# Elmwood Modena M60 review (and the problem it's created)



## David Graves (Apr 5, 2017)

I don't normally do gear reviews. 
Mostly due to most of the stuff I've tried over the years having been reviewed a thousand times over, by people more qualified than myself.
Example. My last few amps. CAA PT100, Mesa Mark 1, Mesa Mark V etc, etc. You get the idea. A quick google search gets you 32 pages of reviews.
Enter the Elmwood. I hadn't heard of Elmwood until I put my Mark V up for trade. I had some really good offers of all the usual amps you'd expect to have offered for it. And a couple that I wasn't expecting.lol

When the Elmwood was offered. I immediately said that I'd never heard of them, so I'd have to pass. However, I was watching a review of another amp that I was offered and it was being A/B'd with the Elmwood. There was no doubt that in every situation. The Elmwood simply sounded better. 
So, I started doing some research. I was unable to find a single bad review or opinion from anyone who'd actually owned one. The only complaint that kept coming up was the retail price. Apparently, you could have gotten a Soldano SLO or Bogner XTC for the same price. That's pretty bold for a company most had never heard of. And became an issue for people when they eventually tried to resell them. They weren't selling for anywhere near a Soldano or Bogner on the used market. And ultimately, I think that's what led to the companies demise. 

So, long story short, I got back in touch with the person who'd offered it up and we struck a deal.
Two weeks later (f--king Canada Post) It shows up at my door. 
It sounded good right out of the box. But I wouldn't say it was earth shattering, and certainly not what you expect from an amp that regularly gets spoken of in the same breath as a Bogner XTC. It took a bit of tweaking and some fresh tubes to really start appreciating what this amp could do. 
It's complicated, but simple. There are two independent channels with individual boost functions and a dual master volume system. 
As in most cases, channel one is clean. For the most part. It really does have a good clean tone as long as you don't need the clean to be uber loud. It has some headroom, similar to the Mark V it was traded for. But it's nowhere near the headroom of say, a Suhr PT100. The Pt100 is 100 watts of clean. You will not get it to break up. It's nowhere near that. That having been said. Nobody ever bought this amp for it's clean sound.lol Where channel one really excels, is when you crank it up. It is very much in the Plexi camp. You can bypass the second master volume, crank the first master up to 10, and use channel one's volume like a vintage amp. And the result is the same. It really growls when cranked up. 
Then, because a plexi growl is never enough,,,, you can kick in the drive circuit. It's like having a tube screamer built into channel one. This is as much gain as most folks will ever need. And quite frankly. If all this amp had was that one channel with the drive control. It would be a great amp. Especially with the dual master volumes. 
But... This amp is as much about the clean channel as the Bogner it's often compared to. Channel two is what we all came here for. And it does not disappoint. With my Luke 3, I have everything, but gain, quite literally set at noon. Everything works well there. However, if you really like tinkering with things. The EQ works like a Bogner Uberschall pedal. Mids control presence, bass controls mids and treble controls how "sharp" everything sounds. Again, it really is at it's best with the second master bypassed and the first one cranked. My neighbors do not share this opinion. Despite it only being 60 watts (switchable to 30) It's the loudest high gain amp I've ever owned. It dwarfs both the PT100 and the Mark V in terms of "useable" output volume. The PT100 and Mark V can likely get louder, but neither sound very good at those levels. (at least I didn't think they did)
Thankfully, with the dual master volumes, you can still get really good tones out of it at much, much lower volumes.

Without the drive circuit engaged, and careful use of the Edge and Fat controls located on the back of the amp, you can get some really thick, but still edgy overdrive tones. These amps are often referred to as a cross between a Marshall and a Mesa, and I won't argue with that. It's tight like a Mesa, but fat and throaty like a Marshall. The tone reminds me a lot of the reviews I've seen of the Friedman Steve Stevens amp.It's thick, but still cuts.
With channel two's drive control engaged, it thins out a bit, but adds a ton of sustain and gain. But it's still useable gain. It never gets mushy or undefined. This channel is often compared to an SLO. I can't compare myself, I've never tried one. But if an SLO sounds as good or better than that. Wow! I may have to try one.lol

Now, the part that isn't talked much about, and I never really noticed or thought about it until today. What it is that made this amp so pricey in the first place. Build quality. It has all of those great tones laid out in a very good fashion. All of the features are footswitchable as well. But what really caught my attention today was the noise level. I had it cranked up to a level that should be illegal in a living room. I'm sitting right in front of the amp/ cab. I have the gain cranked to the moon. And there is no noise when the amp is idle. I don't mean that it's quiet for a high gain amp. I mean sitting two feet in front of a cranked, high gain amp, with the guitar turned up, It is dead silent. Until you touch a string. You have no idea that it's even turned on.

