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Archive for the ‘Guitar Amplifiers’ Category

We guitarists are weird creatures, some of us are all gadgets an gizmo’s, with racks like the Starship Enterprise and pedalboards and multi fx units all blinking lights (The Edge for example), others are the opposite Beaten up old guitar into beaten up old amp via curly lead (Bernie Marsden/BB King et al).

Now Im not knocking either approach as to me both are valid ways to go if the end result is excellent. But Ive been thinking recently about the idea of choice and choices in the modern world. I guess this started with me looking to upgrade my Digital SLR camera amnd realising there were only 2 or 3 serious choices at best Nikon, Canon, used or new etc.

We guitarists are very lucky though, there are literally hundereds of gear options available from a plethora of manafacturers and quite frankly in this age of cheap foreign labour and CNC manafacturing (nearly) all of these options are affordable to the average player.

However at a social event the other week I was introduced to another guitarist and of course (as usual) the talk turned to our guitars, gear, our own experiences and stuff we liked or disliked. Then this chap threw a great question in the mix….. to name my dream amplifier in an ideal world.

Now this got me thinking, as a long time Marshall user (JCM2000/JCM800/Jubilee & Artiste combos, plus my brief sojurn with a JMP-1 rack based system) I realised that what I’d really want isnt actually made by Marshall, well not in the form I’d want it.

I find this strange as Marshall have launched loads of products in the last 3 years and currently their offering is bigger than its ever been. But my ideal amp is strangely not there.

So here goes from Fantasy amp land the Marshall Jez Sullivan JS50+ 2 x 12 combo.

The specs are all stuff Marshall currently make, so if anyone from Marshall is reading this I suggest you knock one up now.

Cabinet: Bluesbreaker style birch ply cab (this has a bigger physical Mass than Marshalls current 2 x 12 cab and so will deliver a lot more low end, so a 4 x 12 cab player like me will find it less of a compromise and also with the open back, will get a bigger spread onstage at a smaller gig.)

Chassis: Essentially a DSL 50 50 watt 2 x 12 EL34 based amp, but with a couple of tweeks to my taste…..such as

1: Switchable gain stage on the dirty channel like the DSL401 combo

2: A Parrallel FX loop, serial loops are rubbish and offer less tonal control over the effected signal. Why people even try to use them is absolutely beyond me

3: 1 Clelestion Vintage 30 Speaker and 1 Celestion G75 (for a great combination of vintage and modern tones)

4: A seperate midrange switch on the extra gain stage as this will likely be the only EQ stage choice you need between channels

I’d retail these for around £1000GBP and you know what…..

I think they’d sell…. and not just to me….fucking loads.

The idea of having a vintage style Marshall that looks not only classic, but with more features and juice under the hood would be an absolute winner, think about it. All guitarists (guys in Function/Covers bands who need versatility in a smaller format. Guys on the toilet circuit who want the tone to come from the amp rather than additional pedals. Indie Schmindie guys who want the reliability and tone, but don’t want the “Metal ” image….etc etc. Baby Boomer guitarists who can spend a grand or two on a Mesa Boogie and go on about the good old days with their JTM 45 and how they once had a fight with Clapton down the Dog & Duck in Peckham in 1967 or whatever). Hell I even thought of a name for it

The “Hot-Breaker”, Son of Bluesbreaker, all the heritage, all the tone, all the Marshall….

Now I really really dont understand why Marshall dont make something like this as it would be a great competitor to all the boutique combos out there, but then I had a quick scan of the marshall range and really what there doing now is reacting to trends rather than setting them.

Take the last few big Marshall amps to have come out

Vintage Modern – Single channel front end with gain stage you can back off (Not unlike a Cornford Richie Kotzen me thinks)

JVM410 – 4 channel, Hi gain multi modes, midi switching (Did anyone say er Diezel VH4….er….. cough)

Class 5 Combo – Its one thing to have your employees leave and start their own company (Blackstar), but really making a competitor to their best selling amp the Blackstar HT-5 just reeks of pettyness.

Thing is to me Marshall should really not worry about the competition and just build amps that people want. Its a tough market now and with the likes of Bogner deciding to go mass Market with their chinese made Alchemist series. Perhaps the boys and girls of Bletchley should start to once again set some trends rather than following them.

