Ayan Enterprises Smooth & Slim

using the smooth and slim is so simple as all the best thinds tend to be, read the manual, takes 1 min and you are set.

my guitar is a yamaha sg2000, i also have a barber direct drive and boss dm2 and dm3 analogue delays. these go into my boogie mk1 reissue amp with evm12L 200 watt speaker. the boogie is the amp this product was designed for as it is a bass/mid emphasised amp , the yamaha sg2000 is also a very very midrangey item too......this leads to fartiness if you overcook the bass. its taken me 6 months to tweak the boogie to where i want it to be. i choose the direct drive cos i find it to be a match made in heaven with the other gear. the smooth and slim is set to normal and slim, , this drastically removes the frequencies which cause the flab headaches.

im now setting the amp to volume 1 (6) volume 2 (2) treb (8) bass (4) mid (5) with fx loop with jumper set to (2) , with a guitar as thick as the sg2000, its taken me 6 months to make the most out of its tone and avoid the fartiness. with direct drive off, its awesome blues tone, with direct drive on its gary moore sustain , im overjoyed to find my amps sweet spot and its thanks to the smooth and slim. if i took it out, the bass would overpower everything and it would sound horrid.

no sweat !

gil answers emails and i found him very helpful.

i play santana, moore and lots of other music where big fat guitar is essential, the boogie mk1 delivers massively and its all down to the smooth and slim.

The Smooth & Slim is dead easy to use. If you need the manual, it's on their web site.

I play a cherry Epi LP (no mods) w/Bigsby through a bunch of pedals into a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. The Bass and Mid controls on the HRDx are wierdly tied together and I always kept them at 3 since it just sounded too muddy at higher settings. I plugged the Smooth & Slim between the end of my pedal chain and the amp, set it to the suggested setting for humbucker pups, and turned my amp volume up a notch to compensate for the stated slight drop in volume. My amp just came alive. No mush, beautiful tone, Fender chime. I jacked the bass and mids up, and still no mush, just beatiful, focused tone. Wow!
Messing with the other settings produce some nice variations. When switched my pedal chain into the signal path, each of my effects definitely benefited from having the Smooth & Slim in the chain. Very well done.

A nice, sturdy aluminum Hammond box, so I don't see a problem here. Plus I take good care of my stuff.

Doubt if I'll need it, but they were very responsive to questions I had before purchasing.

If you play a tube amp, buy one. You won't be disappointed.

Very easy: plug and play.

FABULOUS - the best improvement to my sound since
the VHT-Valvulator 1 !

It smoothens the signal and sings and is sooo FLUID ...

You cannot play Les Paul without it !

No problem in 2 years

No need but they did reply to one Email

The best unit for any serious and pro player that uses
the very best gear and all tube amps and preserves
the original, virgin signal of the guitar:

A MUST PURCHASE and the best kept secret in the industry :-)

Extrmely easy to dial in what you need. It took me about five minute to find my preferences. (smooth and normal

Matchless chieftain with a strat (kinman pickups).Dead quiet. My favorite guitar tone is that of Larry Carlton and this helps me achieve that sweet, clear, singing quality. I already had killer tone but this took it over the top. It seems to clear out any debris that makes things inarticulate. I had sustain for days, now it sustains for weeks. It works beautifully with my other two pedals, a baby blue overdrive and a keeley compressor.

Seems solid to me

Very helpful, responsive, and friendly

I play blues, rock and jazz. This helps in all respects.Been playing professionally 35 years. I don't know what kind of magic is in this thing, but I love it!

Dead easy - you need 1 second :-)

All my guitars sing through my numerous tube amps ...

I plug my Les Paul or Strat to the Dunlop Cry Baby wah --> Fulltone Fulldrive 2 -->
--> the Swedish Blue Baby --> British Awards Session JD20 --> Ayan's Smooth & Slim
into the British custom made butique Cornford tube Harlequin MkI combo : what a TONE, man, wow !

100%

Do not need it but good web page

I play since 1960 and am certainly one of the richest and most experienced
guitarists around who has ALL the very best gear that exist ... I buy it all
and test it in my studio and with my band ...

So my recommendation is simple: You play guitar seriously and use TUBE amps?

Then buy the Ayan's Smooth & Slim, period.

This device is very simple to use, it does take a bit of fooling around with your amp's settings, as they respond differently when using the smooth&slim, but I found it to be very easy to get a great result. The manual and website have lots of tips for using it.

