Driftwood Purple Nightmare....What a disappointment

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bad.Seed
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GuitarGuy08 said:
To be fair, a ton of demos I've seen on the Mezzabarba have never sounded great to me. An amp that has a lot of hype but doesn't produce any tones I thought sounded great. Maybe they scooped mids too hard in the design? It sounds muffled, yet brash. I find that a lot of amps that boost the top and bottom while scooping mids sound this way. Can't really fix it either if it is in the design. I THOUGHT I wanted that amp so bad and demo after demo, I realized I wouldn't pay for one.

Weird.
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Interesting. My MZero OD fucks pretty hard…
 
JerEvil said:
Interesting. My MZero OD fucks pretty hard…
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You know how demos are, the amp may be killer but I couldn't drop the cash unless I had it in person and fell in love. Everytime I hear one, it somehow sounds like the core of the sound has been taken away but there is a lot of gain stacked on. Can't really describe it. Kind of reminds me of the vibe I get from most of the EVHs I hear, like the stealth. A lot of people love them but something hollow in the sound for me. I'm an extremely mid forward player I now realize, so maybe that is it? Idk
 
WilfredTASD said:
What am I missing? I looked through your posts about Driftwood and don’t see anything but positive reviews about KT88s and such. You’re just claiming you had “pieces rolling around” somewhere?
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No video/pics. I sold the amp a few years ago. I thought the amp sounded just fine, I liked it from a tonal standpoint....though not as much as my other amps so I eventually sold it.

The MIDI board appeared to have basically been glued into place no screws/bolts securing it to the chassis. Basically was built up on stilts which were glued to the circuit board and the face of the MIDI board with the buttons was glued to the back of the chassis. When I received the amp brand new from the dealer, one of the stilts elevating the MIDI board off the main board was rolling around inside and the other one was still attached but the hot glue used to connect it to the main board was no longer sticking to the board. So only thing holding the MIDI board in place with a line of hot glue on the chassis. That wasn't very stable when you pushed a button. The board was also pulling away from the back of the chassis, so that if you push a MIDI button the whole thing pushed to the inside of the amp. I ended up just gluing it back into place with super glue - but it was never really secure.

The ohm selector also turned 360 degrees without ever locking into place at 4/8/16. I just pointed the arrow at the number and everything seemed to work, but you'd think it would lock into place and not spin fully in circles.

I'm not one to go bashing build quality on the internet, so you won't find me complaining about it online, but when a buddy asks me about something, I give them my experience. Justin and I talk outside of these forums and those issues I describe above were conveyed to him. Basically told him not to buy a Driftwood with MIDI because the way it was mounted to the chassis was not good. I said get one without MIDI. He did. He didn't like it for other reasons. Hopefully it's since been improved to make it more secure rather than just using hot glue. I don't know if the ohm selector was supposed to be that way or not but the amp didn't get fried from an ohm mismatch - so everything worked.

I also felt the way it was packed when I received it was terrible, but it was par for the course for most amps. The amp was too loose in the box and it shifting around during shipment was probably why the glued together parts fell apart while it was being moved around by the shipping company.
 
Bardagh said:
How long ago was it that you tried it because flat and cardboard is kind of what I’ve always thought it sounded like. But it’s good for the kind of amp it is and has been used on some good albums. However I think these albums are good because of the music and not really the tone, but because people liked the music they end up having a nostalgic appreciation for the amp.
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Oh, I had the vh-140c a long time ago... maybe 10 years ago. Still remember it's rather bland tone. I liked the Randall rg100es with a boost a lot better when it comes to SS amps, a lot more punchy and alive, loud as fuck too.

I think Death Metal guys used them cause they were cheap, had tons of distortion and you can scoop the shit out of them. But the tone itself is nothing to write home about.
 
I've owned damn near all the "cool flavor of the day gotta have it" amps. I've been disappointed many a time but the biggest one was anything Splawn and I tried 3 or 4 different models. I really wanted to like them and even became a dealer for a minute. Just could not make them work for me. :(
 
kurtsstuff2003 said:
I've owned damn near all the "cool flavor of the day gotta have it" amps. I've been disappointed many a time but the biggest one was anything Splawn and I tried 3 or 4 different models. I really wanted to like them and even became a dealer for a minute. Just could not make them work for me. :(
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Agreed. Splawn’s are some of my least favorites too (in any era). Most flavor of the month amps didn’t deliver for me either. The ones that did seemed to be the amps that don’t really need hyping and went up in price a lot. I think there’s a reason the temporary “cool flavor” amps don’t go up
 
anomaly said:
Oh, I had the vh-140c a long time ago... maybe 10 years ago. Still remember it's rather bland tone. I liked the Randall rg100es with a boost a lot better when it comes to SS amps, a lot more punchy and alive, loud as fuck too.

