I spent some more time with the Machete yesterday afternoon. I haven’t fully figured out my preferred settings, but I think I have a pretty good grasp on things now. This will mostly pertain to the gain channel 2 as it’s where I spent the majority of my time so far. Some things may translate to the clean channel, but I don’t want to comment too much on that side right now.
Damping, Notch, and High are the most important and influential controls on the Machete. Damping influences the feel and aggression. Notch has a big impact on the voicing. High compensates for any darkness/brightness from the Damping setting.
Starting with a quick overview…
It’s a high gain amp, though not really high gain by today’s over the top standards. Compared to a Typical Fender, JCM800 or even DSL I’d call it high gain. Putting it up against a modern Diezel, Bogner, Friedman, or ENGL, high gain doesn’t quite make it to those standards without a boost of some sort. So squarely in a Hard Rock/Heavy Metal category, but not quite Modern Metal without some help.
The great news on the gain front is Ch2, even with the gain maxed, will take boosts extremely well. A Tube Screamer, SD1, or Klon type overdrive pushes it enough into more modern territory. My overdrive pedals of that kind all worked equally well. No oversaturation squealing, no this sounds like complete ass. It was basically pick your flavor and let it rip.
Next thing is volume. I can get some okay tones at conversation/bedroom levels, but it’s not really a bedroom amp. You do need to open up the volume to really get the best out of it. You don’t have to fire it up to full band 100+ dB levels, but at least enough to where it could get disturbing to others in the house. Mouse fart volume isn’t gonna do it. Extra loud TV is kinda the minimum threshold where it starts to lose that low volume congestion and open up.
For the tone stack, it’s active. I don’t know the EQ curve so I won’t say flat; noon is no boost or cut. Low and Middle are pretty straight forward. These two are mainly set to taste. Extreme settings can be gnarly, but as long as you keep them within reason you’ll be fine. High would be the more powerful one as I mentioned earlier. To some extent its set to taste, but its real forte is balancing out with the Damping knob. I’ll go more into that next.
Now to discuss what I consider the main 3 knobs; Damping, Notch and High.
Damping is the knob to set first. It has a big influence on feel and tone. On the loose side the amp has a bit more bounce, brightness, and aggression. On the tight side it’s more focused/smooth, dark, and quicker attack. So far, my preference is all the way loose. I like the aggressive nature at this setting and can tighten things up with a boost. The tight side does sharpen it up to my liking, but is too smooth for my taste.
Here’s where the High knob comes in. Once you get the damping set, use the High to compensate for the brightness/darkness. If you’re on the loose side you’d want to back off the High to keep things from being ice-picky. If you’re on the tight side, up the High to keep it from sounding too dark and congested. It’s not difficult to balance out, but something you should know will need balancing. If you move the Damping knob, you’ll most certainly want to adjust the High.
Last is the Notch. This moves the amp from an American voicing to a British voicing; mainly affecting the frequency and prominence of the mids with some influence on highs & lows. You can keep the tone stack in place and just adjust the Notch for a big change in tone. For instance, if you have the tone stack set for scooped mids… To the left on Notch you have an American scooped mids tone, to the right on Notch you have British scooped mids tone. No other adjustments needed and both sound good. I find the sweet spot to be between 10 and 2 o’clock. You can go a little past that, but any further you start to hit the too thin or too wooly area.
So far I think this is a pretty unique amp in that it’s one you wouldn’t expect to come from Fender. It’s not at all like any of their typical models. Too bad it fell into a weird marketing category and never really caught on. It wasn’t traditional enough for Fender guys and “Fender doesn’t do high gain” with the metalheads. If you removed all branding and told me it was a Mesa/Boogie I’d probably believe you. It does come across as something they’d be more likely to develop. I think if it did have Mesa branding there’s a good chance it would have been a hit.
