"Mini" boutique amps — who makes them?

Gear
#1

For the last week I’ve been bombarded with YT suggested videos about the Soldano Slo Mini. I assume this is a new product that was sent out to all the usual suspects for review, and embargoed until a specific date, after which the gear review stampede began:

I notice there’s also a Diezel VH4 Mini, a Bogner XTC mini, Friedman BE Mini. I didn’t know about these amps.

These companies presumably have no connection to each other, but the amps are all exactly the same size, same price. Also, none of the reviews seem to talk about what’s in the amp. But they don’t appear to be digital, and they don’t have tubes either. The only company that really did the “transistor simulation” thing back in the day was Tech 21. It seems unlikely that all these amp designers coincidently decided to release Tech 21-esque designs that sound like their original amps all at the same time, form factor, price point, etc.

Who is behind all these? Is some third-party company approaching all these amp makers with a plan to mini-fy their signature amps? Or did they all just en masse decide to do this very similar thing?

#2

This is going to sound like I’m making something up to fob you off, but they’re all made by… Boutique Amps Distribution

http://boutiqueampsdistribution.com

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#3

Ha. That sounds a money laundering shell company for the mob.

Kidding aside, it is indeed all the same brands. But that looks like a distributor. Are these companies all actually run by “Boutique Amps”? i.e. Boutique Amps has their own engineering and labels it from their brand stable as they like?

#4

They are all small solid state amps that are being manufactured by a smaller company that handles alot of the manufacturing for some of those names.

#5

They have a factory, there are a few tour vids on Youtube…though it appears that factory since burned down so I guess they have a new one.

I think it was, for companies like Bogner and Diezel, a way of getting amps built in the US rather than shipping them there.

#6

Likely it’s a licensing agreement with some of these companies and an OEM manufacturer. For example Soldano retired and sold off the majority of his brand 2 years ago. He kept the flagship the original SLO-100 but everything else including the new SLO is being made by MAD etc…

Mike Soldano may have been slightly involved with the design, but not likely the sole designer, more so an authority. Same with the other names.

#7

Yeah there must be some centralized design on this. “Non-tube amp sim” is a very specific road that few went down besides the SansAmp people. And nobody really does any more now that digital is cheap and good.

#8

You still see some of it but, and this is a big one, in order to produce a tube like response from solid state, it takes a lot of circuitry to force behavior, and complex circuitry at that. This poses two problems, reliability and costs, And both these things go against the exact reason you would ever consider solid state in the first place. At that point, making a tube amplifier becomes the easiest most cost effective solution, making a solid state emulator only something you would do as a design exercise.

The sans amp designs were not really tube simulators by todays standards, they were just a good solid state design. They produced their sound by overdriving the opamps in their designs with a lot of eq shaping and a passive cab +mic simulator.

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#9

I thought that most of these were basically the amp brand’s pedals housed in a mini head with a solid state power amp. Bogner, diezel, friedman all have prdals that are meant to emulate their flagship heads. I recall Mr Soldano had a video on the SLO mini, stating that he designed it, but I wonder to what extent.

For what its worth, if these were available when I was a youngster starting out, I wouldn’t have hesitated getting one. Would I want one now? Probably not

#10

Likely it is, but just mated to an easy class d power amp. That said, those pedals I doubt were designed fully by their respective designers either and were all produced and distributed under their respective brands by the same if not similar company as the mini’s. These are just ways of adding an affordable product line to their names.

I’m sure Mike was a consultant, but I seriously doubt it was a ground up design on his part where he was toiling over a hot iron for hours.

#11

Yeah I don’t see the point when we have all these great modeling options and IR’s. We could spend a little more and get way more options and flexibility.

Still, assuming these little guys sound like the heads they are mimicking it is pretty cool. And yes the younger me would have bought up the Bogner without question. The older me considered it for a second.

#12

I think the appeal is they are cheap, small, weigh nothing, dead simple UI, possibly (?) sound like the real thing, and look cool. That’s a lot of advantages already over something like a Kemper or Axe. Those things are pains in the asses when you just want to turn on and play. Software on a laptop is even worse. For me anyway.

