metal sounds. The preset isn't impressive, but changing the setting, at least in my experience, just made things worse. Muddy tones and tons of mush are found in the metal tones. This amps doesn't djent (not that I'm an expert here).

Tech Troubles

I was prepared to check out the app that accompanies this amp, and I did sort of. As I was getting everything set up, I connected my phone to the amp via bluetooth... for a few minute until I lost my connection. I did not reestablish the connection after that. It wasn't for lack of trying. It did force me to get to know the physical controls on the amp. Lets be honest, if you are at a live show, you aren't relying on bluetooth to do on the fly changes. The controls are cleaned up from the previous model. However, that's not always the most convenient when making fast changes in the middle of a set. The large wheel is pretty integral to making any changes. You have to make selections by rotating the knob and then pressing it. This is not always the easies thing to do. I'm sure you can get used to this, but I found my self scrolling past my intended selection and rotating the knob when trying to push it. I will say that the controls are rather easy to get the hang of, but quick and reliable changes aren't easiest thing to do with this set up.

Pecking Order

How does this amp compare to other amps. Well, put this next to other fender amps and you'll find it wanting. Next to a Blues Jr., this amp doesn't stand up well. Even more so with a Princeton. Typical with solid state amps, there seems to be a cap to how loud the amp gets. There is an organic volume level and when you pass that the amp just can't handle it. Instead of tube break-up, these amps react harshly to high volume applications. Comparing the GT next a BOSS Katana is where it really get interesting. These amp are very comparable in price, however they function is a different way. The Mustang and Katana both start in the mid $200 range, but they have different strengths. The Mustang has decent cleans and can mock many of its high dollar relative. The Katana is a little sterile on some clean settings. Other than that, the Katana takes the cake. The higher gain models of the Mustang do not have the convincing openness of the cleans. The Katana shines in the higher gain settings. The Katana also handles effect in the front of the amp better than the Mustang. Which brings up a another point... The effects in the Mustang are a little less than convincing. The list of overdrives is a little thin as well. Just a reminder, the Katana has access to 55 effects... The Mustang doesn't stand up very well to many other amps...

Conclusion

I really wanted to like these amps. Fender took their time coming to market with their latest modeling amps. It looked like Fender had everything wrapped up, but the most important part of the amp is performance. No matter the feature set, at the end of the day, you want the amp to sound good. The more features you add, the more opportunity you have to get it wrong. We want an amp that does everything, and it's tempting to think that "Now they've done it", but they haven't yet. Specifically, the Fender Mustang GT hasn't.

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Ugly Guitar Truth About Pedal Board Amps

Diffidently not a new thing, but a huge trend this year at NAMM, the pedal board amp has seen a huge rise in popularity among manufactures. Seymour Duncan, among others, have put forth product that are designed to basically take the place of the power section of your amp. Vox has put out a tiny amp head that would be easy enough to mount on a board. Hotone has designed a 20 watt head that is to be paired with their amp model pedals to create a varity of tones. A conglomerit of boutique amp called Boutique Amps, have devised a system of enterchangable preamp circuits to recreate a range of... boutique amps. What does all of this have in common? Not very much, I kind of went off the rails there a little bit. What I want to talk about is that we are seeing tiny little power amps flood the market and what that fact means for the world of guitar players. Shall we?

First Things First

Guitar player hate change, or we love it depending on who you ask. I can't wait to see what pedal or piece of kit come out next. Then I plug my Telecaster directly into a Vox AC15... Loopers, Delays, pretty much everything Strymon does, has facilitated progression in the guitarist spectrum. However, we still love playing amps that were designed in the 1950s with antiquated technology. We can plug a pedal into a Blues Jr. to make it sounds like a space ship taking off and then talk about the richness and warmth that you value from that amp (to make space noises with).

Then Something Happens




Something that the average guitarist has is pedals. Collect a few of those, and you get a pedal board. The most common pedals, or the ones that seem to pile up, are drive pedals. The ones that give you a boost or gain can really help your amp be all that it can be. In fact, so pedals emulate completely different amps. Pedals like the 30 Something, or Golden Plexi practically tell you, "This is a Vox sound," or "This pedal sounds like a Marshall." So if your pedal sounds like an amp, what is your amp doing.


What Are We Doing?


