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Post by djcakadave on Nov 29, 2020 10:48:29 GMT -7
Wondering why no one is posting? Maybe too enthralled with the amp to post?
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Post by Russell B on Nov 29, 2020 11:30:59 GMT -7
I’ve not gotten mine yet. I had to get Humbucker Music to hold it as I was out for the holidays. It should get here Wednesday.
With that said, I think that only three members of this forum has one. One of those is a prototype.
Edit! Adam has one too! That’s four!
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Post by frankie on Nov 29, 2020 17:42:50 GMT -7
There’s only 20 in the wild so far, back order is deep though. I got a message from the wife of someone who is holding it as an Xmas present for her husband and someone local to Cleveland who loves it, compared it more favorably to his ENGL and is looking to order a matching cabinet for it now.
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Post by djcakadave on Nov 29, 2020 17:59:37 GMT -7
I’ve not gotten mine yet. I had to get Humbucker Music to hold it as I was out for the holidays. It should get here Wednesday. With that said, I think that only three members of this forum has one. One of those is a prototype. Let me know how you like it? Mine will be here Thursday!
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Post by adam on Nov 30, 2020 4:26:53 GMT -7
I imagine if there were more out there, you'd hear more about it. Being one of the few lucky ones, I can share some thoughts having lived with it for a little while... In short, the amp sounds fantastic. Better than the demo vids imho. Super fun to play. My demo was mostly in that Marshall sandbox, and you can take it there, but it's different in a really pleasing way, and it just reacts differently to say a Marshall. Specifically the sensitivity in the gain, like it can sound really high gain, but if you just back up the pick attack, it has another level of dynamics or tone under that if that makes sense. Say generally high gain means you are high gain regardless of your picking volume, but this is different. I've been fooling with a lot of my amps and pedals lately. I just love the sound of an electric guitar more than anything, and just have fun exploring different tones. Anyway, yesterday morning ran through about 5 of my amps looking for whatever in clean sounds (I still bet the EZG would be just the bomb) and wound up back to the MAZ into a Marshall 1960ax, then tried that into Marshall 1960av, then into just one side of that cab (I don't know why, but I think that cab sounds better when you just use 2 of the 4 speakers and seems like a recurring theme to me). Using a low output SG, low input, gain barely open and master really high, I just couldn't stop playing that. Just a wonderful pretty sound that can also knock you over if you play hard. So I'm like "that's the ****". Then started putting gain pedals in front of it and wasn't really happy with any of that (I think they just don't work great when an amp is set for massive dynamics), so to heel with that, let's try the caz as the gain side into the other side of that 4x12 (v30s) and I'll use an a/b box to switch amps. That sounded fantastic, and you can make the CAZ work with whatever combo of speakers really easily. Next onto trying different speakers in another 4x12 straight cab I haven't really been jazzed about for the last number of years. Made by some guy in Canada off some old Marshall spec (got it used a long time ago, no idea who made it). That had 2 greenbacks and 2 g12-70s. Originally that cab had the greenbacks and 2 g12h30s and I didn't like that either. Anyway, pulled out the 70's and replaced with a couple creambacks, x pattern, vintage wiring. Plugged that into the CAZ and HOLY CRAP, does that sound fantastic. Completely different than my other 4 4x12's, but I can't tell you what a wonderful sound that combo is with that amp. Then I couldn't stop playing that and of course had to try a few different guitars into that, all with the same fantastic results. It kills at low and high volume, and feeds back wonderfully even at low volume. Then had to fire it up again last night to confirm what I was hearing, and same thing, just couldn't be happier. The cab reminds me of what I remember a friend's old Marshall cab sounded like (early 70's, maybe late 60's), but to my ears, just shines like no tomorrow with the CAZ. It's a truly fantastic and unique sounding and playing amp. Long story short, that exercise maybe me change my view from "fantastic amp" to "holy grail". I think when once these things start getting out there and if they get in the right hands, they could really catch fire. For now, the covid thing has just put a damper on it. And maybe keep in mind that it's not like they are being built oversees and come in 100's of units at a time, but are hand built one-by-one by a really small team in the good old USA.
