NAD: Laney Lionheart L20T

english_bob

Sweet amp. Took posession of this little beaut from @Pete24v on Friday (smooth deal, nice guy) and had the weekend to run it through its paces. Came with a nice Roqsolid cover that's significantly more substantial than the Bag for Life thing that Laney supply.

Slightly pre-empted a NAD thread with a discussion about modding the effects loop in another thread, but first impressions are very positive. Very cool looks, awesome clean and low/mid gain sounds, plenty of volume, reasonably portable. Neat tilt-back mechanism on the bottom and decent construction throughout (and believe me, I do mean throughout, I had to take it to bits. Read on...)

My major gripe- crappy parallel effects loop that means that using digital effects without analogue dry signal causes volume drop and a sort of phase-cancelly, chorus-y sound- was rectified with a minor mod, leaving only a couple of minor gripes- no LEDs on the footswitch, so if you use the amp tilted back like I did on Sunday you can't easily see if it's on the clean or drive channel, or if the reverb is on or off. It's also hard to tell whether the reverb is on or off because it's hardly there, even when you wind it right up. Not a massive 'verb user, so not a massive deal. I've got a Behringer reverb pedal I can throw in the loop if I need it.

Had a chance to try it out with my various drive pedals and changed up my pedalboard a little- now using the Lionheart's dirt channel for my core low-gain dirt sound and running:

Guitar -> Polytune Mini -> BYOC Stereo Analogue Flanger -> Foxrox ZIM (fuzzface + tubescreamer) -> LIONHEART <=> Vox Delaylab (loop)

Got a band rehearsal on Thursday, so assuming the Lionheart can cop the sounds I need for the band (pretty sure it can), and works well enough with my lap steel there will be a Cornell Romany Plus in the classifieds shortly.

markslade07

Glad to hear you like it so far, I had the head version and regret selling it. Quite fancy getting the combo version too, though would have to chop in the HRD instead. As much as I like the cleans on the HRD, the drives on the Lionheart are much better (IMHO)

Be interested to hear what you think of it in a band situation, do let us know!

stickyfiddle

Brilliant. Glad we're slowly starting to get more people on the Laney train.

"Bag for Life" made me chuckle. They're bloody awful and would barely even keep rain off. My cats enjoy hiding inside it though.

But now you've got me thinking about Romany Pluses as well...

EricTheWeary

About every one minute in ten I think wether to get the 1x12 combo or head plus 2x12 cab. The 2x12 combo is just too much of a monster, that I'm sure of. I have a gig on 4th April so I'd like to have it sorted by then. By and large I'd like the convenience and lower cost of the combo but slightly worried about how it will cut it at band levels for un mic'd gigs. Not that I need crushingly loud.
Laney describe these as something like single channel amps with built in switchable gain, so it's not really two channels.
I played the 2x12 combo briefly at the guitar show on Sunday and I thought it was great, big contrast to the disappointment ( for me ) of the Roland Blues Cube.

strtdv

I changed the switches inside the footswitch which let me add battery powered LED status indicators for the reverb and channel.
Reverb might be the tank, mine isn't over the top but is definitely noticeably there when it's on.

strtdv

I changed the switches inside the footswitch which let me add battery powered LED status indicators for the reverb and channel.
Reverb might be the tank, mine isn't over the top but is definitely noticeably there when it's on.

Pete24v

Glad you like it, I really enjoyed my brief time with it. The cover with the amp is shocking, a dust cover at best.

I'll look out for one of your gigs!

EricTheWeary

Pete24v;541925" said:

Glad you like it, I really enjoyed my brief time with it. The cover with the amp is shocking, a dust cover at best.

I'll look out for one of your gigs!

Did you use it in a band @Pete24v ?

Pete24v

Yeah, only twice though. Sounded great, I used the clean channel pretty loud so it was just breaking up.

EricTheWeary

Pete24v;541931" said:

Yeah, only twice though. Sounded great, I used the clean channel pretty loud so it was just breaking up.

That's pretty much what I want, not ultra clean at band levels - bit of grit in it, not really distorted though. Ooh.

Pete24v

It excels at the edge of breakup at band levels, then a few notches back on the guitar's volume and it's all chimey cleans.

english_bob

strtdv said:

I changed the switches inside the footswitch which let me add battery powered LED status indicators for the reverb and channel.
Reverb might be the tank, mine isn't over the top but is definitely noticeably there when it's on.

Oh it's noticeable when it's turned up past about halfway, I'm just used to the big, splashy, Fender-y reverb on my Cornell, so the Laney's is a little underwhelming. Might consider doing a mod like that to the footswitch...

Pete24v said:

Glad you like it, I really enjoyed my brief time with it. The cover with the amp is shocking, a dust cover at best.

I'll look out for one of your gigs!

In fairness to Laney, it's not like they describe the cover as "heavy duty" or "protective" or anything (it's neither), it's just a dust cover, and I reckon it could just about keep dust off the amp on a good day with a following wind. No gigs planned just now (except one near Glasgow in May) while we woodshed new songs, but will be doing some festivals in the summer with any luck. Be good to see you.

