Electro-Harmonix has just dropped a new solid-state guitar amp that packs 100-watts into a super-portable head that weighs little more than a couple of bags of granulated sugar.
Named for a tank, built like a tank? This compact EHX powerhouse (it weighs just 2.5lbs) is called the ABRAMS100, and it’s a simple, single-channel amp that the NYC guitar effects pedal brand’s supremo, Mike Matthews, promises makes a superb platform for your pedalboard – or indeed the amp modeller in your life.
“The ABRAMS100 packs a whallop and it’s perfect for pedals!” says Matthews.
Headroom is the order of the day. The ABRAMS100 is clean and mean, though you will get a hint of warm low-gain breakup when the gain is turned up high. Just add whatever gain you need from the overdrive, distortion or fuzz pedal on your ‘board.
The front panel is gloriously uncomplicated. There are dials for Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble, Reverb, and Volume, plus a Bright switch for extra presence and trebly sparkle, i.e. the button you press when you have an electric guitar with a muddy humbucker, or a particularly difficult mix to fight through.
The reverb is a digital spring reverb that judging by the demo videos has an unseemly degree of splash at extreme settings. It’ll do just nicely. Was this algorithm exported from EHX’s Holy Grail reverb pedal? The website does not say, but it kinda sounds like it.
Around the back of the amplifier you will find an effects loop plus a speaker output for 4-16ohms, plus the on/off switch and AC input. And that’s that.
For $299, you have a fuss-free solid-state 100-watter that you can throw into a backpack and take to a gig.
In other recent Electro-Harmonix news, the brand expanded its Pico series of guitar mini pedals with something really kind of strange, the Atomic Cluster – a stompbox described as a “spectral decomposer” that was engineered with soundscapists in mind.
EHX said it was dipping its toe into “the cosmic pool of glitchy synth pedals” with an algorithm programmed to reduce the frequency resolution of your instrument, and thus creating a “wide range of unique effects from rhythmic lo-fi glitch and auto-arpeggio tones to ambient synth pads and more!” Quite. It sounds pretty nuts, and you can read more about the Atomic Cluster here.
You can find out more about the ABRAMS100 at Electro-Harmonix. It’s priced $299. UK price TBC.
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