Mike Soldano is the person behind amp tones that influenced a era of guitarists, his hot-rodded concepts having been used on numerous albums by artists from Warren Haynes and George Lynch to Steve Lukather, Mark Knopfler, and Edward Van Halen.

Soldano’s newest, the Astro-20, is a three-channel amp that mixes basic tones with Twenty first-century options like onboard IRs and MIDI connectivity; for the pc savvy, Soldano’s Editor software program provides an intuitive interface that enables customers to assign completely different Galaxies (voicings) to the participant’s selection of overdrive channels. Customers also can combine and match IRs for all three channels. Loading and organizing an IR library is pretty easy with a bit time and endurance, and it permits saving as much as 128 MIDI pre-sets.

The 20-watt amp brings old-school tube circuitry, with 4 12AX7 preamp tubes and two 6V6 energy tubes. Its three-channel setup provides clear and two overdrives. Designed for flexibility, the Astro-20 combo sports activities a Celestion G12M Dollar, however can be utilized with out the speaker – good for gigs, rehearsals, or recording utilizing the DSP-powered IR cupboard simulation.

Wielding a Superstrat, the amp’s 4 voicings, accessed by the “Galaxy” change, produced a great deal of choices. Inexperienced is the clear channel – described as high-headroom, just like an American combo amp. The sounds vary from Wes Montgomery clear to Led Zeppelin crusty-clean. Blue gives phat bluesy cleans and crisp overtones that pop. Purple pushes the acquire with a tighter response, and the Crimson brings the high-gain crunch that introduced adoration to Soldano. Blue, Purple, and Crimson could be assigned to both overdrive channel independently and saved as a pre-set. The overdrives are simple to customise, and you may program a number of pre-sets for particular songs with various output ranges. It’s also possible to create channels to behave as a lift with extra acquire phases, which creates a brand new set of voicings.

What about output? Nicely, there’s loud, after which there’s Soldano loud. The Astro-20 is loud sufficient to deal with nearly any gig, and its higher-gain tones are distinctive – voluminous, mud-free, ballsy – reminding us what the late-’80s SLO-100 was all about. And even with its Grasp Quantity, three-band EQ, Presence, Depth, and Shiny switches, and all of the bells and whistles, it seems like a plug-in-and-go rock machine.

This text initially appeared in VG’s March 2024 challenge. All copyrights are by the writer and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.