On my board there are several pedal that handle Gain, EQ, Reverb... so I set my amp clean, flat and kill any reverb. If I set my amp to a nice tone (not hard) I will be finding it difficult to find a application other than simple signal processing for my pedals. However, set my amp flat, and I can use my pedals to create a wider range or tones leaning more heavily on the pedals to come up with the distinct sounds. What I'm saying is: you can have a range of great sounds from a particular amp, but they are going to sound like that amp, but a flat (pedal friendly) power section can give you more room to let you pedals shine through.


Conclusion


I meant to talk about amps like the one Seymour Duncan are putting out, but looks like I've just chased my tail for 500 words. Long story... still long actually... pedals are covering a multitude of tasks. Some of those tasks have long been associated with guitar amplifiers. As we are doing more signal processing before the amp, we are asking less of the actual amp. Thus, we are seeing amps that compliment this by having few features and simply push our tone into a speaker. I like this, and at the same time, I don't really like this.

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Ugly Guitar Truth: Marsall Code vs Boss Katana

Recently I was able to check out two of the most promising budget/modeling combo amps released in 2016. The BOSS Katana (100 watt combo) and the Marshall CODE (50 watt combo). Both of these amps have been backordered and hard to come by via the online stores practically ever since their respective releases. (The Marshall CODE, as of this writing, is still backordered) So when I was able to sit down and meet these amps in person, I was very excited. I had been cautiously excited about these two from the moment I saw there specs. I was eager to find out if they would exceed my expectations, or succumb to the fate of most other modeling combos. Let's find out.






The Marshall CODE

I was very surprised by the size of it. It was so tiny. I had to reassure myself that I was actually playing the 50 version and not the 25 watt 1x10. I was, and boy could I tell. It was loud! I had a fear that it would sound boxy, it didn't. The small frame is very misleading in the best way possible. The next thing I noticed was the controls. I should say, the lock there of. I've seen plenty of pictures and I knew the specs, but nothing really prepared me for the simplicity of the layout. I recalled using a Marshall AVT 150 head with it's 24 knobs. I absolutely loved this about the CODE. It is very easy to tweak all the things that matter and there isn't any messing around with menus unless you absolutely have to. Although, if you do want to fiddle with presets, you (kind of) have to download the app. These amps do suffer from what all modeling amps suffer from, endless menus. From just a little poking around I was lost and then greeted with ear-blistering feedback. I must have pushed the wrong button. There are 8 of them, and each one made me feel dumber than the last. But that's why Mashall made these amp Bluetooth ready. Now we have a pretty little app to navigate instead of fidgeting
with all those buttons.

So I was somewhat limited to the preset to my review, and I am aware that the "presets always suck", but then there's the Marshall CODE. The preset are actually pretty good. They also span a good range. They aren't just: Metal, Nu-Metal, Grind Core, Heavy Metal, Metal-Metal.. and so on. Everything from cleans to crunch, and yes, even metal where offered up and surprisingly believable. Understand I come from the dark ages where modeling amps just gave you a range of eww to yuck. You desperately tried to clean up to tone enough to keep it from becoming mushy and falling out of the mix. But this amp would have no problem with that. It has plenty of presence, and it holds its bottom end quite well. The single most impressive thing, to me anyway, is the freaking cab simulator. I might as well hang up my gear review career (bahaha career... anyways) because I never saw the day I'd actually like a cab sim, but this one works. It's not just different colored blanket over the speaker. I don't know what wizard they have at Marshall casting these spells, but these thing made this tiny little amp sound like it came from my Marshall 1960 cab. Huge caveat: the amp most diffidently has an optimal listen position. Please don't think that you can fill a room with this amp like  you could with a 4x12, but listening from the right spot, you absolute get the feeling that you are playing through more than one speaker. Guys, I kid you not, after I played this amp I didn't know who I was any more. I had a full existential crisis. It got weird. Things that I believed were falling down all around me. Who was I? Why was I there? And then I remembered that I was guitarist and I was here to rock! On to the Katana

The BOSS Katana

Still a little shaken from playing the Marshall CODE I started on the BOSS Katana. For a hundred watts, this amp is on the small side. It would win in a bar fight against the Marshall 50 watt CODE, but it'd be beat up pretty good. (assuming the Mashall 100 watt 2x12 CODE doesn't show up... that guy... ptsh) The Katana rocks a 12" speaker and cute little kickstand. Even on the .5 watt mode this amp was plenty loud for the room. However, I didn't want to listen to an amp whisper at me, so I turned it up to the 50 watt setting and adjusted everything to my liking. Including the power mode selector, the Katana had a dozen knobs. My heart sank. I loved being presented with the Marshall's simple-six, but BOSS was smart and organized them in way that even made sense to me. In addition, I found the BOSS, predictably, more flexible (by hand) than the Marshall. changing things like effects on the fly were much simpler with the BOSS. However, the real magic in the amp is in the flexibility and maneuverability of the Tone Studio editor. It's basically like unlocking the cheat codes to a video game. There is so much more if you really want to crack into it.

