a giant thread about... AMPS!

I'm a classic mutt, northern Italian/roman/Swiss/French/Austrian on my dad's side, scots/French/german on my mom's. Pretty much all of western Europe apart from Scandinavia... my son is all that plus English/scots/Prussian on his mom's

Ain't a Zucchini a Aubergine? Yea, the tv in Britain tends to make Americans look like idiots to be honest which isn't really the case.

no, an aubergine's what we americans call an eggplant

yeah, the English like to mock us in their media, but if Americans are so stupid how is it that we oversaw the collapse of the British empire and took your place on the world stage while maintaining a much better public image up until the fall of communist Russia? There's an element of put-on in American culture that even a lot of Americans don't understand on an intellectual level (so how could an Englishman?)... Its frowned on to look like an intellectual in most circles, but we also hate a real life Homer Simpson as well. The American Ideal is still to be a Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison and most of us are educated to admire people like that. Raw brain power, Wisdom and Scientific Inquiry over book learning. sadly most of us aren't smart enough to live up to the American auto-didactic ideal. That's not an American thing, no country has a whole population of Franklin's. If anyone did the world would look a lot different.

Look at the guitar, you guys are on my amps thread here. We INVENTED that and most of what your manufacturers have done with it squarely copied from our innovators. We didn't invent the guitar, but we made this obscure instrument into something that has consumed the hearts and minds of all the red blooded males with a little creativity on your whole island. We infused the image of the electric guitar with our whole cultural attitude of virtuosity and badassery.

Thats awesome, I'm just English and Irish haha, Irish on my mums side and English on my dads side. Bet you're really cultured then? Immigration is pretty damn cool though when you go through your family time line if you ask me!

Is it me or do all ''metal'' distortions just sound shit! seeing as this is about amps what do you think of the Marshall DSL range of combos, perticularly the DSL15 and 40

If I seem cultured its more my unusual educational background than my lineage, though there a lot of smart,cultured folks on my Dad's side. Oddballs, misfits, weirdos... but brilliant. I wouldn't say Christmas with the Marchiones is like the school of Athens, but the conversations may have a tinge of Lorenzo the Magnificent's dinner parties.

Thats awesome, I'm just English and Irish haha, Irish on my mums side and English on my dads side. Bet you're really cultured then? Immigration is pretty damn cool though when you go through your family time line if you ask me!

being an amature historian I've tried to do my family tree, its pretty hazy for the Smiths, Jollies and Flaccos, but the Marchione male lineage I traced back to the end of the dark ages (it was easier since there aren't a lot of Marchiones, one family from Venice who do not look like my family -until my dad's generation we were all blue eyed like I am- and then there's my family who settled in Tuscany in the middle ages, there's one other James Marchione on earth and he's a film composer wholives in LA, but is from the Venetian family, no relation but still really funny we are both classicaly trained musicians), I have an ancestor who sacked Rome and held the pope for ransom a few years after the Norman Conquest... turns out my late grandfather was right, we're a family of axe murdering barbarians with cultural pretensions... there's a lot of Marchione family myths from the middle ages that I was raised with and they are actually not too far off base as it turns out

Is it me or do all ''metal'' distortions just sound shit! seeing as this is about amps what do you think of the Marshall DSL range of combos, perticularly the DSL15 and 40

I have extensive experience with the DSL50 and TSL100, in a word; unreliable

as far as 'heavy metal' distortion pedals? it depends on what you are looking at, metal guys I know are raving about DOD's new boneshaker distortion and there's a discontinued Subdecay distortion that always struck me as being unbelievably metal in its mid-to-upper gain range but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called... with any pedal designed for metal players a lot will depend on the amp you put it through because a modern metal tone is really about a power amp with tons of clean headroom and a snappy attack like an old hiwatt or sunn amp (which is exactly the sort of low gain amp I would be looking at if I wanted a head that had great cleans but would also make my metal-flavored pedal produce a modern sound). For vintage metal? Can't go wrong with a JCM800 2204 or 2203, the 3 is more thrash metal while the 4 has half the headroom (duh, its half the wattage) and is better suited to that post-van-halen zone on the edge of metal and 70s corporate rock... when Iw as a kid we called that sound metal, but in these times of brutal Norwegian bands its debateable

I personally prefer the European reviewers, but the American guitarists. I have a long overdue youtube vid to post on the best demoists which I'll post at some point, on here. I love Jared Dines, Rob Scallon, Erock 331 Stevie T, though he can be very weird, and annoying, etc, but I love Rob, and Lee, Dan, and Mick, Henning, JJ, Denniss...Geez, I'm wasting my life.

