Sovtek Mig 60

I'm not sure what year this was made. Sometime in the early 90's I believe, after the fall of the Berlin wall. This is an all tube amp and it's as basic and raw as you can get. Essentially has no features at all, not even reverb! To some that is a feature in and of itself. This amp will appeal to you if have a live without a net style, like Jeff Beck or Joe Morris. It's noisy and loud. I play mine through Peavey 412 you could easliy mistake it for a 100 watt amp with the pre-amp cranked.

I use Dimarzio pickups in a S/S/S/ configuration through this amp. My guitar is an old Charvel and I use a Chopper in the bridge, an SDS single coil in the middle and a Cruiser in the neck. I wouldn't use any distortion pedals with this amp through the high power channel, its just too much. A hot bridge humbucker brings out the distortion in the amp, the Chopper works well for this, I can control distortion with my volume knob as I play. The distortion is very vintage.

As much as I love this amp I cannot say I would gig with it without a backup. It has some problems, and it burns out tubes pretty fast. I should get it serviced but I don't know of anyone in my area who does it. I should point out also that it is probably also a fire hazard. If I forget to turn this amp off and then leave my house I pretty much have to rush home to shut it off in order to get some peace of mind.

Contact cusdtomer support? That's a good idea. I wonder if their still in business.

I like this amp because of the vintage construction and sound. It is built in a totally vintage fashion, I should point out. When I opened it up to replace the tubes I was pretty suprised to see fat cloth insulated wires, and what look to me to be hand drawn circuit boards. Something you don't see in many budget amps built overseas in the early 90's. I'm not sure if I'd buy one of these again, however. It's overdue for a service call and if I had some time to work on it I'm sure it would be reliable, but the safety issue is a big one for me. If they built one of these in a steel frame with a cooling fan or something it would be perfect.

Well its a simple amp. The features have been covered well enough by others so Im done with this portion of the review.

I gotta say this amp rawks hard! Im usin a micheal kelly valor limited with it and random fx. On its own it can do a decentish clean to a full hard rock/early metal sound. I need to boost it with the ts side(bass boost on) of a visual sound jeckell and hyde to get a more modern metal tone. Mind you I am not putting more gain into the signal just increasing the volume of the signal. It takes fx real well... or at least the ones I own. A lot of people here say its loud, but i gotta say its as loud as 60 watts can be. No more no less. My fender hot rod deville is louder. Other people here say its a marshall clone. It might be im not sure but it does have that brown sound to it. This and the red bear mk120 lead imho are the sweetest distortion producing amps for there price. I guess those russians know their crunch! Its not really noisey for what it is. Actually its much quieter than i thought it would be. If ya see one try it out. It may be what your missing!

Ive been playin for 18 years and have used laneys, marshalls, carvins, and other high gain amps. I would choose this lil guy over them all. If it got stolen the responsable party would not be aloud to breath any more! Then if i had too i would start the hunt to get another one. Seriously try one out... you'll thank me for it when you do.

This is not meant to be a comprehensive review - plenty of them, most very accurate, have already been posted here. I wanted to share the results of my tube switching.

I love my Mig-60. I am fortunate to have found a NOS head that was upgraded and improved by Lord Valve. New jacks, Svetlana power tubes, etc.

I have always been a little bugged by the "lightswitch" nature of the preamp pot, especially when plugged into the High input. 8:00 was silent, and 9:00 was screaming. After about 10:00, changes made little difference. Very limiting. I read the review below that described using different preamp tubes, and decided to try it. I replaced the 2 outer 12AX7s with NOS GE 5751s, which have about 70% of the gain of a 12AX7 (I guess the 12AT7 has about 60%). WOW!

Way more adjustability - what was 9:00 is now at noon, and turning the knob makes useful differences. Plus, the distorted tone is a little sweeter.

I liked my Mig-60 before the tube swap; now I love it.

I play loud punk/hard rock, and this amp is perfect for me. Again, the reviews below are pretty accurate.

A year of heavy use without a problem. I do keep it in a road case when driving to gigs. Time will tell...

Long gone, and I've never had a reason to contact New Sensor. Support your local amp tech, right?

35+ years playing rock music. I use some different amps in the studio besides my Mig-60, but only her for shows. I would like to compare it with some $1500 to $3000 amps, but haven't had the opportunity. If lost, I would probably replace it with a Roccaforte or a Bad Cat or a Greer or a Hiwatt or an Orange or a Marshall or... so many amps, so little time & money.

