Hughes & Kettner Grandmeister 36 Guitar Head

Hughes & Kettner Grandmeister 36 review
By Kris Martens

Hughes & Kettner have a big hit with the tubemeister series of lunchbox heads. The grandmeister 36 is the flagship of the line. This amp has more features than any amp I have seen to date. It does almost everything you could want from an amp. And it looks killer on stage with its blue glowing front panel.

Features

4 channels (clean, crunch, lead and ultra)
Built in fx (chorus, flanger, phaser and tremolo. Delay and digital reverb)
Midi compatible
Power soak changes wattage from 36 down to 1 watt
Built in Red Box speaker simulator
Controllable fx loop
Noise gate
Speaker mute for silent recording.
Gain boost to add more gain to any channel.
128 preset slots to store your own sounds with a midi footswitch.
iPad tweakability with compatible midi interface.
TSC tube safety control


This amp covers a lot of bases. The clean channel is pretty versatile. Running at full wattage you have a ton of headroom. Adding some chorus and delay makes the tone come alive. I absolutely love the clean channel on this amp.

The crunch channel is pretty smooth and sounds similar to a Marshall plexi. Adding the boost allows for a tight classic rock/early metal tone.

The lead channel is amazing. Very tight and focused. Tons of gain available.  Liquid highs match well with the insane low end. Turning up the mids adds some punch to the sound. I love this channel and spend most of my time using it.

The ultra channel is for gain junkies. It is tight and focused like the lead channel but not as punchy. Using the lead channel for rhythm tones and the ultra for lead works great. I find the amount of gain on the ultra channel absolutely frightening.

Other cool features include an adjustable noise gate and red box cabinet emulation. The TSC tells you if your tubes are functioning properly and even pinpoints trouble tubes. The power soak is a built in attenuator that can go from full power (36 watts) down to 1 watt for playing late at night. Since the power soak setting is stored for each setting you could have your clean tone at full power for headroom, rhythm tone at half power to get more power tube saturation and your lead tone at 5 watts for max saturation.

A free iPad app gives you hands on control to save, load and tweak your sounds. You do need an iPad approved midi interface to use it though. This is a great feature for guitarists who play a wide variety of styles and need an easy way to organize tones.

This blue glowing tube beast is awesome looking, awesome sounding and has a feature set that blows most amps away. It isn't cheap ($1299) but it is loud enough to handle most gigs. Canadian thrash band Annihilator used the grandmeister to play huge festivals this summer. Check it out!

Ritchie Blackmore Stratocaster

Ritchie Blackmore Stratocaster
By Kris Martens

Up for review today is the fender Ritchie Blackmore Strat. This guitar is made in Mexico and is one of the better strats that I have played recently.

Features

Artist series
Alder body
21 fret Maple neck with scalloped rosewood fretboard
7.25" radius
3 bolt neck plate with tilt control
70's headstock
Bullet truss rod
70's style fender branded tuning machines
Seymour duncan quarter pound flat pickups with dummy in the middle
3 way pickup  selecter
1 volume, 2 tone pots
Gig bag included


When I first noticed this model on the fender website I knew this was a guitar that I would have to try out. I'm a huge Rainbow fan and this model is based on the guitar that Ritchie used with that band. The high end MiM strats are great guitars and I've played several that have really impressed me. This one is no different. Great bang for the buck!

This guitar looks really awesome. It's black pickups, knobs and switch tip contrast great with the Olympic white body and 3 ply white pickguard. The chrome hardware is sweet and the CBS headstock is downright menacing.


The pickup configuration might put strat "purists" off but I love it. Having a three way pickup selector negates the famous 2 and 4 positions that country and blues  players love  but this guitar is meant to rock. There is a dummy pickup in the middle position for cosmetic purposes. It basically functions like a les Paul. Position 1 is the bridge, 2 is bridge and neck and 3 is the neck. The middle position is really cool because you can't get that tone without modifying a normal strat. Switching from the neck to bridge is smoother as well due to the switch only covering  one tone between them instead of three different tones. Most people wouldn't notice this though.

The bridge pickup is a reverse wound/reverse polarity Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound Flat SSL-4 single coil.


The neck pickup is a normal wound SSL-4.

These pickups have twice the output of a normal single coil. They are perfect for playing rock and old school metal. They are a bit noisy so I find a noise gate to be mandatory.

This guitar absolutely crushes when played through my jcm800. It handles clean and high gain like a champ.

The scalloped fretboard is awesome. It's kind of strange at first but I got used to it in a few minutes. You get more control for string bending and vibrato.

Overall this guitar is a keeper. Everything is top notch from the fretwork to the scallop job. I'm really impressed!