My setup is a G&L ASAT into a fulltone fulldrive 2, into a fulltone fat boost, into the smooth & slim, into a Fender Deluxe Reverb reissue. I bought the deluxe because I wanted a lower powered amp that was easy to transport with a good tone for a reasonable price. The amp straight out of the store sounded OK, kind of brittle, kind of mediocre. I took the amp to the local amp guru, and he did a few things that warmed the sound up, the fulltone pedals helped too, and the tone was pretty good, but still not working for me. I live in Vancouver, Canada where there is a shocking void of boutique amps for a city this size, there's virtually nothing handbuilt to choose from, so there isn't the option of trying out a bunch of primo amps and choosing the one you like the best, and ordering a boutique amp from Canada is a VERY expensive prospect(you can pretty much double the price that you see in US dollars), so it had better be the right one! I decided to spend a day and scan every single manufacturer under the effects section of harmony central, and read the reviews to find some device(I thought probably an overdrive of some sort)that could help me out before I gave up on the deluxe and began the big expensive search that us electric guitarists are cursed with. After reading through everything, the things that intrigued me the most were the klon centaur and the smooth & slim. The centaur was $350 US($600 canadian after exchange, shipping, duty, taxes)and the smooth & slim was $85, so that's what I tried first. This little box is the single most effective device I have ever bought. The deluxe still has loads of fender character, lots of sparkle and chime, but without the ugly bottom end that messes up the lower range of the guitar. The amp has a real vibe to it now, I'm even considering not using pedals anymore, the amp is responding to the way I touch the strings like it should.

The box is sturdy and it's not getting stepped on like pedals. I don't think I need a backup in case of damage, although I am considering a back up in case of theft. This box is part of the amp now, without it the amp is not functioning properly for me.

I originaly tried to order the smooth & slim from Gil Ayan himself, but he emailed back and said that he was temporarily out of stock and recommended that I order one from one of the stores who sell them, so I phoned Real Guitars in San Francisco and ordered one through them. They warned me that it's expensive to send to Canada, so they do collect shipping(or something)where they send it and I take care of all the expenses on my end, so I said fine, I just wanted the thing. How much could it be? $72! That's how much. I don't understand why they couldn't just use regular mail. Oh well, the great result with the product far outweighs any gripes I have, it was worth it, but I do wish that I had bought it directly from Gil.

I play guitar for a living, I play whatever the gig calls for, but my favourite music to play and listen to is american roots based. People at the top of my list are ry cooder, los lobos, jeff beck etc., music that demands strong, dynamic guitar tones and serious vibe. The smooth & slim has really helped me out.

This small unit is easy to use: Just put it between your last effect (if you use any) and the amp's input jack and set the two knobs (chicken-head type) for the desired effect. You do have to spend a little time dialing in different settings on the amp to get the best sound, but the results are well worth the effort. The manual is online, and is very easy to read and understand.

I bought the unit for use with a Rivera "Jake" Studio combo. The two guitars I use the most (McCarty and Axis) are humbucker-equipped. I'm pretty happy with the sound of the amp's high-gain side, but the clean side can get pretty flabby in the low register, particularly at high volumes. Before purchasing the "Smooth & Slim," I tried to compensate for the channel's inherent mushiness by either rolling off a lot of bass, or avoiding low notes altogether when playing loud. With the the use of the "Smooth and Slim," the clean channel's flabbiness disappeared and all notes became much clearer and well- defined--very tight and punchy with more sustain.

I've only had it for a short while, but it's very sturdily built and works flawlessly. I may get another one just in case I lose this one, but I don't worry about its dependability.

Gil Ayan is very helpful and friendly. He answered all my emails quickly and provided extremely useful information concerning my amp-type and how it should respond to the "Smooth & Slim." He also said that if I found the "Smooth and Slim" wasn't right for my paricular rig, I could send it back for a full refund. Needless to say, this was much appreciated, but I won't be sending it back.:)

A great product! I would definitely buy it again--well worth the price and then some.

While the effect itself is easy to use--there are only five possible settings, including bypass--you will need to rework your amp settings to get the best tone out of the S&S. You'll get a good tone out of it right away, but if you really want to see what this thing can do start playing with the amp tone settings. It'll take a few minutes to find the best setting--and when you do, write it down (I always do this, anyway).
The manual is on-line, which is a nice touch.

I'm using this with a Suhr Classic and a couple of Gibson ES-series guitars, with a '76 Mark I, Fender BF Pro Reverb, and JC-120 amps. The device is dead quiet, and placed at the end of a very full pedalboard. The S&S enhances the impact of your effects, because it improves the overall sound clarity and reduces harshness. You don't have to crank the treble just to compensate for the normal muddiness in the lower registers. The clarity the S&S produces is unlike anything I've heard before.

I'm going to buy another one just to keep with my guitar (when I don't lug the pedalboard around), but yeah, I think it's 100% reliable. There's no battery, and it's a set-and-forget device. Take my 10 with a grain of salt, however--I've had it about two weeks.