Everything it needs

Using this w/hand crafted guitars w/primarily humbuckers. Man I love Tool,and Jones' sound. Aggressive, but quite. Really round and bouncy and then just slams your face. That's exactly what I get from my 60. I can roll back the volume and clean it up and then just teaqr into it. However, allthough power chords sound just like that it's not a shredder's dream w/out help. Easy enough, stomp on a ZW 44, and a boost and its mayhem. DON"T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON BOTIQUE ****. THIS MODEL IS GLORIOUS. I've owned a Mig 50. It was good, but still not it. The 60 smokes it like a cheap cigar.I don't know how to describe the shear kick in the head thios thing offers other than it's nice and chimey and then just gets nasty. Studio/recordable quality easily. I'm an engineer and custom guitar builder www.hayniguitars@yahoo.com. PLUG. I can't believe the sound I had in my head,and have heard on countless records was obtainable for under $600. GO OUT AND GET ONE. JAM FOR A DAY OR TWO AND THEN YOU"LL SEE< INSTANT GROWTH.

Built like a tank

Worked for Fender as a luthier, sound engineer live and asst in the studio. This amp will take you there. If you know how to really play, and not hide behind crap fizz-distortion, then I highly recommend checking it out. Like i mentioned, I had owned a Mig 50. Itwas cool, but not heavy enough. This amp(on it's own) isn't a shreder's dream, but it's a solid/fundamental-couldn't do w/out basis. Seriously, bought on ebay on a whim, after trying almost eveything out there. And this little hand wired $600 amp delivered. WTF?

This is a 1994 Russian amp produced in a military bunker..
You all know the details, skipping this part.
I'm thrilled to find a NOS MIG 60 and 4X12.
I will soon replace the 12 inch speakers with expensive Webber's or what ever I get a deal on.

I'm using this as a studio recording amp and its very versatile for this even at low volume.

First I want to say this replaces my Fender Blues Deville as the fender was just to loud at any volume, unusable for recording.

Folks this is point to point no printed circuit like fender tube amps.

Strat with single coils, massive amounts of effects, yes its noisy, it can many ANY sound yes even clean, its BRUTAL distortion..

I'm posting because I'm having a good amount of good usable CLEAN tone with this amp and my single coils strat.
It does everything if you can work the two knobs, master/pre high/low.
I'm giving it a 10/10 I can really go clean, ok a little bit of dirt but this this is ~CLEAN~

I'm using a 3x tube screamer effects rig,
TS-808 (1979) as a booster.
Into a Maxon Pue5 Tube Contains the guts of (TS-9 and Tube king tube pre amp)

Like this I can go from totally clean on low gain, press my TS-808 as booster = great volume and bluesy tone. Press my PUE5 Tube and wow, guys were into hair metal. Go High gain and folks this is meltdown city, hide the kids and old folk this Russian is going to kick your dog, beat up your grandmother and drink all your beer.
I have not got to fine tune the High gain input yet and I'm going for a Porcupine tree kind of lead ambient tone with effects.
Yep, I'm posting because some had suggested its not clean.
Well folks this is ~UBER CLEAN~ with single coils low input and no effects. It's a tad grainy with my TS-808 but this is what you want. No it does not sound "HiFi" sterile clean. Think of the sound where they are just warming up the shock therapy rig and your waiting for the thundering jolt of 60 watts of Russian madness to flow thru your gray matter.

Blues, clean and metal meltdown if you want.
I'm just getting the hang of this amp, I have no complaints.
The sound, yes its all there if you want.

I'm told this is better and more reliable then a Marshall but I'm in a studio so everything looks new. I expect this will be around for 100 years.

Yeah You can get parts but like any amp why bother with factory?
The factory is gone but the parts department is there so hell I'm giving it a 10 because My own amp tech is my support and the warehouse of Sovtek parts in New York.

Yes folks, http://www.newsensor.com/

Been playing semi pro soundtrack music for 20 years (SEMI PRO)
If lost, Id be crushed because you cant get them.
Folks, with a few tweaks this will be better then most boutique amps and you wont have that "HiFi" sterility because this thing breaths FIRE and yes expect a little grit as it chews up the asphalt.
http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc00001nu3.jpg

Ok, not the Cons. Folks its a little cheapley produced.
The handles on the 4X12 are PLASTIC and flex when moved.
The metal finish on the cab and amp are cheap looking.
The input and output jacks are crap.
Nuff said, any good amp tech will spend 2 hours and replace all the input jacks with Switchcraft. I thought the handle was really lame on the head, its a gross rubber thing, thin and no I dont like that.
Over all I'm so happy and glad I tossed my fender.
With a few bucks modding the amp I see no reason to sell this ever.

Good lord run out and get one if you can, well you cant so good luck.

Easy to dial in!

I left a review a couple years ago!
I had my old one for about 4 years & had a bunch of problems.
I must have had a poop sounding Mig 60.
I ended up with another with a package deal I got via Craigslist.

I WAS 100% WRONG!
This amp sounds great in every way.
Probably the best sounding Master Volume Amp I've heard.

