Alta100 vs. Hellion vs. Skeleton Key

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MadAsAHatter
MadAsAHatter
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I’m likely one of the very few that own all three of these amps Since have had them long enough to be more than acquainted with them I figure it’s time for a full review to compare & contrast them.

First things first. Jason, Jeremy and Shea have designed and built phenomenal amps. I dare say that their amps more than rival the other known brands like Freidman, Fryette, Bogner, etc. In my personal opinion the Alta, Hellion, and Skeleton Key could blow damn near anything out the water.

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Part one: Main Similarities & Differences

Right off all three amps cover very similar tones. They all have that Marshall flavor at their core. I can work the knobs where all three will sound near, if not identical. But that’s not to say they aren’t able to sound different. With the variety of options one can have a crunch vintage rhythm tone and dial another for searing modern leads. They can all cover everything from clean(ish) to vintage crunch to full gain modern. Another thing the three have in common is it’s near impossible to make them sound bad. You’d have to be purposefully trying to make them sound like shit; and that’s even a challenge to do.

Where they differ from each other and what I feel sets them apart from one another is the feature set and how they’re utilized (or at least how I utilize them. For me the Alta is a do it all MIDI switching machine. I feel it’s centered on giving you maximum tonal flexibility in an easy to dial in format. The Hellion also give a lot of flexibility, but in a different way. While it can achieve the gamut of tones like the Alta I think it’s geared more towards dialing in the feel. Being able to adjust the depth frequency, tightness, mid structure, gain stages, amount of diode clipping, etc. all point to this. The Skeleton Key, while not quite as tonally versatile seems more focused on being a modern style modded Marshall with the tone shaping features you need and no extra useless bloat that you don’t.

That covers the overview of the main similarities and differences. The rest of this will be more detailed reviews of each amp. There’s no favoritism in the order of reviews; I’m just going alphabetically.
 
Part Two: Headfirst Alta 100

First let me link to my initial review which still holds up as written.

https://www.rig-talk.com/forum/threads/nad-it-has-arrived-headfirst-alta-100.259864/#post-3007666
I don’t think anyone could ask for a better channel switching Marshall flavored amp. The Alta has everything you need and then some; all of it being fully useable and useful. You can 100% tell Jason put his all into the design and really thought everything through. Three channels, vintage & modern voicing, 2 brite switches, diode clip, fx loop and 2 master volumes. All of these can be toggled independently of each other or several switched on to be used in tandem. For example you can use brite 1 or brite 2 independently of each other or have both on. That can be set in vintage or modern mode, with or without diode clipping on any channel. The variety is almost endless. To top it all off everything is MIDI switchable allowing for any tone at the click of a footswitch.

Along with all these options the front panel contains standard tone controls (Ch1 has its own tone controls and Ch2 & Ch3 share tone knobs) along with global presence & depth. On the rear are the 2 master volumes and response knob. I believe the Response knob has been move to the front on newer productions.

Ch1 covers your clean to heavy AC/DC type crunch. Ch2 goes from there to pretty heavy saturated. Ch3 overlaps Ch2 a bit but takes the saturation to full on screaming.

As mentioned all of the options can be selected independently across any channel. Vintage and Modern are exactly what you’d expect. Vintage is a bit more mid forward crunchy with a little less saturation and slightly looser feel. Modern slightly scoops the mids compared to vintage ups the saturation and tightens up the feel. If all the amp had for options was vintage and modern mode you’d still feel like you could cover pretty much anything that called for that upper mid Marshall grind.

The rest of the options just sweeten the pot. Brite 1 & 2 both add upper end sparkle and bite, just at different frequencies. Between brite 1 & 2 in conjunction with the presence can really give the Alta some aggressive (not harsh) upper end.

Where things get interesting is when you click on diode clipping. This should be self-explanatory of what it does. It cuts off/compresses the signal adding extra saturation. The downfall of diode clipping is that it comes with a volume drop. This is a big reason for the 2nd MV and show where Jason really thought the sedign all the way through. Most amps with 2 MV’s use the second one for a solo volume boost. You can do this on the Alta as well, but the great use is to use it to compensate for the volume drop with diode clipping. And the great part is it can be set as a MIDI PC so you don’t miss a beat.

To touch a little eon the tone controls… Jason said he designed everything to sound how he wanted with everything set at noon. Truthfully this is where the amp sound just about right. There’s more than enough sweep on each knob if you want to super scoop the mids or bring out some low end thud. For me I find the best use is for compensating for room acoustics or type of speaker/cab being used. If you have a darker speaker you may want to up the treble a bit, or lower the bass slightly on a boomy cab.

