MESA BOOGIE TRANSATLANTIC TA 30

Hello everyone, today I want to talk about Mesa Boogie Transatlantic TA-30. A little background, Mesa Boogie is very known for its very high quality high end guitar and bass amplifiers and cabinets. Some of its successful amplifiers are now being used by high profile artists such as John Petrucci, Mark Tremonti, Andy Timmons and many others. 

The history of Mesa Boogie starts way back from around early '70s when Randall Smith started his job as a repairing technician for guitar amplifiers. He modified amps that was available during that time by "hot-roding" the amp with an extra tube on the preamp section of the amp to achieve a high gain sound that was not easily available during that time. Since then, he started building his very own guitar and bass amps that come in different tones, output power and size.

Transatlantic TA-30

Mesa Boogie is very well known for its reputation on making high gain amp, but those people working there want to show the world that they can also make amps that can do some great stuffs on lower gain settings; this is the main purpose of TA-30. This amp does so many great clean and break up tones, but you can always crank it up to get that mid gain tone out of this amp. This amp is also on the portable side of amplifiers, means that the head version of this amp is pretty small and light enough for you to easily carry it on any gig.

Technical Detail

I have the head version, it features 4xEL84 tubes, 6x12AX7 tubes, a special output transformer, Effects Loop, Reverb circuits for both channels, independent EQ for different channels, independent Reverb and FX Loop setting on different channels, independent output power level on different channels and some push-pull knobs. The EQ settings are consisted of Bass and Treble without any option to adjust the Mid.

You have two channels:

Channel Green, you can choose between "Normal" clean tone and a British sort of like Vox AC "Top Boost". When cranked up, the Clean tone will deliver an almost break up tone but still on the clean side while the Top Boost tone will start to get saturated. This channel EQ includes a Cut knob to remove some high end sizzle; the knob can be pulled and it starts to act as a Master Volume with pre-fixed amount of "cut".

Channel Red, you can choose between "Tweed" for American Fender clean tone, "Hi 1" for British mid gain tone, and "Hi 2" for Mesa's signature mid gain tone. When cranked up, Tweed will give you an almost break up tone with just a hint of dirt. Hi 1 will deliver Marshall-like mid gain tone when cranked up with enough sustain but not very saturated. Hi 2 will sizzle when cranked up and it will sound pretty good when you do lead stuffs.

All the channels have individual tone control as well as power selection of 15, 30 and 40 Watt. The 15 and 30 Watt power level will give you class A tube tone at different volume and headroom level. The 40 Watt power level will deliver class AB "Dyna-watt" tube tone with extra juice that can enhance your playability and tone.

My opinion

It's a super great amp!!! I personally like the clean channel on Normal mode with some added treble. With the help of its built-in Reverb, you can get so many great classic clean tone that can cover many ground of music styles. I also like the Hi 2 mode on the Red Channel and I usually roll down the treble to get that fat warm tone; I add my BB Preamp in front of the already cranked amp to push it harder and make it sound like a mid/high gain amp that doesn't fuzz too much and still retain the integrity of the original tone. 

You can add any pedal in front of it or on the Effects Loop if you need to use the FX Loop. It works well with all of my overdrive pedal and it projects the delays from my delay pedal nicely. I use a Mesa Mini Recto Cab as my cabinet and it works well especially on Hi 1 mode. 

Is it worth the price?

Nothing bad to say except its sky-rocket-high price. But I say it's worth it, the overall quality of the amp is very good and it's very well built. My personal experience with this amp has been very great, it delivers what it says on the brochure and on the internet.

From 0 to 10

10. Maybe even higher than 10, this is really one of the best amp I've ever tried.

Here's some sound clips. I used my PGM30 with DiMarzio AT-1 and Cruiser Bridge. I record the sound from the amp using Radial JDX Amp DI.

DIRTY

CLEAN

I hope you enjoy this post. Cheers and God Bless :)

Stay tuned for more reviews :)

SIGNAL PATH 101

Hi everyone, today I want to discuss about the so-called "GENERIC SIGNAL PATH" for guitar. Signal path is basically all the stuffs that are between your guitar and your amp or speaker or earphone or whatever device that will generate the sound. Let it be your preamp, your wah, your volume pedal, your FX pedals, your booster, your loop, your switching boxes, they're all part of the signal path.

