SLO

BuddytheReow

BuddytheReow

Moderator
I'm starting to check out the Soldano SLO tone and I think it's pretty killer. From what I've heard/read its pretty much the grandfather of all the high gain amps out there today. I would love to get my hands on one, but I really don't have the space for another "amp on tap" ready to plug in and play. I thought about going the DIY route for the amp to possibly save a few dollars, but again I don't have the space for it until I offload some of my other gear.

That being said, the way I see it I have 2 pedal options to get close to the SLO sound: the Lead Solder OD board sold here or the Black Eye from C2CE. I've got the Lead Solder board all populated, but right now there are a lot of squeals when turned up. I'm hoping this is just because it's not in an enclosure and hooked up to a test box (the squeal dies down a bit when I touch the pots).

I guess my real question is if the Black Eye is as gnarly as everyone says it is. For a DIY pedal its on the more expensive side since it runs on tubes ($60-75 all in is my guess without UV printing or drilling services).
 
defintely go for the black eye,
i haven’t actually built that one, but i trust the consensus.
what i can say is that ive built the SLO100 from rosamp (it’s awesome, you really should build an SLO30 kit) and then the SLO pedal, and unfortunately for me the pedal was really underwhelming where other distortion pedal builds have been far more exciting.
 
BuddytheReow said:
I'm starting to check out the Soldano SLO tone and I think it's pretty killer. From what I've heard/read its pretty much the grandfather of all the high gain amps out there today. I would love to get my hands on one, but I really don't have the space for another "amp on tap" ready to plug in and play. I thought about going the DIY route for the amp to possibly save a few dollars, but again I don't have the space for it until I offload some of my other gear.
Click to expand...
I don't have experience with the pedals (I tend to dislike pedals that emulate amps) but I think your issue with the price and space would be nicely addressed by a rosamp SLO30 clone. Still 1k for sure, but a smaller footprint. I have one and I love it, even though I cannot attest to how close it is to the original SLO100. You could also look into the mini-SLOs from Rob Robinette but they tend to only have the gain channel, with a different power section.
 
BuddytheReow said:
I guess my real question is if the Black Eye is as gnarly as everyone says it is. For a DIY pedal its on the more expensive side since it runs on tubes ($60-75 all in is my guess without UV printing or drilling services).
Click to expand...
I just ordered the Black Eye last weekend once the Nobelium was back in stock, keep you posted once I get it assembled.
 
The SLO is my favorite dirt tone, so I can weigh in with my opinions.

I bought the SLO pedal direct from Soldano the day they were released, because I'm a Soldano fan and figured I would give it a shot. I will say that I don't dislike it; as far as op-amp based amp emulations go it's pretty good going into the front end of a clean or mostly-clean tube amp, but it's still an op-amp based emulation and is never going to feel the same.

The C2CE Black Eye is based on the Soldano GTO, which was Soldano's all-tube preamp pedal they made a while back. It's not a direct copy of the SLO preamp so it feels a little different, but I would say it definitely captures the Soldano flavor of dirt, and running one of those into the front of an amp is going to be an excellent approximation of an SLO-esque dirt tone.

I would recommend a Black Eye over an actual GTO for two reasons: first, the original GTO runs off mains power and uses a transformer to get voltages, and it has always had noise issues as a result of (in my opinion) poor component placement/routing and insufficient power filtering. Black Eye runs off a DC input and uses an SMPS to get the high-voltage, which already gives you a good start for noise, but I also use a 4-layer PCB with a dedicated ground layer, which does an excellent job of keeping noise to a minimum, so Black Eye builds typically turn out much quieter than the actual GTO. The second reason is that the original GTO has become a bit of a collector's item and the prices reflect that. It's not into Klon territory, but you'll be lucky to find one under $700.

The Rosamp (not affiliated) kits look great, and if you're even considering building the amp I would say they're a solid option, especially since they have the 30W option. 100W is the classic SLO option, but 100W is a lot of amp. Ceriatone (not affiliated) is another option for kits, and they also sell fully assembled amps if you don't want to build the amp but don't want to pay for the original. I've built enough amps to realize I don't actually enjoy building amps, so I picked up a Ceriatone head a little over a year ago and it's been great.



Disclaimer: C2CE is me, so I obviously make money when people build Black Eye.
 
BuddytheReow said:
I'm starting to check out the Soldano SLO tone and I think it's pretty killer. From what I've heard/read its pretty much the grandfather of all the high gain amps out there today. I would love to get my hands on one, but I really don't have the space for another "amp on tap" ready to plug in and play. I thought about going the DIY route for the amp to possibly save a few dollars, but again I don't have the space for it until I offload some of my other gear.

That being said, the way I see it I have 2 pedal options to get close to the SLO sound: the Lead Solder OD board sold here or the Black Eye from C2CE. I've got the Lead Solder board all populated, but right now there are a lot of squeals when turned up. I'm hoping this is just because it's not in an enclosure and hooked up to a test box (the squeal dies down a bit when I touch the pots).

I guess my real question is if the Black Eye is as gnarly as everyone says it is. For a DIY pedal its on the more expensive side since it runs on tubes ($60-75 all in is my guess without UV printing or drilling services).
Click to expand...
I had that squealing issue with 2 different boards. Never did get it worked out. I’d love to know if you do.
 
You can also mod a TMB tone stack into the black eye and have a full featured preamp… it takes a boost pretty nicely. Despite the squealing issue with the first iteration I was able to deal with it by installing a buffer and the mids control could even dial it out without the buffer.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top