Overall the Alta is an extremely impressive amp. Focused on giving you the maximum British tonal flexibility, I’m hard pressed to think of another amp that can do this. Not only is it flexible, it’s extremely easy to dial in. The hardest part is picking the flavor you want at the moment. Once you know where you want to go, you’re there. If you’re one that’s wants the most versatility you can get from one amp, you can’t go wrong with the Alta.
 
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Part Three: Ground Zero Hellion

I’ve recently gotten my Hellion back from Jeremy after getting the component updates he’s offering. FYI, if you have a V2 and want these updates contact Jeremy and he’ll do them for free. You’re just responsible for shipping (@ $50 each way). My review will be based on the component updates.

From my understanding Jeremy has about 20 component changes that you can have updated and will be going into the Hellions moving forward. They make everything sound more punchy & aggressive and change the voicing a bit across that mode.

A quick side bar… Something Jeremy did on my particular Hellion was swap out the –FB knob to give it more range. He noticed I had it set on the higher side and I said I tend to like a bit more bite. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t maxing it out and give me more room for adjustment if I needed. So max on the old knob is now around 6 on the new one. I’m not sure if Jeremy is going to be doing this to all the Hellions from now on or if it’s limited to just mine.

Back to the review… The Hellion can give you as much tonal variety as you could want only being limited by being a single channel and basic foot switching. This by no means takes away from anything, all it means is that it’s not as easy to switch everything all at once on the fly. In all practicality it’s not even a hindrance. How often are you going to be changing voicing and multiple options mid song? I suspect not much. Changes like that would come between songs or sets.

Where the Hellion really excels is giving you complete control over the feel of playing. I can’t speak for Jeremy saying that this was the full intent of the design, but it’s 100% the way it come across to me.

We’ll start with the switch on the back. This has the most influence on the feel and response of the amp. It mainly affects how the low end responds. Its 3 positions starting at full bore on the low end, but not flubby. Balanced focuses the lows and adds some attack and articulation. Ultra tight super focuses the low end really tightening it up. It’s pretty lean in this setting, but not thin; the way you’d want it for ultra-fast playing that needs to respond in an instant.

Next up is the voicing switch. You can select form vintage, classic, and modern. It changes the overall character of the sound just as you’d expect, but it also adjusts the way the amp responds to an extent. It’s a subtle difference in feel when only looking at the voice switch. It’s tighter and more aggressive on the modern setting and a bit spongier and less saturated on the vintage setting with classic sitting in the middle.

I’ll cover the rest of the front panel toggle switches in one go. There’s Depth Frequency, Mid Structure and Signal Enhance. Depth frequency does as it’s labeled; it changes the frequency and response of the depth knob. Mid structure affects how the mids respond from allowing all frequencies to come forward for a full sound to tight and scooped for sharper attack and more focus. Signal enhance is a fun switch. Off is obviously off. Normal gives you more gain and brightness, and deep enhances the low end.

Now to cover some of the knobs. The tone stack knobs are going to do what they do; adjust those frequencies. Pre-amp is you gain knob with a pull for gain boost. I’ve already touched on the –FB. I want to go over the additional, more interesting knobs. These are Gain Trim, Gain Style, Aura, and Clip Level. Gain trim is a secondary gain knob that’s more subtle but lets you really fine tune the saturation. In addition there’s a pull feature that kicks in an additional gain stage. Gain style is a 6 position knob that goes from fuller sounding and more open to darker and compressed. Aura lets you fine tune the attack from sharper and more articulate to fatter with a bit more sag. Lastly is diode clip. Yes its diode clipping that compresses the signal as it should, but this knob allows you to dial in the exact amount o diode clipping you want.

All of the front panel switches and knobs I covered all effect on how the amp responds to playing. Some are more subtle than others, but combined lets you full dial in the exact feel of the amp you want. You want full frequency with some sag; you got it. You want ultra-tight sharp attack and articulation; got that covered too. And as a side effect you can get some pretty interesting tones and feel by coupling together some unconventional options. Like setting the switch on the back to ultra-tight but put it in vintage voicing with a hint of sag from the Aura knob.

The only downside I can think for the Hellion; and this is a bit of a stretch, is with all the tonal and response options you may spend more time knob turning than playing. But let’s face it, it’s just as fun doing that and discovering myriad of tones as it is playing. This amp is the perfect candidate for that one person we all know. You know the one who’s all nitpicky about everything. They’ll be the one that says it sounds great but it doesn’t have the feel they like. Well here ya go bud, not you get to dial in the exact tone and feel you want.
 
Part 4: Monomyth Skeleton Key

This review will likely be a bit shorter than the other two, mainly because there isn’t as much to go over. The Skeleton Key isn’t as versatile as other amps with switches and knobs all over the place. But what it lacks in versatility it more than makes up for in pure in your face tone.

