Founded at the turn of the centuries, Bad Cat’s initial objective was to fill a hole left in the market for high-end guitar amplification following the short-term death of Matchless in 1999.
It’s popular that Matchless co-founder and designer Mark Sampson assisted with some preliminary style and fabrication, thus in the extremely early days there was a close resemblance in between Matchless and Bad Cat items. But Bad Cat’s variety rapidly diverged with ingenious functions and brand-new designs, consisting of the K-Master circuit and the favored Hot Cat and U.S.A. Player amplifiers.
Sampson delegated check out brand-new horizons while Bad Cat continued, and the business has actually just recently relaunched its brand name with a totally brand-new series of upgraded heads and combinations, developed by owner John Thompson and CEO and designer Peter Arends. Here, we’re taking a look at the extremely prepared for reincarnation of among Bad Cat’s very first amplifiers, now available as a 1×12 combination amp: the Black Cat.
This is a good-looking, generally styled amp including a front-facing control board surrounded by black vinyl and gold piping, with a brightened logo design atop the hallmark gold-sparkle grille. Underneath the vinyl, there’s a Baltic birch plywood cabinet supporting a single tailor-made 12-inch Celestion speaker and a robust aluminium chassis with 2 large transformers and a choke.
Inside the chassis, the majority of the electronic devices are installed on one big top quality PCB, consisting of the front-panel controls and preamp valve sockets. There’s a mix of through-hole resistors and capacitors, together with 3 relays and a number of surface-mount chips for the Black Cat’s digital reverb.
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
Smaller boards support the input jack, rear-panel jacks and sockets for the Black Cat’s cathode-biased set of EL84-Rs, which produce around 20 watts. Soldering and circuitry is tidy and cool; great deals of mindful cable television twisting decreases sound.
The Black Cat is a two-channel style, although it’s rather various from the initial amplifier with 2 sets of gain and master volume manages sharing treble and bass EQ knobs.
There’s likewise an international Cut tone control resting on the preamp output, which rolls off the highs as the chickenhead knob is turned clockwise – a subtle nod to Vox’s AC30, which belonged to the motivation for the initial Black Cat style and its forefathers. Lastly, there are speed and strength controls for the Black Cat’s bias‑modulated tremolo impact and a level control for the reverb.
The signature Bad Cat tone is everything about clearness and string separation, which is instantly apparent on Channel 1
On the rear panel, you’ll discover a set of send out and return jacks for the buffered impacts loop and a thorough option of speaker outlets, with 5 jack sockets using 4-, 8- and 16-ohm alternatives, together with a repaired level line out ideal for driving external power amps or IR loaders.
There’s likewise a jack socket for the Black Cat’s two-button footswitch, which toggles the channels and tremolo impacts. Status LEDs on the footswitch are duplicated on the front panel as 2 little toggle changes for when the footswitch isn’t required.
Overall, it’s plainly constructed to last, with extremely top quality parts and traditional styling, looking the part for phase, studio and home usage.
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
Feel & Sounds
We tried the Black Cat with numerous guitars, consisting of an old Strat, an obtained initial 1972 Les Paul Custom and an exceptional Gibson Custom Shop ’63 ES-335 reproduction. The Black Cat purrs into life with virtually no hiss and background hum, thanks to a DC heating unit filament supply and transformers a minimum of double the size of those generally discovered in other comparable amps.
The plus-size transformers indicate considerably lowered mechanical hum, making the Black Cat perfect for low-volume usage at home, either for practice or recording.
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
“Transformer certification is one of the biggest hurdles a manufacturer has to overcome,” describes Peter Arends, “so it made sense to certify just one set of transformers and use them for all our new models. The increased transformer size on the smaller amplifiers and the reduced mechanical noise is a side benefit of that.”
The signature Bad Cat tone is everything about clearness and string separation, which is instantly apparent on Channel 1’s series of beautiful cleans up and traditional ’60s chime. With the master volume showed up high and the gain control all the method up, there’s an extremely pleasing moderate crunch that works actually well with husky humbuckers, nailing the mid-’60s Blues Invasion tones of The Beatles, Humble Pie and The Stones.
Back the gain off to around half and you’ll discover the jangly harmonics of early Byrds and Creedence Clearwater Revival, while setting it to simply under half with a Strat puts you strongly in Shadows and Ventures area, boosted by the Black Cat’s onboard reverb and predisposition tremolo.
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
The tone controls do take a little getting utilized to, however after a couple of minutes they rapidly end up being user-friendly. “The tone network is a passive EQ, with separate operating points for the clean and overdrive channel,” continues Peter. “The treble control works like a mid bell/scoop control, where turning it anti-clockwise emphasises mids, while turning it clockwise emphasises bass and treble frequencies.
