Budda Super Drive 30 Head

I am just ammending my earlier review. I got a quick response to my posting, and it turn out Scot at Budda had sent off an e-mail and a manual. I just hadn't received them.On account of this and my mistake, Budda gets its first 10 from me.

THIS IS THE SUPERDRIVE 30 HEAD. IT IS A PCB VERSION. IT HAS MOST OF THE FEATURES I NEED, BUT THE EQ IS THE SAME FOR BOTH CHANNELS SO IT GETS A SEVEN. ALSO, THE EFFECTS LOOP WORKS WELL WITH SOME DEVICES, WITH OTHERS THOUGH, THE VOLUME DROPS SIGNIFICANTLY. IT IS NOT MY EFFECTS PROBLEM AS THEY WORK WELL WITH MY OTHER AMPS. ALSO I WISH I COULD CONTROL THE VOLUME OF THE DRIVE CHANNEL MORE. IT IS TOTALLY AFFECTED BY WHERE YOU PUT THE CLEAN VOLUME IN RELATION TO THE MASTER. I LIKE THE DRIVE TO COME IN VERY LOUD, BUT I CAN'T DO THIS UNLESS THE CLEAN CHANNEL IS VERY LOW. AND YOU LOSE THE COMPLEXITY OF THE TONE WHEN IT IS THAT LOW. THE 30 WATTS ARE PERFECT FOR BEDROOM,PRACTICE, OR CLUB LEVELS. AND IT HAS A FEW EXTRA FEATURES I WILL NEVER USE.

I'M USING IT WITH A DESIGNER SERIES STRAT WITH VINTAGE NOISELESS PICKUPS. THE SOUND IS EXCELLENT FOR MY STYLE. THE CLEAN CHANNEL IS VERY SMOOTH AND CHIMEY.AND VERY COMPLEX AT AROUND 11 OR 12 O'CLOCK.IT DOES DRIVE A LITTLE EARLY FOR MY TASTES, AS I WOULD LIKE A LITTLE MORE HEADROOM, BUT IF YOU PICK SOFTER OF BACK OF THE GUITARS VOLUME IT IS A BEAUTIFUL THING. VERY RESPONSIVE. WATCH OUT THOUGH, YOU CAN HEAR YOUR PICK HIT THE STRINGS. SOMETIMES TOO MUCH SO, BUT IT IS MAKING ME A BETTER PLAYER. THE DRIVE CHANNEL IS INCREDIBLE, YOU CAN FEEL IT THROUGH YOUR WHOLE BODY. HELL, YOU CAN TASTE IT! IT IS VERY POWERFUL, BUT NOT BUZZY LIKE A MESA. YOU CAN'T FIND A BAD SETTING ON IT. THIS AMP IS NOT NOISY AT ALL. I'M USING IT THROUGH A BOGNER 4X12 WITH VINTAGE 30'S AND IT HAS ALOT OF BOTTOM END. THIS IS THE BEST AMP I'VE HAD, BUT LET'S BE SERIOUS, I WOULD HAVE TO HAVE MY AMP SPECIALLY BUILT FOR ME FOR IT TO BE A 10.

I'VE HAD IT FOR4 MONTHS, AND NEVER HAD A PROBLEM. BUT I'LL WAIT AND SEE.

THEY WERE VERY NICE AT FIRST. BUT THEY MUST HAVE GOT TIRED OF ALL MY QUESTIONS, BECAUSE THEY DON'T EVEN ANSWER MY E-MAIL ANYMORE. I ASKED FOR A NEW MANUAL BECAUSE MINE DIDN'T HAVE ONE IN IT'S BOX. AND I NEVER GOT ONE, OR A REPLY. THE LAST FEW TIMES THEY DID ANSWER ME IT TOOK A VERY LONG TIME. I DON'T HOLD IT AGAINST THEM THOUGH. THEY ARE MAKING AMPS NOT FRIENDS.

I'VE BEEN PLAYING FOR 14 YEARS. I OWN ALOT OF OTHER GEAR. A VOX AC-30. A TRAYNOR CUSTOM VALVE 40. A LES PAUL STANDARD DC, AND A RICKENBACKER 12 STRING TO NAME A FEW. I REALLY LIKE THIS AMP. IT DOES EVERYTHING I NEED FOR RIGHT NOW. I WILL ALWAYS KEEP LOOKING FOR THAT 10 BUT YOU REALLY CAN'T GO WRONG WITH THIS AMP.

This is the Budda SD30 Series II head. This one is the new PCB models which means that most of components are on a pc board. This is the most versatile amp I have every owned. There is no compromise with an ok clean and and ok overdrive, it excels at both. I play Blues to Heavy Metal and this amp does it all well. From sweet sparkle clean and slight breakup to the chunkiest palm muted chug you can imagine with a fat sweet midrange for solos. There are two channels but they share the same tone stack. This would be a problem if Budda hadnt thought it out and made the tone controls so well balanced between the two. The amp also features cabinet switching and linking. This allows for the switching between cabinets or linking a channel to a particular cabinet. I have no real use for it now but I might try it in the future. It has a series effects loop that works very well and has switches for the impedance of both the main and aux speaker cabinets on the back. It has two jacks for each. There is a slave level knob as well. This amp utilizes 4 EL84 ouput tubes, 3 12AX7 and 1 rectifier tube to produce its warm and tasty tone. I give it a nine only because the channels arent totally seperate, that would be ideal.

