Got to try a bunch of gear, why didn't I like the SLO?

[maddnotez]

Nothing new, all old gear and I just wanted to post about all this cool gear I got to try. Went to my buddy's house to jam and he has tons of stuff. Many first timers for me. Was really cool to play all this gear. Sorry in advance I don't have clips or pics but skip to the very end about my first SLO experience. Unimpressed.

LP Studio - First time I played a LP and it was very awesome. I've always expected to hate the fat Gibson neck but while yes it was slightly chunky it was so easy to play and tone for days. Sounded great. Definitely want one of these now.

Fender Jaguar - Very cool guitar. He has BKP single coils and there's switching options for days. First single coil I've really ripped into so I can't compare but it was cool. Love the body shape, neck was ok but for the price I could think of many other things I'd rather have. Definitely a cool toy or something if you're big into single coils. The amount of switching options was insane.

Ampeg VH140-C - What can I say? This amp crushes and I want one. Easily the best solid state amp I've ever played. Wish I had more time with an EQ because there's a few low end frequencies I wanted gone but otherwise straight into the amp I was pretty impressed. Nothing new, if you like death metal it's a killer amp. The coolest part though was the built in Chorus and reverb. They sounded great and is a really cool feature.

Rivera Knucklehead Tre - Was very awesome. Great modern voicing and definitely useable but imo that's just preference. A great amp but for that voicing I would prefer my Bogner or a Pitbull or something else. Definitely no slouch though.

He also had tons of cool pedals that I won't get into but everything from custom one offs to analog delays, OD's, Verb and even some iconic Moogerfoogers. Guy knows his shit.

But what I wanted to post about the most was the SLO. I was really looking forward to this one the most. I've seen tons of videos, tons of die hard forum guys posting about it and I was just very unimpressed.

The clarity and definition was great but I just didn't like the voicing and it seemed like it was struggling in the gain department. It did not sound like any of Lasse's videos at all. Not even close. I'm wondering if he has something wrong with it or some bad tubes or something but idk. I left saying wow I'd take the cheap VH140C over a SLO any day of the week.

Is there a trick to set these up? He had a Depth mod but man I was expecting great things from this and just didn't find any.

 

[Racerxrated]

Hmm. What cab/speakers? I didn't like my SLO that much at first, through V30s straight in. Eventually I perused the Soldano forum and tried different settings, and it got better...then bought a G12 65 cab and boosted it and BAM! There it was. Awesome. I liked to max/almost max the Presence, Treb at 0-2, mids 4, bass 6, gain 6-7. Depth didn't do much above 3 on the master, but once I boosted it with an EQ pedal it was amazing to me. But all our ears like different things..I've tried an Uberschall and a PRS Archon, and a Diezel VH4. Meh to my ears. Not bad but I'd never spend the 1500-3500 for any of those amps.

 

[Rick Lee]

An SLO is a totally different amp with the master at 5 or above than at bedroom volume. Night and day amps. I don't play mine much anymore, but when I do, I put in some earplugs and crank it to 7 or higher. Do that for a while and it will make you a better player. There's no hiding sloppy playing behind the gain with an SLO.

 

[cardinal]

Not an amp for everyone. I often ran it with the treble and/or mids pretty low. It seems odd, but the amp doesn't get scooped or muddy. The mid knob almost seemed like a secondary treble control.

Gain is somewhat tricky too. There's a narrow sweet spot IMHO. Too low and the lead channel sounds weak. Too high and it quickly becomes over saturated for my tastes. I always had to have it between 5.5 to 6 depending on the pickups. The crunch channel has a much wider range that sounds good IMHO, which is why I think a lot of folks end up there.

EDIT: haha there's a wide gap between bedroom levels and 7 on the SLO master. I think it sounds great at any volume if you work with it, but if the amp must be loud enough to vaporize small animals maybe we should start rethinking this...

 

[jdel77]

The clarity and definition was great but I just didn't like the voicing and it seemed like it was struggling in the gain department. It did not sound like any of Lasse's videos at all. Not even close. I'm wondering if he has something wrong with it or some bad tubes or something but idk. I left saying wow I'd take the cheap VH140C over a SLO any day of the week.

Is there a trick to set these up? He had a Depth mod but man I was expecting great things from this and just didn't find any.

