SOLDANO IS ALIVE AND WILL BE AT NAMM 2019!

**Jazzhands** · 01-22-2019 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by Noodles

Eh, that depends on how you define "modern high gain," since I'd argue Randall Smith's cascading gain preamp was the start of that. The Mark IIc+ was out several years before the SLO.

Wasn't the original SLO prototype a heavily-modded Mark IIB?

**Drew** · 01-22-2019 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by Noodles

Dude, you can actually listen to albums from the mid to late 80s and hear where the guitarists ditched their Marshalls for Mesas. I'm not taking away anything from Mike Soldano, but he, just like everyone else, borrowed the cascading gain circuit for his own designs. Amp design is a pretty steady progression like that. We're pretty much all playing hotrodded Fenders.

...which, to be fair, most Marshall guys were doing anyway by jumping the two channels of plexi marshalls, Smith was just the first (

ossibly - I know Blackmore's customized marshalls had cascading gain stages James MArshall did for him in the shop, I just don't know if that was pre-Mesa) guy to move that patch cable inside the amp.

**Kagami** · 11-08-2019 08:46 PM

New tone talk where Mike came on and talked about the new products for upcoming namm and such.

https://youtu.be/P-Cg3UfS6Y4

**bigdave** · 11-09-2019 01:30 AM

In my End of Life crisis I'd love to see that 25w mini come down at least a little in price. I had a SLO years ago and didnt even really have much chances to open it up , TBH I didnt know much about how I should have used it, with the Marshalls I used a SD1 or similar box and when I bought the SLO they said you didnt need it. There was no on line forums etc, so I either used it when I jammed loud with others or I ran my Sansamp GT2 into it at home. Id like another chance with one, the LBX with the MXR 10 band is a killer of a mini rig, Im curious what a mini SLO would do.