jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

you can do whatever you want, you asked for advice on a specific sound, its a cranked matchless or ac30 with nothing out front (or maybe a boost or light drive). Otherwise YMMV. I think vox owners should definitely learn their amps forawhile. They are not obvious and tons of secret, classic sounds are locked in there and effects make it trickier to find them. By all emans add the FX back when you grok the ac30, but as of now if you can't get that Muse tone you don't grok the amp and how to set it and play into it to get it to do what you want. It will do what you want, but you need to spend time loving it up.

https://youtu.be/yLisM2KPDIA?t=8s

this is the silliest question... the best strings for a guitar are the strings you feel comfortable on. You are used to Ernie Slinkies? Stick with them. If you don't feel comfortable with the feel they sound like shit because you play like shit. Use what you like and set the guitar up to play well and sing with your preferred gauge and brand. If the guitar won't sing its the guitar's fault, not the strings. Get a better guitar then.

read above, I edited my original post.... an ac30 needs very little to deliver tone

even true bypass pedal are adding capacitance to your signal when disengaged, ditch anything you don't need... bands in the studio rarely use full pedalboards... embrace your vox and learn its secrets by paying naked for a few months. Its an incredibly versatile and powerful music making tool. Until you really know its secrets and how to get all the classic vox tones from it with nothing but your guitar and hands you should leave ff the pedals. They can be cool into a vox, but voxes are picky about pedals.... learn its secrets and add the pedals back when you know what it can do solo. Its far more versatile and subtle than a BF fender or a marshall. I have an effects rig, but I can play a gig with just an ac30 no problem. It does the business with nothing added but unlocking those sounds can be challenging as its limited controls are powerful but not intuitive.

an ac30 should not have an FX loop, its blasphemy.... don't use it

given the placement of the master volume in modern ac30s and matchless type circuits its utterly pointless as it falls before the master and just screws with the impedance and gain of your signal stripping the amp of its natural character... FX loops are a fine thing in gain banger amps with a master volume before the phase inverter, but they are a joke in an ac30 with the matchless style post-phase-inverter master volume control (which is the master circuit used by korg on ALL their tube amps since the 90s)

no one said your gear sucked, I just said your ac30 is the furthest from your target tone and that pedals is no the answer... if you want to be a whiney child I am sure here's a forum for that some where, but here I will point out that good hand technicque is more critical than quality gear to any task.... learn the parts well and own them..

when I talk about the Matchless thing it is SO CLOSE TO THE VOX THING in the mix, you hear the difference more in your bedroom or when you are recording -- neither one is better, noth are great versions of the cathode biased el84 tone.... sadly you have one of the weakest versions of the ac30, no offense, but I am an ac30 nut and yours is the furthest off the mark (I mean the matchless is off the amrk but in a good way, whereas the CCs are off in a weak way)

1st get rid of the pedals, they are eating dynamic response and bandwidth which is the hallmark of good C30 tone.... turn your amp way up, at least to 5, disengage the master and adjust from there... a good guitar with nice sounding wood and great electronics from pickups to output jack will help (hint, fender still can't make a passable humbucker).... good in means good out... I suspect that sound is amp and guitar using the TB channel... plug straight in, turn up and fiddle... also make sure your playing is up to snuff, the whole lineage of the ac30 is fast response so sloppy playing means bad sound. Voxes are unforgiving amps, more like hiwatts than marahalls

just so you know I'm not a wanker I own a '62 JMI ac30b with factory-installed top boost module, an arbiter era ac30, a 90s korg reissue and a current fawn handwired (shockingly kick ass amp I play more than any other amp in my stash).... I also own a slightly more affordable copy of a Matchless HC30 (head version DC30) and every single one is different with a wide overlap but with each offering tones that none of the others can cover if you want to be nitpicky

yes... it'll be a little spongier and grainier, less 3D.... if its a custom classic it will probably be brighter and tinnier all other things being equal (a stock DC30 comes with mismatched ceramic celestions.... old ones have a M25 greenback and a V30 and newer ones have a M25 with an H30 greenback and that effects the sound a bit). When cranked, even with smaller dual rectifiers the Matchless is tighter, punchier and clearer sounding than any ac30 ever made. Its brighter and bassier than vintage examples due to the increased power filtering, precise wiring, and high quality components.

