mini colossal in the house!
first impression:
very cool.
fun to play.
took me at least 2 hours of f*kin with it, to figure out where the sweet spots are, but they are there..
the 'sponge' thing, is kinda like a master, but not really...
it's not like the typical master that works on the PREAMP...
it's like it works on the power output.....
with the sponge down, and the vol dimed, it has amazing corpulent saturated distortion, that sounds like it's all coming from the el84.
no pedals required, you have to dime the tone knob, to get any clarity....
i didn't try it at full volume, because it's loud as hell!
LOL
but i did run it at about the volume i would record and mic with, and it has a pretty good handle on the high gain side of things....
with a good eq in front of the amp, i think you could dial in a more modern mid-scooped sound very easily, with the way this thing is gained.
it isn't a modern grind, but it is very usable.
-with no tone stack, only a 'tone' knob, you can't really tweak it to sound anything other than, the way it sounds.
with my rig, it sounded really good!
when i back the vol down to high noon, get the sponge dialed in just right, i can accurately match the crunchy mid-high gain sounds i use on my boogie rig, and push the front end with my Barber tone press and/or Barber Direct drive pedal.....with the pedals, it kicks ***.
i was amazed..... i get better note articulation with the Mini, than i do the boogie (at low volume, i mean....... everything changes, as you add pure volume, and the purpose of getting the Mini, was to be able to do this at low volume)
my idea behind getting this is, to get something that i can push the power section on, to then tweak with my pedals and effects, to get the same touch sensitivity effect i get on my 'big rig' running at volume.
yes, i could do that with an attenuator and possibly a cab sim in line (like a Palmer PDI-09), but this amp is already designed to do this on it's own...
the effects loop, does suck tone. i have a DG-Stomp, and using the same settings as i have dialed in with my big rig, it just didn't work at all.
i had to program in much weaker effects settings, bring the in/out level on the back panel down, but then raise the 'volume' of the effects patches higher than the input from the effects loop, to get it to match the amp level and not tone suck so much...
the secret to the good spanky cleans (works great with single coils, haven't tried a full bore humbucker on clean yet) , is to have the sponge wide open, and then you get whatever volume you get, dialing up the 'volume' knob.... and to a point, it's spanky clean, not very loud, but if you like that 'barely breaking up' clean, where it's just starting to get the good grit (think pushing a Champ)...
it's perfect for that.
the 8" speaker, well, it's loud!
it's louder than my Roland 1x12 closed back cab, with a 25 watt celestion greenback..
but of course, it SOUNDS like a 8" speaker, and it's much more pleasing and 'real' sounding, when i speaker out to the celestion cabinet.
but possibly, for close micing, it might sound really good (worked for jimmy page!)... i still have to figure this one out, with some recording experience....
it has 2 actual speaker outs, and the internal 8" speaker (made by weber, i believe) isn't hard wired, so i can actually unplug it, and just run the external speaker.
it has multiple ohm settings too, so that it's easy to mix and match speaker loads.
i found that, if i left both speakers plugged in, on the 8ohm setting, and covered the FRONT of the mini colossal with some foam (to just block off the front sound of the speaker) that the volume blended perfectly with the Roland closed back cab, and what was coming off the back of the mini colossal, and that actually sounded quite good!~
but the real tone is found with the external cabinet.
the tone knob, is more like a slight treble boost in high gain, and a high treble roll off in clean...
works quite well. it's limited, but voiced just right for what it is.
the tremelo circuit, sounds really clean and transparent, and is really nice set to barely there, and at any pulse rate. i think it was much smarter to put in something like the tremelo, versus a crappy reverb, because face it, reverb out of a 8" speaker, is going to sound pretty weak on a guitar amp...
and it will sound better to add reverb at mix down anyway....
the trem, on the other hand, is intergral in the amp circuit, and it sounds optimized for whatever the preamp is in this thing....
the overall sound of course, isn't nearly as 3D as, say, my mesa mark2b head, but i bought this specifically to use as a 'RECORDING' amp, and i haven't gotten to the XLR out with the mic sim/cab sim yet...
that's where the real test is......
i'll do some recording this weekend, and post some clips.
first impression:
very cool.
fun to play.
took me at least 2 hours of f*kin with it, to figure out where the sweet spots are, but they are there..
the 'sponge' thing, is kinda like a master, but not really...
it's not like the typical master that works on the PREAMP...
it's like it works on the power output.....
with the sponge down, and the vol dimed, it has amazing corpulent saturated distortion, that sounds like it's all coming from the el84.
no pedals required, you have to dime the tone knob, to get any clarity....
i didn't try it at full volume, because it's loud as hell!
