jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

I have a bunch of them but use them more as effects when mixing.... I love using them on drum loops and to shape reverb sends and stuff like that. I will occasionally use one on guitar but generally if I run a guitar direct I want it to sound direct so I'll use plugins that aren't guitar specific or the sansamp plugin if I didn't use a sansamp pedal as the DI in the first place. The best one? all of the native ones are pretty close to most of their amp models these days, but none of them feel right. I've tried all of them except bias. I honestly really like some of the freeware VST plugins the best. They sound good enough and have a low CPU hit usually. If you wanna get an apollo, the UAD ones sound really right in a mix. Like the amps they're meant to be, particularly the marshalls. The UADs still don't feel like playing through an amp. Its more like putting your amp on a loadbox and playing through a speaker sim

I made a really nice dinner and I'm drinking a bottle of expensive wine right now.

a girl playing Itzhak who is a man who finally becomes Hedwig when he/she get Hedwig's wig when he becomes Gnosis

ah shit, I got my V and VII mixed up this morning... I was out late for me, whadaya want, ya fuckers? I went to see Hedwig live at the Forest. Sorry. I won't post all bleary eyed to this thread again.

the end of the stage show is better, weirder, but better.... Hedwig becomes Tommy and Itzhak becomes Hedwig.... the girl who plays Hedwig is not only a really good comedic actress but one of the best singers I've heard in my life

This looks to me like a rare 1957 Gretsch Country Club.

its a country club, the old ones aren't even THAT valuable.... they were available in caddy green back then. I believe there was an anniversary reissue one year not too long ago, but I dunno if it was available in caddy green. It could very well be a vintage one. I've seen them as cheap as $2k

you need an audio interface with a high impedance 1/4" unbalanced input for instruments and a DAW that can host VST plugins, for safety look for one that handles VST2 and 3 in case some of your plugins are VST3 format only

edit:

and a computer of course

you know you can do this stuff on your phone or tablet with some pretty nie standalone apps assuming your devices are fast enough.... that wouldn't be VSTs (which are plugins for a host DAW), they are just standalone processors.... thing is, once you invest in all the peripherals if you are starting from scratch you coulda got a nice used tube amp.

I'm not sure, I've never played or looked through a vsel, you rarely see them becaue vox sound equipment limited only survived for a year or so and the production numbers were low to boot.. you can tell a vsel by its plastic corner protectors, silkscreened grey faceplate with no engraving and square black vox logo like the thomas organ US market SS amps of the 60s. What I do know for certain is that they're handwired on leftover JMI chassis and terminal strips mounted in later JMI type Baltic birch ply cabs and come with alnicos, silverbells like a alte JMI, but the caps and transformers are cheaper components than a late JMI (which was already using cheaper parts than they used to) and WAY cheaper than an earlier JMI with mustard caps and woden or haddon transformers. The arbiters are better parts though maybe not as nice as the early copper panel JMIs. I have an arbiter. The build is sloppy, but so is the build on my 63 JMI. Otherwise its pretty ncie components though the transformers are smaller like a late JMI with Albion iron or the modern reissues. Also they dumped the tube rectifier so the amp is hella punchy like a marshall. Interestingly the 90s Korg RI has a JTM45 eissue transformer, a drake, pretty big like an early ac30 though doubtless not as robust. I am not a huge fan of drake's 45 transformer (they were marshall's supplier since about 68 or 69 but they never made original 45 transformers that I know of).

So what's better? Well, vsel ac30s are rare and not collectible and don't look right stock so they go for cheap and probably do a good job of being a vox whereas arbiters are the 70s brian may arena ac30 that formed the backbone of his wall of vox back then and have a cult following so though affordable are easier to sell because they look the part. They are reliable, well made, but have their own sound. They also come stock with greenbacks as alnicos were unavailable in the 70s. Brian may swapped his speakers out for old blue alnicos back then.... I find my arbiter to sound a bit marshally due to the stiffer response and marshally speakers. Its a great sounding amp but isn't creamy like an old one nor does it have the headroom of the 90s reissue. vsels and arbtiers are about the same price range. I personally like the arbiter but if you find a vsel, try it. I suspect it'll be closer to a U2 sound as thatguy's #1 ac30 is a very late JMI ac30 with albion transformers supposedly and the vsel will be in that ballpark just cutting even MORE corners than the last batches of JMI ones. The arbiter midified the power supply to make the amp cheaper to build but otherwise they made it about as good as mid-period JMI say a 65ish one.

but its apples and apples. You have to be a vox enthusiast like me to really get this into it. the biggest differences are in the cathode resistor that sets the median bias point for the power tubes and you can change that yourself in any ac30, even on a PCB its a simpe, reversible 1 part modification that changes the power amp flavor. The amps started out super hot and bold but spongey and also prone to 'flame out' and over the years lots of values have been used to make the amp safe with different ventilation schemes or to achieve different feels from the amp to suit the average buyer's expectations. Beatles fans, queen fans, jam fans and U2 fans all expect different things from an ac30 so they're are still fiddling with that value every time they come up with a new version of the good old ac30. I don't own 2 ac30 type amps with the same value cathode bypass and it is by far the most audible variable over all the other little voicing tweaks year to year.

