Based on the Soldano® SLO-100
About
Noted for its hot-rod chrome chassis and aggressive rhythm tone. Normal (Clean / Crunch) and snarling Lead channel,100w, 6L6 tubes.
Now considered a modern American classic, have made it the heart and soul of many of Rock, Metal, and Electric Blues, Mike Soldano created his flagship Super Lead Overdrive 100 (SLO-100) amplifier in 1987 and continues to hand-build it to this day. The SLO-100 was made an instant hit by early adopters Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, and used by a range of players, including Warren DeMartini, Warren Haynes,
Lou Reed, and Eddie Van Halen. Much of the love for the SLO-100 is due to not only its juicy high gain tones, but also its clean and crunchy capabilities, making it an extremely versatile head. The SLO-100 features two channels, Normal and Overdrive, with a Clean / Crunch gain switch on the Normal channel. We loved the different characteristics of this amp so much that we created three separate models!
Solo Lead Clean: This model of the Normal channel switched to Clean provides the most headroom and a variety of warm to shimmery clean tones.
Solo Lead Crunch: Here we’ve modeled the Normal channel switched to Crunch, which is superb for a range of distorted textures from polite to aggressive.
Solo Lead Overdrive: A model of the Overdrive channel with some seriously tight bottom chunk to liquid, screaming lead capabilities.
Mike Soldano first came to fame as the guy who could do all the really cool mods to your Marshall®. It wasn’t long before he started building his own ‘hot-rod’ amps — sporting chromed transformers and chassis, no less. Mike’s amps are also famous for their bullet-proof construction and military spec wiring and components.
While primarily known for its high gain personality, the SLO-100 has a great clean tone as well. Eric Clapton put Soldano on the map when he played “Saturday Night Live” with his Soldano SLO-100.
Tips:
Those amps are all designed to get their character from power amp distortion. If you don’t push the power amp all you are hearing is the preamp which is voiced to be trebly. The power amp then compresses the highs and the sound gets fatter. Many people find SLOs too bright. It was designed as a large stage/stadium amp. Running one at your local pub is going to give results that are very thin and buzzy, best tones achieved by increasing the master and backing off the preamp, just like the real deal. The key to an SLO100 is to run the MV high so that the mids thicken up. Otherwise it’s a shrill mess. In certain contexts with the right IR it can be a cool sound.
Rectifier preamp is a derivative of the SLO-100.
Many times the knobs aren’t “centered”. If you put the Treble knob at noon it isn’t actually at 50%, in the case of an SLO100 it is intentional. On an SLO100 all the way down is around 8:00 and all the way up is 6:00 so 50% is around 1:00 not noon.”