Think of the sound that you can get from a cranked Marshall Plexi, mix in some of Van Halens early tone then add the fatness of a Mesa Boogie and you have this amp. Very thunky bottom end with good solid non-trashy sounding highs. The gain is "clean" and while you can get it to grind and growl easily its very articulate and you can use dynamic picking to bring out the subtleties of the sound. You can nail many of the Heavy Metal sounds of the 70's and 80's as well as some of the newer stuff (Megadeth etc.). Not a scooped mid buzz but a chunky, fat chug with huge single note runs and still its not harsh. You can get a great midrange singing solo sound and when you dig in you can hear the higher order harmonics easily during pick attack, very Halen-esque. Using the '59 neck pickup on my Hamer Standard I get the most killer sound, the fat singing sound of a neck pickup with the articulate pick attack like I was using the bridge pickup, perfect! The clean channel is very sweet too. Not peaky or harsh, the treble is chiming and the sound is very even. Good sustain and while I am not a big fan of humbuckers through the clean channle it works very well with this amp. You can also get the clean channel to break up nicely too. Great blues spank all the way up to too sweet overdrive breakup and then on to a not so nice distortion, but if you get there your should be on the other channel. This amp is the best that I have heard or played. That is not to say that there isnt anything out there better, there might be but for me right now this is it.

I have only had it a few days so I cant speculate so far. If it goes down anytime soon I will update the review.

Left a call for the Budda guys and they got back to me within the hour. Very nice and I dont think that I will ever have a problem with their service.

Been playing for over 20 years. If you would have told me that you could get this kind of sound out of an amp plugging straight in 10 year ago I would have spit my beer in your face laughing. This is what I have been looking for for a while now. If it were stolen the self destruct device I put in the amp would go off and cripple the thief after if got more than 50 feet from me. That has caused problems in the past, poor service guy. No seriously I would not hesitate to buy again. I compared this amp to my Mesa Rocket 44. Both amps are EL84 based and are basically geared to the same kind of guitar player. Dont get me wrong the Mesa has its place and sounds great, just not as good as the Budda. These are great amps. Everyone should keep and eye on this company. If they stick to their original concept then they cant go wrong.

Two channels -no verb.
simple, effective controls...

Makes any guitar sound, well, like that guitar. The preamp in the SuperDrive 30 is fantastic. Not noisy at all. Great sounding well made amp. I think the guy who had problems with his amp is way off base. I love this amp. Not scopped mid metal, but much thicker

The push pull pots seem a little wimpy-other than that top notch

Responde quickly to email...always helpful

I've been playing the shit out of this amp for a month now and it seems to be fine. I own lots of other amps-some that break down alot (ie: Marshall 800, 66 Bassman) and some that don't...
If this amp keeps working and doesn't fall apart like the guy said his did then this amp is a jewel-a gem and yes, a keeper!

Not a whole lot of features, but that is usually a good thing in an amp. Means the co. took more time on the tone, than on building a bunch of garbage to pull around on. I wish it had reverb! or a clean channel!

Used w/ Peavey wolfgang, and hamer usa guitars (single coils)
Very musical amp,gets great lead tones, and VERY queit.
But, i have to give a 7, because of the fact that the break-Up (supposedly rhythm channel) is just nasty. i didnt like it at all, especially with humbuckers. no clean at all to be found. w/ single coils does a good matchless thing though.

worked for 3 days, shorted out. moneyBack thank god. These are not reliable amps at all, and you will hear that from many more to come. i've already heard it from every1 i know that has a budda. Never again fellas. nice gear, but dosent hold up. time to move on to Bogner. i really dont give 2nd chances on gear.

Seem nice...just need to work on the kinks a bit of testing amps be4 selling.

Lacking clean tone, musical overdrive. I was pissed about the whole shorting out thing though. brand new, and it just pops out every minute. Piss poor quality.

this is one of the first sd30...serial number 5....2 channel amp...shared eq....30 watt amp...4 el84 power tubes....3 12ax7 preamp tubes....rectifier tube.....this amp is loud...very loud....hard to imagine its only 30 watts...also has asignable speaker outs....you can switch between different cabs as you wish...very basic amp....which is why it gets a 8

sounds killer....i use it for blues rock.....its a very raw sounding distortion....but is controllable.....the gain cleans up nicely with the guitar volume knob.....great string deffinition....not muddy at all...the clean channel does break up at high volumes, but thats part of the magic....i can see this amp being used in all styles of music....i used a boss ge7 in the loop to experiment with tones and could easily get that death metal tone.....of coourse i hate that so i just dial in a tone kinda like jake e lees when he was in badlands

no problems yet

ive talked to the owners on the phone before...they were helpful in trying to find me one to try out

its a deffinate keeper....i love this amp for its rawness....ive owned all the great amps:plexis, egnater, bogner, vht, soldano, etc.....this is a deffinate keeper.....its a different type of amp and i dont recomend it to just anyone....but its a great amp and suits me fine...i dont think id ever sell it