EDIT:

if you've seen photos of the edge of U2's #1 ac30 you will be thinking 'vsel' because of the USA vox logo, but his tech added that when the UK gold logo disintegrated on tour, its really a last eyar JMI with the albim transformers, some cheap out components and silver bells (though one that blew has been replaced with an American alnico, an oxford, Utah or Jensen, I forget which). His AC30 is a weird one. A transitional one that's pretty hacked up. It may be modded a bit as well to do his sound. No one's talking in the U2 camp.

we tipped the drivers well though for their trouble

I was just commenting that said ladies were just as horrible as the dudes when it came to ordering pizza.... we were recording at a rural studio in pennsyltucky so all these pizza employees were bible thumpers and when we invented this topping combination e named it that to fuck with them. So like every time we would order one we would have someone different call up and ask for a large 'hot sausage injection' and ask why it wasn't printed on the menu as a special???

unless you are more titillated by 'hot sausage injection'

actually, I was making this one record and me and the other people invented this pizza called the 'hot sausage injection', long story.... and yes, there were women involved in this record

66 is the last true JMI year, then there's a bad spell until Arbiter buys the company in 72.... a 67 is probably a VSEL version which is not a bad little ac30 though not very desireable and not as good as most JMIs, but it could also be an early example of the dreaded birch stolec, the first PCB AC30, super unreliable amps.... hence the low price, not a good model. Generally the vintage ac30 rule is that you want a JMI or an Arbiter.... VSELs are rare and they are supposedly late period JMIs built under new management but only the owners know for sure. Birch Stolecs are the worst ones followed by the various Rose Morris versions from the 80s. The Korg reissue built udner contract by Marshall sounds pretty good and is the best PCB version. The custom classics and customs or whatever shit SUCK like a rose morris, but not as much as a Stolec. The Heritages sound good but aren't true turret, its a PCB turret hybrid amp. They go down a lot supposedly. The current handwireds like mine are great although very modernized. They sound great in their own way though and come with lots of great features. Then tehre's the new '60 style reissues that just came out that look really well made and vintage accurate to their era.

nope, its injection.... I forget ho invented it but he was feeling witty with the naming.... I hear DI and I'm thinking "hot meat injection"

direct in is short for 'direct injection' or DI, a method of recording without an amp/speaker and microphone devised in the early 60s. If you are micing the amp and plugging the mic into a console or recorder then it is NOT direct in. If you all want the finer points I will explain in detail. Just know there's impedance matching, gain makeup and often balancing going on to take a guitar pickup into an input designed for a microphone or tape machine output and any DI box or effects processor with an ouput labeled DI, line out or direct out is providing an output electronically (but not always sonically) optimized for one of these recorder inputs to take the place of a dedicated DI box after an output designed for a 1 megohm guitar amp input.

Honestly, even if I go into detail it may fly over your heads. I keep saying this to everyone, but get a book. How do you think I learned electronics?

lucky? you can't get a truly vintage one under 3 grand now.... you can get a 70s one with greenbacks for under 2, sure, but not a JMI. I think I caught the tail end of cheap coppertops 15 years ago when I got my 63

just a plain old Firebird III, the most common neck-thru version

I can't find one either, maybe its a 12 string only.... the last image boom posted looks like any number of models if its a 6 string as boom surmises

is he so sure its an electromatic? I mean, I am seeing a double anniversary there in Cadillac green (the guitar in question is the color my duo jet was, so sexy with gold hardware)

it began tis life as an off-Broadway that begat the film version when the fanbase turned out to be big enough for Miramax to finance a big budget movie.... I had my doubts because the film was great and I missed out on tis original run, but the show is better, you have to see it to get it

I just wish the touring company had had Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig.... I haard he was great in NYC, but no big deal, the guy who played Hedwig in Philly was really good.

you know boom, I never woulda pegged you for a Hedwig fan

is that you in the picture on the front page?

