Vox AC30 CC2 questions

Primarily a hello to Jim. While I could read all the reviews in the world, I wanted to get your opinion on these. Apologies if this is covered in another forum. One has popped up for sale locally and caught my attention. Is this a traditional AC 30 sound or is this one of those tragic moments that every company tries at some point?

okay, here I am

1st, this version of the ac30 is the worst pedal platform bar none, so if you are a pedal guy, stop reading

it is voiced more like an original ac50, being extra bright and clean on the top boost side and the switchable bright caps on the normal side are more likea pre-top-boost AC30 treble model... I have read that the new ones are voiced closer to vintage, but now the cabs aren't built as well... I think the current custom series has a tube rectifier while the older ones don't (not 100% sure though) and both versions have shitty solid state driven trem and reverb instead of lush, tube driven trem/vibrato. Seriously an ac30 shouldn't have on-board reverb anyway and the tem they added sounds wrong for a vox though tis not entirely unusable. AC30s are cathode biased but there's a part called a cathode resistor that sets the basic operating range for the output tubes and these ac30s are the coldest and therefore most brittle sounding versions of the ac30. Although other versions range from 'this amp wrks better than my central ehating to keep me warm in the winter' levels of heart all the way up to 'I think I'll fry a few eggs on the top of this amp' in the case of most examples made before '64....

all this said, I have heard these amps sound quite good in the right hands with the right tubes and speakers... they represent a real value assuming you have a backup amp you like because reliability is notoriously spotty (probably due to the flimsy PCB's used and the board-mounted tube sockets)

I will use one of these as backline if its provided for a fly gig but I personally wouldn't buy one.

Thanks for that. Nothing worse than wanting a sound and not getting it. I will wait until something else pops up. Cheers for the quick reply. You know Vox so were my first point of contact.

thy do 'beatles' well as they were designed to do that but the beatles only recorded one album with ac30s and then gauged up to 50s

if its cheap (especially if tis cheap and you can try it first or its from a seller with a great return policy) pull the trigger to get your vox feet wet but don't ditch your marshall

it might just get the vox sound you are thinking of... I find that most people don't actually know what an ac30 is supposed to sound like but have sounds in mind that are a little more ac50 or are totally U2, which is a really atypical use of the ac30 having all those low Z studio effects out front or an oddball, late JMI era 30 with the weird Albion transformer set (and prior to uforgettable fire the edge often used a roland jazz chorus with a distortion out front and these days his rig contains tweed harvards and various other amps depending on his whims, but I digress)

I have been contributing some guitar work to the score for a rock musical in production and have been using the Vox amp emulatorin Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5. While unsure which era/ type of Vox it is based on, it is bright and has bite and just enough throat to get me smiling. Tried with both the Marshall and the Jazz Chorus and while they fit MY sound, they weren't right for this project.

the custom classic will probably work fine

.... Pedal guy... right here!

oh... the ac30 is generally a mediocre pedal platform, just so you know

try a hiwatt for the big chime, voxy note bloom and a voicing that inhales effects :-)

EDIT: you may like the el84 based oranges, very pedal friendly and based on the ac15 and ac30 pretty heavily with a more neutral voicing (jimmy page mainly used the single channel AD30 head for the O2 reunion show and he sounded great even with an injured finger -- and if you recall the Page/Plant reunion of the 90s jimmy was using 90s Korg/Marshall made ac30 RIs and vintage examples, so clearly Page feels the oranges are more versatile because he owns a fleet of voxes, more than me I am sure)... voxier voiced amps sound better on their own, dry or with just a little echo and maybe some colored boost ala brian may, but the orange is less picky about dirt boxes. Voxes do not play well with everything out there (especially tubescreamers) and even with the pedals they do like (such as the rat, sd1 and hotcake) you have to dial the amp and stomps in very carefully in my experience. The ac30 likes delay and some modulation just fine though....

another good option is mid-sized tweed fender type amps. The Pro/Super/Bandmaster circuit has some of the upper mid magic of a vox but is a little firmer and broadband. My Pro has never met a dirtbox it doesn't like. Having global treble and bass controls means you can dial the normal channel in a lot better than a vox that is a 'like it or lump it' affair. I like it, but its not great with humbuckers unless you crank it or engage the bright caps (the modern ones have a bright switch, vintage ones don't), and once the bright caps are engaged you will experience some of the dirtbox pickiness of the top boost inputs.

If you go custom classic try doing the normal channel at 10 with a treble boost or a good, tweakable EQ type boost out front like an EQD tonejob or the classic colorsound overdriver. You will want to work your volume knob to back off the dirt. Also, all modern ac30s have a very good blobal master volume that produces great tone from about noon on up. Engaging the master tends to add a little marshalliness as youa re not working the power section as hard. Think plexi or JMP at 1:00 on the preamp dial....

If you do not care about its FX loop then I would suggest you to skip it and try to find a Goodsell or something like that. I love it but that's because I depend on FX loop while I found no better options at that price range (yes, I hate that they include the tremolo and the reverb… but they sound nice to me, I want a Matchless or a Bad Cat more because of their lesser pack of features). About what Jim quickly pointed to: the Custom Classic series have tube based rectification, the current series have solid state based rectification.

I am not a huge fan of the goodsells, they sound more American.... great amps, just not that voxy in person... they are like the Matchless of Valco small pentode designs.... tighter, bigger, louder

I love my HC30... its a beast (as is every badcat I have ever used, especially the Wild Cat 40 with EL34s in cathode bias, yum) BUT if you seek a useable FX loop the matchless format is a HI-Z, unbuffered preamp out and power amp in on each channel, to you use LO-Z effects liker ack gear you need an external matching device like a DI and reamp package or a Dumblator/Kleinulator to get it to sound right. And any HI-Z stomps you put in the Matchless type loops need to have super short cable runs or you risk losing top end. A great trick with the EF86 fx loop is to put the amp on a loadbox and run the EF86 power amp out into a DI to add lush pentode harmonics to anything you would record direct. Its great for 80s sounds with chorus and compression straight to the recorder, but with the tone switch set for full bass its a great bass DI and I use it a lot on analog synths to warm them up too. You can even use it on mono FX returns to add sparkle, compression and maybe some grit to mix elements like mono reverbs, delays whatever... I am a huge fan of using it in conjunction with my TC X4 when mixing techno stuff. I set up a mono send, hit the X4 with the input set to low impedance and then output high impedance to the matchless EF86, dial the gain and DI back in. Adds tons of depth I can't get with plugins.

Also, Matchless and Badcat have much stiffer power filtering than even the reissue voxes, so they are punchier and firmer than an ac30 and don't give up the gooiness as easily (though you can brown them down a bit with a pair of smaller rectifiers over a single GZ34 thanks to the dual rectifier sockets)... the transformers are really overengineered too, so that adds bass and flattens the mids a bit when driving the output tubes. Different sound.... sort of like if Hiwatt decided to make a 30 watter! LOVE IT, but I have ac30s as well as the HC30 because they are only in the same camp, they are not interchangeable. The HC30 is INSANELY picky with pedals out front. Possibly the sketchiest pedal amp ever. It goes beyond tonal issues, the HC30 is gainier than vox on both of tis channels and dirt boxes have to be dialed conservatively to avoid tons of feedback even when the amp is set dead clean in 30 watt mode with the big rectifier!

another heads up, the master on newer voxes and matchlesses is good for more than just low volume dirt, it can lso be used to get punchier clean sounds by backing off the amount of gain into the power section a little thus reducing the strain on the rectifier(s).

PS: best tele sound ever? stereo ping pong slap echo into the HC30 and Tweed pro dialed in to sound as different as possible.