There is no scientific rule about how to arrange your pedals

People had thousands of different configuration on their pedalboard. Some prefer certain pedals on a spot, others prefer same pedals on different spot. That really depends on a person's need and how they want their signal to sound.

What you need?

The first step on figuring out how to setup your signal path is by knowing what you need. These are what people usually need:

- at least one 'Gain Box' (Distortion, Overdrive, Boost or Fuzz)

- at least one 'Modulation' (Chorus, Flanger, Univibe or Phaser)

- Compressor

- Wah pedal

- at least one 'Time Based' (Delay or Reverb)

- Volume pedal

People go with rack-mounted effects for its superb control, but now stomp boxes are popular again. I'll go explain how I setup my stomp boxes, it's pretty general and you can apply my explanation to rack-mounted effects.

My signal path

On the input plug

Guitar -> Wah -> Overdrive -> Amp

On the FX loop

Send -> Boost -> Volume -> Chorus -> Delay -> Reverb

This is the most generic setup that you can find. You can replace the volume pedal out of the FX loop into the very beginning of the signal path to make it act like your guitar volume knob instead of making it acts like a master volume control. Some artists put wah pedal after distortion to get more extreme wah sound. Chorus or flanger can be put before or after distortion out from the loop to get more wobbly sound.

FX Loop

One thing that I should point out is the fact that I had a preamp pedal that acts as my amp and cabinet simulator. It has the send/return plugs for FX Loops which means you can put some boxes there that you don't want to get mixed with other pedals that you put before the amp. Usually you put delay/reverb pedal on the loop to avoid those pedals from getting affected by the increased gain signal from the overdrive or distortion pedal.

If you don't have FX loop, you can just put everything before the input of the amplifier or preamp. It will sound a bit different and some pedals might not be able to tolerate the amount of gain increase caused by gain boxes on the beginning part of your signal chain. If you do run into this problem, there are some loop boxes available to be placed right before your amp and it will have send/return option for your pedals.

Try to experiment as much as you can

You can start from the most generic signal path that I explained above, but ultimately there is no correct option of placing your FX units. Try to research different setup and see if you can find the best setup for the tone that you're looking for. Pay attention to your pedal requirements as well, sometimes a pedal doesn't want to be placed before of after a specific pedal because it might damage the unit.

That's all for now, I hope you enjoy my post!

Cheers and God bless ! :)

SATURATION

In this post, I want to explain a little bit about different kind of saturation on guitar tone. Familiar with the word distortion, fuzz or overdrive? If you had heard any of these words before, then you'll probably understand most of the content of this post. Let's get started!

Clipping

A saturated guitar signal is basically an amplified guitar signal that's boosted until it reaches clipping(above the range of signal tolerance). While some electrical engineers think that clipping is bad, some guitarists think that getting a clipped guitar signal on an amplifier is the best thing they ever heard. Most rock guitarist rely heavily on saturated tones. Whether it's a crunch rhythm, singing sustained lead, boosted clean-break up or fuzzy creamy tones, they're all basically clipped guitar signal.

Achieving clipped signal

There are multiple ways of reaching saturation. One is by driving an amp or running the amp volume as high as it can be. This works well especially on tube amps. Some amps don't have the capability to reach clipping without being driven prematurely, this leads to the invention of preamplifier that contains tubes or solid state components that will boost the signal before it enters the amplifier so that clipping can be achieved without pushing the amp volume too high. This kind of saturation is called amp-overdrive.

Other way is by using boost pedal on a clean sounding amplifier. The benefit of using pedal to achieve clipping is that it can emulate the sound of amp-overdrive at even lower volume level. People sometimes use pedals on an already driven-amp to achieve a higher level of distortion.

Types of saturation

There are three types of saturation that are common:

Overdrive

Overdrive signal will usually sound pretty open, the clipping isn't too much and it doesn't break too much from the clean signal. This is the type of sound that you can get from amp-overdrive. You can also achieve this sound by using common overdrive pedal such as Tube Screamer or similar stuffs. This sound can be found mostly on blues and some classic rock songs.

Distortion

This is the sound that defines rock and metal music. Distorted signal comes from stacked amps that are already on overdrive state. The sound that it generates is very compressed, heavy, crunchy and clips even more compared to overdriven signal. Modern amplifiers are sometimes high-gain, meaning that it can achieve distortion without having to be stacked. People can even achieve this using distortion pedal on clean channel or even using overdrive on dirty channel. You'll be surprised that sometimes people combine two overdrive pedals to create a smooth distortion sound. Metal player usually cut the midrange of their tone to get even crunchier and tighter distortion; lead rock guitarist will boost the midrange to get more body out of the distortion.

