Hughes & Kettner Red Box MkIII

It was easy to get a good sound with this box in line between my Dr Z Maz 18 and it's speaker. I had to roll a bit of treble of the PA strip but once that was done it was fine. Overall a bit sweeter more polite sounding than a 57. Each has it's place of course.

I like the 4x12 setting and the convenient phantom power.

Well, if this wasn't good i wouldn't use it. It is really quite surprising. I find the sound of the Red Box III more articulate than a mic. The bottom end and mids are quite different to the mic. The mic is definately fatter sounding, but that's not to say I prefer it over the Red Box III. I really like the sweetness of the DI and the more complex upper mids.

I think this is a very handy box to have at your disposal. No more drums bleeding into the guitar strip. No more inconsistant mic positioning. On big stages I'm now experimenting with running both the RB III DI and using a mic. I'm completely happy with it. That said I'm also really happy with my guitar and amp to start with too.

I'm a near full time player with 30 year experience.

Easy to hook up. I had to download a manual, bought it used.

Mesa-Boogie Mark IIB. Some of my guitars: BC Rich Bich, Strat, Gibson Nighthawk, Ibanez strat copy. 65 Gibson SG. Hooked the Red Box up to the speaker output with a load resistor. Sound is good, except that is seems to overdrive my mixer, an Soundcraft Spirit Folio F1. I have to keep the out put volume very low.

I also used this live instead of micing my amp, and for some reason the signal dropped to almost nothing. When I turned up the gain on the mixer it was too noisy. Replaced batteries, same problem. Went back to using mics on stage. Occasionally experinced the same problem when recording at home.

Never dealt with this company

It's OK, but becasuse of the reliability, I would Probably would get something else.

This thing is really easy to use. The manual is not very extensive because this thing is really simple to use. It took me all of 3 minutes to review the manual and start recording. Super simple.

I have read some reviews claiming that they did not have enough high end. I don't get it! I plugged the RedBox right out of my amp and ran the output in cab simulator mode straight into my mixing board.... recorded a few tracks on my computer and it sounds great. It is not the same sound that I hear out of my Marshall 4X10, but it sounds better than mic'd with SM57. The warmth is there, the clarity is there, and the tone is there.
I did see high end missing when I plugged my guitar straight into the RedBox and used it in DI mode to my mixing board, ut I don't think that I will ever use it in this fashion.
Oh by the way, I did plug my bass guitar straight into it and to the board... sounds really good.

I have not owned it long enough to see how it will hold up electronically. I do know that I don't think you can break it due to the fact that this thing's thick metal construction. It feels like a foot pedal. The plastic switches should not break unless you abuse it.

I have not had to deal with them at all.... no comment!

I have only owned it for a week now, but I have used it quite a bit recording at home. I have to say that I have nothing bad to say about it, except that I paid 89 bucks for it. I guess that a mic costs about the same amount, so oh well. If you are not pleased with the sound you are getting from a mic'd cabinet, give this thing a try. it is the closest sound to a true cabinet that I have heard. On the same hand it is not a true replica of a cabinet sound. I think that there is room for improvement, but the best that I have heard yet.

Easy to use, plug in and go. The only control is a cabinet tone switch.

If you buy one used, MAKE SURE you get a user's guide. There are different configurations of using the Red Box depending on if you're using a solid state amp, tube preamp, or complete guitar amp. If you don't hook it up right, you'll hurt your amp and/or the Red Box.

I use an all-tube combo amp with the Red Box. There are some important things you need to get maximum balls out of the Red Box:

1) a good set of tubes in the amp. Garbage in garbage out baby - if your tubes suck then no sound processor will help. Take your amp to the store, plug it into a cabinet, and try different tubes until you find the sound you're looking for.

2) a tube power amp. If you don't have one, get one. This is *the* key. When I was auditioning tubes for my Boogie, I found the greatest variation in the tone was not in the preamp tubes, but in the POWER amp tubes. The power amp is where the balls lie in the sound. If you're only using a tube preamp, you're only getting half the sound! The Red Box sounds best plugged into the tube power amp. I tried it straight out of the preamp (before the power amp) and it sounded brittle. You NEED that tube power amp!

3) push the power amp into its "sweet" zone. The tubes in the power amp lack cream at low volumes, if you turn up the master volume a little at a time you'll notice a threshold where the tone gets sweeter. It ain't the ears at loud volume either, I'm still using the Red Box direct into the board with the studio monitors turned down and I can hear the difference. You need to push those output tubes in the power amp.

4) a good guitar. duh.

I love the sound and ease of use but I give it an 8 because it's easy to break if you don't pay attention to hooking it up. I'm an EE and I can tell you from the way this works that this is not a fault of design, it's an area of high power handling that you HAVE to respect. In other words, RTFM. If you're clueless about electronics, seek the advice of experienced stores or repair shops who know amplifiers. And get the manual!