LOL
but i did run it at about the volume i would record and mic with, and it has a pretty good handle on the high gain side of things....
with a good eq in front of the amp, i think you could dial in a more modern mid-scooped sound very easily, with the way this thing is gained.
it isn't a modern grind, but it is very usable.
-with no tone stack, only a 'tone' knob, you can't really tweak it to sound anything other than, the way it sounds.
with my rig, it sounded really good!
when i back the vol down to high noon, get the sponge dialed in just right, i can accurately match the crunchy mid-high gain sounds i use on my boogie rig, and push the front end with my Barber tone press and/or Barber Direct drive pedal.....with the pedals, it kicks ***.
i was amazed..... i get better note articulation with the Mini, than i do the boogie (at low volume, i mean....... everything changes, as you add pure volume, and the purpose of getting the Mini, was to be able to do this at low volume)
my idea behind getting this is, to get something that i can push the power section on, to then tweak with my pedals and effects, to get the same touch sensitivity effect i get on my 'big rig' running at volume.
yes, i could do that with an attenuator and possibly a cab sim in line (like a Palmer PDI-09), but this amp is already designed to do this on it's own...
the effects loop, does suck tone. i have a DG-Stomp, and using the same settings as i have dialed in with my big rig, it just didn't work at all.
i had to program in much weaker effects settings, bring the in/out level on the back panel down, but then raise the 'volume' of the effects patches higher than the input from the effects loop, to get it to match the amp level and not tone suck so much...
the secret to the good spanky cleans (works great with single coils, haven't tried a full bore humbucker on clean yet) , is to have the sponge wide open, and then you get whatever volume you get, dialing up the 'volume' knob.... and to a point, it's spanky clean, not very loud, but if you like that 'barely breaking up' clean, where it's just starting to get the good grit (think pushing a Champ)...
it's perfect for that.
the 8" speaker, well, it's loud!
it's louder than my Roland 1x12 closed back cab, with a 25 watt celestion greenback..
but of course, it SOUNDS like a 8" speaker, and it's much more pleasing and 'real' sounding, when i speaker out to the celestion cabinet.
but possibly, for close micing, it might sound really good (worked for jimmy page!)... i still have to figure this one out, with some recording experience....
it has 2 actual speaker outs, and the internal 8" speaker (made by weber, i believe) isn't hard wired, so i can actually unplug it, and just run the external speaker.
it has multiple ohm settings too, so that it's easy to mix and match speaker loads.
i found that, if i left both speakers plugged in, on the 8ohm setting, and covered the FRONT of the mini colossal with some foam (to just block off the front sound of the speaker) that the volume blended perfectly with the Roland closed back cab, and what was coming off the back of the mini colossal, and that actually sounded quite good!~
but the real tone is found with the external cabinet.
the tone knob, is more like a slight treble boost in high gain, and a high treble roll off in clean...
works quite well. it's limited, but voiced just right for what it is.
the tremelo circuit, sounds really clean and transparent, and is really nice set to barely there, and at any pulse rate. i think it was much smarter to put in something like the tremelo, versus a crappy reverb, because face it, reverb out of a 8" speaker, is going to sound pretty weak on a guitar amp...
and it will sound better to add reverb at mix down anyway....
the trem, on the other hand, is intergral in the amp circuit, and it sounds optimized for whatever the preamp is in this thing....
the overall sound of course, isn't nearly as 3D as, say, my mesa mark2b head, but i bought this specifically to use as a 'RECORDING' amp, and i haven't gotten to the XLR out with the mic sim/cab sim yet...
that's where the real test is......
i'll do some recording this weekend, and post some clips.