Lots of OMG shock horror on various guitar forums at the moment. Joe Satriani has apparently decided to dump his longstanding endorsement of Peavey amps and use Marshall JVM410’s on the upcoming tour of the new “Supergroup” Chickenfoot. Despite having the Peavey JSX signature series heads made to his exacting specifications, Satriani has decided to go for the new(ish) 4 channel head from marshall.

Now lots of people are pointing out quite correctly that Satch doesnt actually use the 2 distortion channels on his own amps & instead uses his own signature distortion pedal, made by Vox…. The Satchurator through his Peaveys clean channel and that its unlikely that there will be much difference in tone through the clean channel of a JVM.

Whatever the reason its good news for Marshall, who, thanks to the exchange rate and a much revamped product line, seem to be regaining ground lost in recent years. But all this news has done to my mind is point out the absolute nonsense surrounding Endorsement deals and the “signature” product industry as a whole.

Its quite common knowledge that a guitarist may be endorsing one brand of amplifier or guitar, while actually using another. The biggest culprits for this racket must surely be Laney & Crate, who whenever I see the artists in their adverts onstage its usually with another brand of amplifier. When Oceansize mentioned how good Laney were in a recent issue of Guitarist, it was embarrissing to see in the accompanying pictures of their backline a Marshall JCM2000 head perched atop a Laney 4 x12 in the background. Crate are also comical in the way most of their endorsers either endorse cabinets only and use another brand of amp ( Marcos Curiel from POD with a Mesa dual rectifier) or just practise amps (Lita Ford/Yngwie Malmsteen). In the early 90’s Bon Jovi’s Ritchie Sambora had a wall of Fender Tonemaster heads onstage and hidden behind them 5 rackmounted Marshall JCM800’s . Even Status Quo allegedly have Vox AC30 chassis built into Marshall JCM cabinets.

The biggest pisstakers in all this though are a tie between

1: Metallica – Kirk Hammetts new signature Randall Head isn’t all he uses, he still confesses to using Boogies live, with the bulk of his tone being created by Triaxis preamps and Dual Rectifiers again, and while James Hetfield talked to Guitarist mag about using a Diezel VH4 as the main amp in the woeful “St. Anger “sessions. His producer Bob Rock told Guitar world it was all done with a Marshall DSL100. Not that I imagine they’d be queuing up to admit to that one…..Ahem.

2: Eddie Van Halen – THe 5150 brand is now ubiquitous, with products made by Fender, Dunlop, Peavey, Musicman & Kramer. The big problem here is while Eddie is a legend, do you really want to buy equipment from a man who hasn’t written anything decent for 17+ years & made all his greatest work on a “parts” guitar costing $50 & an old Marshall plexi?

As with guitars it gets even weirder. Despite having longstanding endorsements with PRS & Gibson. The one guitar Rush’s Alex Lifeson has used as his main recording guitar for the last 2 decades is a decidedly non collectable 52 reissue telecaster. Lifeson bought it in 83 and its on pretty much every Rush record since then.

Obviously a musician has the right to use whatever he or she feels does the job best. But in this world of massive advertising campaigns and marketing hyperbole. It’d be nice to see some honesty rather than PR for a change.

Buy the Marshall JVM410 Head at zZounds.com – click here

Well I’ve finally tried a JVM410 head so here goes….

Overall the construction is the usual Marshall….birch ply cab, steel chassis, black tolex. Marshall have abandoned the slimline plastic vents and gone back to the JCM800/900 style top vent.

The back panel has both a serial & parrallel FX loops, the parrallel has a level control and the speaker connectors actually have a guide to how to connect regarding ohm..age and the like, so the chances of blowing up the head through misconnection are pretty much nil.

The controls are remisniscent of a TSL100, however the mode buttons do look a bit plasticy & naff, other than that minor point, it looks like it means business.

The big plus of this 4 channel multi mode head, is its user interface. Someone at Marshall has clearly realised that although theres a generation who’ve grown up on multi FX and line 6 pods, many guitarists will be intimidated by an amp head with 28 controls on its front panel.So everything is very simple to use. The fact its programmable means it can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be

By pressing the 1st button on the 6 function footswitch you can access channel ones clean sound, tap it again and it goes to amber mode, which provides a nice tight clean which was almost Fender twinish, tap again and in red mode theirs a nice almost breaking up type clean. Kinda country ish. Its possible to go through the first four buttons this way and access each channel and each mode, as well as solo boost and reverb.
The test guitar, a burstbucker equipped Les Paul gave all the right noises on the Crunch channel. The usual ‘Classic’ Rock type sounds are all there, But if anything I thought they were a bit subdued.

