NAD: Matchless HC30

StuartMac290

My favourite amp for the last 15 years or so has been my Bad Cat Black Cat 30 - in fact it's the best amp I've ever plugged into. It's one of the very early ones that's made with Matchless components.

For reasons that are too convoluted and dull to go into here I decided last year to order the Matchless version of the same amp. It finally arrived this week, and I got my first chance to use it in a session yesterday, alongside the Bad Cat, both plugged into the same type of cabs loaded with one Alnico Cream and one Creamback, mic'd with a matched pair of mics into a matched pair of Neve preamps.

And...it's just glorious. Everything I've always loved about my Bad Cat - actually the 12ax7 channels are close to identical - but with a little bit more of everything on the ef86 side, which is a lot gainier.

Ended up recording them all day in stereo, primarily playing Gretsches. These things ADORE Gretsches!

I custom ordered it in a lovely Navy Blue (cos Scottish) although it looks more teal in this photo. Wonderful, wonderful thing.

Winny_Pooh

Phwoar!!!

slacker

Very nice. Love the blue. I've got a 2001 bc 30 combo. I've loaded it with a neo v30 and a tone tubby so a similar blend of alnico and ceramic. Sort of. Wonderful amp and gets used a lot at home due to logistics.

I've also got a lightning head. So from experience you have to plug your hc30 into a 4x12.

SidNewton

You lucky bugger. I've owned both the head and combo version in the past, as well as a King Cobra head.
Glorious things. Regretted selling the head ever since.

mani

Awesome NAD!

Stuckfast

Cool!

What are those mics btw? 

Supportact

Bet that sounds amazing, especially in stereo. 

StuartMac290

Stuckfast said:

Cool!

What are those mics btw? 

Shure KSM353 ribbons, formerly made by Crowley and Tripp as the El Diabolo. My favourite guitar mics, incredible on bass drum too

Petepassion

Awesome!
but do we get to hear it?

relic245

Petepassion said:

Awesome!
but do we get to hear it?

Pretty sure if he turns it up we'll hear it in most parts of the country.

mburekenge

Fantastic!

slacker

relic245 said:

Petepassion said:

Awesome!
but do we get to hear it?

Pretty sure if he turns it up we'll hear it in most parts of the country.

One regret I have is that common sense stopped me from buying a matchless 100w head.

Petepassion

Common sense has no place in the guitar world

StuartMac290

Petepassion said:

Awesome!
but do we get to hear it?

Well, this album isn't due out until October but I'll see if I can get the artist's permission to share a clip or two. It's me doing the guitars on the album anyway so that's one less obstacle!

StuartMac290

relic245 said:

Petepassion said:

Awesome!
but do we get to hear it?

Pretty sure if he turns it up we'll hear it in most parts of the country.

The masters are disengaged on both amps, so yeah, it's extraordinarily loud! It's a big space, fortunately.

Moe_Zambeek

Wowza, heck of a studio!

StuartMac290

Moe_Zambeek said:

Wowza, heck of a studio!

It's an amazing-sounding room. I do a lot of strings and orchestral stuff here for soundtracks and stuff, which is what it was really designed for, but almost accidentally we ended up with an incredible drum sound! It's Mark Brzezicki's favourite room for recording.

Schmo

Congrats, that's truly stunning !

prlgmnr

Do you live in the cab/impulse response section of a user interface for an amp modeller?

Stuckfast

StuartMac290 said:

Stuckfast said:

Cool!

What are those mics btw? 

Shure KSM353 ribbons, formerly made by Crowley and Tripp as the El Diabolo. My favourite guitar mics, incredible on bass drum too

Oh cool. It's a shame Shure made those mics so expensive when they took over!

What a lovely studio, are you allowed to tell us what it's called?

StuartMac290

Stuckfast said:

StuartMac290 said:

Stuckfast said:

Cool!

What are those mics btw? 

Shure KSM353 ribbons, formerly made by Crowley and Tripp as the El Diabolo. My favourite guitar mics, incredible on bass drum too

Oh cool. It's a shame Shure made those mics so expensive when they took over!

What a lovely studio, are you allowed to tell us what it's called?

I think they were always that expensive, to be honest! I had a couple of other Crowley and Tripps for a while but these were the two that stood out.

Studio is called Beetroot - it's where I'm based