Ryan's Gig Guide - October 2019

REVIEW: Synergy SYN1 & Modules By Adam Roberts Local Stockist... There will always be a place for boutique amps in a guitar player’s life. They sound saucy, they look tasty, and they smell of happiness, but you are unlikely to want mountains of them. They take up space. Yes sure, if the people sharing your house are happy for you to display them around like fancy ornaments you are onto a winner. You can put one in the living room to look at whilst watching tv, another in the kitchen for when making dinner, or maybe even one for the bathroom to stare longingly at whilst taking a bath. Not everyone has the space for them, and those that do soon realise owning lots of ampli ers can be a labour intensive nightmare when it comes to moving them around. They also cost a lot of money. So unless you are swimming in money, it is easy to pummel all your hard earned cash down the tonal plughole very quickly. It’s a nice dream though isn’t it? Well maybe it no longer has to be just a dream. Better yet,maybe there is now a way to achieve this ampli er lovers Shangri-la without all the aforementioned downsides. Introducing Synergy, a cartridge based system that allows you to have a smorgasbord of ampli ers that could easily t into a suitcase. Each cartridge has a speci c ampli er pre amp that can be loaded into the Synergy SYN1, a unit that allows you to utilise your existing ampli er or plug directly into your interface to obtain the sounds of boutique amps at none boutique prices. All together there are fourteen different cartridge options to utilise, each sold separately. Cartridges take up very little space and you can lift them without risking a hernia. As soon as you start moving around traditional ampli ers and switching things up you instantly begin to question your life choices. Say you were handed a dream studio and all the boutique ampli ers you could dream of, and it is now time to sit down and start recording your next hit. When recording, the last thing you want to do is make the process harder for yourself. There is a ow you should strive to achieve which does not inhibit creativity. Having to get up, unplug everything, and plug everything in to the next amp you want to record takes up time and energy that you could be putting into playing the parts. With the Synergy SYN1, you can replace a cartridge and dial in a tone without leaving your seat. It is truly remarkable. Can you imagine being able to jump between a clean Fender sound, to a dirty British Plexi with that little effort in the analogue domain? The SYN1 unit has D.I output with a cab simulation built in. This means you can record every module silently into your interface of www.ryansgigguide.com 30 rgg Oct 2019