Skyliner

The Skyliner, Low Plate Custom Reverb, represents an amalgamation of several D-style amps brought together in over two years of development to arrive at the design you see before you now. The “low plate” in Low Plate Custom Reverb, is an homage to Dumble’s transitional amps from the early ’80s. Just like those amps, the clean tone is bright without being harsh, silky smooth and especially suits single coil Strats and Teles. The FET boost is a higher impedance input with an almost flat frequency response which can help boost the signal from low-output pickups, but which inventive players will want to try alongside other signal stages in the amp.

The cascading overdrive channel couples beautifully with the quartet of 6L6s in the power section with plenty of low-end punch without becoming over saturated. The secret to dialling this amp in is to approach the overdrive slowly. When you crank it, you will be reminded that you have internal organs, but when you find the sweet spot of transparency between the clean and overdrive, the organic and rich overdrive is well-mannered and tight. The response remains articulate and impressively touch-sensitive over the broad spectrum of sonic possibilities. For extra punch, engage the PAB, a preamp boost which bypasses the tone stack increasing the gain, allowing your solos to take flight.

The reverb sits at the tail of the preamp chain, just before the effects loop, meaning all of that vivid tone shaping in the clean and overdrive channels is unattenuated before it hits the reverb driver. What goes in, is what you get out but with the added shimmering analogue intensity provided by the dual-spring, long decay reverb tank. If, on the other hand you are looking to exploit the various expressive possibilities of a reverb pedal, you can always bypass the onboard reverb and send the signal through the tube buffered effects loop instead. Perfect for time-based effects, the loop sits just before the power section. Again, this means all the tone shaping from the preamp is complete and unattenuated before it reaches the reverb and effects loop stages.

A complete tone machine. Paired with an EVM 12L speaker at higher volumes you will easily cut through the mix on a gig night.