#1 · Oct 22, 2010 20:07 UTC
Ok, I got the Tweaker combo a couple days ago. Cheap--$459 for a "blem" from zzounds, no tax, free shipping. I was a little concerned about the "blem" aspect. Turns out, it was mainly the box, which was beat all to hell. However, the amp is pristine, not a mark on it. So for those of you wondering about blems from zzounds, so far I'm batting 1000.
Visually it's sweet. You've all seen it. Clean and tight looking. The controls are on top, which is not ideal for our studio, but good enough. Interesting when I looked inside, the whole chassis sits sideways, so the tubes point towards the speaker. There's a grill that radiates heat out of the top. As my buddy said " a perfect place to spill beer or drop some picks." Not an ideal design, but easily remedied by keeping beer and picks off the amp top.
Soundwise, at low volume it kills. So many great sounds. The character switch is fairly subtle at low volumes, but it's there. This amp is ideal for playing in your bedroom. Tons of great tones at a whisper.
At medium to loud volumes, when you dime the gain on the clean channel , the character switch really pops. You get the sound of a mildly overdriven Fender, or AC30. When people say "chime" and "sparkle", yeah, that sound. I'm not 100% on the British setting, this is really more like a "more" switch than anything else. Just more of everything. Or in any case I don't know which Brit amp it's supposed to be--apparently one with some low mids that's kind of loud. The AC sound is sterling though, and it's becoming my favorite setting on the amp.
Switch to the "hot" setting and you get some gnarly gain. No heavy, but crunchy and mean. Between the master volume and the gain setting, there is a lot of usable tone. I like the gain somewhere near the middle on the hot setting, with the master up at about halfway. Note that this is in a room with a live drummer, so it's pretty loud. I love this sound, and I can get it a little cleaner by backing off the guitar volume, but I agree with a lot of reviews I've read... it would be awesome to footswitch this switch. Because it really doesn't jump that much in volume when you go from clean to hot, but the gain just punches way up. Dimed gain on the clean channel is still somewhat clean--notes are distinguishable, chords ring, etc. Dimed on the hot channel is too much to just play around with. At somewhere around 3 o'clock all settings work great.
But, since said footswitch doesn't exist, I ran my Satchurator in front of the amp. Gain about halfway up, tone about 9 0'clock, master below halfway seemed to give me a very balanced tone when I switched it in. Note that I like my clean sounds pretty bright, and my distortion sounds less so, so rolling back the tone on the Satchurator gives me a less bright distorted sound than the clean tone.
Overall, tweaking the master and gain knobs I was able to sit well with drums and bass. No problems with volume, you probably need two watts with a speaker as efficient as the G12H30 to keep up...
So here's what it needs... reverb/delay. The whole thing is very dry sounding. Even drier than my Sovtek sounds, for some reason. Not sure why. A reverb pedal is next on my list, I need something in the loop to give it a little space. Also, I need a delay for it, delay has become a part of my playing and my memory boy deluxe is wired into the loop on the sansamp/sovtek combo, with cable conduits, etc, so it was not simple to switch it out for this amp. So I'm looking for another delay pedal and a reverb to throw in the loop.
As far as the sound, I've noticed that a lot of people talk about how dark this combo is. That was definitely something I noticed on the one I demoed at GC, but mine, not so much. It was bright, not dark. Could be that the speaker needs a few hours of break-in time. I remember running the tones at noon-3-3 at GC, and with my own amp, I ran them all at noon. So definitely more trebly and midrangy than at Guitar Center.
Not a lot of bottom end. My comparison is the SpiderValve, which would just flatten this amp in a second. It's got probably 10db more in low end at any setting, maybe more. Even the Sovtek, which is more midrangy and low-midrangy, has more low end. Again, this could be a speaker break-in issue too, but at this point, this is an amp that cuts through but doesn't push out much beef.
Anyway, there is my verdict after a few days at home and one night of hard jamming. Great little amp, takes pedals well, great range of cleans, not much low end, needs some verb. Great value, well worth it. Finally getting rid of my Classic 30.
Visually it's sweet. You've all seen it. Clean and tight looking. The controls are on top, which is not ideal for our studio, but good enough. Interesting when I looked inside, the whole chassis sits sideways, so the tubes point towards the speaker. There's a grill that radiates heat out of the top. As my buddy said " a perfect place to spill beer or drop some picks." Not an ideal design, but easily remedied by keeping beer and picks off the amp top.
Soundwise, at low volume it kills. So many great sounds. The character switch is fairly subtle at low volumes, but it's there. This amp is ideal for playing in your bedroom. Tons of great tones at a whisper.
At medium to loud volumes, when you dime the gain on the clean channel , the character switch really pops. You get the sound of a mildly overdriven Fender, or AC30. When people say "chime" and "sparkle", yeah, that sound. I'm not 100% on the British setting, this is really more like a "more" switch than anything else. Just more of everything. Or in any case I don't know which Brit amp it's supposed to be--apparently one with some low mids that's kind of loud. The AC sound is sterling though, and it's becoming my favorite setting on the amp.
Switch to the "hot" setting and you get some gnarly gain. No heavy, but crunchy and mean. Between the master volume and the gain setting, there is a lot of usable tone. I like the gain somewhere near the middle on the hot setting, with the master up at about halfway. Note that this is in a room with a live drummer, so it's pretty loud. I love this sound, and I can get it a little cleaner by backing off the guitar volume, but I agree with a lot of reviews I've read... it would be awesome to footswitch this switch. Because it really doesn't jump that much in volume when you go from clean to hot, but the gain just punches way up. Dimed gain on the clean channel is still somewhat clean--notes are distinguishable, chords ring, etc. Dimed on the hot channel is too much to just play around with. At somewhere around 3 o'clock all settings work great.
But, since said footswitch doesn't exist, I ran my Satchurator in front of the amp. Gain about halfway up, tone about 9 0'clock, master below halfway seemed to give me a very balanced tone when I switched it in. Note that I like my clean sounds pretty bright, and my distortion sounds less so, so rolling back the tone on the Satchurator gives me a less bright distorted sound than the clean tone.
Overall, tweaking the master and gain knobs I was able to sit well with drums and bass. No problems with volume, you probably need two watts with a speaker as efficient as the G12H30 to keep up...
So here's what it needs... reverb/delay. The whole thing is very dry sounding. Even drier than my Sovtek sounds, for some reason. Not sure why. A reverb pedal is next on my list, I need something in the loop to give it a little space. Also, I need a delay for it, delay has become a part of my playing and my memory boy deluxe is wired into the loop on the sansamp/sovtek combo, with cable conduits, etc, so it was not simple to switch it out for this amp. So I'm looking for another delay pedal and a reverb to throw in the loop.
As far as the sound, I've noticed that a lot of people talk about how dark this combo is. That was definitely something I noticed on the one I demoed at GC, but mine, not so much. It was bright, not dark. Could be that the speaker needs a few hours of break-in time. I remember running the tones at noon-3-3 at GC, and with my own amp, I ran them all at noon. So definitely more trebly and midrangy than at Guitar Center.
Not a lot of bottom end. My comparison is the SpiderValve, which would just flatten this amp in a second. It's got probably 10db more in low end at any setting, maybe more. Even the Sovtek, which is more midrangy and low-midrangy, has more low end. Again, this could be a speaker break-in issue too, but at this point, this is an amp that cuts through but doesn't push out much beef.
Anyway, there is my verdict after a few days at home and one night of hard jamming. Great little amp, takes pedals well, great range of cleans, not much low end, needs some verb. Great value, well worth it. Finally getting rid of my Classic 30.
