Great amp. Mike Soldano is probably one of the friendliest and nicest guys in the business too. Glad to see he kept the brand alive. They were closing up shop a few years back.
Yea im Sure Friedman talked him out of that shit... i mean come on, besides Jose mods and variants of basic cascade mods you can say Mikes take on the whole thing including the efx loop he designed was rather unique.
So many greats from that era used the Soldano around 1990. My personal favourites have to be the two first Lynch Mob albums, which are largely a Soldano, and have some of the most amazing guitar tones ever to be recorded. Oh, and Gary Moore's Still Got the Blues, which is to Les Paul tones what Wicked Sensation is to superstrat tones.
@@MagnusGoGo "The departure of Mike Soldano from Jet City and his recent work with Diamond Amplification also had people talking, but has a very simple explanation as well. “Mike has done collaborative things since forever. He’s an in-demand designer, and it’s another that he did,” said White of the new amplifier that Soldano collaborated with Diamond on. As far as departing Jet City, Soldano made a decision to focus on his namesake line after some turnover in that company." thetoneking.com/still-ascending-jet-city-amplification-plots-a-course-for-long-term-success/ Also saw a vid of him talking about it. I think it was one of those countless NAMM videos
Wow. The character of the mids is so damn pleasing, I feel like my wife just made me a sandwich, massaged my neck and gave me a kiss on my head... but DAMN IS SHE EXPENSIVE.
Everyone seems to have a fixation with only using the 'fat' strings with this amp. It's far more tonally complex than most in my opinion and has produced some of the most memorable lead guitar tones in existence. Some of Gary Moore's best tones for example.
Somehow I first read the opening lines as "Out on the streets / That's where we meet". Oh well, that isn't wrong either, and Warren deMartini DID use the Soldanos to great effect on the Detonator album, which may not be that commercially succesful but has some truly magnificent tones on it.
Ok, those power cables... I can plug in everything i own and i still have 30 of them in a drawer. Where do all of these come from??? Its the opposite problem of where do picks go 🤣🤣
Every washing machine has a built in flaw that sucks socks from our realm and deposits them somewhere else, but only one from any given pair. Apparently somewhere in an alternate universe is a machine which converts the socks and redeposits them as power cables.
I've been following your channel since your early days. You've putting hours in the wood shed, working on your guitar playing and it's really showing. You've come quite a ways. Nice work!
Yeah, I have a 100w L13 and an SLO, love the hell of em!!! - I bought a Boss Waza Tube Expander to tame the volume a bit and add a working loop....So epic!!!
If you don't have the OD master volume at 4-6 you are missing the magic. That's where the wizard lives and where it was set for all those great tones you love.
The snare sound in these recent videos, though. Super tasty. Reminds me of the snare sound from Periphery, with the crack of the whip and the huge, wide reverb
Mike designed amps for Jet City with the mindset of Soldano but mass produced with more affordable components. If you're interested in learning more, watch Tone-Talk by Marc Huzansky and David Friedman, guesting Mike Soldano (pt 1 and 2). It's amazing listen in general. Don't mix with Sound City, which Bruce Egnater joined after years of trying to savour the brand to make a Hiwatt that honors the original. Massive clean amp.
Not necessarily a great example for this channel, but Warren Haynes is a long time user of this amp- a guy known for having incredible tone, both live and in the studio.
Honestly, for the price I'd probably stick with a 5150. Heavier crunch, slightly less colourful, almost 3k cheaper. Like you said, nobody is getting a Soldano for the clean tones anyway.
Agree- well I went with Bogner Uberschall as it sounds way more crushing and same price for 150 watt amp vs 30 watt SLO Soldano and better FX look. Soldano SLO should be 1k less expensive.
Kudos for including a jam reminiscent of DLR-era Jason Becker in there. That is definitely the kind of thing somebody interested in an SLO would want to hear. :)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an amp that can go from Blues (Eric Clapton), Glam Metal (George Lynch in Lynch Mob) and than do hard hitting Heavy Metal, and still sound great.
That’s how I got into Soldano amps. The Frogstomp album was a Hot Rod 100+, and the Freak Show album is a SLO 100. To my ears they both have that Soldano “hugeness,” but the 100+ sounds nastier while the SLO 100 sounds smoother.
@@MP-ny3rp, I read it in a Guitar World article back in the 90s, but I suppose they could have been mistaken. Marshall JCM 900s have more of the Green Day - Dookie type of sound than the Silverchair - Frogstomp sound, but if you think otherwise, go ahead.
I've been playing my Soldano Avenger 50 since 2012 and the high gain Soldano tone is God tier. I was able to buy mine at a huge discount because it was a new return. Still looking to get the SLO-100 soon. BTW, that Plexi sound you coaxed out of it was fucking awesome. The Rippah!!!
I can tell you’re playing has really improved glen! You look confident playing those riffs! Also..... I wonder what it would sound like to run a dimebucker through that.................
