P
peckhart
Active member
These amps have intrigued me a lot over the years. I've been in an 80s hard rock band for over a decade and always needed Marshall type high gainers and I just couldn't tell if the Hot Cat had enough gain and the right kind of crunch to do that stuff and just couldn't pull the trigger. I never had much luck boosting an amp to get it the gain I want and always look for my gain to come right from the amp.
Well I've decided I am going to get into some other music more and lower gain and a different sound that I was thinking these things are better for makes more sense now. So I pulled the trigger on a 2013 Hot Cat 30R combo. I went with this specific year/version because it has the onboard footswitchable solo volume where most other years outside of the 10th Anniversary do not and they are PPIMV and not boostable with an EQ in the loop.
This thing is really cool. Definitely very different, but perfect for blues and funk and jam band stuff I want to work on. It does have a pretty good amount of gain. Enough that I could probably use in my rock cover band for a lot of the songs and then boost it to get even more gain and a heavier sound. The interesting thing is I feel like this is the first amp I am really digging how a tube screamer sounds in front of it to take into hard rock territory. I have a Cusack Screamer and I grabbed a Bad Cat Siamese Drive recently and both work really well with it.
The combo alone sounds great. Stacked on my Bogner OS 2x12 was really rockin....jury is still out on using it through the 2x12 (V30 loaded) on its own.
Cleans are great and I actually really enjoy using it. I haven't been much of a clean player, but that's gotta change
Both channels are super touch sensitive and just feel great. Inspires the use of dynamics for sure.
Not much love on this board for this amps, but maybe this will help anyone in a similar boat. For whatever reason there aren't a lot of good YouTube clips for these amps. There are a few that somewhat catch the vibe, but a lot of the gain clips suck nuts. I'll have to see if I can capture something when I get to play it loud in the house again.
Well I've decided I am going to get into some other music more and lower gain and a different sound that I was thinking these things are better for makes more sense now. So I pulled the trigger on a 2013 Hot Cat 30R combo. I went with this specific year/version because it has the onboard footswitchable solo volume where most other years outside of the 10th Anniversary do not and they are PPIMV and not boostable with an EQ in the loop.
This thing is really cool. Definitely very different, but perfect for blues and funk and jam band stuff I want to work on. It does have a pretty good amount of gain. Enough that I could probably use in my rock cover band for a lot of the songs and then boost it to get even more gain and a heavier sound. The interesting thing is I feel like this is the first amp I am really digging how a tube screamer sounds in front of it to take into hard rock territory. I have a Cusack Screamer and I grabbed a Bad Cat Siamese Drive recently and both work really well with it.
The combo alone sounds great. Stacked on my Bogner OS 2x12 was really rockin....jury is still out on using it through the 2x12 (V30 loaded) on its own.
Cleans are great and I actually really enjoy using it. I haven't been much of a clean player, but that's gotta change
Both channels are super touch sensitive and just feel great. Inspires the use of dynamics for sure.
Not much love on this board for this amps, but maybe this will help anyone in a similar boat. For whatever reason there aren't a lot of good YouTube clips for these amps. There are a few that somewhat catch the vibe, but a lot of the gain clips suck nuts. I'll have to see if I can capture something when I get to play it loud in the house again.
