DAVE LOCKWOOD checks out the Trademark 60 — the first guitar combo from the designers of the SansAmp range of 'Tube Amp Simulators'. Well, they couldn't exactly call their amp a SansAmp, could they?

The Trademark 60 from New York-based manufacturer, Tech 21, may look like a traditional amp, and indeed sound like a traditional amp, but the way it arrives at this end is anything but traditional. Tech 21 you may know as the manufacturers of the very successful SansAmp range of 'Tube Amp Simulator' pedals and rack units. These solid-state devices make a remarkably good job of replicating both the sound and feel of a number of popular valve amp and speaker cab configurations, even when DIed straight into a PA or recording console. Now, Tech 21 has taken the same technology and applied it to the normal guitar combo format, by incorporating a power amp stage and speaker as well.

What sets the Trademark 60 apart from everyone else's combo, however, is that all the speaker and power amp stage emulation is still there in the preamp. The power amp is intended to contribute nothing more than simple amplification up to speaker level, and the speaker, far from being chosen for the usual guitar speaker characteristics of limited frequency response and desirable colouration, is actually a specially selected wide bandwidth model offering much greater fidelity. This is an entirely different approach to achieving a guitar sound, having more in common with a rack system using a tone-shaping/speaker emulating preamp, which then feeds a clean power amp and PA type, full-range speakers.

CRANK IT UP

The control line-up too is different to any other amp you will have come across before. The Trademark 60 is a two-channel amplifier, each having a distinct character, rather than being divided strictly into 'clean' and 'dirt' channels, although in practice many players may choose to use it in precisely that way. Channel 1's line-up begins with the Bite switch — a 'Bright' switch to most of us, except this one goes beyond top boost and takes out some bottom end as well. Unless you are playing jazz, you will want Bite on, for it seems to affect overall sensitivity too.

The first rotary is designated Drive — and it doesn't do what you think it does! The natural assumption that this is a standard input gain control would probably have most players cranking it all the way up. In reality, however, it works far more like the Volume control of a non-master volume amp, progressively increasing the smoother distortion components typical of power amp stage distortion, as well as compression, as it gets louder. The halfway point is reckoned to be Unity Gain, but you really wouldn't want to set it any lower than this unless you have active pick-ups and are seeking a totally clean sound. Round about the three-quarter mark the amp just begins to sing, with a hint of sag as you attack the note — still quite sweet sounding, and now very fluid to play with. Output volume can therefore be set wherever you want it, via the channel's individual Level control, without affecting the overdrive characteristic at all.

The third (and final!) dedicated channel control is Punch, which sets the mid-range level and break-up characteristic — very 'Fendery' and scooped out in the middle, to the left of centre, and hard, almost nasal like a static wah pedal, to the right. To my ears, all the nicest stuff lies left of centre, with anything beyond the central position breaking up too early in the mid-range, even with single coils, but that is very much in the realms of personal taste and style.

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT

Channel 2 differs from Channel 1 only in that the Bite switch becomes 'Weep', changing the overdrive characteristic to more like that of a Class A output stage, ie. more even-order harmonic content, resulting in a sweeter, less abrasive distortion. Drive still sets the amount of simulated output stage distortion; this time over the whole travel of the pot, with no central unity position. In practice, I couldn't find anything really usable on Channel 2 with Drive set to anywhere less than halfway, as without the additional harmonic content introduced by distortion, I think the sound is simply not bright enough — a Bite switch for Channel 2 would take care of it perfectly, tightening the bottom-end at the same time!

Channel 2's slightly unconventional mid control is designated Growl. This seems to progressively scoop out the mids but simultaneously compensate for the loss of level. If I tell you that the sample settings in the manual include a Santana lead sound with Growl all the way down, and a Metallica sound with Growl all the way up, you'll get the point. Yes, it works backwards, hence, presumably, why it is called Growl and not mid-range!

"... Tech 21 's Trademark 60 really cuts it with the best of them."