Fuzz

Fuzz is the most clipped signal compared to distortion and overdrive. It can be achieved using any fuzz pedal that contains germanium diode. This kind of sound was starting to emerge on the '60s and '70s thanks to Jimi Hendrix. People sometimes combine an already dirty amp with the fuzz pedal to achieve higher gain guitar tone that can sing and sustain the notes better.

GUITAR ARTISTS WITH GREAT TONE PT.I

No review today, but something different.
Today I want to share a little bit of my opinions about guitarists with great tone and great skills. They're all highly respected musicians and most of them are enjoying their careers either solo or with their bands. Most of them most people will already know because of their popularity but some of them are not really famous in the public but possess great tone and exceptional guitar skills. Some of them are my biggest influences but some of them I don't really check them out yet.

John Petrucci from Dream Theater

John Petrucci is famous for his work with Dream Theater, a progressive rock metal band that's currently growing rapidly in terms of popularity and exposure in the public.

His tone is coming mainly from his Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci signature guitar combined with Mesa Boogie Mark series amp. His EBMM JP guitar is usually loaded with DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab humbuckers.

What sets him apart from the other guys in terms of tone is his ability to get a well defined fat warm super-driven notes during high speed picking with not too much muddiness when using highly saturated amp. The settings on his amp is not really surprising in the world of metal heads: scooped mids. Although he used scooped mids, his humbuckers are designed to work well on mid frequencies so he's kind of trying to balance between the amp and the pickups to get a well defined tone.

He definitely uses many FX pedals especially during live performances to create layering effects. He uses chorus, phaser, flanger, delay pedals and also overdrive pedals ranging from stock market models to hard-to-find vintage modded ones. However, his tone does not mainly come from his gear but it's mostly from his fingers.

Recommended album with great tone: Black Clouds and Silver Linings, Scenes From a Memory, Octavarium.

Stevie Ray Vaughan(R.I.P)

Almost every blues guitar fans know him and try to get his tone. He's a very famous Stratocaster user that really knows how to get a good tone out of it. The secret of his tone is nothing more than his Strat on a 6L6 based amp with mild drive and some boost with the Tube Screamer. In fact, if you have a Strat, a Fender Twin Reverb Amp and a Tube Screamer, you'll nail some of his famous tones instantly.

He used various gears and guitars but his main ones are the Fender Stratocaster '62 "Number One", a TS808 Tube Screamer and Fender Twin Reverb/Tweed Bassman Amps. Secret ingredient to his tone is super heavy gauge strings, probably around .013 and tuned it down half step to lesser the tension of the strings.

A lot of modern guitar players mentioned SRV as their tone inspiration because of his massive bluesy tone. Even gear manufacturers are trying to capture the sound generated from his gear and make it into a box or something. Thus, SRV is undeniably a very important figure in the world of guitar tone development.

Paul Gilbert from Racer X/Mr. Big/Solo

Every shredder must have heard Paul Gilbert's name at least once in their life. He's the shredder of the nineties, very famous with his work with Mr. Big and some people even know him while he's still in Racer X.

Starting from his solo album era around Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar, his tone is suddenly transformed and becomes very enjoyable.

His tone is not really the fat-warm type of tone, but it's very rich with articulation and definition. It's good for fast stuffs, chords and blues licks.

The secret of his tone during the nineties is definitely an Ibanez PGM with no tone knob loaded with PAF style pickups, particularly DiMarzios ranging from PAF Pro to the Tone Zone to even the Super Distortion high output pickups. The Ibanez is then plugged into a Marshall high gain amp. He get a very decent tone coming out from this combination.

Another secret to his tone is the picks that he used: he prefers a .60mm Dunlop Tortex to the standard small pointy Jazz picks that almost everyone uses. He angled his thin pick to get more treble and attack from the strings and it really is the biggest secret to almost nail his tone.

FYI, he didn't really care about tone until he started touring on G3 with Joe Satriani and John Petrucci. He now uses Marshall Vintage Modern, Ibanez Fireman loaded with DiMarzio Area series pickups, Majikbox Fuzz Universe overdrive pedal and some flanger, phaser delay and other boxes. He also used some Xotic pedals and he constantly changes his pedals depending on what he wants. Now he sounds much better than he was!