Gil Ayan is a gem to work with. He's sent follow up mail to me twice since I've received the unit, just to make sure everything was OK. I didn't have a lot of questions about the unit before I bought it--I'd heard good things about it, and had noticed a problem on my own with a really muddy, mushy lower register with certain guitars. I figured it was worth a shot, and that the unit would stand or fail on its own.
Too bad I can't give 'em an 11, because he deserves it.

This has been the missing piece for my setup. I taped my first session with the S&S, and I must have listened to it 50 times in two weeks. I simply cannot believe the clarity and tone I get from my guitars and amps with this device. It's a 100% absolutely first-class, professional sound.
Gil says it's for the Mesa Boogie Mark I class amps. Don't you believe it!

This being a passive,set and forget device it could not be any easier to use.

I always have used Fender4x10 amps and fought with trying to get a rich tone for comping and a unmuddied tone for solos.When I first patched the Smooth and Slim in my rig I noticed an apparent loss of gain.I said apparent because I soon found out I could achieve more low end.I am now able to use much more of the available power due to the absence of unwanted sloppy lower frequencies.I can now be louder and cleaner . The distorted tones are more musical and the amp seems to have cleared it's throat and now sings very with a pure clear tone I tried it on a Fender Deluxe Reverb with great results. But when I tried it on my 11 watt '63 Princeton (non reverb) I liked the tone but it did cut the available volumn too much.

No back up required.

I dealt with Carlos via e-mail and he was prompt and helpful

I play blues/rock and have for 35 years. although I am playing less these days I still play over 150 nights a year.I use a 61 strat into a fuzzface into a Vox Clyde McCoy into a Univibe into a Kent Growlwah into a Ts-808 tube screamer into a Ns-2 noise reduction into a Ibanez AD-9 analog delay into a Smooth and Slim into a blackfaced 1963 Fender Super Reverb with Jensen P10-Q's The smooth and slim is the largest improvement I have made to my rig to date!

Incredibly easy to use. Just have it as the last device in your signal chain and away you go. The on-line manual is written from a guitarist's point of view (Gil Ayan's, I imagine) which makes it perfect for us players who are searching for that subjective "tone thing" that can't be quantified by numbers.

I'm using the Smooth and Slim with a Mesa Boogie Mark1 Reissue amp. Guitars I use are an older Gibson ES-335, Fender Stringmaster lapsteel, and Taylor acoustic equipped with a Fishman Matrix Gold saddle transducer pickup.
In the 8 or so years I've owned this amp, I've had a love/hate relationship with it. I loved it overdriven, but hated its clean tone. The amp is way too bass and midrange heavy and has none of the "sparkle" of a Fender amp, even though the design is based on a '59 Bassman. I added a BOSS GE-7 EQ pedal to try to trim back the bass, and this helps, but that pedal introduces noise, and imparts a bit of an artificial sound to the amp. The EQ was not a solution I was happy with.
The Smooth and Slim has solved my problem with getting a good clean sound out of the Mark1 Reissue! I can turn up the bass and it doesn't mush out, and with the Smooth and Slim engaged in the "Slim" mode with my 335 and pickup setting to "Normal", the amp on its own cannot even begin to approach the tonality that the Smooth and Slim brings out. It's a HUGE change!
For fun, I tried A/B'ing the Smooth and Slim with my EQ pedal and I could get fairly close to Smooth and Slim sound when cutting most of the bass frequencies radically, but the EQ setting added a lot of hum compared to the Smooth and Slim (which does not hum at all, unless you place it directly on top of your amp near the amp's inputs).
How's the overdrive sound? It sounds quite good, a bit different than running without the Smooth and Slim (and adjusting the bass and mids to next to nothing, which is what you must do on these amps). With the Smooth and Slim, the tone is more focused and cutting. In all truth, I haven't played too much with the overdrive tones yet, I'm having too much fun having a great clean sounding Boogie amp to play jazz guitar and steel through.

Looks bulletproof, and simple. The unit arrived in perfect condition. I wouldn't leave home without it, considering it makes my amp sound SO much better.

Gil is very responsive to any and all questions via email. I had a perceived problem with the overdriven tone when first using it (way too focused and hard) and Gil immediately diagnosed the problem (correctly) as running the presence too high. Gil's as nice as the folks at Mesa/Boogie (who are very nice and helpful) and a lot more accessable. And he has a lot of experience with Mark1 reissues (he's owned 2) and has a 335 so he knows exactly what the story is with this configuration.

I've been looking for a solution to my love/hate relationship with my Mark1 reissue for years. I've tried EQs, different power tube configurations, speakers, and amp mods. All had some effect, but I still wasn't happy with the result. The Smooth and Slim has a dramatic on the tone of this amp for the better, especially in the (previously) unusuable clean mode. I would recommend this device to anyone who has a Mark1 Reissue and misses the "sparkle" and "chime" of a good tube amp and also wants to have the sweet singing overdrive of the early Boogie sound on tap.