Hughes and Kettner - Switchblade Review

[Tank]

Well I got bored and my pal at the local store got a switchblade. So I thought I run over with my JEM and try it for a bit, since during the holidays the store is dead anyways

Features:
Ok this baby is packed with features. 4 Channels and built in effects (Reverb, Delay, Modulation - Flanger -Chorus). It is fully controllable via MIDI and comes with a MIDI floorboard that is very easy to use. Everything else is pretty standard: Tone controls, presence, volume, gain and master. Channels are selected via a Chickenhead switch. You can store 128 presets and it comes with 64 factory presets.

Usability:
It is in fact quite easy to use. MIDI store and recall is very nicely done. You need the floorboard though, it wont work without it (preset wise). Now first I thought the unit sounds crappy, but you got to take care, the knobs are really really sensitive! Especially treble and mid controls. You need to take extreme care when turning those as they effect the sound a lot and it is easy to dial in a horrible tone. Beside that it is very easy to operate for a programmable amp. If you are aware of the sensitive dials, then it is no problem to get amazing sounds. Which leads to...

Sound:
Now I was amazed at what this amp can produce from only 2 preamp tubes. The clean channel is very nice and warm, so is the crunch channel. The lead channel sounds a little tamed for me but is pretty "oldschool". The Ultra channel is for very very high gain up to near "mesa" like sounds. Now many say this amp lacks character, I do not think so. The channels are rather "modeled" after other amps and the amp has no "own" sound. But unlike digital modelling amp it produces very good results and you can find excellent sounds. In fact it is like having a fender, 2 marshalls and a mesa in your bag at once.
Now the effects are nice and for digital effects the reverb and delay sound very nice and nearly as good as some rack effects that cost as much as this amp alone. The modulation effects (chorus, flanger) are for subtile use ok, but do not sound very good to me compared to some real stompboxes out there. So I would only use them rarely.
The presets are in fact pretty ok and nice to play around with, so you get the idea. Most sounds I wanted I got, by selecting a preset that was close to what I want and then fiddling a bit with the settings.

Reliability:
Well I only tested it for about 6 hours (with several beer breaks and dicsussions), but it looks very well built and solid. The floorboard is very good and looks nice. I would get another floorboard MIDI cable to make sure though.

Overall Rating:
I would rate this easily a 9 out of 10.
9 only because it has no unique thing going for it.
If you need a lot of versatile sounds, I would get this baby any day. It is a hard match for my JSX, but the sounds from the JSX are more unique. For playing in my band the easy recallable preset make me envy this amp though.

I played this baby through the matching Hughes and Kettner 4x12, I did not note the exact modell though. I used no other effects apart from the built in.

[xklusivly4u]

nice review. Does anyone has any review about 20 annivesary model?

[Force]

My 1x12 switchblade sucks and the speaker blew.

Maybe the Head and cab arrangement sounds better, anyway I now run a JVM combo which has less features but more tone

Of course this is just my opinion.

force

[Tank]

Originally Posted by Force

My 1x12 switchblade sucks and the speaker blew.

Maybe the Head and cab arrangement sounds better, anyway I now run a JVM combo which has less features but more tone

Of course this is just my opinion.

force

Well a blowing speaker can happen and should fall under warranty.

Can you please elaborate more than "it sucked". What exactly did you dislike (channels, sound wise) for example: I did not get enough punch in the mids etc.
He sadly did not have any switchblade combos at the store, so I cannot tell about the differences.

I for one did not like my JVM combo at all. While it does sound good crunchy, I could not get enough lead tone, against our 2nd guitarist and also clean it sounded to plain. With high gain I got extreme amounts of noise even when using my MXR noise gate. Maybe I had a lemon JVM though and you had a lemon switchblade.

[microdmitry]

That'd be just one preamp tube, really. Another is the phase splitter for the power amp. I admire the chutzpah they have, though. Calling this an "all tube" design takes quite a bit of it.

[Tank]

Hmm at least on the german site they do not call it an "all tube" design.

They state the following after asking them for more info (best translation I could do, as original is german):

You are right one 12AX is for the preamp section and one is the phase splitter.

To be effective with only one preamp tube, we use digital resistor arrays to alter the operating parameters of the single tube, whereas in other amps there is a preamp tube (or 2) for each channel exclusively. So you might compare this with traditional is like 4 different roads and we have one road with 4 lanes in the switchblade. For the traditional way, our trilogy amp uses 4 12AX7's, one for each channel plus the phase splitter, but the ground principals are the same. In the trilogy it is hard wired in the switchblade the tube setting is altered on the fly by digital banks.

