That said, can I ask what your experiences are with Crate solid state amps?
Absolutely, In short my experiences with Crate solid state amps are that I was a poor young gigging musician in the 90s
In complete detail, When I started playing around 94/95 all my friends and I played most varieties of shitty and decent SS amps, because they are affordable and we didn't know anything better existed.
In my first band that played something other than covers I played an older SS Peavey deal. It was loud and had a phaser built in, but did not sound particularly good and I used pedals for my distortion, my tone definitely sucked. The other guitar player had the Crate Excalibur head, which was also very loud but sounded like a fart every time he palm muted. I heard that amp 3 times a week for like 4 years, as you could imagine I played on it once or twice. It sounded like ass. Years later that same buddy recorded an album with a guy who did assist or maybe still does assist Steve Evetts. The engineer heard two seconds of it and laughed it out of the studio, wouldnt even mic it up. Also worth noting that by that point my friend had upgraded to a Mesa Oversized Cab.
Somewhat later on, I bought the original Randall Warhead when it came out. It was a total lemon and never sounded near as good as our other friends Randall RG-100 (which I still consider a really great amp especially considering what they go for). While my Warhead was getting fixed a friend lent me the Crate G600. It sucked real bad, just not a good dirty sound in the thing. Around this same time, another friend that I jammed with quite a bit had the Crate Stealth. It also sounded just awful, even he didnt like it, he ended up trading it to GC plus added cash for a Fender Ultimate Chorus combo. It was an improvement.
More recently, my last band broke up and my drummer friend and I ended up playing with basically every musician in Northeast Ohio who had a passing interest in Metal. One guitar player who ended up not completely sucking and stuck around for a little while had the GT2x12 combo. It was not good. We tried external cabs, boosting... It was also more glaring because by that point I had ponied up for a Mesa Dual Recto. Im about 5-6 years removed from jamming with that guy but the tone of that amplifier remains etched in my memory. Just painful.
Over the years Ive also played a billion shows with other poor local bands, and they also had an assortment of Crates, and they also sounded like butthole. I think the only crate I have heard that didnt totally suck was one of those newer-ish combo deals with the classic car emblem logo thing on the front. It was tube, not particularly high gain, but it did sound half decent.
Have I passed the test? :Spin:
In all seriousness, we all have to start somewhere. Ola can make a crappy Marshall MG combo sound pretty dang decent, so its not lost on me that one could hypothetically pull a tone that doesnt suck from an amp that I know doesnt sound good in real life. I just dont think the OP is going to gain anything from adding a Crate amp to his signal chain particularly if he's not trying to improve his real life micing skills and runs direct into impulses. Its lost on me how this would be a good use of time or money.
Can I ask do you or someone you love work for Crate?
