21Fretter
I have been looking for a new amp that would be suitable for bands like Greenday, Blink-182, My Chemical Romance but also a bit lower gain stuff i.e. Creedence Clear Water, a bit of Stones etc. I gave the HIWATT G100R a little play at Marshall Music a week or so ago. I wasn't too keen to buy it new because it IS solid state and I really want to start looking into a tube amp which wouldn't be that much more than the HIWATT but I recently saw one advertised 2nd hand at +-1/3 of the price. Only issue is that I can find very little information on the amp, 2/3 random youtube clips and this,
http://mixdownmag.com.au/2011/05/20/hiwatt-g100r-combo/, which makes a claim that the amp won some "Best amp under 1000 pounds" award but I've never heard of the site so don't know how much credit to give. I just thought this might be something to look into to tide me over from my Cube 30 while I'm looking for the suitable tube amp.
Crib: Anyone ever heard/had any experience with this amp?
guidothepimmp
I own one as does Flatfourfan,
The goods,
great drive sound for heavier jams
Has 2 independant gains 1 and 2. 1 for your lighter gain bluesy tones, gain 2 for your pantera face melting gain
Effects loop is good
Cleans are great buuut you don't get that clean breakup as on toob amps
Decent reverb
Built like a tank
The bads
Heavy as a mofo
Cleans are a 1 trick pony
Gain 1 settings are tricky to dial in, need to fiddle a lot to find good tones (they are there though)
All in all, a good SS amp. It is my goto on a day to day for my heavy sound.
My other setup is one of 2 toob amps with pedals in front, but that is for totally different tones and music. The more vintage sounds etc.
21Fretter
Great to hear that there are 2 members who have had "intimate" experience with the amp. Thanks a lot for the post guido, really helpful. Hopefully flatfour will also have some time to quickly write a little something but your post already gave me a really nice idea because truthfully, my ear for tone is really not good so I rely on others' opinions unfortunately ☹
guidothepimmp
Lol, yeh man, tone is all in the.. Errm, ears of the beholder.
I honestly think this particular model sounds good, it doesn't do that clean breakup thing tube amps do but it does tick the other boxes.
I can also tell you I wouldn't touch the g200 with a bargepole because while the cleans are good, the drives are terrible, unless of course you throw pedals in front of it
Similarly, the g40 is also not great, a bit weedy imo. They somehow got the combination right on the g100.
FFF should be intersting to hear cos I have the old model, and FFF has the newer model. Largely the same, just some differences on the amp layout
flatfourfan
Amen on the G100R. Volume wise, it'll drown out an accoustic drum kit no problem, I know, I've tried. On volume 6 it's like a walk in the park. Tones wise as guido said they are there, you just have to play around with it a bit to get it right. The amp loves pedals in the clean tone, but honestly when I played it, I just used the foot switch between the clean and dirty channels. It's not an overly complicated amp and a noob can get the hang of it pretty quick.
I paid R3000 for mine a while back and got the footswitch thrown in, which is about 300 bones. So you're getting it for about a grand???
Honestly, it's built like a brick sh*thouse and is heavy as hell. The driver even though it's the HIWATT branded stuff can't be faulted. I've had a few forumites play through mine and all were impressed with the tone from the amp.
My G200R and my G100R......next on the list is a custom 50.
21Fretter
Not quite R1000, R1500 as I was working with Marshall's advertised price of R4195. I will try get a foot-switch thrown into the deal if there is one available/a discount. I'm pretty much sold though after your guys two posts, definitely seems it will tide me over nicely (and possibly keep it regardless) until I find the right tube amp.
On a side note, I bought a Jackson JS30 Kelly a good few years ago for R3500 including a hard case (if i remember correctly), I see the same guitar retailing at the same store for R6500 now, prices are weird sometimes it seems.
P.S. I'm going to be very happy when the day arrives that I can have a stack my own, it's just "prettier" and more bad-ass ?
flatfourfan
R1500 is dirt cheap. Trust me once you play it, you won't part with it.
21Fretter
Awesome-sauce. Hopefully will be able to give the amp a view in the next few days, make sure everything is in order and close the deal. I've never actually bought an amp before 2nd hand, what are the things I should look out for? Scratchy pots, any rattling on loud volumes etc?
guidothepimmp
Righto,
1st thing, check the speaker to make sure they didn't swap it out for a pos. Should be a hiwatt branded 12inch driver or other reputable brand.