I'm using the Red Box with a Mesa Boogie MkIIa amp. The Boogie is mounted in a rack chassis (available from Mesa) and I use a dummy 75W 8 ohm resistor load in place of the speaker so I can crank without waking the neighbors or hurting my ears. The Red Box and dummy load are all bolted inside the chassis, all hooked up and ready to go and I use an AC adapter in place of the battery. All I have to do is plug in a mic cord.

My guitar is an Epiphone Genesis, which is a Les Paul reject, carved top and all. It's a GOOD sounding guitar and plays pretty well. I've had other guitars and kept coming back to this one. Only my brother's '69 Les Paul Custom beats it for balls. In fact, the bridge pickup is from my brother's Les Paul - the stock pickups in the Epiphone are utter crap.

Again, seek the advice of experienced techs before selecting a dummy load and hooking everything up. And by all means, DO NOT use a carbon resistor for a dummy load - they're a fire hazard!

I tried various combinations with the Red Box - output of preamp, output of effect send, etc. The best quality sound is out of the tube power amp, period. It's also very cool to crank the monitors a little and get that feedback happening - very cool for recording. You won't get this unless you have met the three important criteria listed above. Believe me I tried.

This thing doesn't add any hiss of its own - you're hearing the hiss of your guitar and amp.

There's a switch for "4x12" and "Combo" - it does sound like their descriptions, I used to own both kinds of cabinets. "4x12" is the classic Marshall 4x12 closed cabinet, and "Combo" is the classic 1x12 open back cabinet ala Fender or Mesa Boogie combo amp.

The best thing about this setup is

1) I can add the room effect I want with FX, not an actual room
2) no leakage problems with live instruments when recording a group
3) great tone when playing live without loud volume.

It's in a cast metal box ala MXR stompboxes. It's well protected.

I have the case bolted inside the amp chassis with the cables semi-permanently hooked up. All I have to do is plug in the mic cable to the board and it's done. The manual will warn you to hook up the box first before turning on your tube amp and it's true. I know another guitarist who had a Red Box blow on him, and he wired up everything every night - I bet he forgot about the caution. I've been using this semi-permanent setup for years and never had a problem.

Why not a "ten" for problem-free operation? The potential for problem is greater if you don't know what you're doing for hooking it up. See the "Ease of Use" section above.

Never had to deal with H&K.

I'm primarily a keyboardist, but I also know my way around a guitar and amp. When I play live, it's so cool to have to bring only one monitor cabinet for both keyboards and guitar. Only the Red Box makes this possible. I loved the tone of a cranked guitar amp but hate the volume wars that happen on the club stage. If you turn down the master volume of your amp, it affects your tone. The Red Box lets me keep the volume down without sacrificing the tone of the amp - I just turn it down at the board. In the studio it's great to record with a live band in the same room and not have the leakage problems with a live cabinet. I've been playing R&R for over twenty years and the Red Box has made life *so* much easier.

Just plug!

The results are strange. With a Fender amp and a Hughes and Kettner amp, it doesn't sound. The tone was too in the middle, no highs and no bass. But I tried it with a Hughes and Kettner amp with the clean sound channel and for distortion I used a BOSS DS-1. The result is incredible. The sound is really warm, excellent frequency response and I even often forgot that I have no amp!

The box is metallic.

With some gear, the result will be incredible but with most of amps it really doesn't sound.

It's as easy as plugging in the right cords. Line in, Amp in, Amp through, XLR out. Make sure if you're plugging in your amp head that you have a speaker load on the amp out.

One additional switch, between 4x12 Marshall cab simulation and 2x12 open back simulation (brighter).

Can be powered by phantom, AC adapter or battery (not 100% on battery). Phantom option is great in studio settings.

Guitars: single coils (Strat hardtail, Danelectro, Gretsch Electromatic Junior Jet). Using it for direct recording.

You have to adjust for gain (either pumping in a high level signal in, or higher input gain on the board- using Mackie), but the tone is great. I especially like the 2x12 simulation for the bite. I think there's some hiss in there, but now that I'm thinking about it, I better make sure I have everything plugged in correctly.

This box is really great if you tweak the tone coming out of the box. I like using my Aphex tube parametric EQ, and maybe using some compression. Adjusting at the board works too.

For distortions and fuzzes, this box is superb. RATs, Boss DS-1, Z Vex Fuzz Factory especially, this thing is great. Tube overdrives and simulations don't do as well, but I don't think that any cabinet simulator works with those- they really do need a live speaker. Using it clean doesn't sound great with guitars, but keyboard and bass users may find it to be a great direct box with character.

Speaking of live, I think this would make a great problem solver for live amp miking, but since I'm not in a band, I don't know how that would work.

What's there to break? Only moving part is the 4x12 / 2x12 switch.

OK website.

This is a great tool to have in the studio- I especially like it for lead or wacky tones. I actually have been using it with conjunction with the Hughes & Kettner Tubeman Recording Station (I wrote a review there, too).... the MKIII using the 2x12 for bite, and the Red Box Pro output for the mids and lows. It's not a one-stop box, but it's a lot of fun and you can get some great tones with no fussing.