Hughes & Kettner Cream Machine

There is schematics on the top of the unit - you don't even have to know English. Put the cables in the right place and the two knobs can be operated with the eyes closed.

I use mostly Ibanez guitars - Blazer, JS100 with DiMarzio FRED, JS100 with Seymour Duncan Trembucker, S520wnf with Saymour Duncan JB and Jazz. In all cases, this unit sounds its own way. No other drive I know can give you this dynamics with such a massive gain! Some people complain about the absence of EQ. Well, we are connecting our equipment to mixing desks or guitar amplifiers - both have EQ's, so where is the problem? Cream Machine's beauty is in its purity!
In my practice CM gives the best results as a direct recording device. I suppose it's best companion could be something like Tech21's Power Engine. I really hope to test it someday.
In the first days, I was trying to get some popular guitarists sounds, but soon I realized that the secret of this machine is that it needs YOU to play. Once I got it, I was excited from the bottom of my soul, believe me or not. Again - it is about the purity. I just doesn't cover you, I really hope you know what I mean. After all, Cream Machine changed the way I play and the way I think about my guitar sound. Forever.

I bought my Cream Machine from ebay.de. When I went to the post office to get it I was shocked - the package was almost destroyed! I crossed my fingers and at home, after opening the top cover, I saw one of the tubes was out of the socket! Do you know how powerful should be the hit to cause this?! The only repair needed was to put it back in place.

Never needed. It is just 30 years old ;-)

May be this is not the best drive in the world, but I am sure, it is one of the best. If are lucky to have it, keep on mind that the tubes used are critical for the sound - find what is best for you (not necessary the most expensive).

Know the difference between instrument/line level signals and you'll be fine.

Words of caution: sucks tone when bypassed internally via footswitch. Looped with an external bypass pedal, your guitar ought to sound less like a sitar.

Rockin'.

This is amazing tube amp/preamp. Very easy to use, few knobs and several imputs!

Sound is amazing!!! best used with valve amps! i use great valve Laney VC amp into clean channel, just in front of amp! so in total you get 7 valve multiamp with amazing versatile gain and distortion like sound absolutely for metal only on 3 level from 11 of it's Gain!!! forget about any pedal this solid tank are ready to blow out any Fireball if used woth good valve amp! my setting is Gain 3+master8 +tube volume about 40% and Laneys clean channel on half volume, also dont forget to optimize EQ on Laney cause cream without this knobs (but it's ok). If you want get realy good rock sound and solos with little gain and vintage sound, lover guitar volume to 20 perc and yu get amazing Tubescreamers effect on you tube amp!!! This best thing you can find on the internet (nowadays it looks like it very hard to find to buy....) If it's configured properly it's sounds as rectiier and balls also you may get amazing vintage, just dont overdo power cause this babe has really much (power metal only on 3 of 11 level gain!!!)

made as tank, all electronics are real magic, it's 80's babe it will last forever! no chinese sh*** made in GERMANY!!! but dont forget about fragile tubes!

this product is discotinued already for 20 years and it's mostly impossible to buy!!!

Amazing for metal, rock, funk, jazz and any other guitar styles, just get really good clean tube amp, good guitar and you ready to blow all your nowadays pods, bosses, tcs, fireballs and rectifiers! Throw away all this fake pedals which trying to copy oldschool devices and get this, this is really magic that ppl forgot in 80's, by the way no much info about thi mysterious product on the net!!!

First thing, I am posting this in Guitar Amps because this thing is not an effect, but a real micro-tube amp complete with a preamp and post amp tube circuits. This amp has an input and an output transformer, for that real tube sound.

I don't know the exact year this amp was made, but from H&K literature, they made these thing in the late 80's which makes it about 20 years old.

Controls:
Gain (Preamp volume)
Master (Power amp volume)
Tube Amp Volume (Attenuator)

Outputs:
Cabinet emulator out
Mix out
Speaker out (full power)
Tube Amp Out
Instr. Out.