The greatest strength of this amp is the Amp Type selector. There are only four modes (excluding the acoustic mode) but every one of them is usable. In fact, actually rather stellar. Each one sounds natural and clear. Unlike other amps that just heap mud on top of your tone as you travel gainy to gainier amp settings (looking at you line6). BOSS has done a very smart job of making each type distinct and nuanced. The Lead setting isn't Crunch but louder, The Brown setting isn't lead but... brown-er? Anyways, each setting is lovely. You can hear the years of experience in this amp. The Clean and Crunch setting borrow form Roland's Blues Cube, and the Brown setting is the little brother of the WAZA Craft amps. Not having any experience with the included software, I can't speak to its usability, however it looks like you have the flexibility to nail a huge range of tones. These are lovely little amps that seriously rocks. However, they do lack the mobile app interface. Something I, until recently, assumed they had (woops). Besides that huge, glaring misstep, this amp is a homerun. I was much more excited than I had any right to be for this amplifier, and I was not disappointed.

But this was a verses review...

Conclusion

I'd almost have to pro/con this one out. Marshall absolutely killed everything. BOSS put together something that was everything I didn't know I wanted. Marshall has a deeper set of parameters. The BOSS does everything very well, and has some features that the Marshall doesn't (line in/out). That is kind of unheard of in amp in this range. I think BOSS thought that people are still going to want to run effects into their amp and having that option helps a ton. That way you don't run all your outboard effect through that digital modification. That's smart. Marshall is basically a do it all box that could possible have software updates making it virtually limitless... kind of scary... in a good way.

So I played these amps back to back. I had no idea which was better when I was done. I didn't know which one I'd choose when I started writing this (full disclosure: I was leaning BOSS). But after having to write about the Marshall and really process all that information again, it is really close. Real talk, it would depend on the situation and your preference. For me? I'm going with the Marshall.

Why?

• Super Flexible
• Amazing Amp Sims
• App integration w/Bluetooth
• 5-At-Once Effects

p.s.


I know this thing is super long and thank you for reading this far, but let me know if you guys like the whole "verses" thing or if you like your review to be more standalone. The situation kinda presented its self in a head to head way, so that's what I wrote. Anywho... Thanks!

Ugly Guitar Truth: Marshall CODE Digital Modeling Amps

Marshall is one of the biggest name in guitar amplifiers. They are preferred by professional around the world. JCM 800 is so iconic among guitarist that without it, we wouldn't have the same music that we enjoy today. Punk and grunge music almost exclusively used these amps, so its no wonder that the Marshall name has garnered a lot of weight with the guitar playing public. Almost as strong as Marshall's legacy of tone is the disdain that guitarist have for modeling digital amps. It is not a secret that guitarist love there old school gear. The more vintage something is, the more a guitarist wants it. Guitars from the 50's and 60's are some of the most coveted pieces of kit one could want. And yet, every time a new product comes out, we get excited to see if it stands up to the standards we have set. Does the Marshall CODE line of amps uphold the standards set by its tubey-big brothers? It's about to get ugly...

It's Expansive

So, the first thing you notice about these amps is that the list of features is long. 14 preamp models, 4 power amps, 8 speaker cab models, 24 fx (5 at-a-time), Bluetooth integration and USB connectivity top the list. Looking at the list of models, it looks like a list of classic Marshall amps. Plexi, Silver Jubilee, JCM800 make it seem worth it alone. Not to mention you can have your pick of 8 speaker sims to craft your model. So there are options. If that sounds like a lot, it's because it is. But don't worry, connecting a mobile device with help sort through the huge list of options and help visualize your settings. That's really what is setting this new generation of modeling amp apart. The fact that you can connect your tablet or phone with your amp and make real time changes is a game changer. Of course your have to make good sounds with those settings...

