mhorse
Well-known member
Today I payed Pete a visit at his store to check out some Soldano's he had in stock... and some Music Mans of course!
When I got there he had SLO, Lucky 13 2x12 50w and Astroverb 2x12 all lined up for me to compare side by side (note: that snake skin looks gorgeous on the SLO!)
No question they all sounded really good: SLO is a gain monster, Lucky 13 is less gainy, but still has some serious balls-to-the-wall sounds. Both cleans are great too. But Astroverb was my main object of interest (or is it subject? someone who's native speaker please correct me).
In short, it bites, really really bites. It's doesn't have that stereotypical hight-gain "Recto" sound, but it has pretty aggresive chrunch: preamp at 11 (yes it goes to 11!), EQ almost flat with some extra mids, presence and reverb at around 2, master volume to taste.
The smaller 1x12 version sounded a little different, but kinda hard to describe. As Pete put it, it had better overdrive characteristics (and a less bottom end). Some unknown DOD overdrive pedal that we tried in front of it added some fuzz to the sound, but didn't quite push the amp where I wanted it go, so I'm guessing it was just a wrong pedal for that amp. Astroverb also responded very differently to different pickups: Axis pickups drove it nice and hard while Silo was obviously too weak. SUB pickups were ok.
Now the catch: clean sound. I was able to get nice clean with preamp just under 2, and presence around 5.... but I had to crank master all the way to 11 to hear it! It doesn't do clean at volume levels above bedroom :-( Starts to overdrive very early...
So that's where I'm torn: if overdrive channel was all I was looking for, I would have probably sold my Mesa DC-5 and bought the Astro instead. But with Mesa I get both good high-gain channel and good clean channel. I was thiniking maybe to get and A/B switch and just run staright into the board for clean? Does anybody do that? Should I sell Mesa and loose clean channel?
And in the end I got to try Pete's new Pet... One amazing guitar..... Some day when I get my masters and ph.d. and all, I'll buy myself one...
P.S. Pete, thank you very much! It was worth 1 hour drive each way...
When I got there he had SLO, Lucky 13 2x12 50w and Astroverb 2x12 all lined up for me to compare side by side (note: that snake skin looks gorgeous on the SLO!)
No question they all sounded really good: SLO is a gain monster, Lucky 13 is less gainy, but still has some serious balls-to-the-wall sounds. Both cleans are great too. But Astroverb was my main object of interest (or is it subject? someone who's native speaker please correct me).
In short, it bites, really really bites. It's doesn't have that stereotypical hight-gain "Recto" sound, but it has pretty aggresive chrunch: preamp at 11 (yes it goes to 11!), EQ almost flat with some extra mids, presence and reverb at around 2, master volume to taste.
The smaller 1x12 version sounded a little different, but kinda hard to describe. As Pete put it, it had better overdrive characteristics (and a less bottom end). Some unknown DOD overdrive pedal that we tried in front of it added some fuzz to the sound, but didn't quite push the amp where I wanted it go, so I'm guessing it was just a wrong pedal for that amp. Astroverb also responded very differently to different pickups: Axis pickups drove it nice and hard while Silo was obviously too weak. SUB pickups were ok.
Now the catch: clean sound. I was able to get nice clean with preamp just under 2, and presence around 5.... but I had to crank master all the way to 11 to hear it! It doesn't do clean at volume levels above bedroom :-( Starts to overdrive very early...
So that's where I'm torn: if overdrive channel was all I was looking for, I would have probably sold my Mesa DC-5 and bought the Astro instead. But with Mesa I get both good high-gain channel and good clean channel. I was thiniking maybe to get and A/B switch and just run staright into the board for clean? Does anybody do that? Should I sell Mesa and loose clean channel?
And in the end I got to try Pete's new Pet... One amazing guitar..... Some day when I get my masters and ph.d. and all, I'll buy myself one...
P.S. Pete, thank you very much! It was worth 1 hour drive each way...