https://youtu.be/g8huXkSaL7o

its sad because tube amps used to be cheap, old technology when I was young... Marshall and mesa was a big deal but until the mid 90s no one wanted a current production tube amp from any other brand including fender... I shit you not! old tube amps? they didn't get expensive until I starting college. And blackface fenders whicha re now insanely expensive for 60s examples cost NOTHING. I paid as little as 300 for some and like I said my 1st one was free, just handed to me like your older brother's pair of levis with a hole in the knee.....

it really bums me out to see a decent tube amp so prohibitively expensive to young bands in these days of affordable and playable guitars

I don't think I've ever used a solid state amp for guitar.... certainly not for distorted guitar even using pedals. Its just not something I do. My first amp was a Princeton reverb from 64 that I got off my uncle when I got my first strat. No going back. Actually solid state was king at the time and there wasn't a vintage amp market yet, they were just old amps that were only interesting to old guys. Most players only wanted marshall stacks or solid state (because solid state is soooo reliable). You couldn't evn get current production 6V6 tubes at the time to retube your Princeton or deluxe, you know? Theystopped making them around '88 until the mid 90s so my rinceton was pretty worthless in 1990, dude. If a tube died I was FUCKED!

So back to the point, when I say 'orange amps' I mean like an OR80 or a new tube amp like the rockerverb. I don't really count the terrors as the rocker sound as they are just a modified ac15.

and saying bright guitars give more crunch is still like saying water is wet

when I talk about a crunchy amp I mean that it'll crunch with tone rolled halfway down on a neck humbucker of a really warm guitar like a lot of 335s for instance. A JMP superlead will take your head off with brightness on the bright channel.... put the bright cap on a 4 power tube blackface fender and discover the true meaning of the term icepick. Those amps will CRUNCH.... turn em up and all you get is crunch unless you gun the bass and kill the treble

I just got back from the touring co version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Forest.... shit I almost choked laughing. Great band too.

wow, that's like saying water is wet

yeah, I believe so, but he's just a Jack White imitator on a large scale

I don't think of oranges as crunchy so much as grindy, they aren't bright enough, a marshall crunches, tis crispy and bright even with the treble and presence down

the laney gh50L is a decent budget alternative to a vintage 2204 by the way. Almost the same am but with a passable fx loop and a boost that's an extra gainstage.... the low gain input is is not implemented the same, sounds a bit different but its fully in phase with the high gain input unlike the low input on an 800. Build quality isn't quite as good as an older marshall but the transformers are actually really nice, especially the huge toroidal power transformer. You can usually score a GH50L for about 700 bucks or less. The 100s are more like a grand, but I think 50 is ideal for the working musician when it comes to master volume marshalls, you don't have to choke the tone back so hard on a 50

if money's no object I think the soldano hot rod plus amps are like the pinnacle of the 800, jubilee and 900 style going from 800 medium/high gain to true 80s high gain and on into the over the top territory that would get picked up on by mesa and peavey in the 90s. They're very much in the SLO100 circuit camp but the SLO has really hifi components and a stiff sound, only comes with 6L6es that make it a bit boomy and american and so it sounds less marshally while the hot rods use stuff that's more like whats in a marshall from caps to transformers, can be found with EL34s (and aren't so expensive that you'll be afraid to mod a 6L6 one for EL34s) but generally retain the super tough build quality. I am always flirting with biting the bullet on a hotrod 50+ as my one channel switcher but its pricey. But if you can save up I recommend either a 50 or 100, both sound good great and the master circuitry is really well implemented for both channels to be useful in lots of different size venues.

Oh, speaking of soldano, the clean/crunch channel with 6L6es is very tweed fender.... hmmm, maybe the OP needs a 50+ head? Its what a supersonic or hotrod wishes they could be and the other channel is like master volume Marshall on steroids.

its just a G5422G, in gretsch model numbering the 12 string versions always have the same model number with a hyphen and 12 after...

I get past there, I drag them into the order I want (or not, I tried leaving the stock order too) and when I hit save it doesn't move forward, takes me to the 'upgrading our equipment' page

think more like 800 for a 900 these days.... but good luck getting an 800 for udner 1200 anymore. I bought all of mine for under 700 and sold every one for 1200+... the best one fetched enough to buy a big chunk of a used van for the my old band

oh, I always forget the Silver Jubilee, that's a great amrshall amp, it delivers on the promise of the split channel 800 but doesn't have the pinched and tinny 900 tone. Also Marshall's greatest channel witcher. Don't know if the reissue measures up, but the originals were fabulous. Basis of one of the Slash signatures. The other one's a hotrodded 800 of course.