(Plus footswitch bypass)

I disagree with most people, this amplifier is insanely versitale as far as 1 channel amps go. You can coax any form of light to heavy rock tones out of this thing (even metal) by carefully dialing in your Guitar volume and tone. Also pickup type and impedience all matter. Each one will give a different tone. Humbuckers will give you over the top goodness, P90's give you a glorious singing, and single coils seem to preserve clarity but still growl.

Volume (With controls at 12oclock:
1-Clean, not much lose of power. (think fender slight overdrive)
2-Little less clean, pretty good for light rock
3- your into rock. Still lots of clarity, but will break up with 2 or more notes are played at a time.
4- This is about Led Zep's Black dog tone. Clean-ish but fuzzy
5- Pretty good punk sounds (depends on pickups like everything else)
6- Amazing powerchords. Still has a bit of clarity.
7-8- About the same tone, just a little less defined.
9-10--Br00talz.

I don't really change the knobs on the amp too much, just leave them at 12o'clock. Just use different pickups and volume settings, My strat DEFINITLY loves this amp (I didn't think it would)... I bought it for my iby humbucker equiped guitar.

When I first got it I wanted it to have a effects loop, but now I realize that it is hopelessly useless on this thing. Why poison this tone with flangers/delays/reverb? This amp does not do well with those effects IMO due to its distort characteristics. The quasi cleans don't do well with them, and the disort is just too good on its own. Distort/OD pedals are useless too, cuz this thing as more distort than most people can handle, (and plenty more on tap for metal pplz too :))

I use this thing everywhere! In my bedroom I hook it up to a 1x12 or a Tech21 powerengine, and both ways its loud enough for me. At gigs, connect this to a Tech21 powerengine (60 watts) and its quite loud. Plus you can daisy chain these things. (I love Powerengines cuz they recreate the tone perfectly. They don't colour the sound, and they have a 3 band eq onboard for final tweeting, which is pretty ideal because the Cream Machine doesn't have onboard EQ.

Please note that this amp is NOT for you Line 6 kiddies who want so many dials. This amp is first and foremost a basic, very simple tube amp with enough outputs for ANYTHING you want to hook it too (including directly to a recording board). Basically it is a barebones, back to the basics, amazing distort machine. I can squeeze anything from Carlos Santana Creamy Blues all the way to over the top br00talz

Please note that this amp is voiced with a good portion of bass in the signal. Adjust accordingly for that. I personally love it most of the time. Adjusting pickups and tone will adjust the mid/treble range for the guitar. IE: if you want rhythm tones, use a neck/middle pickup, and if you want scooped mides, lots of treble 80's esque kind of rock, then go for a humbucker in the rear with lots of volume.

I used both a SSS strat (MIM cuz im poor), and a Ibanez Humbucking guitar, and a aria MAC 50 SSH guitar. As said above, they all sound great through it.

I think the neck/middle position and the middle pickup sound the best for a strat through this thing.

Humbuckers sound best in the bridge position. (Lots of trebble, easy to get that scooped mid's tone)

This amp tends to want to give a more creamy distort than a full all out mesa/boogie.

Tubes:

YOU MUST FIND PROPER TUBES FOR THIS THING. Make sure you can afford to buy a few sets to try out. I suggest use a good quality, low gain 12au7 for the preamp, then a good quality 12ax7 for the power. This has a lot of gain, so don't worry about loosing gain by putting in low-gain tubes.

This thing is 20 years old. All pots, caps and parts inside are 100 percent original (not the tubes of course), and it is truly top quality build. Its in a solid metal case that looks like a industrial box. Yea it isn't as pretty as a good looking marshall head, but honestly, it is build for one purpose, to give beautiful tones in a strong box.

it has never broken on me, and all the pots are clean, work amazingly, and don't scratch (i wish my guitar pots could work as good as them)

All of the company literature on this thing is on line (schematic, user manual etc) and the company seems to still answer my questions about it.

