Revenant’s Sam Lay & Matt Hudson: Victory Amps, Quad Cortex, & the Art of Keeping It Simple
There’s a particular satisfaction in catching a band on the last night of a tour. The nerves are gone, the setup is dialled in, and the gear has been road-tested to within an inch of its life. That’s exactly where MNPR found Sam Lay and Matt Hudson from UK rock band Revenant – wrapping up their support slot with US southern-rockers Preacher Stone and generous enough to walk us through every bit of kit holding their live sound together.
What emerged was a masterclass in how two guitarists with very different approaches to tone can build a rig that is greater than the sum of its parts.
The Guitars
Sam’s number one is a PRS Custom 24 SE – the 2026 model – and by his own admission, he came to PRS relatively late. About three months before this tour, he took the plunge, and it’s safe to say the relationship has stuck. The guitar is completely stock, equipped with a universal coil split on the tone control, a three-way pickup selector, and a trim that Sam was clearly delighted to have. A Telecaster also lives in the rack for when the moment calls for it.
Strings are courtesy of endorsement partners Rotosound — a set of 9 to 46s.
Matt’s weapon of choice is a wine red Gibson Explorer that he’s had for roughly the same amount of time, and the feeling was immediate. The Explorer isn’t stock – it’s been loaded with Seymour Duncan pickups (installed by Moose from Sons of Liberty, who apparently holds the technical knowledge in this particular arrangement) and fitted with a push-pull pot, giving Matt the ability to thin out the sound and chase something closer to a Fender when the song calls for it.
“As soon as I started playing it, I was like – yeah, this is just really comfortable,” Matt says. “And this colour is beautiful.”
He plays Rotosound 10 to 52s, swears by the extra grip and tension, and pulls out a Gibson Flying V for the drop D material later in the set – a practical concession to not lugging a heavy Explorer around for the final stretch of the evening.
The Amp Story
Both Sam and Matt are endorsed by Victory Amps. Sam runs a Victory Jack, Matt a Victory Kraken, and both amps form the bedrock of their live sound – a point neither of them is shy about making.
The decision to keep real amplifiers at the centre of their rig wasn’t accidental. Feedback, feel, and the kind of organic response you can only get from a speaker moving air in the room – these things matter to Revenant, and a conversation about the Quad Cortex can’t begin without acknowledging that the Victories come first.
“The bass of our sound is the Victory,” Sam is clear on that. “The QC is for the effects.”
There’s also a very specific reason they hold onto the amps for as long as they do in a set. One song demands a held note that blooms into feedback. It’s the kind of moment that keeps them reaching for the real thing.
Four-Cable Magic
That said, the Neural DSP Quad Cortex is doing a remarkable amount of heavy lifting in both rigs – just not in the way you might expect.
Inspired by watching Rabea Massaad demonstrate the four-cable method, Sam built the band’s entire live signal chain around that approach. The guitar feeds into the QC, output three sends the signal into the front of the amp, and a separate loop runs through the amp’s effects send and return. The result is a rig where the Victory and the Quad Cortex are genuinely working together rather than one standing in for the other.
For certain songs, Sam swaps out the Victory preamp entirely – modelling a Friedman for the drop D material, and a Mesa/Boogie Lone Star for tracks from their EP Healer and BDSM (Black Dogs and Sad Men). A Neural DSP Pliny plugin also makes an appearance, along with delay on a volume pedal, building a layered patch that moves well beyond simple amp modelling.
Matt’s approach leans toward simplicity, and he’s the first to say so. He knows exactly how many sounds he needs per song, has them mapped cleanly across his patches, and trusts the setup to work so that he can focus on the performance.
Rhythm on the amp clean, a QC overdrive for the riff, a chorus, and then a pushed lead sound with delay. Job done. On top of that, a Cowboys from Hell wah pedal handles the solo duties – because, as Matt puts it, he’s a massive Metallica fan and every solo gets the wah treatment. The sound engineers, apparently, take a different view.
“I want to be focusing on what we’re doing rather than what sound I’ve got on,” Matt explains. “It just makes my life simple.”
Built for the Road
One of the quieter selling points of the whole setup – and one that clearly gives both players peace of mind – is the insurance it provides for fly dates. With their amp tones captured on the Quad Cortex, Revenant can walk onto a stage anywhere in the world, run a straight XLR out, and sound like themselves. The Victories make the show. The QC’s make the contingency plan.
It’s a thoughtful, touring-musician’s approach to a technology that a lot of players are still figuring out – and in Revenant’s hands, it sounds like they’ve had it sorted for a while.
