Victory V130 Super Countess

Saturday 30 September Now we are getting there. I'm getting used to the settings, the volume and Gain of the amp. Sadly, I will need to wait a little longer for the High setting. But I am really enjoying the 30 watt setting at a decent volume. Two different guitars today. An Ibanez RGHRG1 and a Musicman Luke II with EMGs. The Musicman is a dream to play and with the EMGs has a massive amount of punch. Because of the switching options with the single coils you get a massive start sound with tremendous punch. Th Super Countess loved this. The bridge pickup was not a million miles from the Revernd's Rail Hammers but with perhaps a bit more edge to the delivery. Positions 2 and 4 sounded amazing and the neck single coil was massive. Perhaps even too much. The Reverend's P90 was definitely calmer. Set 2 and I switched to the Geiger. "Insert rude word here". This thing is made for the Super Countess. The tones!! Everything was bigger, clearer and just bett...

Friday 29 September:  The Super Countess's first gig is a village pub gig. Perhaps a bit simple for what this amp is capable of but these fun live music pubs are our bread and butter. First off, these Heritage Series amps look really nice atop a Victory vertical 2x12 cab. I have the grey VG212 purchased for the Kraken but it's the same guts as the black one - 2 x Celestion Vintage 30s. I always take 2 guitars, one as a back up in case of catestrophic failure or a mid song string break. I deliberately took 2 very different guitars and played them both tonight. Front and centre is a Reverend Bayonet with a Rail Hammer P90 in the neck and a Rail Hammer humbucker at the bridge. The white guitar is a PRS Starla. From a load-in perspective the Heritage series are, as you would expect, not as portable as the Compact series, obviously. What is continuously amazing is the quality and volume of noise you can get from a Kraken and a 1 x 12 which is stunning considering you can ...

The Super Countess has made it to first practice. This was an unusual session for us as our other guitarist is on night shift this week so wasn't able to attend. As this was all about keys and song structure for the three new songs we wanted to look at this was fine. It also gave me a unique opportunity to hear the V130 in isolation with just bass and not in the mix with a second guitar. It's worth noting that I'm plugged into my practice cab which is a home built thing with some Yamaha speakers from the 1970s in it. Its OK but it is not the Victory VG212. At least it's in band colours. The first thing that struck me about playing at volume, in Low mode, was how nicely loud this amp is. It is loud but not deafening. It is manageable, controllable. In High mode it will need a bigger room to really stretch its wings but in our practice cave, in Low, I was able to get the Volume up to about half way which is a nice gigging volume. A couple of twiddles with th...

So a thing I never thought would happen has happened. I have sold my V40 Compact Head. My V40 Deluxe is now being used for preference as the clean amp and the Kraken has been used all year as the gigging amp, which has the meant the V40 has not been used since March and it is too good an amp to not get used. So she has gone to a new home.  However a new beasty has appeared. Meet the new Victory V130 Super Countess Heritage Series 100W Head! The Clean voice is lovely and on the Gain setting I use has just a sniff of break-up.  The Crunch voice is Malcolm Young in a box (again, as I set it).  And the 2 overdrive voices destroy any other hotrodded amp tones I have ever heard. I'll leave it until it's played live to decide on Overdrive 1 or 2 but right now I could noodle OD2 all day long.  This is every amp I ever wanted to play live in one box and my goodness can it be loud. This is not a bedroom use amp!! I am so looking forward to its first full outin...