I've been to Matamp!
:D
In the interests of doing a proper job, below is a complete review of what I did yesterday, while at the same time being possibly the longest post this forum has ever supported.
Firstly I've got to say it was an absolute mission to get there. I left Brighton at 7.20 in the morning, stopped off at home near Stamford for an hour, left at 11am, up the A1, up the M1............and into Leeds! :roll:
Eventually found my way through the traffic and over the dales to Matamp at half three, thinking 'shite, I've got an hour and a half before they close'. Not so! When Jeff rolled up and showed me how to get into the fortress that is the large brick mill of Matamp, he casually mentioned he was working till 9pm anyway. And till 9pm on the Sunday as well. 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Now that's commitment.
Jeff (the only person at the factory, plus his wife) went on to explain Life, the Universe and Everything, centering around how stuff works, why he thinks EL84s are the worst valve in the world, why 6V6s have black glass, why THD are doing the world a disservice with their YellowJackets by overlooking the fact that most EL34s run on a fixed 500volts/milliamps/something from one of the transformers yet EL84s are designed to handle a maximum of only 300, and finally, the extent to which he's going to Exterminate Mesa/Boogie at the next Guitar Live with a remote control Dalek.
After he was satisfied that the majority of the above had been sufficiently pummelled into my brain (about an hour later........my watch only said 5 minutes, its obviously faulty), we went upstairs to the Amp Room.
The Amp Room, naturally, contains many amps. Not all of which say Matamp on them
. The expectant hum of a C7 was muted....I plugged in :o
First impressions - the amp is changing speaker cabinets by itself, it's clearly alive, relentlessly evolving itself with every strum....oh, its Jeff doing it. Fair play. Needless to say it sounds good with every speaker - clear and bright up top, but somehow avoiding becoming hard and peaky even when you crank the treble. I've heard sparklier amps, but to me its the mids that really stood out. I'm not normally one for winding up the mids but the C7 loved it, they were thick and rich and, like the treble, it didn't sound like you had the knob dimed - the sound didn't go nasal, it just got fuller and would undoubtably cut through a mix without the tone itself sounding like it had been obviously EQ'd for such a purpose.
Can't really comment on the bass, I think this was about the time I tweaked the volume knob up full and failed miserably to keep cool and collected in front of the best amp I'd ever heard.
There was one other amp I was itching to have a play on. The Chino comes across on the website as being a dark jazzy sounding amp. 'Course I didn't get the hints which strongly suggested (rightly) that its actually based on a Fender sound. Whatever, this is still my amp of choice. The cleans are a real step up from the C7, with a lot more depth, and with the 6-position 'Voice' knob wound fully anti-clockwise to its thickest setting, its equally as rich. It does have more clean headroom than the C7, and cleans up better, the trade off being that it doesn't quite roar (roar its tits off? There's a new one for you Jeff!) like the C7 at full whack.
If the Chino and C7 were Bluesbreaker combos, the Chino would have the volume knob at three quarters and the C7 would be going flat out - if anybody's played one you'll know its the last quarter turn that brings the gain, the mids and the thickness out. Jeff is going to discuss this with Dave (the design engineer, I believe) on Monday and see if he can get me the best of both worlds.
Oh, and I'm planning a Chino with no Voice knob (It'll be permanently wired to give the thickest tone - I coil split my Stormy Monday to make the transition from screaming with the Nailbomb to clean a little easier), no Presence knob (wired to give max presence - I obviously use my vol. pot to clean up, if I didn't have loads of presence I'd have a muddy [comparitively!] clean sound), no effects loop and probably no reverb.
In red with gold piping and corners and a light grey/brownish grill cloth, with standard black control panel and cream chicken head knobs, for no extra charge.
All in all I had a great time, had a great cup of tea, heard some great amps..............and got lost again on the way home!