Depends a tonne on how you define metal distortion, but as a rule if BOSS make it, and it says distortion, run to the nearest bunker, and lock the doors, while a secure team, of experts, deal with it. Nah but seriously the empress heavy kicks ass.

Not a Marshall guy. Overrated personally. I've always been a Fendery guy at heart, though I'm partial to AC30/15s, and the odd 5150/boogie rectifier thing. Not that I could afford any of those, mind.

Amateur historian!

What don't you do. Artists, comic nerd, guitarists, pianist, studio engineer...

I personally prefer the European reviewers, but the American guitarists. I have a long overdue youtube vid to post on the best demoists which I'll post at some point, on here. I love Jared Dines, Rob Scallon, Erock 331 Stevie T, though he can be very weird, and annoying, etc, but I love Rob, and Lee, Dan, and Mick, Henning, JJ, Denniss...Geez, I'm wasting my life.

yeah, guys like the captain and Chappers are not terribly good players compared to Americans like Pete Thorn... but in general Americans are more versatile musicians than English guitar players. I would never take on Eric Clapton in a blues-off but if the contest required us to play some jazz, country and even a little chugga-chugga metal? I would feel confident of winning the battle by accumulating points for versatility. Anyway, I don't feel like most of us Americans really showcase all of products strnegths and weaknesses effectively, we mostly just make them sound badassed with our badassed chops.

Hey, boss pedals aren't too bad haha, I love the shitty DS-1 its so shit but it just stands out to me haha, it has one usable sound though and these days I use my amp distortion more because its more flexable haha. I have replaced the DS-1 with a Digitech Hardwire SC2 so I'm happy anyway. Marshall are very overrated, but they've also made some jems like the JCM900, that is one hell of a amp! I'm much more a Fender guy too myself, I'm all about that clean channel but I also like the vox ac15/ac30 as well, very nice amps if only I had a few grand to blow I'd get a JCM900, a Twin Reverb and Vox ac30 haha but sadly like most guitarists I'm skint! I'm not a huge fan of the 5150 or the mesa boogie dual/triple rectifiers myself. I personally just call anything with metal wrote on it a metal pedal haha, those usually sound shit too, I love MXR stuff but god the Fullbore metal sounds shite to my ear, maybe its because everyone scoops out the mids leaving a muddy mess. I swear everyone thinks metal, get rid of the mids, heavy, then play live and are just lot in the mix without those mids. A lot of overdrive pedals are great for metal though if you boost a high gain amp they sound crazy good, like a tube screamer boosting the od channel of a marshall

Marshall is not overrated. I f they had stopped designing amps with the late period plexis and early JMP metalfaceced superleads? IMPORTANT and worthy of the rep right there, but Marshall kept going with solid designs for 2 more decades... the JCM2000 series is kinda questionable, but its a logical evolution in a way. Marshall doesn't do a spectacular job of doing classic Marshall anymore, but they still do future Marshall better than anyone else, like it or lump it.

I don't mean to say theyre not good, I mean to say they're not as good as they're made out to be. I've played some utter bolllocks made by Marshall though so it's not all beautiful.

Like with marshall, theyre not bad, at least not ALL bad. BOSS simply can't do any gain pedals, but their delays, modulations, and filter/frequency stuff, is pretty good. I know I talk about it a lot, but now I have the secure funding to carry it out, I am seriously shooting out between the x series phaser or flanger, and ph3, or bf3, to replace my modulation spot, on the board.

Marshall can really handle tube amps, the simpler the better. Start adding too many features and they get it wrong. When they do solid state every once in awhile they get lucky. But really Marshall's strength is simple tube amps. The guys at Marshall can be putting out mediocre 900s and 2000s and then they whip out something simpler and better sounding like the Vintage Modern or the new Astoria. It used to be that Marshall was also awesome about building roadworthy amps, but that's not the case anymore. They don't know how to make a feature-laden amp that's roadworthy like their classics were.

