Review license provided by Nembrini Audio – All thoughts and opinion’s within this review are my own and do not reflect those of the developer or others.

INTRO

Hiwatt is one of those amps you just have to play to understand. Crafted when the demand for louder amps was at a high. It was founded and the amps designed by Dave Reeves. His goal, to fulfill not only the need for louder amps but to meet the rugged demands of profession touring musician. It was built like a tank and hand-wired using only the finest quality military grade components of the time.

The Hiwatt DR103 was a culmination of his designs. While it had a resemblance to the Marshall Superlead visually, this was where the similarities ended. It was louder but cleaner than the Marshall. Comparatively punchier with richer harmonics and tons of headroom, the Superlead felt thin in comparison of tone.

Hiwatt quickly gained popularity, made famous by many musicians such as Pete Townshend of The Who and Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd. It would cement its legacy and join Orange, Marshall and Vox as the amps that shaped the British sound, and rock and roll as we know it today.

The HiVolt 103 Custom is Nembrini Audio’s take on this iconic amplifier. Based on a Vintage 1970 Hiwatt DR103, this plugin promises to deliver all the character and sonic glory. Let’s dive in and check it out.

Experience

On opening the plugin for the first time, the unmistakable imagery of a Hiwatt amp can be seen and it looks great. Sounds great out of the box without adjusting anything. The output was slightly high for my purposes, but it was easy to switch to the secondary screen and adjust from there along with the input as needed.

The layout of the amp is what you would expect, 4 inputs with 2 channels, normal and bright. Each channel has an independent Volume control and shared bass, middle and treble EQ.  Each channel, in relation to the inputs, have a hi(bottom) and low(top) sensitivity input and a link toggle to jump the channels. There is a shared presence control and master control to keep the gain in check or unleash it depending on the demand.

Normal Channel

This channel is less bright and there for sounds like it has more low-end. One would assume this channel would be somewhat muddy sounding, but it retains much of the clarity and richness of the bright channel. It sounds thicker, fuller and a little smoother with less bite and grit than the bright channel.

It cleans up very well when rolling off the guitar volume with the channel volume set high, but also cleans up well with the channel volume turned down and the guitar turned up. Using the low sensitivity input will reduce perceivable volume and gain and mellow out the tone more. The master volume is great for controlling the overall volume of the amp but also the overdrive characteristics of the power tubes at higher volumes.

This channel is also great for throwing pedals in front to add some flavor and variety of tone. Add some delay and reverb with some chorus and a little phaser to a clean tone to get a Dave Gilmour type clean ambient tone. Throwing in a tube screamer in front can help tighten up the low end and get a nice rock tone. Using the Clon Minotaur from NA gives a smoother boost alternative for a more bluesy tone. Works great with fuzz for stoner rock and doom.

Overall, this channel is great for clean work, edge of breakup tones and rock rhythm work. Using the Hi sensitivity input, I mostly kept the normal volume between 10 and 2 o’clock and adjusted my guitar volume to get clean to break up tones. I cut the low end to about 9-10 o’clock, kept the mid at noon and set the treble and presence around 2-3 o’clock. The master volume was adjusted to taste to add in or take out the power tube breakup.

Bright Channel

This channel is brighter, as the name implies thus it has audibly less perceivable low end. It has great clarity, sparkle and is a little more honky. It has a little more grit and bite which is great for rock tones, but it can still clean-up for shimmering cleans.

Set the Master volume and bright volume to noon for a clean to light breakup. Turning the master volume up to add in the power tube break up and gives a nice smooth distorted tone, great for blues. Alternatively setting the master to about 2 o’clock and turning up bright volume gives a slightly grittier rock tone. Turning both volumes all the way up brings all the rich harmonics, sustain and distortion for a great hard hitting dirty tone.

Just like the normal channel, it plays well with pedals. Tube screamer, Rat, Klon, Fuzz, you name it, it will take it. For lead work a little delay and reverb goes a long way.

Channels Jumped/linked

By toggling the link switch, the normal and bright channels become linked or jumped together to allow for blending of the channels. It has all the in-your-face grit of the bright channel with all the low-end thump to blend in or vice versa. With the channels linked I preferred to set the master first with the other 2 volumes set to noon and once I was happy with the master volume, adjust the other 2 to taste.