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Post by doctorice on Nov 30, 2020 8:46:55 GMT -7
Wondering why no one is posting? Maybe too enthralled with the amp to post? Yes
Adam's post covers it really well. But I'll pile on anyway I'm running the CAZ into a 1x12 Avatar cab with a Creamback M65; cab is closed back currently. I'm using the amp in its lower gain ranges, and it sounds phenomenal. The ability to shape tone and alter the amount of dirt from just the guitar controls is at least as good as any amp I've tried, possibly better.
I also tried some dirt pedals. I'm on the fence about them. My quick takeaway is "You don't need them, but you might use them". I was using them mostly to re-shape eq beyond the overall tone shift from using the guitar controls. For example, the bass roll off and mid push of a tube screamer. Note: I had to re-adjust all pedal settings from where they were previously, which I think was plugged into my Z-Plus. This was not a surprise given how different the CAZ is from the MAZ-style front end on the Z-Plus.
I was a bit surprised by frankie's note on how few are currently "out there in the wild", but I'm sure more will get there as Doc builds 'em.
Btw, once gigs start happening again in my area in the usual venues, I will use this amp. The Level control is the great enabler.
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Nov 30, 2020 11:21:14 GMT -7
Wondering why no one is posting? Maybe too enthralled with the amp to post? Yes
Adam's post covers it really well. But I'll pile on anyway I'm running the CAZ into a 1x12 Avatar cab with a Creamback M65; cab is closed back currently. I'm using the amp in its lower gain ranges, and it sounds phenomenal. The ability to shape tone and alter the amount of dirt from just the guitar controls is at least as good as any amp I've tried, possibly better.
I also tried some dirt pedals. I'm on the fence about them. My quick takeaway is "You don't need them, but you might use them". I was using them mostly to re-shape eq beyond the overall tone shift from using the guitar controls. For example, the bass roll off and mid push of a tube screamer. Note: I had to re-adjust all pedal settings from where they were previously, which I think was plugged into my Z-Plus. This was not a surprise given how different the CAZ is from the MAZ-style front end on the Z-Plus.
I was a bit surprised by frankie's note on how few are currently "out there in the wild", but I'm sure more will get there as Doc builds 'em.
Btw, once gigs start happening again in my area in the usual venues, I will use this amp. The Level control is the great enabler.
I haven't had much to add to this because Adam and Mike have really said it well. I'll just say that I haven't even plugged a dirt pedal into it yet, but Mike makes a great point about re-shaping the eq. And I dig Adam's idea about using the 4x12 with two amps, that would be ideal...but I sold my last 4x12 years ago. I am an admitted dirt pedal junkie but this amp sounds so good without one that I just haven't tried it yet.
It's a terrific, terrific amp and so much fun to play. I need to get into a loud rockin' band so I can truly appreciate it. My gut feeling is it's a little over the top for church, but I really have to take it in and try it. The Level control is really great. Not much more to say except "Buy one!"
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Post by adam on Nov 30, 2020 18:06:20 GMT -7
I also tried some dirt pedals. I'm on the fence about them. My quick takeaway is "You don't need them, but you might use them". I was using them mostly to re-shape eq beyond the overall tone shift from using the guitar controls. I'll just say that I haven't even plugged a dirt pedal into it yet, but Mike makes a great point about re-shaping the eq.
My 2 cents - in general the CAZ has a really complex and thick harmonic structure and doesn't really benefit from a pedal that is adding grind or some more complexity to the sound. It screws it up more than anything. It's like the amp just sounds good as it is, and the tone shaping controls on the amp are truly stellar. One pedal I have I could really recommend for any amp setup is the Friedman Buxom Boost. It basically has no tone, but it easily allows you to tweak your sound for an alternate sound, or just shape your sound a hair. At the heart it's just boost volume and roll off lows with the low cut or high pass filter. That combo alone is all that's really needed, but it has a switchable 3 band eq where you can add bass, mids, and plus or minus on treble. I basically never use the eq part, but it's there if you need it like you boost it and the highs are killing you, you can roll back the highs. Just boost clean volume and remove lows and you'd be surprised what that can do to any amp. I'd also add that high pass filtering in recording is really the most important eq control you can have. For example, you might be listening to the a vocal level and think it needs to be louder, but cutting lows (and not like low eq shelf), the vocal seems to get louder by removing some of the sound which seems arse backwards. I wish someone would add that to a guitar amp, because it's completely different than a normal bass control. And don't expect your daw to do it in the same way an analog circuit can do. In the daw it's kind of like "well that just makes it sound crappy", but it's not like that with a well designed analog circuit. This vid to give you an idea how such a simple control can do so many things. And it's just funny there are 10 of the same pedal on the pedalboard.