The best way to describe the Skeleton Key is a dial it in and get to thrashing high gain modern British machine. There’s not a lot of extra knobs and switches outside the basic tone stack and a couple of voicing options. But the beauty is in its simplicity of controls. You spend less time knob fiddling and more time rocking out. The way I look at it is why put an ass load of useless features to clutter up everything when you can achieve exactly what you want with minimum effort.

You get your main BMT tone stack plus presence and thunder (depth). In addition there is a Flame, UFO, Scissors and lightning bolt toggle switch. The flame is a 3 way bright switch that goes from normal to bright to ultra-bright. And it also adds some gain as you step up in brightness. The next is the UFO which is a clipping mode which adds saturation. The scissors is a mid-cut doing just that; cutting/scooping the mids. Lastly is the lightning bolt. This is a 3 way low end response that goes from full to balanced to tight.

It’s a single channel amp but offers a low and high input. From the low input you can get the chunky classic/hard rock tones. The high input, where most will spend 99% of their time is the searing modern rock and metal tones. The skeleton Key is one of those amps that you have to try hard to make it sound bad. It has just the right amount of attack and articulation for the music and style you’ll be using it for. Even when the response toggle is set to full it’s still tight and articulate enough; where you need it for heavy chugging. Flip the switch when you need it a little tighter for fast paced leads.

Like I said, it’s not going to be the most versatile amp on the planet, but what it does it does extremely well. I guarantee it will do modern British voiced metal tones better than almost anything out there. And it’s completely pointless to put in all kinds of extra stuff just for the sake of doing it. In the end all that extra stuff is utterly useless. When it comes to a single channel, straight forward amp it really doesn’t get much better than the Skeleton Key, and it’s a beast.
 
Thank you for doing this. I've had 2 out of the 3. I was really tempted on getting another Monomyth and a Ground Zero but the Alta basically does everything that I would do with the SK.

I was a bit nervous on getting a multichannel marshall type amp cause I always find that I end up just using one channel. Spalwn, Friedman, Ceriatone have always basically been reduced to a single channel amp for me. With the Atla I have all 3 channels serving a purpose and doing it well.

I haven't tried the Ground Zero stuff but based on my experience with the other 2 I feel like they are at the top of the food chain with hotrodded marshall amps(I haven't tried a Wizard) but I think the choice comes down to what you need. I feel the same way about KSR. I don't think the Ares is a downgrade from the Gemini it's just what features do you need? Once you figure out that then you know which route to go.

It's actually motivated me to start using midi. I got the H90 and I'm adding a foot controller next. I can't speak highly enough of this setup.
 
Absolutely phenomenal write up. You obviously put a lot of time and effort into it. Really great way to give perspectives on all 3.

The best part is, when I get another message asking how the Hellion sounds and what features it has, I can just refer them to this thread! 🤣
 
Great review! I currently own an Alta and used to own a SK. I don’t have a GZ Hellion but I know Jeremy personally and he’s worked on several of my Marshalls. All these guys are absolute class acts that make absolutely insane amps.

My favorite is the Alta — just fits my style super well — but the 1959 and 1986 that Jeremy brought up to snuff for me are lifer amps (they’re really incredible). The SK was amazing but as you said, a more straightforward amp and was just a little too aggressive and “metal” for me, but it was an absolute monster amp.

I love watching the progress of all these guys and am so stoked to know them and play their amps. Cheers!
 
MadAsAHatter said:
Lastly is the lightning bolt. This is a 3 way low end response that goes from full to balanced to tight.

Even when the response toggle is set to full it’s still tight and articulate enough; where you need it for heavy chugging. Flip the switch when you need it a little tighter for fast paced leads.
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My monkey brain calls this my Loud/Louder/Loudest switch, so thank you for using good words.
 
burger said:
Amazing effort doing this write up!! Jeremy is right, we can refer folks to this thread now :)

It’s been an awesome journey with Shea and Jeremy, we always help each other out - it’s ultimately developed into a friendship.
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I kinda feel like everyone wins with you guys partnering up. I have a couple friends who I talk to about gear and they are probably tired of hearing me gush over this amp. It's absolutely killed my g.a.s. for British flavored amps. I have a plexi coming next week from Ceriatone and I'm not sure I will even take it out of the box.
 
Dunno bout the other 2, but Jeremy at Ground Zero was most excellent to deal with, and the MOAB is a killer, punchy, tight n bright as you want it amp. I'd love to pop for the Hellion, some day when $ allows.
 
burger said:
Amazing effort doing this write up!! Jeremy is right, we can refer folks to this thread now :)

It’s been an awesome journey with Shea and Jeremy, we always help each other out - it’s ultimately developed into a friendship.
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The way you guys work together and help each other out it's almost like y'all are one company and each amp is a different flagship model.
 
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