OD1 is probably the best channel as far as distortion goes, using the modes I was able to get some pretty good sounds, it was like a TSL only slightly more refined as regarding the articulation of individual notes, especially at the lower end. Big riffs sounded big and well defined. Amber mode on OD1 was superb. A big modern hi gain crunch with plenty of low end definition. All the Tool/Deftones type sounds are here.

OD2 Would be good for soloing, personally I found it way over gained for riffing, but I imagine if Metal’s your thing then you’d spend all day on this channel. But tonally it was more kinda Randall-ish, more transistorised sounding. I guess if your into Hatebreed/Pantera et al this channel is for you.

The footswitch interacts with all the front panel controls, so its possible to set them up anyway you wish, in addition the dual master volumes are a godsend, beside solo boosts I think the ability to raise your channel volume mid song at a gig a realistic benefit for sure. The footswitch’s functionality means you could have the whole gig programmed up on it. Or if you’ve rack mounted FX or a midi compatible multi effect. You could really go to town, it would be like having a JMP-1 in a power amp. The other big plus is by using a 1/4″ jack cable to link the footswitch to the amp, if it does fail its quickly replaceable. As someone who’s had a few failiures with the TSL’s 5 way switch, this feature is long overdue.

Instead of the JCM2000’s scoop and deep switches we get the mosfet powered resonance control from the Mode 4, using this and the prescence controls along with each channels 3 band EQ, I was able to get a fairly wide range of tones. No it doesn’t sound like a Boogie, but the whole point is that it sounds like a Marshall.

The accutronics reverb of earlier Marshalls has been replaced by a digital plate. This is actually sensible as it reduced weight and does not make a rattling noise when the amp is in the back of a car/van. I also imagine it assists in keeping the retail price down as well.

My overall impression is of a good solid working mans valve head, essentially this is a refined TSL. My only criticism is the front panel, its too busy, I think if Marshall had gone for one set of global programmable gain-bass-mid-treble-channel volume controls like the H & K Switchblade, then this amp would only have around half the control knobs and retain all of the functions. Somehow too many buttons don’t go with a Marshall in my humble opinion.

However the price is the real Killer, the RRP of £899 translates to £750-879 in the real world. The only amp that comes anywhere close in specification at this price is the H&K switchblade although thats not as good for ‘Classic rock’ type tones and won’t hold its residual value quite as well.

Overall this is an impressive package, the tones alone are good, but the way the JVM interacts with the user is worth the price of admission alone.

Buy the Marshall JVM410 Head at zZounds.com - click here

Edit: Marshall JVM 410 Head Review now available!

Marshall have finally announced the TSL100’s successor. The Marshall JVM (named after Jim & Victoria Marshall, his daughter & current MD) comes as either a 100watt head or 100watt 2 x 12 combo. The features look mighty impressive for the money.

Basically  its all valve (4 x EL34s, 5x ECC83 preamp tubes)

4 channels, Clean, Crunch, OD1, OD2

3 modes on each channel, these are all switchable, so thats 12 sounds in all or 128 if you’ve got a midi switcher.

Digital Reverb

1 Parallel FX loop (maybe my emails bitching to them all these years about the 2 effects loops on the TSL100 worked after all)

Dual Master volume, so you can up the volume at the touch of a button, handy for solo’s or even if the soundman is of the usual cretinous standard.

12 function assignable footswitch. Thats right so you can assign one button for reverb, one for FX loop punch in etc. or just have your basic sounds, then louder versions on the second button functon.

Whats cool is that the footswitch uses a 1/4″ mono jack, so you can use any length lead & have none of this fucking around with 7 pin dins etc. The TSL100 was a great amp, but was let down by the footswitch cable and that rather iffy FX loop, that added a weird film to the tone. Weirdly enough the TSL60 has a brilliant loop, but lacks the clean headroom.

While I don’t expect Marshall to be denting Dual Rectifier sales anytime soon. Anyone looking at a Peavey JSX, Hughes & Kettner or Engl head may reconsider.

The UK rrp of £899.99 is pretty damn good. An ENGL of similar spec is nearer £1400 and from what I’ve heard on the grapevine, reliability is an issue……. A  H & K Switchblade is a grand, A Tri-amp is nearer two.