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Post by frankie on Nov 30, 2020 20:03:10 GMT -7
I'll just say that I haven't even plugged a dirt pedal into it yet, but Mike makes a great point about re-shaping the eq.
My 2 cents - in general the CAZ has a really complex and thick harmonic structure and doesn't really benefit from a pedal that is adding grind or some more complexity to the sound. It screws it up more than anything. It's like the amp just sounds good as it is, and the tone shaping controls on the amp are truly stellar. One pedal I have I could really recommend for any amp setup is the Friedman Buxom Boost. It basically has no tone, but it easily allows you to tweak your sound for an alternate sound, or just shape your sound a hair. At the heart it's just boost volume and roll off lows with the low cut or high pass filter. That combo alone is all that's really needed, but it has a switchable 3 band eq where you can add bass, mids, and plus or minus on treble. I basically never use the eq part, but it's there if you need it like you boost it and the highs are killing you, you can roll back the highs. Just boost clean volume and remove lows and you'd be surprised what that can do to any amp. I'd also add that high pass filtering in recording is really the most important eq control you can have. For example, you might be listening to the a vocal level and think it needs to be louder, but cutting lows (and not like low eq shelf), the vocal seems to get louder by removing some of the sound which seems arse backwards. I wish someone would add that to a guitar amp, because it's completely different than a normal bass control. And don't expect your daw to do it in the same way an analog circuit can do. In the daw it's kind of like "well that just makes it sound crappy", but it's not like that with a well designed analog circuit. This vid to give you an idea how such a simple control can do so many things. And it's just funny there are 10 of the same pedal on the pedalboard. I live how they used it as a “reverse boost” or as I call it “underdrive.” As folks may know, the Z Drive can be used to great effect as an underdrive, with a dirty amp, the CAZ 45 can definitely be cleaned up this way.
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Post by adam on Dec 1, 2020 4:34:23 GMT -7
I live how they used it as a “reverse boost” or as I call it “underdrive.” As folks may know, the Z Drive can be used to great effect as an underdrive, with a dirty amp, the CAZ 45 can definitely be cleaned up this way. I hadn't thought of that because it has character, but makes sense, particularly with the +/- eq section. And maybe makes a lot sense because that amp isn't needing in "more" department. I've only tried that with a compressor because I saw Paul Gilbert doing that to great effect, but that didn't work for me. Cool idea!
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Post by frankie on Dec 1, 2020 12:21:55 GMT -7
I live how they used it as a “reverse boost” or as I call it “underdrive.” As folks may know, the Z Drive can be used to great effect as an underdrive, with a dirty amp, the CAZ 45 can definitely be cleaned up this way. I hadn't thought of that because it has character, but makes sense, particularly with the +/- eq section. And maybe makes a lot sense because that amp isn't needing in "more" department. I've only tried that with a compressor because I saw Paul Gilbert doing that to great effect, but that didn't work for me. Cool idea! Check this video I made a few years ago about how truly versatile the Z Drive is. I think it's a really underrated pedal:
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Post by adam on Dec 1, 2020 18:53:03 GMT -7
Check this video I made a few years ago about how truly versatile the Z Drive is. I think it's a really underrated pedal: That was cool, I missed this one. Really liked the amp tones in general and the drive took it to places I wouldn't really have thought of. Kind of turns the one channel amp into 3 good sounding channels. Also liked the straight to power amp idea and that worked well too. The Redbox tones I wasn't too fond of, but it got the point across. I had one of those in a H&K Triamp I used to own and didn't like it then either. Thanks for sharing that.
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