Review : Yamaha THR 30II Wireless Amplifier

Yamaha calls the THR series the "third amp", and I have to agree. It's not your gigging amp and it probably is not your studio amp. The product is designed to look decent in any home location, is unobtrusive and is built to deliver good tone at low volume.

I have had mine for a couple of months. I put it in my Living room as a place to play when on a short break from work, or before dinner with minimal setup. I made a mistake in this regard, as I wanted to play at louder volume in these periods in a room that was a bit too big for the amp. This is my opinion of course, so let it be said that your mileage may vary.

Things changed when I put my Helix and a pair of FRFR speakers in the living room and moved the THR 30II to my bedroom specifically for playing at low volume. I do not sleep through the night and am up at least twice a night for at least half an hour each time. Since making the THR II 30 available for this use case, I have changed my mind about the amp entirely.

The THR 30II is a digital amplifier. The series II family combines the three different colour offerings of the series I into a single amp. This is awesome as the series I always felt to me like a bit of pocket picking.

Yamaha touts the unit has having fifteen guitar amp models, three base amp models, three mic models to use with acoustics and a perfectly flat model for use with anything else.

The amp has three amp families, Modern, Classic and Boutique. Each family has a variety of default tone presets available by rotary switch. You use the same switch to access the bass and acoustic models. Yamaha does not document which amps each setting is modelling. GRRR. The Reference manual, which you have to download contains some hints, but clarity would be good.

The 30II Wireless is the top of the family lineup. It is rated at 30 watts output, has bluetooth connectivity to the excellent smartphone app, has line outs for recording to your interface, as well as USB direct outs. The unit includes a rechargeable LiION battery, ideal for playing where there is no AC power. The sound which comes from Yamaha's audio division called Extended Stereo Technology produces amazingly good sound from the very small drivers needed in a package this size. If you recall the old Apple HiFi, it's about that size, and delivers a very similar tonal range, which in my opinion, is excellent. The Wireless includes a built in Line6 receiver. Yamaha owns Line6 and the built-in effects are from the Line6 pantheon.

My only complaint is with the availability or more correctly, inavailability of the matching and optional Line6 transmitter. Apparently there are issues and my six week wait is going to be another six weeks or so.

The built in presets are what I would consider average starting places. I cannot say that I liked any of them out of the box. They do make a decent place to start and the iOS version of the app makes editing them a breeze and offers more functional variability than the on device knobs, particularly when it comes to effects. For example, the app let's me have delay and reverb at the same time, whereas with the knob it is one or the other. I confess that since I got the unit paired to my smartphone, I have only rarely touched the knobs on the unit at all.

There is a built in tuner that uses the same display as the battery gauge which is quite handy, although I would prefer that it be on the front panel instead of the top as when placed on a shelf as shown in much of the marketing material, the tuner is very hard to see. It's not a particularly sophisticated tuner but does the job. For greater ease of use, drop $25 on a Snark and move on.

Top deck of the THR 30II Wireless

In addition to the amp models, you also have cabinet simulations available. These include:

[table id=1 /]

I have to confess that I find Yamaha's reticence to say what cabinets they are trying to emulate annoying. I understand that doing so might cost them some money or require legal paperwork but they could do a better job of naming that would make the mental alignment easier. Line6 does this reasonably well and Yamaha owns Line6

In addition to the amp and cabinet modelling there are built in effects from the Line 6 pantheon. To gain access to all of them, you need to be using the THR Remote app on your smart device. The compressor and noise gate are only available this way. The Gate works fine, the Compressor is ok, but regular readers know that I am a compressor dork and this one is VERY basic. No 1176 here. Modulation effects include Chorus, Flanger, Phaser and Tremolo. They sound decent, although not high end and are more than adequate for the use case that the THR 30II is designed for. The onboard Echo offers up to 100ms of delay and tap tempo, plus basic EQ for the delay signal as well as a mix control. I found that setting it to a slapback level very effective to give some spacing in a small room. The reverb has four options (two via the knobs) including Spring, Room, Hall and Plate. Not studio grade reverbs, but more than sufficient for the use cases.

In addition to the user configurable options and five user memory positions, the THR II includes a number of factory presets. These presets are not just amp models, but configurations of amp and cabinet models along with effects configurations. They vary from very good to whatever, entirely dependent on your own preferences.

Screenshot from the Mac THR II Remote app, in this case showing the preset called EarlyVH

While I have used the amp mostly for electrics, I recently did a full bring back to life on an old Yamaha APX5 nylon string. I plugged it in and found a couple of settings that worked very well for it. I then tried my old Gibson Hummingbird that has a Fishman saddle pickup installed and it too sounded really nice. The Hummingbird is punchy unamplified so I would not do this at 2am while the family is asleep. I also have an ESP LTD 6 string bass. While I initially did not love this bass, I did a full set up on it on the afternoon of Christmas day and that made the necessary changes to make it a pleasure to play. Plugging it into the THR 30II Wireless sounded great, although I had to make my own preset for it as none of the factory ones delivered the tone that I wanted. In fairness, those presets were probably built for a four string bass, not the extended range of the six string. In reading the documentation, by using the Special amp model and some tweaking, the unit is purported to be a good choice for low volume practice with extended range guitars. I have not played my Strandberg 8 string through it, but I certainly will be.

And that, I think is the point. If you use the THR II family as I think intended by the engineers and less so by some of the marketing statements, you are likely to be very happy with the unit. In my first use situation, it was the wrong tool. Where it sits now, on a small table in my bedroom, it is tremendous. 