Pete24v said:

It excels at the edge of breakup at band levels, then a few notches back on the guitar's volume and it's all chimey cleans.

Yep. I did notice that it's very responsive to dialling back the guitar volume, and to picking dynamics. With everything wide open on the guitar and hitting chords hard the distortion got a little too "in-your-face" at times (for the stuff I was playing...) but taking the guitar volume down a notch or easing off with the right hand smoothed things out. My main worry at the moment is getting a suitable tone for the lap steel I play with the band. I might need to get that reverb pedal out...

EricTheWeary said:

About every one minute in ten I think wether to get the 1x12 combo or head plus 2x12 cab. The 2x12 combo is just too much of a monster, that I'm sure of. I have a gig on 4th April so I'd like to have it sorted by then. By and large I'd like the convenience and lower cost of the combo but slightly worried about how it will cut it at band levels for un mic'd gigs. Not that I need crushingly loud.
Laney describe these as something like single channel amps with built in switchable gain, so it's not really two channels.
I played the 2x12 combo briefly at the guitar show on Sunday and I thought it was great, big contrast to the disappointment ( for me ) of the Roland Blues Cube.

I didn't think there was a 2x12". As far as I know the 20 watt Lionheart comes as a head, 1x12" or 4x10".

On Sunday I was playing with a church band on a fairly big stage. Me with the Lionheart, a bassist with an SWR Bass 350 head and 4x10", a drummer, keys, sax and three singers. I had the Laney on a chair angled back so it was pointing at my head, mic'd for front of house but not in any monitors. It held its own with the volume under halfway.

strtdv

I regard the Lionheart as not so much having a clean and a dirty channel, more of a master volume channel and a non-master volume channel (although the drive channel does have extra gain stages).
My favourite sound out of it is when you get the chance to turn the clean channel over about 7 if you're using single coils, the drive sound is fantastic

EricTheWeary

@English_Bob there is a 2x12, the 4x10 was discontinued and the 2x12 is new, they had one at the guitar show at the weekend. They also have a new 5w head with usb out for the home recordists. Looked tres sweet.

english_bob

Right. I thought maybe the 4x10" was on the way out but didn't know about the 2x12". Considering how heavy the 1x12" is, I wouldn't touch a 2x12" unless it was on wheels. Even without the chassis in it the cab weighed a ton.

EricTheWeary

english_bob said:

Right. I thought maybe the 4x10" was on the way out but didn't know about the 2x12". Considering how heavy the 1x12" is, I wouldn't touch a 2x12" unless it was on wheels. Even without the chassis in it the cab weighed a ton.

I thought it was a bit of a monster, I wouldn't have the 2x12 combo.

Pete24v

strtdv said:

My favourite sound out of it is when you get the chance to turn the clean channel over about 7 if you're using single coils, the drive sound is fantastic

Yeah, this and a decent Overdrive pedal to kick it over the edge

english_bob

Got my first band rehearsal with the Lionheart tonight. Singer will think it's pretty but beyond that I'm not sure how it'll be received. They were big fans of the Cornell...

EricTheWeary

For anyone with a major interest in the Lionheart my NAD Discussion is running in parallel here http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/35421/laney-lionheart-l20t-now-nad-in-a-box-gulp#latest Be interesting to hear how you get on @english_bob .

english_bob

Well, it went pretty much as expected. The Laney gave me all the tones I wanted (almost...) and had volume to spare. After years of having to boost a too-clean amp with an OD pedal to get the base tone I wanted it was gratifying to hear the sound I wanted coming out of the amp, then look down at my pedalboard and see no lights on. It was even more gratifying to be able to turn everything on for crazy batshit meltdown breaks and get flanger->fuzz->boost->amp dirt->delay insanity.

We spent pretty much the whole evening working on new stuff, which is much more fun than playing old songs (it is when it's going well and people are feeling it anyway), but it doesn't really help to work out whether a new amp can cover the sound of an old one in a familiar setting.

The one place the Laney didn't perform as well as I'd hoped was with my lap steel. The tone of the amp is fine but the reverb is sorely lacking. Turned up almost to full it's not so much wet as moist, and really doesn't get that classic drippy spring reverb sound you want for steel guitar. This was expected, given my first impressions of the Lionheart's reverb and just means dusting off the old reverb pedal (unless there's a simple mod...).

Minor gripe #2- the velcro straps that hold the footswitch in place in the bottom of the amp are too long and caught up together when you remove or replace the footswitch. I know, white people problems.

Altogether a good experience. I don't think it's possible to really get to know any piece of gear really well very quickly, but the Lionheart is shaping up to be a keeper. Compliments from Mr Drummer on my "chunky tone" too.

EricTheWeary

Those Velcro straps are a nice idea but it doesn't seem very practical so I fairly quickly decided I wasn't going to bother with them. Footswitch will go in gig bag ( maybe on my board but that's a Diago commuter at the moment, so not much room!). Actually,
I might dig out my old Laney footswitch and use that as it is a chunkier affair than the one supplied with the Lionheart.
First gig will be Easter weekend with added sax player so will have to see if it can cope with a six peice band.