'Well, what about tone controls?', you are probably asking by now. Well, you do have Low and High EQ controls in the master section, but there are none in the channels, and frankly, you won't miss them. The amp is so well voiced anyway that the mid-range controls can actually do everything you need to create the character of sound you want. This leaves the master tone controls free to be used to compensate for the surrounding acoustic, or to simulate different types of speaker configuration. Advancing both High and Low controls from their central, 'flat' positions, introduces more of a big cabinet tonality, and quite a convincing one at that — I've certainly never heard any other one by 12 combo sound this much like a four by 12! Part of what makes it convincing is all the simulated cabinet thump and resonance that creeps in as you advance the Drive on Channel 2. Winding up the Bass EQ really brings this out at lower levels, but as you get louder, the single 12 can no longer reproduce it. The hint of it that remains, however, is sufficient to make the Trademark 60 sound much 'bigger' than any other single 12-inch, 60 Watt combo on the market, in my opinion. You don't get the spread of a four by 12, however — a single 12 is always going to be a bit directional and this one is no exception, but at any reasonable sized gig, you are going to need to put it into the PA and monitors anyway.

The only remaining controls are Reverb — sweet, clear and traditional, from the full length Accutronics spring — and the Boost facility. This is a footswitchable additional gain stage, which can be preset to give anywhere up to 9dB of extra welly when you need it. Unlike most amps, Boost on the Trademark 60 does exactly what it says, and no more. It just makes it louder without changing the amount of distortion or the overdrive characteristic at all. Boost and Reverb can actually be tied together with the Link switch, so that the reverb only kicks in when you hit Boost for a solo, although I suspect most people would prefer to switch between two different levels of reverb — background ambience for clean sounds and something bigger for leads.

THE SANSAMP CONNECTION

Round the back of the open-backed cabinet, the Trademark 60 reveals effects send and return jacks, internal speaker and headphone jacks, plus an XLR for the speaker-emulated DI output. Being basically a SansAmp, not surprisingly, this is a more than decent sound — perhaps a bit crunchier than I would prefer, but as the amp's designer, Andrew Barta of Tech 21 said when I ventured this opinion, "you can always take away a bit of top at the console, and take away a bit of noise at the same time, whereas if it's not there at all, there is no way you can EQ it back in again". To give you an idea of what it actually sounds like, I found I could get closest to replicating the DI sound using a Shure SM58 placed hard up against the grill cloth and dead opposite the centre of the cone — a switchable option for the slightly mellower character of a 57 placed perhaps halfway out towards the perimeter would really be the icing on the cake.

The DI output also has an earth-lift facility, to assist in avoiding hum when connecting to a PA. The signal actually emerges at something close to microphone level, so you can just plug it in where you would previously have connected a mic. The DI actually works very well for PA usage, giving a much cleaner, almost pre-EQed signal to the desk, which only required a tiny bit of further tweaking. Being a solid-state amp, it is also easy to mute the integral speaker output for recording or to minimise spill on stage, simply by pulling out the speaker jack, or connecting a jack to the headphone socket.

The Trademark 60 comes as standard with a three-way footswitch for flipping channels, activating the effects loop and reverb/boost functions — the footswitch system also sensibly uses a standard quarter-inch jack, so you needn't worry about trashing a delicate 'one of a kind' footswitch multipin!

IMPRESSED

I have to say, in spite of being a confirmed valve amp man, I really liked the Trademark 60. It is rugged, generally well-built, and certainly less noisy than most high gain amps. With the minimum of fiddling about, I found several sounds that so closely emulated those that I actually use from my valve amp rigs that I found myself seriously wondering why I persist in using 'the real thing'. You see, the other thing about the Trademark 60 that I haven't yet mentioned is that it weighs just 36lbs! Still not impressed? Well neither would I be unless perhaps I knew that 36lbs represents less than half the weight of most valve combos on the market (and about one-third of the weight of the one I regularly use).

Surprisingly, the amp proved loud enough to keep its head above water in the company of a hard hitting drummer and a bass stack, and still had something left to cut through for solos — the Trademark 60 simply neither sounds nor feels like a solid-state 60 Watt, one by 12 combo. It may take a radically different approach to achieving the end result, gaining a good few points along the way, but with guitarists, the bottom line will always be the sound, and in this department too, Tech 21's Trademark 60 really cuts it with the best of them.