Post by pcns on Mar 12, 2022 16:03:22 GMT -7
okay, I was having some fun with my earlier post in regards to the CAZ. In my defense, I really did say "Wow", several times though!!
I had the pleasure of playing one of these amps at Z's shop back before the release and was blown away then. I remembering playing my son Joshua's SG through the amp and as Doc turned the knobs I just started playing Sweat Leaf by Sabbath. It sounded sooooo good.
Fast forward to Thursday night . . .
I set the amp in my Family room (several amps, cabs, drums and bass amp occupy the family room these days). I hooked up the CAZ to my magic cab (Avatar 2x12 with a pair well broken V30s). This cab sounds great with everything in the house and the CAZ didn't disappoint.
I used my Shea built Double Cut loaded with P90s and plugged in. Fortunately, Dave (premiumplus) and I had pulled the chassis before I took it home and we figured out what all the knobs do.
My first chord about blew me off the couch and with a huge grin on my face I figured out which volume knob to turn.
Level, Aggression, Gain and Sensitivity all contribute to your volume and overdrive. It didn't really matter where I have any of them set, the amp sounded great.
Level, as you would expect impacted the volume and lot but did not seem to affect the overdrive as much as others.
Sensitivity was 2nd favorite knob. Reminded me of the high/low input I have on other amps but with knob so you can adjust it. I love having this much control on how hard I hit the preamp section. It was alot like using your guitar volume. Very cool, could really get some great overdrive with this.
I don't recall where the Gain fell into the chain and I may have it backwords with the Aggression but the gain did exactly that, crank it up for more fun and down for less, I up for more overdrive, and down for less overdrive. Nice thick and chewy overdrive too, not muddy either.
Sensitivity cranked gave me more of a sizzley overdrive tone (very nice) and Gain gave me thicker overdrive, the cool thing about having both is you can adjust them to meet your needs.
Aggression, I think this controls how hard the preamp section hits the output tubes and was by far my favorite knob. This gave you more gain but also changed the tone of the gain. More growl and roar when you cranked it up. I loved the tones I got from with the knob around 2 o'clock but if you backed it off it would smooth out and be less . . . . aggressive.
I'm going to get some more time with it this evening, looking forward to trying some humbuckers and my tele.
Oh ya, I'm sure someone is already thinking about this . . . . yes, the amp has fallen into the black hole in my son's room. I am going to go rescue it though.
There are lots of good videos on youtube (especially our very own Adam Gotheridge) so go check them out if you want to hear how this sounds. I just wanted to cover some of the functional obversations I had from playing it.
There are a lot of knobs to turn and they all do different things so the potential here is pretty limitless. I think I could even use this at church and dial in some really great overdrive.
2 final thoughts, when my son plugged it into the Zbest in his room it was even better sounding and I know there are lot of knobs but this is not like a Mesa Boogie where you have to spend hours to get a good tone. The CAZ-45 sounded great and was very easy to change what you hear.
enjoy, feel free to ask questions
I had the pleasure of playing one of these amps at Z's shop back before the release and was blown away then. I remembering playing my son Joshua's SG through the amp and as Doc turned the knobs I just started playing Sweat Leaf by Sabbath. It sounded sooooo good.
Fast forward to Thursday night . . .
I set the amp in my Family room (several amps, cabs, drums and bass amp occupy the family room these days). I hooked up the CAZ to my magic cab (Avatar 2x12 with a pair well broken V30s). This cab sounds great with everything in the house and the CAZ didn't disappoint.
I used my Shea built Double Cut loaded with P90s and plugged in. Fortunately, Dave (premiumplus) and I had pulled the chassis before I took it home and we figured out what all the knobs do.
My first chord about blew me off the couch and with a huge grin on my face I figured out which volume knob to turn.
Level, Aggression, Gain and Sensitivity all contribute to your volume and overdrive. It didn't really matter where I have any of them set, the amp sounded great.
Level, as you would expect impacted the volume and lot but did not seem to affect the overdrive as much as others.
Sensitivity was 2nd favorite knob. Reminded me of the high/low input I have on other amps but with knob so you can adjust it. I love having this much control on how hard I hit the preamp section. It was alot like using your guitar volume. Very cool, could really get some great overdrive with this.
I don't recall where the Gain fell into the chain and I may have it backwords with the Aggression but the gain did exactly that, crank it up for more fun and down for less, I up for more overdrive, and down for less overdrive. Nice thick and chewy overdrive too, not muddy either.
Sensitivity cranked gave me more of a sizzley overdrive tone (very nice) and Gain gave me thicker overdrive, the cool thing about having both is you can adjust them to meet your needs.
Aggression, I think this controls how hard the preamp section hits the output tubes and was by far my favorite knob. This gave you more gain but also changed the tone of the gain. More growl and roar when you cranked it up. I loved the tones I got from with the knob around 2 o'clock but if you backed it off it would smooth out and be less . . . . aggressive.
I'm going to get some more time with it this evening, looking forward to trying some humbuckers and my tele.
Oh ya, I'm sure someone is already thinking about this . . . . yes, the amp has fallen into the black hole in my son's room. I am going to go rescue it though.
There are lots of good videos on youtube (especially our very own Adam Gotheridge) so go check them out if you want to hear how this sounds. I just wanted to cover some of the functional obversations I had from playing it.
There are a lot of knobs to turn and they all do different things so the potential here is pretty limitless. I think I could even use this at church and dial in some really great overdrive.
2 final thoughts, when my son plugged it into the Zbest in his room it was even better sounding and I know there are lot of knobs but this is not like a Mesa Boogie where you have to spend hours to get a good tone. The CAZ-45 sounded great and was very easy to change what you hear.
enjoy, feel free to ask questions