The bass control works like a post/mastering EQ, so the amount of low frequencies doesn’t change the characteristics of the signal. The effectiveness of the controls is due to the headroom of the circuitry, enabled by the EQ’s position and matching it to the surrounding stages.”
After the primary EQ, the Black Cat’s Cut knob functions as a last edit on the tone prior to the signal reaches the output phase, gradually rolling off highs as the knob is turned clockwise.
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
Switching to Channel 2 keeps the exact same complex harmonics and string separation, with additional gain for crunch and solos. There’s ample drive here to make the fairly low-powered single coils of our Strat sing, while the claws actually bring out a good humbucker.
The Black Cat’s Treble control is especially efficient on this channel, letting you call in simply the correct amount of scoop to attain a best midrange balance in seconds. With Channel 2’s gain showed up to around 2 o’clock and the master volume pressing the EL84s to the edge, the lead noises are remarkable, effortlessly mixing American and British affects with quickly managed feedback and an addicting expression that tracks every subtlety of string attack and vibrato.
Our obtained ’72 LP Custom sounded especially outstanding, the Black Cat nailing whatever from Aerosmith and Bryan Adams to Sex Pistols and Peter Frampton, all with determine precision.
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
The tremolo and reverb impacts are similarly rewarding to utilize, with a well-judged series of speed and strength from the trem and a warm medium hall decay that’s perfect for subtle environment or full-on browse.
“The effects work really well on both channels,” Peter concurs. “The tremolo is an easy effect to do, but not so easy to do well. We spent a lot of time tuning it to get the right feel across both channels. Same with the reverb, where a lot of time went into getting the levels right so the reverb doesn’t sound harsh or overloaded and you can use it all.”
Used with a live band, the Black Cat’s 20-watt output was ample to deal with an averagely loud drum set and a passionate audience, while the low sound flooring works extremely perfectly with pedals. We utilized a little pedalboard with some normal wah, drive, hold-up and modulation impacts plugged into the input jack, with outstanding outcomes.
Verdict
It’s excellent to see Bad Cat back once again with an interesting brand-new series of amps that make the most of the cost-efficiency and dependability of contemporary production and parts, without jeopardizing the desirable tones of the originals.
The initial Black Cat signature voice is still here, in addition to a broadened variety that covers most musical categories, though it’s especially well fit to contemporary nation, blues, roots and traditional rock where the complex harmonics and extremely responsive characteristics are similarly rewarding to subtle subtlety or savage attack.
Aimed directly at experts and severe novices, the Black Cat plainly isn’t an impulse buy. However, set versus direct competitors costing two times as much or more, we reckon it’s really great worth for money, with superlative tone and action, and low sound efficiency that’s difficult to beat, even at this rarefied level.
It’s worth keeping in mind the magic of the electrical guitar originated from extremely easy analogue starts and in some cases one good tube amp is all you require to uncover that pleasure
As for build quality, if you wish to make regularly great-sounding amplifiers then contemporary top quality PCBs are the only method to go, with apparent cost savings in assembly expenses equating into more cost effective items. There are no unique parts on the Bad Cat’s board, so future maintenance won’t provide any issues, either.
In the volume stakes, we believe the lower output wattage really makes the amp much easier to drive, while the Black Cat’s 1×12 format is perfect for many gigs. Okay, it’s no light-weight, however it’s far much easier to raise and bring compared to its 2×12 forefather.
In today’s market where we’re significantly overloaded by digital items, it’s worth keeping in mind the magic of the electrical guitar originated from extremely easy analogue starts and in some cases one good tube amp is all you require to uncover that pleasure.
Specs
COST: $2,099 / £1,899
ORIGIN: U.S.A.
TYPE: Valve preamp, valve power amp
VALVES: 1x JJ ECC83S, 2x EH12AX7, 2x EL84-R
OUTPUT: 20W RMS
MEASUREMENTS : 605 (w) x 265 (d) x 485mm (h)
WEIGHT (kg/lb): 22/48
CABINET: Baltic birch ply
SPEAKERS: 1×12” Celestion Bad Cat customized style, made in UK
CHANNELS: 2, footswitchable tidy and overdrive
MANAGES: Volume 1, Master 1, Volume 2, Master 2 Treble, bass, cut. Tremolo strength and speed, reverb level
FOOTSWITCH: 2-button footswitch (provided) modifications channels and toggles tremolo function
EXTRA FUNCTIONS: Buffered series impacts loop, bias-modulated tremolo, studio-quality digital reverb, repaired level line out
CHOICES: None
VARIETY CHOICES: Also available as a head for £1,799, with a coordinating 1×12 speaker cabinet for £549
CONTACT: Bad Cat Amplification