Review : YOMI from Frost Giant Electronics

Treble Boosters. You hear about these critters. You hear that if you like Brian May or Tony Iommi or Rory Gallagher or Ritchie Blackmore or Eric Clapton, you MUST have one.

Sure you can go online and search for an original Dallas Rangemaster for hundreds of dollars. Or you can get a new build of one from The British Pedal Company and my buddy Charles at electricmojoguitars.com. Or you could do what I did and take the advice of my friend Chris Spano at The Arts Music Store and hunt yourself down a YOMI from Frost Giant Electronics.

Chris told me about the YOMI when he asked that I do a review of The Mountain. I had been asking about fuzz and while there are folks who say that The Mountain, which is based on the ProCo RAT is not a fuzz, Dan Steinhardt over at That Pedal Show says that it is a fuzz. Be that as it may, Chris mentioned that Frost Giant did their own treble booster and that he grabbed the only one that came through the door and it never saw space on the retail counter. I checked and not only were there none in stock, the unit did not appear on the website. I went over to Frost Giant and their site said out of stock. Ru ro Shaggy. Over to Reverb and I found that the nice people at Axe and You Shall Receive (cool name huh?) in Brantford Ontario had two in stock.

Mine arrived quickly and while the version on the Frost Giant web site is black on light blue, I was fortunate to get one of the limited edition red on gold models as seen in the top image.

Documentation is like most Frost Giant Electronics products, meaning that it is non-existent. The YOMI has a knob marked Boost, an on/off stomp switch and a three way toggle that offers three different EQ options.

I was already set up for independent pedal tests with my silver Marshall 2550 into a silver 4x12. I had configured the clean channel to be super clean, even with hot pickups, and the ultra gain channel to sound like an overdriven Marshall, with Marshall style harmonic distortion but not fuzzy. I had the simple Marshall channel switcher on the floor and the YOMI on a stool in front of me to simplify tweaking. I ran direct from the guitar into the brand new Peterson StroboStomp tuner (review is coming on it), then to the YOMI and to the Marshall. The TC Electronics G Major that lives in the effects loop was completely bypassed. I checked the tone with an without the tuner and could hear no difference. All cables were Ernie Balls. About as generic as possible.

The first guitar that I used was my old Explorer. It's not a Korina body (sob) but it is solid mahogany and has nice heft. Like my Flying V, I find the factory pickups are a bit hotter than those in my Les Pauls and thought, hey why not. The Explorer sounds lovely clean, much as you would expect. Kicking in the YOMI in the clean channel and adjusting the boost brings a really nice bright distortion. Clicking through the three EQ settings you work with a three different levels of bass cut. I liked the top setting best which had the least cut. Definitely very playable and nice rich distortion. Wrong pickups for the Queen sound. Kick in the Marshall ultra gain channel without the YOMI and ah yes, there is Mr. Marshall. But add the YOMI and WOW! There's the sustain for days that was missing and while it sounds initially like you have lost some low end, I realized that I was getting a much more open top end than without the YOMI and pleasant feedback was readily available.

I love the sound. I will try a noise gate between the YOMI and the amp when I get around to it to isolate some of the other guitar noises when I am in glorius feedback territory, but I am not suggesting that this is necessary. You do want to play loud, which sounds wonderful but probably not your best choice at 2 in the morning. I was lighting things up between 4pm and 6pm so if I was annoying the neighbours, they had the good grace not to say anything.

I next moved on to my SG. It's a cherry model in the '63 style, albeit this '63 model as advertised from Gibson came from the time when Gibson couldn't remember that real '63s had the small headstock. So it has the large headstock. It's also got relatively low output humbuckers and while I have had it a long time, it's not a guitar that I go to very often. I had tried it with the Frost Giant SOMA (different review) and hated the sound. With the YOMI set to the top EQ and boost around 1 o'clock in the ultra gain channel it was quite nice. Not as quick to go to feedback as the Explorer but I expected that. Still going to change those pickups and I suspect that at the time, Gibson was using gum wrappers for caps and toilet roll for pots. There's no such thing as a vintage Gibson from the 70's or 80's that did not come out of the Custom Shop. But I digress...

Third guitar for the test was my red Suhr Strat, or as it is correctly known, the Suhr Standard Plus. This is a SSH configuration using Suhr's proven SSCII hum cancellation circuit. Mine is a rich red, a colour no longer listed. Which is good for me because it's freaking lovely. I love Suhr guitars, they are just so perfect right out of the box. I have this one and a custom shop Modern that my friend Andrew Lai down at Cosmo Music got built for me about ten years ago. Anyhow, the Suhr sounds great on its own, and although it is a humbucker in the bridge position, does not get all thickened up. I found it a bit too bright with the YOMI into the clean channel, but into the ultra gain channel on the Marshall with the Boost backed off and the EQ switch in the middle position it was really singing with any of the pickup configurations. I have found some pedals only work well with humbuckers while others only work well with single coils. Good to know that the YOMI handles single coils very well.

Obviously there is a lot more to do with the pedal. I want to put it into the pedal rig for my AC30 and try pushing P90s or P100s through it or one of the PRS guitars with the coils tapped. I've got a couple of very old CE bolt neck models that have the old five way rotary switch that sound awesome.

I had seen Mick and Dan on That Pedal Show covering treble boosters and while they did not cover the YOMI, I thought it was interesting that Mick concluded that if you run into a Marshall stack, a treble booster should be on your board. Brian May uses the Red Special into AC30s, and Tony Iommi played SGs into Laneys. BTW did you know that Mr. Laney was in a band before building amps? It was called the Band of Joy and included two other fellows who became rather famous, a Mr. Robert Plant and a Mr. John Bonham.

Thanks for reading and until next time, play on!