Storm

Guitar player and amp tech review This amp is at least valuable for its originality being a single ended 6L6. Playing A class amps gives a special feeling, especially at low volume, but basses are frequently missing on 4W ones with EL84. This one gives more punch with 7.5W RMS clean headroom on the bench with dummy load. Speaker is only good for loosing screws saver magnet. Cabinet is from laminated wood (!!!) Prononced hum because of Power and Output transformers proximity. Moving it away from only few inches solves it. Preamp choices are questionable, but driving a full tone stack with only one ECC83 don't allow any room for building decent overdrive. Output transformer is massive and have good bass response for its kind (SE). Very weird 10k negative feedback implementation on a full bypassed cathode 2d stage. Don't serve any purpose at all. Hopefuly I guess. Need a good speaker, and eventualy a cold/hot switch on bias to preserve the 6L6, and with one more preamp tube building the overdrive and driving the tone stack properly with a cathode follower you'll have an home and small club gigs killing machine.

(Originally written by virusugly/translated from Audiofanzine FR) - Bolt-on rosewood neck - 22 medium frets - Basswood body - 2 high-output humbuckers - 3-way toggle switch and 3 controls: 1 for volume and 2 for tone - Black finish - LP Allblack body shaping UTILIZATION The neck is comfortable but it's a bit too round for playing chords. Easy access to upper frets up to the 20th fret. I find the body a bit too thick compared to an Ibanez Art 120 WH. It's no Ibanez, nevertheless it's the best Storm there is. The sound is good. The guitar stays in tune except for the low B which I'm tuning all the day long. IT'S BORING. SOUNDS It has a huge and warm sound The clean sound is very clear and extremely deep. OVERALL OPINION I bought it because I was looking for a guitar with a powerful, fat, warm sound. The bolt-on neck gives a punchy sound but it doesn't stay in tune if you tune it to B or even D. It's a guitar for beginners. For good recordings, you'll have to upgrade the pickups and replace the machine heads with self-locking ones.

I have have owned loads of guitars over 40 years. Today the standard of manufacturing of low price guitars has greatly increased. However, this guitar was built with a fault. It has set neck, and the neck angle is insufficient. Hence the bridge was already cranked down to lowest point, and action still to high by a long way. This could not be corrected with truss rod because the neck straightens too much. It was necessary to remove the bridge, drill the body and refit it lower to make the action as it should be. This is the reason I do not give the guitar 4 stars. However, the guitar plays very well, neck is nice and intonation good. Most surprising to me, was how good the pickups are. I usually expect to remove and replace immediately, but these are pretty useable, and Im leaving them in for now. The SG is a super-versatile guitar, and this is a nice one. Certainly nicer than the POS Epiphone with bolt-on neck and solid red finish I saw before I bought this, which was the nastiest looking "copy" (can you call it that when its still made by Gibson?) I have ever seen. I am using it for everything - rock, jazz, ballad. Not the best, but a really enjoyable guitar. Later addition: I have now had this guitar a week, and I have increased the rating to four stars, as I felt 3 did not give a good enough impression of this guitar. Despite the modification I had to do, the guitar exceeds my expectations. The pickups are great for this price, and the guitar is a joy to play. I would recommend.

The Storm PG 200 itself is strong sounding. In fact, it's too strong for me. That said, it sounded great, and it played even better. I really love these Storm guitars for whatever reason. This can be really hard to find, and I've only seen one for sale in my entire life (and that was at my store). If you're a Storm lover and find one, I recommend jumping on it They are all made in Korea but like I said you can find them online too easy. I have try eBay and Craig list looking for another one. UTILIZATION You will get a great sound on the easy to reach last frets with out a doubt. SOUNDS The guitar sounded good with the Evolution pickups installed. They had this real nice bite going on, but the body wood helped cut down on that bite. That said, there were some overtones that I wasn't too crazy about, and I think that was due to the ebony fretboard. Just something to think about. The neck pickup was super clear and powerful, but I was able to achieve a nice, singing lead tone with it without too much of an issue. The pickups split nicely with the middle pickup. I had no problems getting that "in between" kind of sound to get that Hendrix-esque kind of tone. OVERALL OPINION The guitar itself was put together amazingly well. There were no issues when it comes to the binding. It was super clean, and it really stood out. The pick guard was odd, but it had some character to it, I guess. The fretwork on this was top notch. The edges were nice and beveled, and the frets were perfectly crowned. I was able to get some super sick low action on this without any issues at all. The neck joint was nice and tight, and bridge felt awesome. I suggest to start looking to find one of these. If you are lucky enough to get it, then don’t hesitate.