Definitely check out Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar, Fuzz Universe and his works with Mr. Big and Racer X. All of them contain Paul's mighty shred-ready tone.

Andy Timmons

He's relatively new to most guitar players but he's actually been around for quite some time in the guitar world. He played with metal band called Danger Danger around nineties. He's now currently a solo artist and has his own band called Andy Timmons band.

The secret of his tone comes mainly from his signature Ibanez AT series loaded with DiMarzio Cruisers and AT Humbuckers/Seymour Duncan JB plugged into Mesa Boogie Lonestar/Stiletto Deuce/Transatlantic 30. Other important part of his tone is the delay FX units that he uses and also his gain box. He loves the Echoplex tape echo very much, but he prefers to use a box to replicate the effects during live performance by using an EXH Memory Man or sometimes using rack type delay units. For his gain box, he relies mostly on his signature Xotic BB Preamp. He used Ibanez Tube Screamer sometime in early 2000 to get that bluesy tone much like SRV's with more gain. He's also known as a Telecaster guy and he also played an SG although we haven't see him playing live with his SG.

He's been respected very much as a guitarist and also as a tone chaser. He tried various pieces of gear and experimented with all of them to achieve a good sound. Unlike any other Ibanez endorser artists, Andy prefers the sound of a guitar with lower output pickups and cool vintage-style hardware and look.

Definitely check out his new album Resolution and his compilation That Was Then, This Was Now. Don't expect anything too shreddy from his songs but he has couple of tricks under his sleeves just in case someone needs shreddy stuff!

Stay tuned for PART II !!

Cheers and God bless :)

LINE 6 POD X3 LIVE + SPECIAL CONTENT

Special post

If you're reading this, congratulation, you're in for a treat: this post will cover one of the most popular digital FX unit and we'll cover a little bit about digital vs analog topic that's been around for a while. Hopefully it's not biased and it'll be informative enough for you.

I bought this pedal from a good friend of mine. Back then, I don't really care about my tone and I'm using nothing more than a Metalzone MT-2 in front of a Korg Ampwork with a wah sometimes before the MT-2 if I need one. They sounded "nice" to me but not too nice until I got my enlightenment. This pedal is really a huge upgrade for me since I can get great tones with different types of sound and put them on patches and just press on the switches to change from one sound to another sound.

First impression

I can get a good thick fat lead tone using Mesa Boogie Rectifier high gain amp replication on that pedal. I can also get any other kind of tone that I want, even an Andy Timmons'(yes, him again) tone on different songs using a 6L6-based amp replication. The amps sounded great and thick to me.

The FX are also great, they sounded nice to me and very close to the real ones. The particular one that shines the most is the Screamer stomp that is the replication of (you guessed it) Ibanez Tube Screamer TS808. It sounded warm and clear, almost like the real one. The delays are also nice, particularly the digital delay. I also like the sine chorus FX, it's not too harsh and it keeps the integrity of the 'tune' pretty well.

All of the simulated units are fully adjustable and even more adjustable than the real ones. This is very useful for live performances because you can use the same tone for different situation just by tweaking the settings a little bit. This shows how serious are the Line 6 guys when they designed this thing.

On a live performance, this thing sounds as good as the real thing (some people claim it sounds better than the replicated goods!). Furthermore, you have the built-in EQ that can be tailored as flexible as you want. This totally beats tube amps and stomp boxes in terms of flexibility; you can even get a dual tone mode that simulates two signal chains together with different settings with stereo option available.

You can have around 30 user channels and you also have tons of original presets. I don't find the original presets to be very useful. But some of them can help you to inspire your own particular sound.

So far so good...

I kind of hate when it's time to make a new sound on a particular channel. It takes lots of time to tweak things around and get them all together to sound well. Other thing that I hate is sometimes I miss-pressed the switches because they're so hard to step on, not as smooth as a 4PDT switch or a regular Boss enclosure switch. The placement of the bank select switch is also not convenient in my opinion; it's located on the bottom left of the box and besides the channel select. I miss-pressed that switch lots of time as well because I thought it was my other channel switch; I ended up changing to a totally different sound and I was a little bit embarrassed.

Also I don't really like the expression pedal, the switch underneath it that changes between wah and volume mode is very easy to get pressed. I remember one time I was supposed to engage the volume back to normal loudness but I ended up pressing a little bit too hard and accidentally I activated the wah mode on a live performance. Oooppsss.