Hopefully this one will be better than the last.

0, ZERO support.

This amp delivers great tone. Sounds best with P90's.
For Rock, Alt Country, Punk what ever it can do it.
I made a mistake giving this amp a bad review.
My old one didn't have the tone this one has.
Sounds great thru my 2x12 & 1x12 cab.
The Ebay prices are a bit crazy, but if you can pull the trigger for
under $450 do it!
As a rule I usually Hate Master Volume Amps! Not this one!

60 loud Watts. EL34 power tubes, 12AX7 (or ECC81/83) pres. I replaced all the Sovtek stocks with JJs. I'm running it at 8ohms with a custom white lopo 212 w/ Vintage 30s.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/kismet78/stack_010.jpg

No channel switching, no loop, no verb, etc, but this is not why you get one of these.

I love love love the sounds this monster makes. Just enough clean headroom for me to run all of my effect pre-amp, but it is a warm clean, not sparkly.

And the gain this thing cranks out when using the high input is fantastic. I can set my Rat as an almost clean boost and hit the front of the amp hard and never need more distortion. Big and grindy.

Even bass sounds great through this - at recording levels.

Mine has seen better days cosmetically (I bought it well used 2 years ago), so it must have had a hell of a life before me. It's solid though and has yet to act up.

It did need a new handle at one point though.

No idea. Probably nil. Never tried.

It's a basic amp that basically kicks ass at a very affordable price. I'm always on the lookout for another. Monster stereo rig?


kyletompkins.com

Made in 1994. Vary basic. Single channel. Treb/Mid/Bass. Master/Preamp. Power/Standby. Typical features that you would expect to find on an older vintage type amp

Strat with a 2 x 12 Celestion cab.
The sound is more Plexi then a Plexi. I have always been a Plexi Player. My Plexi started having problems and had to go into the shop. I needed an amp right away so I purchased a MIG 60 thinking I would sell it when I get the Plexi back. Well, I sold the Plexi and never looked back. The MIG 60 has 2 El34???s. The MIG 50 and 100 use 6L6. The MIG 60 is a noisy amp and it is cheaply built but, it puts out the classic rock over drive that we have all been accustomed to. It is very loud for a 60 Watt amp. Plenty of head room. I can get a solid loud crunch when I back off the guitar. I play with the master at 10. The master dulls the sound. I adjust the Preamp volume as needed. Based on what I have read, there might be a variation from one MIG 60 to the another. They are still cheep now, under $500.00. I am sure that won???t last long

I have had no problems yet.

NONE.

Highly recommended. Great little amp If you are looking for Plexi Tones.

Basic amp. Light on features, big on tone which is very flexible with 3 tone controls and master and pre-amp knobs.

Majestic!! I only use the high gain channel. Classic Marshall tube distortion. It has a huge range of gain. Great tone on neck pickup single coil for SRV type tone as well as Les Paul high gain drive through the bridge pickup. Original EL34 power tubes finally wore out after about 10 years. Replaced with Svetlanas which sound maybe even a little better defined. I probably should re-bias it but didn't. The gain goes to really ripping levels and it all sounds good to me. By the way, back when I got it I did a side by side comparison with a D'Allesandro that everyone was raving about as the top Boutique amp - and the Sovtek sounded better at about 20% of the cost. Def a collector's item now.

Never a problem. Seems everyone I know has their tube amps in the shop and this thing is like a Russian Tank that never stops. I changed the power tubes once after many years cuz they finally started weakening, but it never let me down.

Never needed it.

It is "beyond category" for value. It's big on tone and isn't that what it's all about?

Built like a tank. Amp electronic layout is very very clean. No rats nest here. Everything soldered "spot-on". Havent had ANY problems in the many years I have owned.

The best tones I have gotten from this amp are with LOW output pickups. Mainly single coil strat types. Plugging a strat (with low single coil pups) into the low gain input and using a boost pedal gets you all those classic late 60's-80's Marshall tones you hear on recordings. "JIMI" tones galor.

Have not had ANY luck dialing up my Gibson Explorer (stock high output ceramics) with this amp. My Explorer has a huge FAT tone. The Sovtek is Really BASS heavy so when you combine that with the big fat tone/ nice low end that my Explorer gets, you end up with WAY to much bass. Tried it through a few dif Speakers....EV, Celestion, PV, H-H. Can never dial out that massive bass I get with the Explorer. My 90' Ibanez RG770 (also with hot pups) does not sound outstanding either. Not bass heavy but just "meh". Mabye someday I will look into moding the eq section.

Overall the amp is kickass for "vintage" strat/ marshall tones. Tried a friends SG jr. with P-90 and it killed as well. Great amp if you can find them for under $400. Anything more than that and I would rather get a used 80's JCM800 1x12 combo.