HowieJams
Active member
My Soldano Astro 20 arrived Monday, I picked it up Tuesday, unboxed it and played through it for about 30 minutes.
The next day I had a little more time to check it out and so far I am pretty impressed by it.
I am running it through a Friedman 1x12 closed back cabinet with a Creamback Speaker.
I am not big on tech features, so I am simply running the amp using the 4 button footswitch, although the amp is technically a 3 channel amp with 4 galaxies, it actually can be set as a 4 channel amp.
I set it as:
button 1 - Channel 1 green galaxy - strictly pristine cleans
button 2 - Channel 1 blue galaxy - can do anywhere from cleans, gritty cleans, bluesy gain, to crunch depending where you set the gain knob on this channel.
button 3 - Channel 1 purple galaxy - can do anywhere from crunch to high gain to high gain for leads depending on where you set the gain knob
button 4 - Channel 2 red galaxy - this is the highest gain channel and it is great for leads and high gain chords.
I am still getting familiar with the amp, but all the channels are great.
Usually I would not want a pristine clean channel, but with 4 available footswitchable options, I can spare one for pristine cleans.
The effects loop works well with my Boss DD8 delay.
Channel 1 on the Blue galaxy takes my Ibanez TS808 and Boss SD-1 as boosts very well and can take you to any gain level you need with a boost.
Channel 1 on the purple galaxy I need to work with more with a boost, I was running the amp at max gain and it probably doesn't need a boost at max amp gain, I need to lower the amp gain and mess with it more, but the purple channel did better with the less aggressive TS808.
Channel 2 on the red galaxy really does not need any help, but again, if you want to boost it, the less aggressive TS808 is probably your better option.
I really didn't have much time to do a decent video, so I just started recording and did a 15 minute demo video, definitely not a polished and rehearsed video, but it should give you a good idea how the amp sounds.
Here it is...
The next day I had a little more time to check it out and so far I am pretty impressed by it.
I am running it through a Friedman 1x12 closed back cabinet with a Creamback Speaker.
I am not big on tech features, so I am simply running the amp using the 4 button footswitch, although the amp is technically a 3 channel amp with 4 galaxies, it actually can be set as a 4 channel amp.
I set it as:
button 1 - Channel 1 green galaxy - strictly pristine cleans
button 2 - Channel 1 blue galaxy - can do anywhere from cleans, gritty cleans, bluesy gain, to crunch depending where you set the gain knob on this channel.
button 3 - Channel 1 purple galaxy - can do anywhere from crunch to high gain to high gain for leads depending on where you set the gain knob
button 4 - Channel 2 red galaxy - this is the highest gain channel and it is great for leads and high gain chords.
I am still getting familiar with the amp, but all the channels are great.
Usually I would not want a pristine clean channel, but with 4 available footswitchable options, I can spare one for pristine cleans.
The effects loop works well with my Boss DD8 delay.
Channel 1 on the Blue galaxy takes my Ibanez TS808 and Boss SD-1 as boosts very well and can take you to any gain level you need with a boost.
Channel 1 on the purple galaxy I need to work with more with a boost, I was running the amp at max gain and it probably doesn't need a boost at max amp gain, I need to lower the amp gain and mess with it more, but the purple channel did better with the less aggressive TS808.
Channel 2 on the red galaxy really does not need any help, but again, if you want to boost it, the less aggressive TS808 is probably your better option.
I really didn't have much time to do a decent video, so I just started recording and did a 15 minute demo video, definitely not a polished and rehearsed video, but it should give you a good idea how the amp sounds.
Here it is...