Right on, Matt. Had a great time as well, always cool to hang. Thanks a lot for coming and bringing a small music store with you! Very cool to play on the Cameron. I dug it a lot. Tons of gain on that thing!!!
I did like the Axe better than last time. The tweakability on that thing is what freaks me out about it, though. I am much more of a meat and potatoes guy. The fact is that some guys get awesome results out of it, no doubt. I just can't!
It is no secret that I love the Evil Pumpkin and the Natas. They just do it for me. I also like both of those amps with 2 cabs. I think the power amp/speaker dampening you get with 2 cabs just fattens the amp up and creates a thicker sound. I also realize that the additional sound of another cab does that, but there is something to a power amp that is powering 8 speakers instead of 4; it just sounds smoother to me, and I think that has to do with the speaker dampening in the power section. The Natas and EP both have the tightest bottom end on an amp that I have played. It is not the bombastic bottom end like a Herbert or ENGL SE, but it is much more controlled and tighter. Having owned a Herbert for a while, I know the EP sits better in a band mix and lets the bass guitar do what it needs to do. I am not saying that the Herbert did not sit well in a band mix, because it did just fine, but I had to lower the deep control almost all the way to make it not fight the bass guitar. I also think the Natas requires a bit more time than most amps. The controls really do a lot with little tweaks.
Matt's JVM with the MM OT and choke was kickass. Definitely holds together better than my stock JVM at high volume. It gets louder than my JVM too, I think. I didn't have mine there for direct comparison but I could tell from having played mine so much over the years.
Dug Joshua's Port City 212 a lot. One of the best sounding cabs of any kind/configuration I have ever heard. Thing sounded like a 412 easily. Also dug his Bad Cat with my Tele. That combination made me want to play.
Wish I could've played on Chris's rig, especially the Golub/Diamond head that he had, but I think me and Shea were outside bullshitting while that was going on. Hadn't seen each other in a while so we were catching up a bit.
Cool as hell to check out Shea's Peacemaker, too. Very cool take on the Marshall vibe. That amp was loud as fuck and breathed fire with a good ol' TS9 in front.
All in all, it was a great time. Can't wait to do it again!
