Hughes & Kettner Cream Machine, 1W Tube Guitar Amp, Preamp, Overdrive Pedal, Nice!

At the THD factory, we are going through our shelves and cleaning house a bit, so there are a lot of interesting things coming for sale. Keep an eye on our listings.

Up for sale is a very cool product from Hughes & Kettner in Germany. We showed next to them at NAMM one year, and were pretty impressed by this device, so we bought one. It didn’t get used much, but always sounded really good for very low volume overdrive. It’s in very good shape, except for a few scratches on the bottom. It even has the original tubes, which still work well. It has not functional problems or issues and is ready to make someone else’s bedroom playing dreams come true.

To quote the Hughes & Kettner website:

Overview

The Cream Machine is basically a low wattage high-gain Marshall valve amplifier in miniature and is used to produce that classic over-driven British rock guitar tone.  Just crank the controls around to the level of distortion required, from a very smooth cream mode to when cranked a full sounding mini Marshall.

The Cream Machine is a 1W - two valve (12AX7 & 12AU7)
low-power pre-amplifier & amplifier combo in a super compact enclosure designed to produce guitar distortion tones. It was the first small recording tube-base amp produced. The Hughes & Kettner electronics construction is top-rate German quality.

The Cream Machine is not best for clean tones - it is designed to produce Marshall style amp distortion. For clean tones use a Cream Machine in sequence with a Crunch Master (Blues Master) and have the Crunch Master provide the clean tones and act as the power amp to drive the speakers.

This little marvel is a small powerhouse that will surprise you
with its apparent volume from just 1 watt, which has enough power to drive a  4 x 12 speaker cabinet. The advantage of the Cream Machine is that it drives when cranked a speaker cab around 20 decibels quieter than a 100 watt Marshall amp.  

It is very difficult to get a good guitar sound in a recording
studio from a 100 watt Marshall amp because recording gear downstream of microphones can get overloaded when the amp is operating at distortion sound levels.  The Cream Machine does a great job of emulating Marshall tube amps at reasonable volumes, which makes it ideal to record British cranked tones.  The sound produced is in a range that fits in perfectly with recording and is more pleasing for sound engineers.

The Cream Machine has many interfaces compared to low power amps in current production, such as the Nano Head, which makes it better suited for use in recording environments than most current alternative products.

It also has the right interfaces to function as a over driven tube effect unit in a live playing environment. On the other hand, for miked low power guitar amps there are quite a number of brands on the market that are very nice, but they tend to be much more expensive than purchasing a Cream Machine on the used market.

Limitations

• It lacks an preamp equalizer section (it was never intended
  to be a complete guitar amp)
• It does not have DI balanced XLR Out
• No effects loop

Common Uses

• Produce overdrive tones at sane volume
• Distortion recording amp
• Low power distortion practice amp
• Miked distortion amp simulator
• Over-driven tube amp effect (used in place of effect pedal)
• DI box

Thrashy Distortion

• Put a distortion pedal in front and will react as a full-size tube amplifier
  
  Notes
  

• German engineering with quality components
• 1W power output is not loud enough to feed  a 4x12 cab at band rehearsal
• Cabinet emulator is a bit darker sounding than the Hughes  & Kettner Redbox

Specifications
Preamp Tube (Valve)

• 12AX7

Power Tube (Valve)

• 12AU7 power valve

Power  Output

• 1W output @ 8 ohms

Front Indicator Lights

• Bypass LED: When lit bypass is enabled
  

• Power LED: When lit the unit is powered
  
  

Inputs

• Front 1/4" input jack
• Rear 1/4" input jack

Controls
Pre-gain Control                
          The amount of overdrive into the "tube amp" section
   
Master Level Control
          Controls the overall output volume

Tube Amp Control (On Back)
          Works with the two other controls to sweeten the sound

Connections (1/4" Jacks)

•  Speaker
•  Foot switch
• Tube amp out
•  Instrument out
•  Mix out
•  Cabinetlator mix out
•  Inputs (One each - front and back)

Tone Character

• Heavy distorted lead
• Mellow overdriven sound

The Cream Machine is meant to sound like a heavily over-driven Marshall valve amp and it indeed creates great valve distortion tones.  

At low volume levels, with the gain set high you can get feedback normally requiring very loud amplification.

At high gain control settings the Cream Machine is very sensitive to input gain and a slight touch of the strings will produce an over-driven growl if the volume on the guitar is set too high. It works best to control gain using the guitar gain knob to drive the level of the Cream Machine effect required. In this setting the Cream Machine volume is set to the desired level speaker output level. Then the gain control is brought up until it produces the desired crunch. The trigger point is then controlled with the guitar volume.

It will be packed very carefully, with lots of protective bubble wrap, in an oversized box.

This item comes with a 48-hour approval period. If, within the 48-hour period, you decide that it is not for you, simply return it in the same condition as we sent it out, with full insurance, and we will refund your purchase price, minus shipping to you and a 10% restocking fee. Buyer pays return shipping.

TERMS, PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: Buyer pays selling price plus shipping and insurance. I typically ship with USPS, UPS or FedEx, though other arrangements can be made at the buyer's request. No fee is charged for packing or handling. I will gladly ship anywhere in the world, but beware, international shipping charges can be steep, and the buyer is responsible for all duties, taxes, VAT, brokerage and storage fees on their end. Please contact me with any questions.