Then pots, turn each and listen for scratchiness, this can easily be cleaned with switch cleaner though so ni biggy.
More importantly, do a full sweep of the bass, mids, treble, contour and gain knobs, on ALL of these you should here an audible and distinct sweep, check gain 1, orange light on crunch, and gain 2, red light on crunch.
Remember to turn the master volume up as you could have the clean and drive volumes on 10 but if the master is 0 you won't hear diddly.
Listen for flubbiness or rattles from the driver when playing.
Turn up the reverb and check that it is working. The amp has spring reverb so there should be a reverb tank in the chassis somewhere.
Not sure how you would check the effects loop without plugging goodies in to hear. Also, the footswitch, 8ohm and 4ohm switches are all on the back and the effects loop has its own volume too btw
guidothepimmp
Oh, and with the master volume on 1 or 2 and the other volumes on 3 or 4 you should be plenty loud, this thing is powerful.
To give you and idea, I gigged on 5 and 5. Never tapped the thing, its too bloody loud.
I suggest you take your guit to try it out too, that way you know what to expect when you get it home IF you like what you hear, also take your time with the settings and see what you think. On clean set the bass mids and treb at 12oclock and adjust from there. Set the reverb a 2 or so and should give you a nice starter point.
For crunch, high gain (red light, NOT orange), turn gain to around 1 or 2 o'clock, contour to 3 o clock or so and dial back from there.
For solid hard rock. I go bass @ 2oclock, mids @ 12oclock, and trebs @ 10/11 o'clock, fiddle from there because for me it differs A LOT depending which guitar I use..
Those should be ok for ballpark start points
21Fretter
Most deserving of a "thanks", you've been an awesome help.
guidothepimmp
Hey cheers bud, yeh I dig it, it works for me, but give it a twirl and see what it does for you.
You know the ol saying, different strokes and all that..
I always let my big cheesy grin gauge decide. If I get a setting, crank the thing and can't stop grinning, its a winner ?
flatfourfan
oh yeah and it has a line out for an external cab...........
21Fretter
G100R 112 acquired @ R1250 + foot switch, he didn't have it on him at the time (was it his mom's house or something but i feel he is good for it) so will have to pick that up another time. Wrote down guido and flatfour's suggestions and tips, gave pots a go through, checked this and that. All sounded good, I did see what you guys were saying in regards to finding the tone but I did catch glimpses of it as I was turning this and that.
flatfourfan
Awesome price. Watching guido play mine this weekend made me decide not to sell it.
21Fretter
Definitely happy with the deal, once I get my hands on the foot-switch I will be very happy! I am still experimenting tone-wise as you guys mentioned but I'll hopefully have success at band practice, a tone I'm not in love with at home might actually sit well in the band setting (who knows). Clean channel is definitely a big improvement over my Cube, simply has more "life" to it.
21Fretter
So ja....I've run into a problem with the amp. Happily played a show with it on Saturday night, ran like a charm, master and channel volume no louder than 12' o clock each, haven't had any bumps that i can recall with it, been very careful with putting it down softly after carrying etc but suddenly when I turned the amp on at practice today ( the amp was unplayed until today from the show, simply sitting in my lounge), it could barely get any volume on the gain channels, basically bedroom levels at 12' o clock both channels, a lot less gain and the clean like has almost a terrible tremolo to it and had random volume pops/jumps depending on which notes I picked, hard to describe. I used the line out of the amp into my UX1 and I was able to record the clean channel without any of the previous problems I can recall (was a bit of popping but that was because it was clipping, recorded too high/idk, could be part of the problem, seems i had to drop the volume ridiculous amounts to get it to stop hitting the red). Any ideas? ☹
Edit: Did some more recordings, I can definitely record fine which means nothing wrong with preamp and connections? My new description of the clean is like a bunch of farts and distortion is better described as more harsh and digital sounding like one would have when using a line out but forgot to add cab simulation but not AS harsh and digital. Maybe the volume I played at the show managed to rattle one of the speaker connections a bit loose?