they're getting pricey, dude... sorry

next it'll be 900s...

the volumes I like to record at are almost earplug level... even ebfore I sold my ac4hw to Narcist last year I found myself playing it up so far on the volume dial that I might as well push a few more dB and use my ac30HW or Matchless in 15 watt mode. Some of what makes a loud tube amp sound good are pshed power tubes and speaker, workin' hard, but some of it is just that your ears like the loud.

yeah, the single channel 800 is one of the sturdiest amps of its day... none of the pre-85 PCB marshalls I had ever needed service, ever.... most of them appeared to have never needed service since they were purchased. Looked factory clean inside, even the one that ahd clearly been dropped repeatedly.

in ears, anything that sits that close to your ear drum is worse for your hearing than standing in front of a raging hiwatt, though the in ears won't lower your sperm count. Floor wedges. All these in ear bands are slack-pussy frenchmen. Nothing against the french, that's just a funny insult I once heard someone use. Give me blazing amps and blazing floor wedges any day. And Rx earplugs too...

okay, all 800s have master, but the channel switchers aren't as full sounding as the single channel... now the JMP with the master came in 2 flavors, the combo and the later heads that look like non-master heads but are basically proto-800s. Actually, my favorite 800 I ever owned was so old it was built on a modified non-master board. The great thing about the early master marshalls is that while they are PCB amps they have sturdy-ass PCBs, double sided mil-spec shit that never warps or cracks and the traces are so big its hard to burn them out when you're doing a repair.

if you can't feel the air moving is it really live tho????? but those things can cause tornadoes with how much air the move. they definitely have to be behind/under the stage or else someones gonna get their insides turned to mush

You're talking to a guy who toured with a 100 watt plexi and a dual showman (twin in a head, no reverb) for YEARS, so I know loud. And I played them turned way the fuck up too, okay?

to be perfectly honest, unless I'm playing jazz I pretty much don't play any of my current stable of 30 to 50 watt amps below like 5 or 6 either. I play loud. But Hiwatt? They're soemthing else. As are the original Oranges, but Hiwatt, whoa loud. Marshall, fender, orange, sunn? damned loud.... the wind from the cab will blow your pants off, but a hiwatt head paired with a hiwatt stack will take your balls with your pants and blow them 2 states away so you can't have them sewn back on.

I went through a marshall kick starting in 99 and have had almost every marshall of note, 2 or 3 of some models. Clones and boutiques too. Hands down the best marshall models are the superlead, the 50 watt JCM800 or JMP 2204 master volume heads, the 18 watt in any configuration, a legit old bluesbreaker head, and the rare Studio 15 combo. I used to feel the 50 watt plexi and JMP leads were sweeter than the superlead, but I changed my tune over the eyars. the 50 watt master heads, however, are pretty awesome and sound meaner lower on the MV dial than than the 100 watt master heads. If you ever see one check out the pre-2204 2x12 combo marshall tried their first master volume design out on, its basically like a 4 input JMP with a master, very weird. Pat Benatars husband/guitarist used them his whole career and its the only mdoel I haven't owned briefly. I tried one in Maryland but decided it was too heavy to tke home (100 watt combo with HUGE 70s drake transformers)... pretty affordable amp and a total monster that sounds unlike any other marshall before or after. Apparently jim didn't like the amp, discontinued it and redisgned the MV amps as the 2203 and 2204 we all know and love, but man, I thought the weird master volume combo had real style. Sometimes I regret not buying it because I haven't seen one since other than the ones Neil had in premier guitar.

I really like a hiwatt that's just breakin' up with maybe a little slapback as an effect and that's it.... of course, for that sound you have to be willing to kill a few people in the front row of even a 500 seat venue.... just liquefy the fuckers with sound pressure

you can still get a 900 for a pittance... the SLX is the best sounding model, I ahd one, it was fun, but it didn't hold a candle to my 2204, even for shredding. The 900s with reverb don't sound as good. Kinda pinched comparatively.

its too much amp for most humans though, trust me.... when they say hiwatt they mean HIwatt. Watt for watt the loudest punchiest amps ever made for instruments, Just WHOA. Super fast and unforgiving too. Don't make a mistake.

you know, when Iw as your age I could still get JCM800s for 500 bucks... owned 2 at that price. My 88 plexi RI wasn't much more, got it in a pawn shop when pawn stores had more gear than ebay. Those were the days.And at the time I got my 63 ac30 people were like 'you went on ebay and spent HOW MUCH on an old, beat down tube amp?!" It was a thousand dollas back then, a good deal for one, but only 500 below market for a minty one.... now? try getting one under 4k