Something ain't right.
What cab and speakers? What were the settings?
It should sound like this:

 

[maddnotez]

Ahh thanks for the tips.

I will get to check it out again. I know the guy and he's actually going to be filling in on bass for us but anyway yes I did forget to mention it was used with a Rock Crusher so I did not get to open it up.

The SLO was used with an old Marshall slant 1960 with 75's on bottom and 70's on top.

The other amps was through a Rivera with V30x75.

Makes sense though and I want to give it another rip.

 

[journeyman73]

i can see there might be things about the SLO that people possibly don't like (i.e. doesn't have the 'raw' marshall thing, not the kerrang, gain is too 'modern', etc)...

but not having enough gain doesn't seem like it makes sense - I would suspect something was perhaps wrong with the amp.. it has a TON of saturation if you dial it in

 

[maddnotez]

i can see there might be things about the SLO that people possibly don't like (i.e. doesn't have the 'raw' marshall thing, not the kerrang, gain is too 'modern', etc)...

but not having enough gain doesn't seem like it makes sense - I would suspect something was perhaps wrong with the amp.. it has a TON of saturation if you dial it in

That is what confused me as well.

I do know amps well enough at this point to hear the differences between enough gain and lowering the gain and hearing more definition and things like that. Meaning I am not the type of guy that will just max the gain on every single amp out there and expect that to be best.

With that said I do like my gain on the higher side of things I guess. With my Rev 2 Uberschall I keep it at about 1:00 (55%) on the clock with a boost and on the VHT Pitbull 100CL I had I kept my gain at like 3:00 - 4:00 with a boost which is about 75% give or take.

So yes I do like a lot of gain but comparing to Lasse's vids the gain or even Saturation was not there like I said, not even close.

But I did not get to open the amp up. Next time I will see if I can use without the Rockcrusher and let it rip.

 

[Wizard of Ozz]

The SLO needs to be run loud... very loud. 5 (aka 12:00) on the volume. The Rockcrusher is a tone sucker. Definitely not a home volume amp.

Also Lasse likes to use EMGs and od boost pedals... so make sure you are making an apples to apples comparison.

 

[braintheory]

Yeah sounds like you need to try it again and at higher volumes. That being said, I totally disagree with everyone who says it needs to be played at 6-7 or higher to hear it's "magic". I've owned an SLO for over a year in the past and didn't feel the tone improved after a certain volume. I don't remember exactly where that was but I wanna say somewhere around 9 or 10 o clock was where it opened up and sounded good. It didn't get any better from there to my ears. And if anything the amp got more forgiving at those super high levels since it got more compression and sag. Maybe guys just perceive it as more unforgiving since it's just a lot louder so they hear everything more.

The SLO was one of my favorites for a while, but I saw no reason to keep it once I had my 1996 wizard mc and mark iic+. The iic+ was more fluid, articulate and melodic for leads, had much tighter and chunkier chugs, was just a bigger sounding amp with a lot more bottom end and was more raw and growly on power chords. I still though thought the slo was worth keeping since it had an openness and upper mid presence that the iic+ didn't but then the wizard came and beat the slo for that as well. The slo sounded small and tame in comparison, but it was more gainy, saturated and maybe felt better for leads but again the iic+ was better for that so I let it go. To me the slo also always sounded a little restrained (almost like it was holding back on being raw and aggressive) even at super high volumes so I didn't like that and to me it also has what I'd call a rubbery feel; it doesn't feel stiff like some amps, but also doesn't quite have a liquidy feel of amps like my mark iic+ so I interpret it as a rubbery feel. I still think the slo is a great amp and agree with a lot of the descriptions I hear, but also think it's extremely overrated and it needs to be AB'ed with other amps sometimes to get a more accurate perspective. I also got to AB an slo not long ago with a 2016 BE and preferred the BE for many of the same reasons described above. I also like the 2016 BE a lot better than the 2015 fwiw

 

[thiswaythatway]

I never liked the SLO either anytime I've tried it.

 

[Racerxrated]

Well, also that cab wasn't the best choice with 75s and the shit 70s. Sorry I hate 70s. Takes any amp you like and makes you want to sell NOW. Ugh. Try the V30/75 cab next time. But it should have a ton of gain. 6-7 was enough for me. And I agree with Braintheory, that amp on 2 sounded great. Even better louder but I gigged with it in small clubs and my soundguy said it was incredible..on 2. He used to run sound out in Sturgis for some pretty well known acts over the years.
Again, not everyone will like some people's favorite.