As a long time TSL100 user, I’ll be interested to see how these do.

But what I suspect will happen is that Marshall we discontinue the ModeFour series. This mid decade attempt to cash in on Nu Metal has not worked well. The only time I’ve heard a ModeFour up Close it sounded rather characterless, although that could of been the guitarist playing it. But someone who wants a Boogie will buy a Boogie, an American on a budget looking for a Hybrid head will buy a Randall

Most dealers are pre ordering now. Expect to be able to touch one in March.

After looking on the internet Many people have commented that the amp doesn’t sound all that hot on the video footage currently on YouTube. I’d wager that was down to getting a rather boring staid Classic Rock guitarist to demo a modern amp. To put it bluntly I could have done a better job myself;) I’ll wait to try one out and post on here as soon as.

Buy the Marshall JVM410 at zZounds.com – click here

Edit: Marshall JVM 410 Head Review now up!

This month Marshall have launched their first new Guitar amp range for several years. The Vintage Modern essentially updates the JTM 45/ Bluesbreaker type amplifier using KT66 type power tubes rather than the more traditional EL34 power stage. Its their first KT66 based amp for 30 years.

The amp takes the original Marshall concept : IE- of 2 channels running simultaniously, one for the high end and one for the low, to build an overall tone a stage further. Except rather than pissing about with jumper cables and excessive volume, the amp has 2 seperate gain controls labelled Body (low end) and Detail (high end) as well as a midrange boost, Master volume and a digital reverb. The FX loop is serial and I’m not sure why in the 21st century it is not a parallel loop, but maybe if your more of a trad rock, blues player you don’t need such things. But in my world a serial loop is pretty much a waste of time as soon as you start using any serious Modulation/Delay effects.

Having seen a DVD of guitarist Chris George demonstrating these new amps, they seem to give a slightly warmer and more bluesier take on the famous Bletchly tone. I admit nothing really knocked me out, but demo’s rarely do.

Now I’ll be sure to give my own thoughts on this once I’ve had the chance to try one out. But I do wonder about the timing of such a launch.

Back in 2003, The Darkness seized the cultural zeitgeist of our musical landscape and Marshall introduced the ModeFour, this was essentially their attempt to get in on the, by then, already fading Nu Metal Market share populated by amps such as the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier, Hughes & Kettner Warp 7, and of Course Randall’s various solid state and hybrid heads.

Now I’ve only ever seen one guy gigging a Modefour and that was in a Indie Rock band rather than a metal act, the mediocre guitarist who’s name escapes me was weilding a PRS Custom 24 but I have to admit, the rather fizzy and non descript tone didn’t knock me out, It didn’t sound like a Rectifier and it didn’t sound like a JCM 800, it sounded like a Boss Distortion pedal through an old Randall tranny head and I was glad I’d bought a TSL 60 some 2 years earlier.

I’ve no idea of official sales figures, but I reckon that if the Modefour was a big seller there would have surely been a ModeFour combo out by now. I do see a few MF350’s on Ebay and they never seem to go for much.

Now with The Darkness reduced from national heroes to something of a laughing stock, Marshall have decided that this is the time to release a “Classic Rock” type head and combo. As many guitarists are dubious of too many knobs on a Marshall. I suspect these will do very well. However the combo version looks rather non descript.

Now If I ran Marshall Amps I’d have built the Vintage Modern 50 watt chassis into a much cooler & sexier looking Bluesbreaker type cabinet. Then they could really cash in on the affluent ‘Weekend Warrior’ market, who need a stylish amp that fits comfortably into the boot of a Chelsea Tractor.

But surely Marshalls priority as a company now is to update the now ageing JCM 2000 range of professional valve heads. Much as I love the DSL & TSL. There are certain issues of switching and better FX loops that need addressing. Burying your head in the Classic Rock soup will not do you any good, time marches on.

While companies like Hughes and Kettner seem to have stolen Marshalls Thunder on the multi functional channel switching amp with the Triamp and Switchblade ranges. Its easy to forget that Marshall had a midi switching 3 channel all valve head on the market some 14 years ago in the shape of the 6100LM . If Marshall mated the JMP-1 midi preamp front end into an EL34 based 100watt power amp. They would have a programmable head to rival the Switchblade.

So come on Marshall pull the collective finger out eh?