It also has an effects loop. I assume it works well, I just keep a TC Nova System in it. You can tune the Nova System to just about any effects loop short of a string between two paper cups. So I can't vouch for the loops quality.lol

Now, what's this problem that it's creating?
GAS. I see lots of really cool amps come up for sale or trade. Normally, I would have traded any amp long ago. But whenever I try to find a reason to get rid of it, I simply can't find one.
The PT100 was a tad bright, the Mark 1 had no loop or reverb, the Mark V only sounded good to me in Mark 2c mode etc. etc. In the last few years I've had 3 Two Rocks, 2 real Tone Brunos, a Rivera, a Cornford, a Germino, 2 PWE's and a few Mesas. All of them had something I didn't like.I simply cannot find a logical excuse to get rid of this amp!! lol
Now unfortunately, due to my not having any way of getting a good recording of it, and my playing being awful, I don't have any sound clips. Just a nice pic!! lol


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## adewinne (Jun 1, 2021)

David Graves said:


> I don't normally do gear reviews.
> Mostly due to most of the stuff I've tried over the years having been reviewed a thousand times over, by people more qualified than myself.
> Example. My last few amps. CAA PT100, Mesa Mark 1, Mesa Mark V etc, etc. You get the idea. A quick google search gets you 32 pages of reviews.
> Enter the Elmwood. I hadn't heard of Elmwood until I put my Mark V up for trade. I had some really good offers of all the usual amps you'd expect to have offered for it. And a couple that I wasn't expecting.lol
> ...


What a great overview of this awesome amp, thx. I’ve taken mine up to my cottage so I can unleash the beast. At home, there’s no way. However, for my own sake, I’ve got a boss TAE on it’s way. If I remember to do it, I’ll report back her my opinion on how that works out.


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## adewinne (Jun 1, 2021)

adewinne said:


> What a great overview of this awesome amp, thx. I’ve taken mine up to my cottage so I can unleash the beast. At home, there’s no way. However, for my own sake, I’ve got a boss TAE on it’s way. If I remember to do it, I’ll report back her my opinion on how that works out.


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## David Graves (Apr 5, 2017)

adewinne said:


> What a great overview of this awesome amp, thx. I’ve taken mine up to my cottage so I can unleash the beast. At home, there’s no way. However, for my own sake, I’ve got a boss TAE on it’s way. If I remember to do it, I’ll report back her my opinion on how that works out.


You're unlikely to need the TAE. The twin master set up on that thing is amazing. Especially in triode mode. Nice amp, happy playing!!


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## adewinne (Jun 1, 2021)

Yup, you're right, the TAE isn't needed. In fact, I find the TAE colours the tone a bit. There's something about plugging directly in. 

For giggles, I've recorded a couple clips of me mucking around on channel 1 with a touch of reverb, mostly to show that this is not just a fire breather amp. That being said, for both clips the gain is set fairly high but the volume know on the guitar cleans it up to edge of breakup. I love the tone of this channel so much. I can just play for hours and get a whole spectrum of sounds just from different pickup combinations and volume/tone knob adjustments on the guitar. In case anyone is wondering, I'm using a PRS semi-hollow special for both clips. 









clip 2.mp3


Shared with Dropbox




www.dropbox.com












clip 1.mp3


Shared with Dropbox




www.dropbox.com


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## David Graves (Apr 5, 2017)

adewinne said:


> Yup, you're right, the TAE isn't needed. In fact, I find the TAE colours the tone a bit. There's something about plugging directly in.
> 
> For giggles, I've recorded a couple clips of me mucking around on channel 1 with a touch of reverb, mostly to show that this is not just a fire breather amp. That being said, for both clips the gain is set fairly high but the volume know on the guitar cleans it up to edge of breakup. I love the tone of this channel so much. I can just play for hours and get a whole spectrum of sounds just from different pickup combinations and volume/tone knob adjustments on the guitar. In case anyone is wondering, I'm using a PRS semi-hollow special for both clips.
> 
> ...


That sounds great. Most reviews of this amp only touch on the high gain side of things. I rarely ever used the high gain channel. I vastly preferred the clean channel with the drive engaged. Just add a drive pedal to push it over the top and you're golden. 
The second volume also colors the tone a bit, but allows you not to blow your ear drums out.
I think once I'm bored with my Soldano, I may try to find another Elmwood. They're just too damn good.


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