For extreme gain settings there are transistor based "helpers" that drive the preamp tube to more gain settings (same you would do with a pedal driving a preamp). Due to the nice design it is still possible to use an overdrive or distortion pedal to go for even more.

This is of course not in line with a "tube purist" amp (look at our statesman series or TriAmp for that), but we can say for sure that this made it possible to make a fully programmable tube amp, with real tube sound, for the best price we could make it. There is no digital amp modelling in the signal path (so no downside of "cold signals"), of course the built in effects (delay, reverb, modulation) are digital. Some folks like to call the techniques we used "analog tube modelling", but to not confuse customers we do not use this term.

[scotte_za]

xklusivly4u, do you mean the edition tube 20th?

[mfergel]

I had one for a week before I took it back. Hated it. Sqeals like a pig when you try to do feedback or sustain notes out. Sounds less natural then the Tonelabs. Lots of features but they don't mean anything if it doesn't sound good. It sounds very much like a solid state amp and for the price they are selling for, I expect a lot more.

[microdmitry]

Originally Posted by Tank

Hmm at least on the german site they do not call it an "all tube" design.

The issue with it isn't even this. The issue is that Euro is so expensive these days that the exchange rate works against European (and English) products and because of this the Switchblade is drastically overpriced for what it is. For less money you can buy a Mesa Express, which is all tube, made in USA, and will blow anything digital away without even trying hard. Then you can buy TC G-Sharp for effects with spare cash.

[BigShred]

The Switchblade is a great amp. I own one and love it.

I don't understand certain people who feel like they have to evangelize everyone to dislike something they don't like.

If you don't like it. Don't play through it.

I prefer tube amps myself, but I'm not a tube nazi. I don't notice a whole lot of difference in sound between my Switchblade and the Marshall TSL100 I used to own.

[Tank]

Originally Posted by BigShred

The Switchblade is a great amp. I own one and love it.

I don't understand certain people who feel like they have to evangelize everyone to dislike something they don't like.

If you don't like it. Don't play through it.

I prefer tube amps myself, but I'm not a tube nazi. I don't notice a whole lot of difference in sound between my Switchblade and the Marshall TSL100 I used to own.

I tend to agree that some people are very "plain tube" boys.
I own a JSX currently (which I hope is a full tube amp to them) and also had a Mesa Dual Rec (old one 2 channel).
I have to add that the switchblade can hold its own tone wise compared to those (much more expensive) amps and it beats the Engl Blackmore I also tested (no review as I do not like bashing stuff) which sounded more like a solid state characterless amp than the switchblade.

[atimoc]

Nice review, good to hear you liked it. I have tremendous GAS for a Switchblade combo, mainly because I like effects but strongly dislike dealing with many stompboxes. Even if the amp's effects have less room for tweaking than having a separate flanger, chorus, delay, reverb I would still prefer having them built-in. It's kind of surprising that there aren't any more amps like this. There's the Spider Valve, Switchblade, and Ashdown Fallen Angel, but that's about it, as far as I know.

[xklusivly4u]

Originally Posted by scotte_za

xklusivly4u, do you mean the edition tube 20th?

that’s right. I am struggling to choose between that and Marshall DSL 401. I just play at home and afraid that 40 watt tube amp is too loud, looking for a decent clean and high gain amp. Can’t afford Mesa Express 5:25 though.

[scotte_za]

The clean channel on the 20th is awesome and the eq controls are damn responsive, in fact, I love everything about the amp, it even takes high gain stuff in its stride. the only problem is that there isn't a separate eq for the two channels. works nicely as a band practice amp for me

[microdmitry]

>> It's kind of surprising that there aren't any more amps like this

To the contrary, it's not surprising. In order to put in decent effects (say, TC style) they'd have to put in another, dedicated DSP. And that costs money. So they band aid them on the side using spare DSP bandwidth to save cost. Unsurprisingly, the result leaves much to be desired, so discriminating buyer ends up running a G Major in the loop and that's another $400. Less picky buyer would prefer to pay a couple of hundred dollars less than the unit would cost if it had "state of the art" FX built in. Makes sense from the economical standpoint I guess.