This overdrive special is a skyliner with hrm variant with internal tube buffered effects loop and four 6L6GCMSTR Ruby powertubes. It has 6ps caps and is fairly similar to the HRM that I posted a while ago, see:
Structo wrote:Be sure to post a review as per forum rules when you get the chance.
I understand he builds a very high quality amp.
Please tell us all about it.
absolutely, will do. right now someone friends and i are trying to hammer out a date to get together and do some playing, listening, and comparing. the welagen will be there and some if not all of these: a bludo, a glaswerks, a two rock custom sig, and perhaps even a dumble. will be a good time!
what can i say? jelle welagen is a *ucking tone genius. i feel i can say that now that i’ve taken sometime to study this incredible amp. i’ll tell you about my expeirences with the amp as well my experiences with jelle.
i can sum up what it was like ot work with jelle on this amp order in one word: easy. jelle always responded quickly, often simply asking that i give him a call to discuss what i just sent him via email. he is adept at understanding the tone you’re groping to describe and is able to translate that into the right components, values, et cetera that make up an amp. that was certainly the case with my nearly incoherent descriptions and requests--somehow he was to grasp what the hell i was talking about and get it into this amp. all in all, dealing with jelle was wonderful!
the first few days i had the amp, i played the clean channel exclusively even though i bought it for it’s overdrive. the clean is really deep, rich, soft, and sweet. despite that, the tone is clear, holds together even at extreme volumes (and i mean extreme!), and will kick like a mule if you want it to. the top end has a really cool polish or sheen to it. i don’t know how to describe it. for me treble is the enemy and despite setting up the amp for the dark tones i love, whatever jelle has done to the top end allows it to have all of the qualities i mention above, yet still have great sheen on the highs. so the tone still sounds very alive and nimble (not mushy). and the sustain! my god does it sustain! and i’m still talking about the cleans! the clean has this cool feedback quality to it. i can’t explain it really. it’s not overdrive. the tone is still completely clean, yet that feedback quality and the harmonics kind of make the clean feel like overdrive, which is precisely how dumble cleans feel, or rather that’s exactly how the cleans felt on the two dumbles i’ve played.
dialing in the overdrive was a little more difficult than dialing in the clean channel, but was ultimately my fault. jelle wires the internal trimmers backwards justas dumble did on some of his amps. i didn’t know this, so when i was initially dialing in the overdrive and preamp boost, i was increasing what i thought i was decreasing and decreasing what i thought i was increasing. given that i don’t like treble, initially had the treble dimed (thinking it was off!) and the mids almost off (thinking they were around 80%). in a band setting this produced a bright tone that cut right through yet still wasn’t harsh. somehow it still sounded great, but that tone was not *my* tone.
the following day i checked in with jelle and he confirmed the trimmers worked in reverse. he also recommended tuning the amp with my ears rather dialing up the trimmers (duh, makes sense in hindsight!). once i did that, things really started to come together in terms of overdrive tone and character.
at this stage i was able to get the welagen in the same room with a non-hrm dumble. i must say, in my opinion, the welagen held it’s own. what does that mean? if you had played the non-hrm dumble and then said, “here, listen to this hrm dumble” (talking about the welagen), i would have believed you completely. the tone was on that level, imo. and the feel was dead on and i found that to be really impressive. i’ve played many d style amps and none felt like a dumble *to me*....that feeling where the fretboard seems melts into the tone...when you bend, it somehow feels like the board is bending. i know that’s obscure and abstract, but i can’t phrase it any differently.
in addition to nailing the feel, the welagen also nailed the note flipping things dumbles do. wow does it flip notes! i don’t know how to explain it, but you strike a note, especially on bends, and the sound quickly changes over to a nice full harmonic. very cool. additionally, all of the “standard” dumble stuff is all there, too: note blooming, musical feedback, dark yet articulate, the complex note interaction when playing chords, et cetera. it does all of that, but that note flipping is especially cool.
another quality that i love and had only until now experienced with dumbes is a kind cocked wah sound you can get if you dial it in right. it doesn’t simply sound like a cocked wah. it’s too full and thick for that, but if you use a lighter touch, you get this great wah like vocal quality that slightly nasal, but in a good way.
lastly, the pick attack was great. despite the dark tone that was dialed in, the pick attack had this great mid quality to it. it’s not a bright pick attack at all, but rather when notes are picked, it’s like they pop off the fretboard. that’s another quality that i’ve had a hard time finding in other dumble style amp, but the welagen makes this really easy for me.
the od itslef was full and smooth (not elevator music smooth, but smooth), and extremely touch sensitive. pick lightly and i’d get crystal clear tones. dig in a little and you get some hair. harder, a bit more. really dig in and you get rawk. crazy sustain and harmonics despite having the gain set fairly low (i’m not a fan of high gain. rock is still pretty clean. think kossof). and the od had that clean sheen to it, too. not compressed, but the high end kind of has a polish to it. i hope someone understands what i’m trying to get across.
now despite all this great stuff, something was still missing in terms of overdrive. i emailed jelle about it and minutes later he was calling to give me some guidance on how the amp’s controls interact and stressed again taking more time to learn the nuances of the amp. so i went back to work with the amp some more and dialed in the trimmers a bit more. what i found was that the qualities i was missing were tied up with the bass trimmer! i was working the treble and mids like crazy, but the low mid girthy quality i was wanting more of was missing because i had turned the bass on just enough to hear it kick in. i’m talking a micro turn. i pulled the bass up a hair or two more, pulled the mids back a bit, and dialed the highs to just about off and BOOM, tone paradise!
in a few turns i was able to balance out the full, dark, warm, round, slightly nasal sound i was after while keeping everything clear, articulate, and fat. man, this thing is incredible. a few other qualities worth mentioning are just how well the welagen takes pedals. the cool thing is that rather than the pedals changing the amp’s tone, the amp seems to change the pedals’ tone, if that makes sense. the amp elevated all of my pedals to the next level. i have several amps and i know what each pedal sounds like. they tend to be pretty consistent from amp to amp, but with the welagen, the pedals were reborn. i don’t know what’s going with that exactly, but i like it. for example, i have a couple of overdrives that can sound a little fizzy, but have other qualities that i like so much i can deal with a little fizz. for whatever reason, not only is the fizz inaudible through the welagen. but more than that, the pedal is enhanced in various ways. they sound purer to me.
what else can i say at this point. oh, the power and weight of the tone! the power behind this thing is crazy. it’s a real beast. i’m certain it must put out well over 100 watts. it runs dead quite and the built in loop really helps tame the beast when at home. also, the clean and overdrive channels really put a weight on the notes. i don’t know if phrasing it that way will make sense to anyone. you have to hear it to get the idea. i hope i can capture that on video. clips coming as soon as possible! but yeah, that weight is one of the more impressive qualities of the amp for me.
i suppose this review is long enough! i hope it makes some sense. i’ll post a follow-up once i’ve spent even more time with the amp. thanks for reading and i’m working on getting some clips together!
I've heard the SSS via sykpe and it is good. If I had some lazy money I'd get one.
As far as the trimmers go. It took me two weeks of playing all my guitars through the amp to nail it, once it was dialled in it work great. Persistence is the key.
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