Soldano SLO 100

[Lightning]

Guitar amps are tools and they have there place, but you have quality and not so quality you have sound and you have experience in gear also you have your opinion from experience

 

[FourT6and2]

Your mod is one of the only whales out there I haven't put under a microphone, I need to play one someday!

Send me an amp to mod and it shall be done lol. I've got a perfect donor ready to go, but it's not cheap. Turnaround time is 2 weeks.

 

[DanTravis62]

Send me an amp to mod and it shall be done lol. I've got a perfect donor ready to go, but it's not cheap. Turnaround time is 2 weeks.

If i can ever afford one ill be glad to! There's a mojotone 2204 local to me for like 700 bucks but i'm absolutely underwater atm

 

[BackCrack]

Bonamassa paid £19,200 [auction link] + VAT + shipping. He's probably into it low-mid $30k's to his door.

He can get both of my grey 91's for under 1/3 of that...hint, hint.

 

[Rick Lee]

If i can ever afford one ill be glad to! There's a mojotone 2204 local to me for like 700 bucks but i'm absolutely underwater atm

I built a combo version and it slays. This video is making me want to grab a JMP head shell for my combo chassis.

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[Rick Lee]

Finally figured out my SLO sounds better when volumes not dimed. Way better on 7 or so. Man, I was about to give up and just admit the SLO wasn't for me. But dialing down the volume from 11 to 7 didn't make it quieter, just less compressed and made the gain knob a little more effective.

 

[Rick Lee]

@DanTravis62

If it's in a good headshell, you cannot go wrong for $700. I think that's what I paid for my kit before buying the cab. If the builder did a decent job, you will be able to mod to your heart's content. When my kit arrived, I felt like the package didn't weigh enough for the transformers to be any good. But they are fine. If I wanted to dump more money into it, I could upgrade the iron. But it really sounds absolutely identical to my Marshall 4010, which cost more than twice as much.

 

[LPMojoGL]

As long as we're geeking out on SLOs, let's share some settings. I'm not a real high gain player and I'm having some trouble dialing mine in. I rolled a bunch of tubes yesterday and ended up with 12AT7s in V1-V3. Anyone know what settings SRV was using?

All kinds of ways to dial it in.
The knobs change a bit, depending on volume and cab/speakers. It really likes Greenbacks, and needs some volume to open up. Not a bedroom amp.

At decent house-friendly volumes: For a general crunchy tone that cleans up with guitar volume and gets heavier with a boost, and a singing lower gain lead tone that gets into harder rock/80s hair metal with a boost:
Crunch channel gain 6-8, od channel gain 3-4.5. Bass 5.5, mid 3.5, treble 6.5, presence 7.5, depth 1. Depth above 1 adds a lot of low mids, if that's your thing.
That's at like 1+ on the volumes, or 1.5+ with the effects loop engaged and return volume at noon. Lower volumes need more presence to open up. Presence cranked, mids at 5, treble at 3 gets a more Marshally sound. Effects loop engaged sucks some mids and boosts some treble.


FWIW, I recently went back to China square getter and JJ 12ax7s in mine. Was running NOS RFT and Tungsram. Neutral, high gain tubes with lots of clarity lets the amp do its thing. It's all in the knobs and hands from there. Super dynamic amp that lays back or kicks in with pick attack.

 

[LPMojoGL]

Finally figured out my SLO sounds better when volumes not dimed. Way better on 7 or so. Man, I was about to give up and just admit the SLO wasn't for me. But dialing down the volume from 11 to 7 didn't make it quieter, just less compressed and made the gain knob a little more effective.

Who dimes an SLO, without a speaker load and reamping? Just past noon, thru a 4x12, will rattle walls, knock stuff off shelves. The tone is in the preamp.
More than enough volume for a loud rock band above 2.5 on the volumes, much like a 50-100 watt JCM800, Mesa Dual Recto or other such amp.

 

[Dave L]

Yeah, gunning a SLO is news to me, even EVH ran his about halfway up. I think Mark Knopfler may have had the masters at 7 or 8, but he had the preamp gains low instead and was probably thinking about it as a new-fangled JTM45. When the SLO was designed you were squarely in that period when people were looking for big overdrive without the associated Super Lead arena-shaking volume... cascaded preamps, master volumes, slaved rigs, the Variac...