For my needs the sweet spot was about 10 O’clock for the normal volume and about 2 O’clock for the bright volume with the Master set to about 3 O’clock. This allowed for a great gritty Pete Townshend type tone but left enough headroom to roll back the guitar volume for lighter breakup and even clean-ish tones on the fly. I also found that using the Clon Minotaur in front with modest settings, smoothed out the overall tone.

Cabinet

There’s a great selection of cabinets to choose from, many familiar to previous plugins by Nembrini Audio. Now I was slightly disappointed to find that the plugin didn’t have the matching Fane loaded WEM Starfinder cab but quickly forgot about it with the VH 4×12 P50E, which compliments this amp really well. It’s modeled from a VHT 4×12 loaded with Eminence P50E speakers, and it sounds awesome.

Each cab has 2 mics with a choice between dynamic 57, Ribbon 121, Condenser 414, and dynamic 421, each with the ability to set off axis if needed. Mics 1 and 2 each have a volume fader, can be solo’d or muted, and have a phase button to help with phasing issues. Along with mic 1 and 2 there is also an Ambient mic, which can be adjusted to add some room vibe and body to the cabinet sound. It all works great and very easy to use.

Great options all around for voicing the HiVolt, and the cabinets are fully bypass-able for use with a third party cabinet/impulse loader.

Impulse Loader

It can load up to 3 Impulse responses simultaneously using the impulse loader. Each IR will have a dedicated volume fader control, as well as mute, solo and phase buttons. There is a good selection of factory Impulses that come with it, most notably including new IR’s from Nembrini Audio, which sound great.

In addition to the factory IRs, the Impulse loader allows the use of third-party IR’s or can be bypassed for use with a third-party Impulse loader, which are always a nice options to have.

Noise Gate & Cleaner

These are straight forward and simple to use. The cleaner has 2 controls, Rumble which can be used for low-end frequencies when they get a little out of hand, and the Harsh control can be used to handle high frequencies when needed. It comes in handy for shaping the final sound without having to do anything in the post processing.

The noise gate does exactly what a noise gate should, it handles the hiss and noise well, without getting in the way of note clarity and sustain while playing. I like to use my guitar volume to clean up or add in breakup to my tone, so having a gate that doesn’t cut off notes at lower volumes is important, it’s a great tool to have in the box.

UPS/DOWNS

The amp sounds great, it is accompanied by an excellent selection of cabinets. My only complaint here was the lack of the matching Fane loaded Hiwatt cab, but I understand it’s not always easy get a matching cab and truly the included VH 4×12 P90E is great and more than makes up for it.

The cleaner and noise gate are great tools for fine tuning and cleaning up the tone, without getting in the way on recording or enjoying playing/practicing.

The Impulse loader is functional and gets the job done, the included impulse responses work and sound good, my personal favorites where the Nembrini Audio made ones, and would definitely like to see more in house impulses in the future.

The price is standard for the industry at $137 and as usually if you get it during the introduction period the intro price is just $39.99. It’s also available on IOS devices through the app store – its price is $19.99 regularly and there is a $9.99 intro price as well.

Conclusion

Its Rock n Roll, from Dave Gilmour to Pete Townshend or Jimmy Page, it’s not hard to find a great tone with the HiVolt 103 Custom. There is very little in terms of distraction here, just great tones. This is based on a piece of rock history, and I think it does the real amp justice, Nembrini Audio did a phenomenal job with this one. If you’re not sure it’s for you, go check it out, Nembrini Audio offers a fully unrestricted 14-day trial version.

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See more – release video from Nembrini Audio

Hear more – Audio Clips from Nembrini Audio

Legal Disclaimer:

Hiwatt DR103 is a registered trademark of Hiwatt Electronics Ltd. Hivolt 103 was developed by Nembrini Audio SRL based on its own modelling techniques. Hiwatt Electronics Ltd has not endorsed nor sponsored the Hivolt 103 in any manner, nor licensed any intellectual property for use in this product.