In this video I’m checking out the Victory MKX—before it even hits the public—and I didn’t just noodle on it in the studio. I took it on stage and gigged it with my loud ‘90s/2000s rock cover band, because that’s where amps either make sense or fall apart. I walk through the layout (it’s a two-channel amp, but the drive side has Gain 1 and Gain 2), the shared gain EQ, the dual master setup with a footswitchable solo boost, plus the spring/hall reverb with separate mix and decay controls. Tone-wise, the clean channel is absurdly high-headroom for a lunchbox—super smooth and chimey without that annoying top-end harshness you get on a lot of higher-gain amps. Gain 1 is more laid-back and smoother than what I’m used to on the Kraken, so for my kind of crunch I ended up boosting it a lot. Gain 2 gets filthy, and the gain structure reminded me of my SLO: the sweet spot is around 9–11 o’clock, and past that it gets fatter more than it gets “more gain.” Biggest takeaway from the gig: it’s big, beefy, and full, so I had to pull bass/mids and push treble/presence to get it biting and sitting right with another guitar and a bass player. Also—secret weapon—crank the channel volume and keep the master lower for a nastier snarl up top.