Reverbs, Delay, Echo,
Choruses, Flanger
and Slap Echo.
3-band EQ
1" tweeter
used to lengthen or shorten the decay.
Effect bank B has two choruses, a flanger
and a slap echo, and immediately to the
right is a Depth control, which can summon everything from a tempered swell or
pure undersea warble, depending on what
you’re looking for.
The reverbs are clean and useful. Reverb
1 seems a little warmer, while Reverb
2 seems brighter, without being brittle.
They’re both very natural and can be truly
lovely. The delay is very effective at low
levels for sweetening up the tone, or you
can go totally nuts and use the footswitch
to introduce the effect in dramatic passages. Effect bank B is home to Chorus
1, which like the Reverb is warmer, while
its Chorus 2 counterpart is brighter. I
really like the Flanger, too–it adds a lot of
dimension to the sound.
Perhaps the only complaint I have
about the effects is that there is no way
to independently control the banks when
they’re both engaged. The Effect Level
control is only for Effect A. The Depth
control can be used to reduce the intensity
of Effect B, but the ability to more actively
mix the effects would be great.
Loudbox Alive!
I took this to a gig where I performed
both solo and as part of a duo. In the solo
context I barely had to tweak the tone
controls to get a gorgeous natural sound
and added a little of Reverb 1 for some
extra dimension. The clarity of the amp is
exceptional, even when I used the effects
more aggressively.
It also proved super versatile. And
during the duo performance, we ran two
vocal mics into the front, and used the
Auxiliary input for my guitar pickup, with
a Baggs ParAcoustic DI as a pre-amp. It
worked phenomenally well. Presto change-
o—a two-channel amp becomes a three-
channel amp.
The Verdict
For a small-to-medium room where
people shut up and listen, the Loudbox
Artist is fantastic amp. As a DI out to a
house sound system it works spectacularly as well, because it’s a great stage monitor. If you love portability, can use a little
extra power and useful built-in effects,
and like the versatility the Loudbox
Artist is a great place to start your amp
search—it’s good enough that it might
just end there too.
Rating:
Buy If...
you need a small, powerful,
versatile amp for a passel of
small-to-medium size gigs.
Skip If...
you have no need for, or are not
comfortable using, digital effects.
Fishman
Transducers, Inc.
Street $500
fishman.com
to leave your comments on this amp at
premierguitar.com/jan2012
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