Do all of the above bother you significantly?

YES during live performances. But to be honest I'm more concerned about how I sound so all of those above don't really drive me crazy.

So does the pedal worth?

For a brand new one that costs around $400.00 or maybe less, I say it's worth. It has lots of amps and FX units replication inside of it and most of them sound great. It's flexible, it's powerful, it's not very easy to use at first but you'll get use to it very quickly, it sounds good as well(for now). This item worths every penny you spent !

From 0 to 10

10. But with some exception: some amp modelings and FX units do not have the same responsiveness of the real ones although they still sounded good. This will add some difficulties to your playing but not necessarily on your tone.

We're not done yet, "Mythbuster: Analog vs Digital " is coming next

Some people swear by the name of analog tube amps and real stomp boxes, some people think it's just superstitious. After I did tone chasing for some time, I must say that both are true. I think some of you already know what I'm going to say, but it wouldn't hurt to discuss this topic again.

To be very honest with you guys, after I checked out a real tube preamp and all of those analog pedals, I must say that they "sound" very nice to ME. They have that special "ingredient" that spices up my tone significantly IN MY OPINION. I can sort of hear more definition of what I'm trying to express on the guitar and that really help me a lot. They cost more too and they're being used by famous players with nice tones.

Is it true? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Talking about digital, it's worth mentioning that Axe FX by Fractal Audio is gaining popularity as well with higher price, better processing power, more options and "better sound+responsiveness" compared to the POD X3. Some artists already use POD X3 on live performances such as Lincoln Brewster. But more high profile guitarists like Greg Howe now choose to use the Axe FX for their live rig.

Well, what's good for me doesn't necessarily mean good for you or other people.

I've heard people with the real device said that the POD X3 sounded better during a comparison. I've also heard that with some serious EQ tweaking, the POD X3 can beat its digital rival Axe FX. But not too few audiences also said that the tone that's produced on the X3 or Axe won't match the real thing.

It seemed that all things really depend on the definition of a good tone. Once again, a wise once said, "A good player can make a cheap practice gears to sound beautiful". It all really depend on so many factors and all of those factors will be different from one player to other player. No one can really explain what is a good tone. For me, the best way to address this topic is by stepping back to the very basic understanding of tone:

"Someone will be able to judge whether a tone is good or bad by just listening to it on his ears. One doesn't need to see nor touch the device that's needed to generate that tone in order to make a conclusion of the tone. What matters the most is the ear." - Om Ganteng

I personally have this kind of mild addiction of checking out gears to see how they perform and hear how they sound. This "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" influenced my perception of tone a little bit, I have to admit my G.A.S because it's true. Because of the price, someone sometimes said that when it's more expensive, you get good sound. THAT'S NOT ALWAYS TRUE. It's just that person's justification because he's influenced by a very general miss-perception, expensive = better. You have to be careful with something pricey, don't let the high price tag fools you. And from there, the price vs quality debate that I posted days ago will expand.

So by now I hope you can think that digital effects such as POD X3 or Axe FX is worth as much as how you view it as a helping tool to get the tones that you want with maybe some lack of responsiveness that affects your playing; but not your tone. However, your audiences may be happy enough to hear the tone of your digital effects, or may be not; it depends on the "factors" mentioned above.

I think by now you should already get the idea. Sorry, this post is a little bit lengthy but I hope you can enjoy the discussion that I made here and think about it for a little bit so you can apply what I've wrote above to how you view the tone world. No insults or offend intended, if you feel offended please know that the examples I used were from multiple anonymous sources *peace*.

If the ears praise the tone of real tube amps and analog hardware, go for it.

If the ears praise the tone of digital modeling, go for it.

There's no right or wrong :)

Cheers and God bless :)

A TILTED VOX AMP AND AN ARMOR ALL SPRAY

One thing about tone chasing: it's endless, just like trying to chase your own tail and it will drive you crazy, both physically and financially. You will surely get better tone and you will learn so much about your guitar by doing that, but what matters the most is your final result.

It's good to make significant changes sometimes, for example upgrading from a cheap solid state amp into a fully loaded tube amp, or maybe replacing a tone-coloring pedal with something more decent. But trying to exhaust yourself trying to find a perfect tone is not going to happen quickly and in exhaustive way.

