Mackie makes guitar amps now?

[Mark Buckingham]

Anybody hear about this yet?

http://www.mackie.com/products/hotwire/

I'm not sure if it's along the lines of the vox valvetronix series or more like a Fender CyberTwin.

Anyway... It wouldn't be interesting at all if it was from a different company. I'm a bit suprised that Mackie (now "Loud Technologies") are getting in the sort-of tube amp business.

[Enzo]

Loud Technologies now also owns Saint Louis Music - makers of Crate and AMpeg - so it would be no problem for them to knock out some new amps and stick the Mackie name on them.

[Alf]

And I suppose they come with the same service?
If it's broke just chuck it and buy a new one ?

Alf

[Mark Buckingham]

Loud Technologies now also owns Saint Louis Music - makers of Crate and AMpeg - so it would be no problem for them to knock out some new amps and stick the Mackie name on them.

Well, the point of the article that I saw on line was that it was actually designed by Greg Mackie. It doesn't appear to be a crate with the Mackie name just stuck on it.

[Steve Conner]

Wow, it even has a USB port. The age of the USB guitar amp is upon us. I'd love to try one and see what it sounds like.

[Enzo]

I wasn't thinking it was just a renamed product, but that with all the recently added capability in manufacturing, it would be no problem for them to go right into production. What seems like a new direction might not be so surprising.

[earache]

Was there any mention in the advert what kind of tubes it had?

[Andrew M]

Does it have a built in loop function?

The picture of the footcontroller on the site http://www.mackie.com/home/showimage...-1-Alt3Qtr.jpg shows rec play/stop buttons, but I didn't see any mention of that in the text.

[Mark Buckingham]

Was there any mention in the advert what kind of tubes it had?

I think it either said or implied that there were two 12ax7's. Basically, it looks like an analog preamp followed by digital effects and a digital power amp.

(Not that I'm exactly sure how a power amp can be "digital.")

[Enzo]

Oh they sure can. They toggle a square wave and the duty cycle - at least in one system - can combine with a standing triangle wave to create an analog output signal. They can also just send various width pulses into a cap filter and the charge rate smoothes things into analog. Then a serious low pass filter cleans it up. Tends to be efficient somehow. Very scary.

[Mark Buckingham]

Oh they sure can. They toggle a square wave and the duty cycle - at least in one system - can combine with a standing triangle wave to create an analog output signal. They can also just send various width pulses into a cap filter and the charge rate smoothes things into analog. Then a serious low pass filter cleans it up. Tends to be efficient somehow. Very scary.

"Scary" is probably the best word I can think of. :-)

I'm still interested in hearing how this thing sounds, I'm not going to get my hopes up too high... I haven't played a modeling amp yet that really sounded or felt like the amps it was modeling.