I quite like the bf3, dunno if I will get one myself or not as I'm not hugely into flange, I love phase though, I'm gunna get a phase 100, so many options! think its 10 stage where the phase 90 is 4 stage, correct me if I'm wrong. I would say look into the hardwire phaser but in my opinion it doesn't sound very good compared to other phasers in its price range. You'll have to let us all know what you get!

For modulation all I'd really use is phase, flange, chorus, and tremolo w/ tap tempo. The thing is that I really like having different modes of phase, and flange, and then the ability to toggle through them with a footswitch, because if I'm playing live then I can't, and don't really like to bend over, and fiddle. The phase 100 is pretty sick, but the best phasers around are the empress phaser, or the walrus audio vanguard. Waveform control is one thing, but having multiple is even cooler in my opinion, though nowhere near as usable. I really like the controls on the boss stuff, momentary could have some nice applications, as could rise, fall, and step. I'll probably go for the ph3, though I have no idea what the exp output is for. I've got my eyes on a suhr riot clone of some sort; the movall scorpion looks pretty op, and I'm still waiting for a joyo/mooer/caline/genric affordable brand fuzz factory, because when I've finished building mine, there's a tiny chance it'll actually work. The hotone soul press is very functional, as is the rocket train/rock highway, and the ehx stereo talking machine is just the shit. The SD shapeshifter is a sick tremolo, as is the EHX super pulsar, and I could do stuff with them, though I wouldn't use them enough to justify purchasing one. As far as chorus goes the new tri avatar from FTT is amazing!...ly expensive, but BOSS, and EHX make decent affordable chorus' though. The ring thing is cool, but I wouldn't use it enough to buy it, however the mooer bit reducer, and slow gear clone, could be rreally useful.

They need to hurry up, and develop those money trees.

no one needs a flanger and a chorus unless they set their flange really extreme and their chorus really subtley OR if you have them sandwiched before and after a pretty extreme dirt box with the after-dirt one being a stereo effect driving 2 amps (and here is a serious matter of taste since I find the stereo implementation of flange and chorus to have a lot less overlap than in mono)... or maybe (JUST MAYBE) have chorus or flange in your amp's effects loop (if you go in for amps with effects loops) but keep the opposite effect out front of V1 to really separate them even if the settings you like from them are similar... every time I have owned a good analog chorus and a good analog flange (and I always seem to score nice chorus and flanger pedals right around the same times in my life, not by design, but by chance) I wind up commiting to one or the other and shelving or selling the one that I don't take to gigs

there is such a big pile of overlap between the better, warmer flangers and choruses, for example an Ibanez FL9 and CS9 cover a lot of the same ground, but the flanger can get a little jet-planey and metallic whereas the chorus stops short with less controls, but does the whole wet/dry stereo thing that the flanger doesn't... even for fake leslie uses there's a lot of overlap between classic analog flange and chorus tonally.... a great set of fairly common and cheap pedals to use together are the Boss CE3 with its multiple stereo modes and the BF2 which is still a mono flanger that have really different timbrality to them even when doing the same job (the BF2 always manages to be warm and a little wooly sounding in the midrange even when set to be very clangy and metallic, whereas the CE3 has this open JC120 quality in the mids, but is also the 1st of the 'cold and chilly' toned choruses to my ear, especially in true stereo mode feeding 2 very similar amplifiers... I was a BF2 guy for years before I encountered the mu-tron flanger and more recently the old FL9 and I not long ago picked up and then returned an MIJ CE3, though my main complaint with it was the 12 volt operation, totally PITA for a guy who doesn't wanna deal with a big power supply and just wants to daisy chain 1 or 2 effects from a tuner off the single wall wart... anyway, I've got a lot of experience with fangers and I find most of the versatile ones that aren't meant to sound extreme and silly all the time? that you might actually use on more than 1 solo? well, they're glorified choruses with a delay time control and resonance, that's it... best flanger ever for overall tonality and features is the old and rare Mu-Tron Flanger with the expression pedal built in, holy wow, but it still has some faults and is so collectible I will probably never see another one in this lifetime)

Right then lads...Anybody got any experience with a Roland JC? I thought I should brush up on the subject matter the other today,when during a bout of vicious procrastination where instead of doing ratio, I was running through the specs of all the amps I could recall, and the Roland JC spot in my head was empty.

the 120? dual 60 watt power amps, 2 EV 12" speakers (1 per side), mono preamp with typical controls, crappy distortion circuit and Roland's finest stereo chorus gluing it all together.... solid state all the way