If you are concerned about the way your signal chain sounds, you should first worry about how you play your guitar. Observe basic simple techniques that will beautify your guitar playing. A player who makes great vibrato with a $85.00 Walmart Strat plugged into a cheap practice amp will still sound so much better compared to a player who tries to mask his bad technique using a $3000.00 guitar using exotic woods plugged into an echoplex that's connected to a Vintage Modern Marshall.

I want people not to get obsessed with gears but to get obsessed trying to make their playing to sound great. Guitar playing is not all about live action coolness or bragging expensive rig, it's more about how you put beautiful compositions into someone's ear.

Even the King of Tone himself said the same thing haha !

Cheers and God bless :D !

AMT ELECTRONICS SS-11A TUBE PREAMP

Made in Siberia, RUSSIA

Been spending most of my life playing in an apartment with no tube amp, sounds coming straight to mixer in my home and hear all the sounds using headphones or cheap solid state amp. Digital effect board seems the only logical solution to my limited rig but digital world seemed to lack the tone that I praise so much. I've been longing for a very warm tube amp sound that has some nice smooth clarity from a tube with the ability to get multiple channel from my amp for quite some time last year. I finally got the answer: THE AMT SS-11A.

Tube Preamp?

Yep. Not just your average preamp stompbox, this one is meant to be a true preamp or even an amp replacement. This box packs two 12AX7 tubes that are usually used in the preamp stage of popular tube amps. 3 channels: clean, crunch, lead with the crunch and lead channel share the same EQ knobs; 2 output: regular output to an amp, cab simulator to mixer for recording; an FX loop for placing your sensitive chorus, delay or reverb pedals. GOSH, THIS PEDAL PACKS SO MUCH FEATURES I DON'T EVEN WANT TO CALL IT A STOMPBOX !!!! I truly love the fact that it has a nice cab simulator output, the sound is very close to a mic'ed cabinet.

This box wants to be placed at the very end of your signal chain because it replaces rack preamp, amp head, or any other preamp/amp devices that eats tons of space. Hence, don't ever think to use this as a boost pedal like Tube Screamer or BB Preamp; this is a densely-packed-feature-rich multichannel amp in a form of a stompbox slightly larger than an average MXR pedal, not your average distortion pedal with true bypass output.

The mighty tube amp classic sound

The clean channel: Sounds very great. You won't get break up sound by cranking the gain knob all the way though, this is strictly clean sound. Think of a Vox AC15 or something similar, you'll get the idea of how it will sound. Put some boost pedals or overdrive before this box and you'll get Stevie Ray Vaughan with some adjustment on the knobs.

The crunch and lead channel: Both sounded great, the lead channel sounds a little different although using the same setting, it has some kind of boost somewhere in the EQ that I haven't been paying attention. Sounds between cranked Fender and Marshall, not too much crunch but has enough warmth and sustain that I really want(think of AC/DC or Queen). Crank up even more with an overdrive and you'll get the tubes over the top producing warmest sound I've ever heard from a non full sized amp.

Different level and gain adjustment for clean, crunch and lead so you can choose which one is louder and which one has more saturation compared to the others, very flexible. Full gain knob with a mid scoop and the help of a distortion pedal will bring this amp to the hairy metal world, but it's not intended to achieve that(they have AMT SS-20 for that).

Seemed to like it so far.....

But I think it still has some problem. The tubes won't last forever and the site mentions that the tubes aren't just regular 12AX7, they are called 12AH7 and I don't know who sells these tubes either in U.S. or worldwide.

In addition, the form factor is also small and that is also problematic (aside from helping you to get extra space on your pedal board). The knobs and switches are placed closely to each other, and I am having some trouble hitting the right switch. Definitely practice your switching skill before using this box on a live gig.

Worth?

Price is around $399.99. Expensive and seemed overpriced, but considering how it sounds compared to a real tube amp, this thing is still worth every penny.

From 0 to 10

I will give this box a 9.0, price is definitely a big obstacle and for a stompbox with $400 price tag, this item won't be competing with other pedals. But once again, this is not your regular stompbox, this works as an amp replacement and you should consider that this thing works even better than what it's advertised for.

www.amtelectronics.com or www.amtelectronicsusa.com

Sound clip : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12709731/sound%20demo/AMT%20SS-11A.mp3, it goes from clean to crunch to lead. They're not on their maximum gain setting but I hope you can sort of feel how strong they are!

Cheers and God bless :)