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#13

Here’s a clip of George Lynch and Mike Soldano talking about the SOLDANO SLO Mini…

Looks like a great little practice amp…and its a Soldano!

#14

Interesting! I haven’t used either but for some reason thought all that stuff was plug 'n play. Aren’t their thousands of user supplied presets for all the new fangled digital stuff? That’s the assumption I was basing my above comment on. But yeah if that’s not the case, I could see why the mini’s are a good buy. Probably hard to get a bad tone with a boutique amp that only has a few knobs. The closest I ever had to a boutique was a mesa triple rectifier that I shipped to NY and paid some dude $800 to mod. Holy crap did that thing sound amazing when I got it back. It was hard to not get a good sound, regardless of where I’d twist the knobs. Our singer (also a great rhythm player) was super into tone and when he heard that amp for the first time in the practice room he said “Whoa! That is the best sounding amp I’ve ever heard!!!” Great guy…he was known to exaggerate though lol! Still, that amp sounded great.

If these mini’s are comparable at < $300 bucks, and the digital stuff is as painful as you’ve expressed, then sure, these are a good buy.

#15

That’s debatable, and I would have a hard believing they do, or even could more so than they just capture aspects of the real thing. Whether or not they sound good to you, that’s a different story.

Initially for some they may be a bit overwhelming, and the functionality as to what you can adjust on some of them these days is just ridiculous. But that said, most are designed to get you something good out of the box and once you save your presets, it’s just a matter of turning it on and calling them.

#16

Its a big double-edged sword - digital has tonnes of stuff, which is either gonna be your meat or your poison. Even though the technology is impressive, they are a real turn-off for me - I hate to have to do any of the following just to get a sound out of my guitar:
A- have to faff around with firmware updates, ensure compatibility with other equipment
B - constantly looking for (and paying for) the latest and greatest plugins/IRs
C - get G.A.S when the next model comes out.
D - have an all in one amp and effects unit (if it breaks, you have lost my whole rig, rather than one part).
E - go into a sub-menu to just add a bit of treble.
F- maintain a decent computer setup to avoid latency

All that being said - people get fantastic results with the digital stuff.

At the moment I’m using a Captor X for IRs with an amp head because I need silent practice. But we are (hopefully) getting our house renovated and adding some new rooms, so I hope that I’ll be able to go back to a real cab at some point, because I don’t quite get on with the captor from a feel perspective and I have a hard time tweaking the damn thing lol.

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#17

I think I see them more as a gimmick. Coming from both ends of this debate, it’s not a dumb thing for these companies to do, and they know their audiences. They also know musicians are some of the brokest, and or cheapest creatures on earth. At least that’s my experience with them (musicians)

You would be surprised.

#18

If you haven’t checked it out, Origin Effects makes an awesome pedal that feels great to play for hi-gain tones:

Most of the recent videos I’ve posted are all that pedal into an IR loader, going for a Triaxis / Mark IIc+ tone:

I have a Mark IIc+ and as fun as it is to play, long term tube supply has me kinda concerned. This pedal gets close enough! @Twangsta also has some great clips.

To echo @Fossegrim, that’s not the case lol. The IIc+ I mentioned up there is getting to be one of “the” vintage hi-gain amps, and it can sound like ass all day if you’re not in a specific combo of “treble near max, bass and mids almost off, pull a few extra knobs.” I also have a “boutique” BadCat amp that sounds horrid if you let it. Both of those amps I’ve been close to selling at some point or another for the frustration lol.

These aren’t inherent problems for software emulations though… Plenty of people do that with “real” gear. Maybe some people go down that rabbit hole easier because you can do free trials? I’m purposely a cheap ass when it comes to plugins, and I’m getting fun tones using the stock Reaper convolver (free), an IR I made (free), and a saturation plugin I paid for.

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#19

You forgot engage the GEQ, and scoop the 750hz slider. That’s where the whole scooped mids thing came from, except what dummies didn’t realize is that it’s specific to those amps, and you have to do that just to make it sound normal.

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#20

Oh yeah I forgot, death to 750 lmao

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