I doubt theres a warenty on it... its 20 years old.

I haven't had to repair it, but I've looked in side, and all the parts are easy to find to replace. Also its not built on PCV boards much, its mostly point to point (remember its a compact place, most of the room inside is taken up by the two transformers and the two tubes.

I've owned this thing for 6 months, so im pretty sure im not biased on this review.

This is my go-to amp for distortion. I haven't found something that can be used in my bedroom, and in gigs and perform identically inboth (if using a Tech21 powerengine).

I suggest EVERYONE buy one of these. You won't be disappointed.

They should still be making them, they would make a killing. Its affordable for even the poorest musician, yet good enough tone to impress the cork sniffers among us.

If someone stole it, I would hunt them down, kill them, then take the amp. It is rare, and it took me years to find. I love it.

I wish it had an onboard eq.... but then again i would probably twiddle with it too much. The beauty of this amp is its so easy to flick on the power, and jam. Nothing to adjust or anything.

extremely easy to use,sound is great for Rock n Roll and some heavy metal. 10 for sure

sound quality is amazing for recording,amping or just home practicing. its really noicy in the top end but what isnt cranked! the amp i use is a TS-15 traynor with tube out and it sounds great.

this unit i have is all original from the 80's and the tubes are not muddy at all, really solid unit!

never had to ask for help, Das!!

well im a bass player/guitar player combine ive been playing 19 years now im recording at home and with this unit it covers alot of tones ive been seaching for(along with the metal shredder), for a longtime. if it were stolen i dont know what i would do :(

two knobs

re-tube with good stuff. nos

been ticking for 15 years now

manufactur has online manual

it's a killer pre-amp

My total apologies! I don???t mean to be a nuisance and really hate to post again but I forgot to mention the most important breakthrough other than finding the proper tubes to use. This was the actual grand finally that I had to do and did not achieve EXCELLENT tone until I did so. Very simple. The volume knob on the guitar. I have played with mine on 10 for over 30 years and never even thought of turning that down until hours and hours of playing around with the cream Machine in order to get a good sold distortion yet clear and distinguished.

Now this is my experience with my specific guitar and pickups but I am sure most others are probably just as touchy when plugged into the CM. I found that for me the volume knob on the guitar only needs to be on anywhere from 3 to 5 for a good heavy distortion yet distinguished but this is with the tubes mentioned in my prior review also.

I also forgot to mention my Gain setting. Again, using the JJ 12AX7 in the Gain/Preamp section and the GE 5814A/12AU7 in the Master/Power amp section, I have my Gain on about 9 and the Master on 11. I turn the guitar volume up to about 2,3-4 for rhythm and 3,4-5 for lead (rough estimates but depends on the amount of sustain and attack you need). Also winds down real nice for more of a mellow distortion tone right around 0.5 to 1.

Same as prior review.

Same as prior review.

N/A

Same as prior review.

This unit is next to worthless no matter how much tweaking you do unless you find the right tubes so I am only giving it a 5 here! But once you search and swap and finally find the right tubes, it is then, I repeat, it is then indeed the Holy Grail of tone! Tubes cannot be any easier to change in and out. Their are no patches to edit. Other than the disadvantage of having tubes that may sound terrible the unit is incredibly easy to use especially considering how many options and features it has for 100% tube tone. The manual is still available online for download and is very helpful but it also has schematics right on the top of the unit.

This is not a review, it is a novel! It???s all true! I cannot believe they do not make these anymore. People are paying $300 for Hot Plates (me included) and $600 to $800 for 5, 10, 15 watt tube amps just to get that saturated tube power tone. When I first got my Cream Machine I was severely disappointed. I read all of these reviews about people being in tone heaven and so forth and mine utterly sounded terrible. So I was going to sell it but decided to try some other tubes first. Couldn???t find any vintage ones locally and needed to play out that weekend so I found the nearest music store that had the least distorted ones I could find. Mine originally came with (2) Mesa 12ax7 tubes and just sounded awful. I am a distortion fanatic but not a muddy fizzy sizzly tone fanatic. So all I could find was a JJ 12AT7 and read that one guy used a 12AT7 (but was Sylvania) so I tried it. It was better and at one time after playing around with it for I don???t know how long, it actually sounded pretty good (for lead anyway). The next day I plugged into it with fresh ears and wanted to throw it in the garbage!

