Award Sounds

I received the new guitar amp a few days ago, it's a Matamp 1224GT. And what an amp it is! Here's my first impression, not a complete review.

Versatility

The amp is loud, very loud, but has a number of features to help manage the volume:

• Pentode/Triode switching
• Valve Switching - The 1224 in the name comes from the four position switch for the number of valves in use
• Master volume
• Overdrive volume
• Boost for hi/lo impedance inputs

These features make the amp as versatile if not more versatile than my previous amp, a 2 channel Engl with each channel having 2 gain settings.

Clean

With the Engl, I used a chorus pedal to add a shimmer to clean tones and thickened out the distorted tones. With the arrival of the 1224GT, that pedal's now largely redundant. That's not to say that the 1224GT has chorus, it doesn't, but the clean sound already shimmers nicely. If you don't like the shimmer, then roll-off the guitar's volume and/or tone control and it will flatten out.

Compression

I'm used to amplifiers compressing the overdriven signals. I hadn't realised how much they compressed the clean signal until I tried the 1224GT. I was surprised to hear how much variation I could get in volume by just picking or plucking differently. Now that's going to come in useful, I'll just have to learn to accommodate it better. Doing it this way around means I can add a compressor pedal into the chain if I need one.

Voice

The voice control is interesting. It's 6 (I think it's 6 anyway) position switch. With the pedal's "voice" button off, then the voice knob controls the amp. If the pedal's "voice" button is on, the amp treats the knob as being in the far-left position. With the voice knob to the left, you get creamy lead tone. With the knob clockwise to the right, there's more treble, but without losing the bass.

Pedal Board

The pedal board's impressive. Robust and you can position the cable to attach to the back-left or the back-right. That's a nice touch.

Reverb

This amp has a reverb and it's not a bad one. Sorry I can't say much more than that. I haven't played an amp wth reverb (or at least I haven't turned it on when I've used an amp) for a number of years. And before that, reverb's fell into two categories: bad or not bad. I quite liked the reverb on this.

Images

I've already posted an article of images of the Matamp 1224GT.

Pedals

It takes pedals really well. The BYOC Overdrive, Tremolo and Triboost recordings were made with amp. I'll update this article with the links as I post the audio files.

Missing?

• Midi - not sure why you'd need it with this amp.
• Separate eq for the channels - with tone this good, why do you want to change it? The voice
• Parallel-Serial blend on the fx loop - Had it on the Engl, but to be honest it spent most of the time on 90% serial.
• Noise Gate - again, had one on the Engl, but this amp is quieter than that even on full overdrive. I'm coming to the conclusion that if you need a noise gate with this amp, then there's interference in your signal chain outside of the amp (e.g. cheaply-built or badly pedals, bad cables, standing too close to fluorescent light strips, etc)

Sound Clips

I'll put some up this week, maybe tonight if I can get them ready. I've just posted the audio clips.