Soldanos have always been a bit of a wet dream of mine, but being as expensive as they are, I had to settle for a Jet City 100 and even that is a freaking phenomenal beast. If you get a chance, please do a shootout of the two Glenn!
i met micheal soldano in 1984 in california......it was a casual setting and we started talking amps . he gave me pointers that works with any amp.....he taught me how to control an amp to get what i want out of it........never bought a soldano, because i , at the time, didnt know he made amps at the time we met.......
Hmm. I wonder what this would sound like compared to a sim counterpart. Can you do a video that's a direct capture from the amp then use a cab sim and compare the two?
Soldano SLO 100 is my favorite hard rock amp with hot rodded jcm 800 amps and mesa mark IV. I just begun to build my third slo 100 head and this one will be handwired with turrets and original mallory pvc caps.
You can tell you've been practicing:) Nice Playing. Much better from just a year ago. This amp sounds bad ass.. on my list of must buy now. I think I have a kidney left.
This is my favorite amp on my headrush. Its ridiculously expensive. For the price of it u could get a nice brand new guitar and a bad ass tube mini with cab.
I have the Amplitube ver of this amp. It's so bright I pair it with the thunderverb 200. Sounds pretty good to me. Of course that was before I realized I was using the 18th leading amp sim provider in the nation.
Thank you Glenn for reviewing this awesome amp! Definitely one of my absolute favourites! I just want to clarify one thing. The bright switch works only on the clean/crunch channel. I wish you all the best!
Players of great importance (EVH/Vai/Lynch, as a few examples) have used the SLO at various times - the 5150 (and hence the 6505 and variants) are based on the SLO, so the SLO is legendary for a reason.
I have the same strat, such a great sounding and playing guitar. I never liked strats till i played mine, and had to have it after that. The neck feel is so perfect for my hands.
What this has confirmed for me is that I don't care for the sound of the Fender humbucker. The EMG's had crushing tone at any gain stage, and each note articulates clearly, the fender Humbucker has a "flubby" attack and the chords sound noisy with each not getting drowned out. The mix was completly tight the amp sounds great.
Eddie Van Halen used and loved these amps back in the day. Right before he came out with the 5150. I went to the Sammy Hagar/Van Halen bar CaboWabo in Mexico back in mid 1990s. There were still Soldanos down there in the bar for Ed and Bands. If you look up the Van Halen love at Cabo Wabo gig....Eddie just ripsssssss a whole bar show with VH on Soldanos. It was so tight. I recently read the story of Mr Saldano getting a call from Eddie on Valentine’s Day when Ed made him miss his Valentines date as Ed said he wanted to come pick up a Soldano to try. It’s a good story. - Soldano was an expensive hot rod Marshall before all of the others......
Oh the SLO, this, the Mesa Boogie Mark series, and the 5150 were the high gain amps in the 90s. The list of artists that have used SLOs is insane everything blues to metal. Though it is primarily studio amp so you might never see one at a live show but trust me you have heard it.
Only guy ive seen use the SLO as a main live amp is Matt Pike, but I think that was cause his sound was heavily reliant on the super fat sound of the SLO plus the soldano GTO pedal.
Wrong. The rectifiers were the sound of the 90s not mark series, 5150 were used but not as frequently. Soldano is there with jcm800,mark 2c+ for 80s guitar tones
@@DaisyHead666 Live Soldano users I can think of are: Warren Haynes, Gary Moore in '93 (R.I.P), Clapton around the same time, Pat Smear of Foo Fighters, Chris Degarmo had a Soldano preamp in his Bradshaw rack, but when I asked him about it he said he used it for clean sounds! Oh, I use one too! :P
Hey Glen, my mindset is that you can never have too many of those IEC cords in your stash of leads and stuff, so it's good to keep them, you never know when you'll need it.
I played one of those about 25 years ago. From my memory, it was a very unforgiving amplifier and any mistakes seemed more prevalent. The upside to that is that it’s a very touch sensitive amp that responds well to different nuances of a player’s style.
Yeah, it is a raw amp, stripped to the bones. The sound is pure. You can hear that the circuitry and sound path must be extremely simple, which is maybe what caused some problems over the years with the footswitch etc, i.e. features that need some sophistication and that probably go against the whole philosophy of the thing. Not for everyone IMO, and definitely not a first buy for a high gain amp unless you have a strong experience with both the guitar and other valve amplifiers.
@@dustrider9306 loud enough for a bedroom amp. It's like driving a Ferrari at 35 and saying it was a legitimate test. You apparently have zero experience with a SLO100. I have the holy grail 1991. I've never run mine at 1.
NOICE! Definitely gotta refine my soldano patch on my Helix then! When you mentioned playing Priest on this I first thought of Grinder. Idk what they used there, but the tone reminded me of it.
I'm currently in the process of working on a diy scratch-build Soldano SLO-50 amp build project, I've elected to go with a set of two matched JJ KT-77 tubes because they are a drop-in replacement for the EL-34 Tubes I was originally going to use, the output transformer I'm using is designed for two EL 34 Tubes, preamp tubes will be a set of five JJ ECC83 tubes.
10:00 yeah, not gonna get modern metal tones on a single coil strat, no matter how you dial that amp. But with good eq and obviously someone familiar with the genre, it can be achieved.