So after trying a Tung-sol 12AX7, a JJ 12AX7, a Sovtek 12AX7, and a Mesa 12AX7, I gave up and said ???I???ve had it!??? and for the second time made my mind up to sell the thing. During this process I had won an old GE 12AU7 off Ebay which was inspired by another post on this site so I decided to just wait for it to arrive before I put the Cream Machine up for auction. When it arrived I didn???t know what to expect. It was leaning more towards hopelessness. I put it in the power section (not left tube slot but right slot while looking at it from the front). It lost at least 50% of the gain which was kind of crummy sounding gain anyway so that was good but now it didn???t have any guts. Well I recently had to have my Master level at 3 or it started to sound just awful but that was with the JJ 12AT7 in the master section. With the GE 5814A/12AU7 in the master section, I started turning up the Master and by the time I hit 11 on the Cream Machine my jaw dropped to the floor (I did have this running into an EQ).

After playing around some more and trying different tubes I so far have the best sound with the GE in the power section and a JJ 12AX7 in the preamp section but I currently have no vintage 12AX7 tubes to try . I played around with it and couldn???t run any pedals into it because the signal was so sensitive but I only use EQ pedals anyway so I had an old Ross 10 band EQ which is line level and plugged the Cream Machine into the Ross, tweaked it a bit, then ran that into my Rocktron Xpression and touched it up even more with the parametric EQ, then into an ART SLA-1 power amp. Cranked it up and ended up playing for about 3 to 4 hours straight until I literally had to make myself put the guitar down. This is the BEST tone I have EVER had in my life! I later lined it up with my Marshall TSL 100, did a little more EQ-ing. Well, let me put it this way, the Marshall is going up for sale tomorrow on Ebay. Some of my friends think I???m nuts but they haven???t heard the Cream Machine yet. Before I made this decision final I played one gig with it which was this morning. Again, the BEST tone and sound I have ever had in my life and I have been playing for 31 years. I cannot wait to bring it over to my friends house and hear it against his Mesa Triple Rect.

1 watt of power but through a 250 watt bridged power amp I can knock the pictures off the walls with only using under ?? of my overall potential volume. Folks, not only is the tone incredible once you find the right tubes, but by running your setup this way, you have your FX after BOTH your preamp distortion AND your power amp distortion. It literally turned my $290 FX unit into a $600 FX unit! Crystal clear FX! Hearing is believing. I really recommend using 2 EQ???s. Give this poor little unit a fighting chance as it has no treble, bass, presence, or midrange knobs on it.

I haven't had mine too long but I have NEVER read anywhere where one has broke down!

N/A

I play heavy metal, heavy blues, anything with sweet tube saturated tones to crunching grinding metal. I have been playing professionally for about 20 years or so. If it were lost would I buy another one? LOL! I already bought another one just for backup. I discovered this unit while my Marshall TSL100 was in the shop and had to play 100% solid state for 2 gigs. Nothing personal against all you sold state guys out there but once you are hooked on tubes theres no turning back! I was going to buy a Laney 30 or 50 watt AOR Tube Pro just in case my Marshall ever broke down again so I would be covered. Thank goodness I got out bid TWICE! This was all while I was discovering the capabilities of the Cream Machine.

The only thing I can compare this with is about a $1600 tube amp with a $300 Hot Plate but you do need some EQ's and a power amp (and especially the right tubes) to get it to it's full potential. This thing is the best amp and tone I have ever had in my life to date (April 2007).