The sound of the Storm PG 400 is one that really rips and cuts through well. I can't think of any guitars that I would really compare it to, but I guess the closest thing would be something like a less crunchy SG, if anything at all. I've used the amp with a Fender tube amplifier and no effects or anything. In fact, we were really just using the guitar part as a scratch guitar with a full band. Nonetheless, the sound that we achieved with this guitar was still awesome even though it was a bare bones type of thing. I'd love to be able to experiment more with the pick up selector, as I think there is a lot that you can do with it. UTILIZATION I'm not sure how hard it would be to get your hands on the Storm PG 400 , but to me it doesn't seem like there are too many of them out there. They stopped making them before the 1970's were done and haven't made any of them since or even put out a reissue. Hopefully someday they will decide to reissue the guitar as I think it is a bit of a gem and that a lot of people would love it. Absolutely recommended for anyone who loves a great sounding and feeling guitar. SOUNDS The sounds range from blues ( if we keep the original microphone) to the villain and the most serious possible (a requirement to change the microphone). Originally the Storm PG 400 should get the same sound that Les Paul, (thanks to the 6 position switch), but I have a Start,and a Les Paul and it does not sound the same. The sounds are original and very different, OVERALL OPINION Overall, a great classic axe that will give you that hard metal sound of the 80’s! So if thats the sound your looking for i suggest looking around online for the Storm PG 400 they can go for pretty cheap online.

(Originally written by Makos/translated from Audiofanzine FR) Grand concert (or mini jumbo) electro-acoustic guitar. Surely made in China. - Massive spruce top Rosewood back and sides - Nato (or mahogany) neck... nato is a kind of mahogany anyway. Rosewood fingerboard. - Standard sealed lubricated machine heads Piezo pickup + body pickup. 3-band EQ + presence + body/piezo pickup balance control. - Integrated chromatic tuner. - Bronze D'Addario strings. Nice satin finish with elegant body binding. The instrument offers a lot of value considering the price. (massive spruce top and rosewood!!!) The guitar is supplied with a good quality gig bag. UTILIZATION Funny enough the price of the guitar is affordable for beginners but the string action is rather high, which makes it difficult to play. It's not a problem for me since I also play a gypsy guitar ;-) Pleasant neck, well-balanced instrument. The medium frets are well manufactured. The cutaway allows a good access to the upper frets. The machine heads allow the guitar to stay in tune. The integrated tuner is an advantage because the manual mode allows you to use open tunings (unlike the standard EADGBE tuning)... nice and convenient. SOUNDS The sound is amazing! The guitar sounds really good. The massive top is one of the main reasons the sound i so good. The mids are well-balanced and the lows are very present but not overemphasized so the overall sound balance is good. The highs are crystal-clear. It's exactly the sound I expected from this guitar. I can bet you that it will keep on sounding better as it ages and that the sound balance will be enhanced after a few months. The electro-acoustic sound is good. The piezo pickup does a good job. If you try to mix both pickups you'll need to use headphones because otherwise you get feedbacks really fast. But the possibility to mix both pickups using headphones is very interesting. The sound of the body pickup minimizes the cold and straight sound of the piezo. The 3-band EQ is effective. The guitar provides two different outputs. 1/4" jack and XLR... OVERALL OPINION I bought this "small" guitar after reading an excellent review. It got a very good mark. And the editor was right. The sound/finish/price ratio is excellent. You get a lot more value than you pay for. As I already wrote before, it's not exactly a guitar for beginners because of the high string action. But it will seduce any guitarist looking for a good electro-acoustic guitar. And I guess the sound will only get better considering the wood quality. To wrap it up: it's an excellent deal.