I think Death Metal guys used them cause they were cheap, had tons of distortion and you can scoop the shit out of them. But the tone itself is nothing to write home about.
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Agreed. The VH140 was a brutal amp, but the tone wasn’t anything special. The Randall RG is a much better sounding SS amp.
 
Slightly off topic. But from the late 60’s through mid 90’s there were only a few amp makers. It’s amazing how many different tones all those bands got out of a few amps.

Today 10x as many amps and everyone dials them in to sound alike. Gain on 9 + boost. ?‍♂️.
What’s the point of having different amps if they are all dialed in to sound similar.
And no I got no problem with boost pedals. ?
I just don’t get it I guess.

My buddy has the darkest nightmare and thst amp sounds massive. Thick chunky and meaty.
 
Maybe the new “signature” version is better. They say it’s more British sounding. I had a Darkest Nightmare. It was ok , my main complaint was the lowend response.
 
I’ve had a few amps that were instant downers. The 5153 in original 6L6 and Stealth come to mind first. As mentioned earlier, both sounded “plasticy” and honky in mids. Had no punch whatsoever through my cabs …..like a digital modeler. FWIW, I love the OG 5150 and 6505 if I can get some volume behind them.

Other instant failures were Splawn QR, Bogner Shiva, and Diezel Herbert.
 
JohnnyGtar said:
I might. PM me if you're interested.
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@Metalhex dont do it! @JohnnyGtar is going to tell you that he doesn’t need “money” to pay for the amp but something else…and soon you’ll find yourself at some super creepy mall in the middle of New Jersey taking “classy photos” of the two of you “snuggling” at a C-List Glamour Shots style studio and you’re wearing a flowy purple blouse like Yngwie with shoulder pads like you’re in a 1980s dramedy like LA Law calling him Papi…at least that’s what I’ve heard from @JackBootedThug and all HE wanted to buy was a few patch cables apparently ?
 
WilfredTASD said:
@Metalhex dont do it! @JohnnyGtar is going to tell you that he doesn’t need “money” to pay for the amp but something else…and soon you’ll find yourself at some super creepy mall in the middle of New Jersey taking “classy photos” of the two of you “snuggling” at a C-List Glamour Shots style studio and you’re wearing a flowy purple blouse like Yngwie with shoulder pads like you’re in a 1980s dramedy like LA Law calling him Papi…at least that’s what I’ve heard from @JackBootedThug and all HE wanted to buy was a few patch cables apparently ?
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Say what??
 
I tried many amps that were not for me. Like most of them.

Saturday I was surprised how much I liked the Tremoverb into a Deliverance 4x12 with P50E. Strange times we are living in.
 
JerEvil said:
Interesting. My MZero OD fucks pretty hard…
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I couldn't do anything with the Trinity. I'd think based on the specs it's the same as the Zero with more options but again, I'm just guessing here.

I mean I was really disappointed as it had been a bit since I plucked down some high dollars for an upper end amp. No matter what I did I couldn't dial in a chunky tight rhythm tone. Lead was fine, not great but passable. I could never dial out this "roundness" for lack of a better term that it had. OD's (which I don't like using), boosts, eq in the front, eq in the loop, different cabs...just wasn't working. In comparison the Engl Artist I had just before it, I thought smoked it.

Granted, as I always say...it just didn't work for me. Amp's build was impeccable though, thing of beauty.
 
WilfredTASD said:
@Metalhex dont do it! @JohnnyGtar is going to tell you that he doesn’t need “money” to pay for the amp but something else…and soon you’ll find yourself at some super creepy mall in the middle of New Jersey taking “classy photos” of the two of you “snuggling” at a C-List Glamour Shots style studio and you’re wearing a flowy purple blouse like Yngwie with shoulder pads like you’re in a 1980s dramedy like LA Law calling him Papi…at least that’s what I’ve heard from @JackBootedThug and all HE wanted to buy was a few patch cables apparently ?
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yeah but the secret was what I wanted to use the cables for....now it will put the lotion on it's skin.......... :love:
 
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