I can fully express myself even more than with the Marshall TSL100 (which is going up for sale tomorrow as I have already mentioned). It literally sings and you don't need a bunch of pedals not to mention adapters and batteries. Just find what tubes you like and swap them around when you want to change your tone. Can really make a night and day difference. Just like plugging in different distortion and overdrive pedals (at least to me it is). Wish I had one of these a long long time ago but better late then never :)

With two knobs that both control the distortion all you can really do is turn the knobs untill the dirt pleases you.

I'm rating this as a practice and recording amp. I have never used it as a direct recording device.

The cool thing about it is you can set the amount of pre-amp versus power amp distortion to your liking. You can get a nice on the edge of breakup tone and push it into distortion with your pick attack by setting the pre-amp gain low and the power amp fairly high. This is my preferred playing style and this is the only amp that lets me get it a nominal volume levels.

It's loud enough believe me. I can't hear a volume difference between this through a 12" and my 5 watt crate through an 8". Speaker size, type, voicing and amp voicing have as much to do with loudness as watts. If you've ever run a little smokey through a 4x12 cab this becomes obvious. Speakers also have very different efficiencies. British style speakers are very low efficiency something like a JBL will sound louder because more energy is being transformed into sound. Ears are most sensitive to mids so the more mid range in the voicing the greater the percieved loudness. This amp isn't voiced with much bass. I'm sure that was to get the maximum bang out of the low watts.

Guitar and speaker selection are key to getting the best sound with this amp.

I'm using a british voiced groove tubes speaker and dark sounding guitars for the best results. Don't use a strat or tele. Use a les paul or the like. I'm using a '55 stratotone and early 70's framus new strato with this. Both of these guitars have too much bass and not enough trebble in the neck position through my normal amp but they are perfect with this little beast.

I'm a firm believer in matching the right guitar and amp. It can be too harsh and edgy with fender style guitars. If the guitar sounds good through class A amp (ac-30, goldtone) it sounds good with this. If the guitar prefers a fender style class A/B (twin, super reverb) amp it isn't the best choice for this amp. This is a class A amp.

Does what it's meant to and does it well. Wouldn't be good as your only amp but it's great when you want to get that power tube distortion sound at 3am.

Haven't heard any stories of these breaking despite them getting into vintage years these days.

Great little amp. An effect loop would have been cool, but theres no room for it in this box.

I use a modded Ibanez SZ320 (split option humbuckers via push-pull) and noname superstrat.

Mind you, this is a rock machine!

It will be used to do what it can do best. Record the sound of a distorted electric guitar (and for those basslines). I only give it an eight for the lack of tone controls. Perhaps it would be a ten in combination with a graphical EQ.

It is getting a bit noisy if the gain (there ist A LOT OF GAIN !) is at twelve o clock an the master at three.
But on the other hand, most old marshalls producing that sound would be too. Listen too some Hendrix live at winterland or so.

This is an 80ies all tube amp (pre-amp and power-amp, not like the Metalmaster, which has only two gain stages but no power amp). It is made for rock music, expect no clean sounds.

great things are:
- RED BOX circuitry cabinetulator for mix out - A REAL PLUS
- Perfect as practice amp (if you play rock and have a 8 Ohm speaker) A REAL PLUS
- good for recording, it was made for it
- perfect match for the crunch master (you can sort of switch them together -> 2 channel setup)
- if you can accept the laquer going off a little after about 20 Years, this thing ist very, very solid
- The KILLER Sound machine for distorted bassline recording

-> I give it a nine for the lack of tone controls

It is solid. It is made in germany. If I treat it well and change the tubes when needed it will rock on forever.

The manual is on the website. Otherwise there is no need to support this machine. It is solid. So it will be a ten.

I can recommend it very much, especially for the price.
Pro:
It is a rock solid, great sounding and very versatile machine with extreme amounts of gain. It has a great cabinetulator. You can record into the console. You can connect a speaker and be loud enough to practice, to annoy any neighbour or to drive a speaker and record from the speaker.

Con:
No clean sounds -> get the crunch master as well
No tone controls -> get an eq.