The Hardware Is Getting Overlooked

With an overwhelming list of features and a whole lot of new tech under the hood, the CODE amps come a long way from the dark ages of modeling amplifiers. Or have they? There is just some things that you can't do with your fancy 1s and 0s. The speakers and amps in these type amps have to be flexible. The have to sound like dark, deep amp one second and then a bright, middy amp the next. There is a classic problem with this that gets crowded out by all these features. You are physically limited by the hardware (speaker, amp, enclosure). You can simulate the affect that a 4x12 has on a sound wave, but you can make a single speaker sound like a 4x12 cab. If you could produce a solid state amp that replicated a Silver Jubilee faithfully, then you can retire and enjoy all of the money that guitarist will throw at you, but you are limited. Has Marshall stunted their amp with sub performing  hardware? No, but they asking a great deal from their hardware. No doubt Marshall chose the amp/speaker combo to best suit their need, but lets be real. The best digital model is only as good as the analog parts it's put through.

Just Look At It

So, if I'm being honest. This is, in my opinion, the best looking modeling amp. Classic black on black with the Marshall script logo is super solid. I would be proud to have this on stage behind me on looks alone. The controls have a classic Marshall look as well. There is one aspect of this amp that is a bit of an eyesore though. The app and not the easiest to navigate and easily the weakest link in it's chain. Line6 probably saw the CODE app and then poured a lot more assets into the app design.

Conclusion


The CODE line was actually one of the earliest lines to include Bluetooth and app integration and control. Marshall was on the forefront of the next generation of modeling amplifiers. For being the front runners, Marshall got a lot thing right. Others have been playing catch up (*cough Line6 cough*) and others have put out very comparable offerings (Black Star and BOSS). We readily await other entries into the next generation of modeling amps (VOX and Fender). There is a lot to praise on these amp such as price, size, features, and power. But it's important to remember that, despite the fact that is both new and shiny (two things that excite all guitarist), it has limits. Yes, we can push a button that says PLEXI, but what we receive is a digital approximation of what that sounds like. We will get close, and that's about it.

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Boss Waza Craft Amp Head

New at NAMM. The guys at Roland\/Boss have announced the new Waza amp head. Boasting 150 watts of power and 'Ultimate high-gain, modded sounds'. So Boss have had a checkered past with it's amps. They've never really have a high successful amp line. The Roland cube is probably the closest they've come, but that is mostly due to the beginner pricing and the laundry list of features. Is this poised to be the amp that sends Boss and Waza into the into the respected ranks of prestigious amp makers? Well...

It's Solid State

This is kind of a head scratcher, but only from the outside. Yes, most amps that tout high end specs are tube driven. Most pro and active musicians own and use tube amps. There have been some very good solid state amps. Oddly, most of them are no longer in production or live on with a lot of never-really-bypassable effect built in. Boss has never had a large production tube amplifier to my knowledge. The Jazz Chorus amp and the Cube series are solid state. The Blues Cube amp is priced at the same price as a Fender Blues Jr and a Vox AC15, but lacks the authenticity to warrant the price. Does The Waza head do the same. Do they want to appeal to the high-gain, boutique amp users? It appears so, but they have doubled down on the side of the debate that most agree is long over...

It's Overpriced

If you remember when Waza first came out, then you remember that there were three original pedals. The BD-2 DM-something and the SD-1. The DS-1 and BD-2 were both priced at $150... that is a $50 pedal (the SD-1) for three times the price! Why? Who knows... I had no idea what Waza was. Keeley was already the kinda of overcharging for Boss gear. In fact you could probably get a modded Keeley pedal for less than what Boss wanted for the Waza stuff. I, and probably some other people, have to somewhat of a stigma about Waza products. Waza means overpriced. Whats the price tag hanging on this mysterious head? $2900. Nearly three grand for a solid state head. That's Marshall Plexi or Orange Thunderverb 200 (or two of any of Fenders flagship heads) money...

It's Unfinished

Yeah, do you remember the Randall head that had modular tone decks that allowed you to change the pre-amp tones. Evidently Roland/Boss/Waza doesn't either, because that is what they've done with this amp. The amp contains a internal section that hold tone 'capsules'. Except, there is only currently two options with space in the head for a third. This is underwhelming, although I'm glad that it is internal with a external switch.

Conclusion

This amp is the most exciting offering so for from Boss this NAMM. I like what I've heard from Boss' promotional video. But when reading the details, I get a sense that this amp is just another offering from Boss that misses the mark.

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