The Glade 4.0

I've had this thing for quite a while, and find myself using it more and more over my bigger traditional amps.



There is actually a series of these (THR) guitar amps by Yamaha. They are very digital/computer friendly. They have a headphone jack for late night playing. The USB interface turns it into an output audio device.. Aux allows you to connect any audio player source (including a computer, phone, ipod, etc...) to jam along with. There are separate audio channels (and controls) for AUX/USB and the Guitar itself, which means you can control the mix right on the front panel.

It's a modeling amp, but doesn't try to be something it's not. You won't get a Marshall Stack turned up to 11 sound out of it, but it does do a nice job doing what it does. The Amp knob has settings for Clean, Crunch, Lead, Brit HI, and Modern (very heavy). Gain and Master volume controls actual do what they do on a large amp (mainly allow you to get some natural distortion without the need for cheesy pedals).

It does bass or guitar, plus a 'flat' setting (presumably for acoustics), and does have a few built in effects (chorus, trem, delay and reverb), and it allows you to save settings in presets for fast recall.

It comes in two main forms.

The 5 watt version is about $200
http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-THR5-10-Wa ... ref=sr_1_2

The 10 watt version is about $300
http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-THR10-Mode ... pd_cp_MI_0

If you are interested, there are some variants that you may want to read up on. A for Acoustic, X for more gain, etc...

Anyway, I know there are a few guitar players here, so I thought I'd share this. It's a nice little amp for folks who don't have a large space to play in, or share a space with roommates or family.


Here is a youtube demo

Definitely very cool, and nice that they'd put USB out on it for computer recording.

I'll tell you, the thing that's amazing me the most right now is the JamUp pro and bias software from positive grid. It's running on the ipad (and iphone too, I believe) so a high cost for entry, but if you already have one of those, it's crazy how many tone combinations you can create with those things that sound damn near the original. I've gotten to the point where I'll switch off my half stack at practice and plug my ipad directly into the mixer for certain stuff. Pretty impressive. Jamup comes with a bunch of the standard amps, but Bias lets you do things I've never seen before, ridiculous tweakability. Runs the risk of sitting there tweaking the sound and not playing!