Jiffy
07-02-2005, 11:43 AM
Crate- XT65R
General:
This amp is very good. I got mine for around $230 and it was a great investment. I use a cheaper strat (mexican, $300 roughly) with this amp. It is 65 watts and has a 12 inch speaker. Its dimensions are roughly 17in by 20in, but that’s just an estimated guess with a ruler. It features a 3 button foot pedal which switches you from clean, to rhythm, to solo, and with the addition of the third button you can have excellent sounding reverb. The “head” of the amp is divided into 3 areas. Solo, Rhythm, and Clean, with a reverb dial on the far right. I will go into specifics on those later.
The Settings:
Clean:
Clean sounds great, with the exception of the bass strings tend to vibrate the things around it while turned up very loud. It is a good quality clean sound. The only drawback in addition to the vibration is it doesn’t get as loud as the other settings, yet still getting sufficiently loud. The clean portion on the head of the amp has three knobs, Volume, Low, Mid, High. It’s perfect for those softer clean songs. It sounds wonderful with reverb.
Solo:
This setting is the one that drew me to this amp (besides the price ) It can get very dirty for metal, rock, and soloing. The only two drawbacks are when you play two notes and bend one to equal the other pitch it tends to make a choppier sound, although I think that happens with most “lower-end” amps, and there’s a lot of buzzing coming from the amp, but if you put your hands on the strings it tends to stop, also when you play the buzzing gets drowned out. This setting gets very loud.
Rhythm:
This is essentially a cross between clean and solo settings. It’s not too distorted but yet not very clean. I don’t use it that much but I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.
Effects:
The only effect is reverb and it is very adjustable.
Foot pedal Settings
Light 1: Clean
Light 2: Rhythm
Light 1+2: Solo
(adding light 3 will add reverb to any of those)
Overall:
Overall I would give this amp about a 4.5/5. It is highly customizable to your liking. I love being able to switch from clean to distorted at the subtle push of a button. My main issue with it is the noise that is there when you’re not playing. I’m sure that I will be the only one noticing it though and it’s not enough to deter me away from the amp. This amp is probably (I haven’t tried it at a gig yet) powerful enough for a small to small-medium gig. If I were to use one phrase to describe it I would use “good bang for your buck”. It’s very versatile and powerful yet at a reasonable price. Perfect for intermediate players. Strong Recommendation
Final Rating: 4.5/5 :thumb:
(included is a picture of the amp and a rough sketch of the footpedal)
EDIT: having trouble getting pictures in, i uploaded them yet they dont show up, its only about 37k of photos
General:
This amp is very good. I got mine for around $230 and it was a great investment. I use a cheaper strat (mexican, $300 roughly) with this amp. It is 65 watts and has a 12 inch speaker. Its dimensions are roughly 17in by 20in, but that’s just an estimated guess with a ruler. It features a 3 button foot pedal which switches you from clean, to rhythm, to solo, and with the addition of the third button you can have excellent sounding reverb. The “head” of the amp is divided into 3 areas. Solo, Rhythm, and Clean, with a reverb dial on the far right. I will go into specifics on those later.
The Settings:
Clean:
Clean sounds great, with the exception of the bass strings tend to vibrate the things around it while turned up very loud. It is a good quality clean sound. The only drawback in addition to the vibration is it doesn’t get as loud as the other settings, yet still getting sufficiently loud. The clean portion on the head of the amp has three knobs, Volume, Low, Mid, High. It’s perfect for those softer clean songs. It sounds wonderful with reverb.
Solo:
This setting is the one that drew me to this amp (besides the price ) It can get very dirty for metal, rock, and soloing. The only two drawbacks are when you play two notes and bend one to equal the other pitch it tends to make a choppier sound, although I think that happens with most “lower-end” amps, and there’s a lot of buzzing coming from the amp, but if you put your hands on the strings it tends to stop, also when you play the buzzing gets drowned out. This setting gets very loud.
Rhythm:
This is essentially a cross between clean and solo settings. It’s not too distorted but yet not very clean. I don’t use it that much but I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.
Effects:
The only effect is reverb and it is very adjustable.
Foot pedal Settings
Light 1: Clean
Light 2: Rhythm
Light 1+2: Solo
(adding light 3 will add reverb to any of those)
Overall:
Overall I would give this amp about a 4.5/5. It is highly customizable to your liking. I love being able to switch from clean to distorted at the subtle push of a button. My main issue with it is the noise that is there when you’re not playing. I’m sure that I will be the only one noticing it though and it’s not enough to deter me away from the amp. This amp is probably (I haven’t tried it at a gig yet) powerful enough for a small to small-medium gig. If I were to use one phrase to describe it I would use “good bang for your buck”. It’s very versatile and powerful yet at a reasonable price. Perfect for intermediate players. Strong Recommendation
Final Rating: 4.5/5 :thumb:
(included is a picture of the amp and a rough sketch of the footpedal)
EDIT: having trouble getting pictures in, i uploaded them yet they dont show up, its only about 37k of photos