 

[braintheory]

Well, also that cab wasn't the best choice with 75s and the shit 70s. Sorry I hate 70s. Takes any amp you like and makes you want to sell NOW. Ugh. Try the V30/75 cab next time. But it should have a ton of gain. 6-7 was enough for me. And I agree with Braintheory, that amp on 2 sounded great. Even better louder but I gigged with it in small clubs and my soundguy said it was incredible..on 2. He used to run sound out in Sturgis for some pretty well known acts over the years.
Again, not everyone will like some people's favorite.

Good advice here. My main cab is a bogner übercab with stock v30 and 75's and the slo worked great with it, but it also worked very well with my Mesa 4x12 which has all celestion c90 (black shadows). I've the tried the slo through a bunch of different cabs before and it didn't make me think that differently of it, so I don't agree with others in that regard. I also thought the slo had lots of gain and saturation. I would never have it past 6 or 6.5 but I could see the need to if you're not playing it loud enough

 

[halebox]

Its a strange beast. If something is not great like speakers or guitar or pickups the SLO will really show that. Its very bare bones and doesnt have 5150 type gain so its a little harder to play. I think it cuts out all the mushy type frequencies that disappear in a mix. Also sounds better recorded than in front of it I think

 

[155]

the slo dosent have the saturation that alot of high gain amps do, it stays more defined . when I first played one I thought it was on the crunch channel..it was dimeed gain on the lead ch. anyway it was underwhelming until I got into a band mix and it just worked so great for that, you dont need stupid gain anyway...

 

[jdel77]

Also...


Were you on the Lead channel, with the channel switcher pedal handy?
Another option is that you may have been on the Crunch channel...tthe Lead/Overdrive channel is the more saturated side.

(An unlikely scenario, just thought I'd put it out there...)

 

[braintheory]

the slo dosent have the saturation that alot of high gain amps do, it stays more defined . when I first played one I thought it was on the crunch channel..it was dimeed gain on the lead ch. anyway it was underwhelming until I got into a band mix and it just worked so great for that, you dont need stupid gain anyway...

Well I guess it depends what amps you're used to but I find the slo to be a very saturated amp. It won't be as saturated as something like a 5150, uberschall, xtc, or most Mesa mark series, but I still think of it as a very saturated amp and would never wanna run the gain higher than 6 or 6.5. It's one of those amps that also tends to sound too much or suffocated with an od in front boosting it

 

[Racerxrated]

the slo dosent have the saturation that alot of high gain amps do, it stays more defined . when I first played one I thought it was on the crunch channel..it was dimeed gain on the lead ch. anyway it was underwhelming until I got into a band mix and it just worked so great for that, you dont need stupid gain anyway...

Well I guess it depends what amps you're used to but I find the slo to be a very saturated amp. It won't be as saturated as something like a 5150, uberschall, xtc, or most Mesa mark series, but I still think of it as a very saturated amp and would never wanna run the gain higher than 6 or 6.5. It's one of those amps that also tends to sound too much or suffocated with an od in front boosting it

I felt that way(suffocated with an OD) with the Wizard MTL, any Camerons, VHT Deliverances..but as long as I turned the gain back a bit I thought the SLO took boosts well. Just an EQ pedal in front won me over.

 

[maddnotez]

Also...


Were you on the Lead channel, with the channel switcher pedal handy?
Another option is that you may have been on the Crunch channel...tthe Lead/Overdrive channel is the more saturated side.

(An unlikely scenario, just thought I'd put it out there...)

That may be very likely actually. The amp only has a clean and a crunch. Are there different models or a hidden switch on the back or something?

 

[SpiderWars]

It seems like the voice of the OD channel hits a sweet spot somewhere in that 1:00-2:30 range on the Gain control. Any lower and the bright cap can make it too bright and any higher and the amp can lose some definition. It also has a bit more coarsely-grained saturation than some other high gainers.

It would be difficult to mistake the Crunch for the OD channel. If you are using the OD gain control and OD MV then you are on the OD channel and if you are using the Normal gain control/MV then you are either Crunch/Clean.