 

[Techdeth]

Again, i said you can play metal with it.
I can fix 90% of plumbing with two channel locks and two screw drivers...but why the fuck would I when there are so much more specialized tools for each job?

I like the avenger for metal a lot

 

[Lightning]

SLO on 10 your peeling the paint off the wall

 

[Rick Lee]

I use an attenuator. I always ran my SLO-30 with the volumes dimed through a Hot Plate, sounded great.

I had an SLO about 12 yrs ago and gigged with it for a while. I was never in love with it. One day we had planned to have band practice at the drummer's house, we were asked to play the same day at a large outdoor venue. It was huge and I was able to crank the SLO up to 7. Holy smokes. What a different amp that was. So I like to run them hard now and tame the volume with an attenuator. Even then I run it pretty loud at home and wear cheap foam earplugs, which really are the perfect EQ to my ears.

 

[Dfwxjer1]

Haha man gotta love RT. I didn't realize the SLO was so polarizing lmao

I personally love mine, and I don't even play high gain stuff. It's definitely a vintage high gain amp so I can see why people wouldn't like it for modern metal.

 

[mentoneman]

I use an attenuator. I always ran my SLO-30 with the volumes dimed through a Hot Plate, sounded great.

I had an SLO about 12 yrs ago and gigged with it for a while. I was never in love with it. One day we had planned to have band practice at the drummer's house, we were asked to play the same day at a large outdoor venue. It was huge and I was able to crank the SLO up to 7. Holy smokes. What a different amp that was. So I like to run them hard now and tame the volume with an attenuator. Even then I run it pretty loud at home and wear cheap foam earplugs, which really are the perfect EQ to my ears.

SLO’s are loud and when you get to play them the way they are intended to be used they sound great.

i had the same epiphany with my Peacemaker after having the opportunity to play it outdoors at a 4th of July festival event cranked up. i kept turning around in the middle of songs staring at my half stack in shock at how killer it sounded.

after that event, a gtr player in another band that day confessed to me months later that after hearing my rig he wrote down what amp i was using and sold his Camaro to buy a Mojave

 

[Dfwxjer1]

SLO’s are loud and when you get to play them the way they are intended to be used they sound great.

i had the same epiphany with my Peacemaker after having the opportunity to play it outdoors at a 4th of July festival event cranked up. i kept turning around in the middle of songs staring at my half stack in shock at how killer it sounded.

after that event, a gtr player in another band that day confessed to me months later that after hearing my rig he wrote down what amp i was using and sold his Camaro to buy a Mojave

LOL funny you say that. I had a Peacemaker years back that was just unwieldy in the band I was in at the time. Like you said, it was amazing when playing big/outdoor venues but good Lord was it a pain to deal with indoors.

Personally I think the SLO is more versatile than the Peacemaker while retaining the big 3D quality, but I never A/B'd them.

 

[mentoneman]

LOL funny you say that. I had a Peacemaker years back that was just unwieldy in the band I was in at the time. Like you said, it was amazing when playing big/outdoor venues but good Lord was it a pain to deal with indoors.

Personally I think the SLO is more versatile than the Peacemaker while retaining the big 3D quality, but I never A/B'd them.

i can see SLO catering to way more people for gain’s sake. personally i just dig Mojave’s vintage plexi DNA and never struggled to hear its nuances cut through a stage mix live even at the lower volumes i had to play at.

 

[Dfwxjer1]

i can see SLO catering to way more people for gain’s sake. personally i just dig Mojave’s vintage plexi DNA and never struggled to hear its nuances cut through a stage mix live even at the lower volumes i had to play at.

Honestly I wish I had more time with that one, because it just wasn't the right amp for that specific band at the time. I think I could have way more fun with it these days, but it is what it is.

 

[Rick Lee]

I've been A/B'ing my SLO100 and Suhr SL67 a lot recently. Man, it's tough to pick just one.

 

[Dfwxjer1]

Subjective. Love my SLO. My 4104 with a pedal or two certainly isn't smoked by it, and can be the preferred sound

It's true! The SLO can sound congested in the mids. Works great for singing solos.
A trick to open up the sound is crank the presence close to max, drop the treble and up the mids. Seems to shift the mids, sounds much more Marshally. More aggressive, less polite.

I'd never run it this way before but I like it. Thanks for sharing the settings.