The only exception is if the sound was achieved with the DC30 pentode channel. The only ac30s that cop that are original 4 input black panels and the heritage models that came out before the current HW series. The EF86 pentode is a unique and special snowflake in preamp tubes. Its a hifi/pro-audio tube that's very unique and has a special and unique behavior in guitar circuits that even other preamp pentodes don't replicate. There's nothing quite like it and its the reason I will never sell my HC30. Cranking the normal channel of an ac30 with a treble boost will get you in the right ballpark, but a 12ax7 just can't do what the EF86 does. It doesn't have the gain, wide frequency response or compression characteristics before the onset of audible distortion. Nothing does. Not everyone likes the EF86 channel and its very dependent on the quality of the tube used... odds are the sound you seek is a top boost sound and you can just use your ac30s TB channel, fiddle the tone controls to get your desired frequency response and then turn her up to about 5 and slowly goose her up or down from there until its doing the business.

a cranked ac30 in good nick is loud as all fuck, brace yourself.

You are trying to match the sound of an amp that is called matchless, meaning it cannot be matched. I find humour where most don't.

Matchless is actually named after the vintage motorcycle brand, when Mark Samson (cofounder of matchless) wasn't restoring vintage vox amps he was really into british motorcycles... no joke

but matchless amps are very good and still rank as some of the best sounding boutique circuits

I have a number of AC30s and a Matchless... they're very similar, the matchless circuit is based on an ac30, but its beefed up. Someone once described the difference this way 'a DC30 is a vintage ac30 that's quit smoking and drinking and started going to the gym every day.' But they are very similar amps. Apples and Apples. Far more similar than an 800 and 900 (though there are a number of different 800 and 900 models and some are more similar than others). An 800 is basically a plexi with the channels cascaded and a master added whereas all 900s owe their topology to the Silver Jubilee model but in all honesty the silver jubilee sounds better than any of the channel switching 900s. I did rather like my single channel 900 SLX when I ahd it. It was very 80s sounding in a good way, closer to the Jubilee's gain channel.

if you really want to get into it all I could go on. I sued to be a real marshall-head before getting into vox and matchless.

looks like an Elf-00.... errr, Christmas on the brain, sorry

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=4412939

Yeah, nothing eventful. I'm sure if you got a few cabs and heads and turned'em all to 11 and got right next to tbem, a good drop A power chord could, at the very least, blow your ears and your dick at the same time.

well, just one of my 50 waters will do that in drop D turned up to 8 or so.....

merry x-mas all! I didn't buy more toys for me and the child and thank god I didn't because my mother-in-law showed up at 9 sharp with an extra load for the boy.... I am going to have to get rid of guitars and amps for all this kid's stuff.... ARGH!

hmmmm

its about 1 in the afternoon on the eve here and I am about to begin the process you just finished, except I know what I got because I am widowed and buy my own presents now :-(

in point of act I cut off the spending, no Yamaha Revstar for Dad, and just some additional Thomas the tank stocking stuffers for the boy.... I'm done, time to get drunk and wait for the little boy to pass out so I can finish wrapping etc. This is really a lot harder with only 1 parent. Thanks god for Amazon.

everybody's getting coolstuff.... and tis not a no-brainer to buy the kid more toys and buy myself a revstar.... I am running out of big-ticket stuff he wants for x-mas and I also am running out of space he has so much stuff already. His grandparents spoil him relentlesly.

yes, yes I would settle for the Emo Emu

I was being sarcastic... obviously. Prostitutes are the definition of high risk, between sex and intravenous drug use... god, you can't make a sleezy joke anymore

what about hookers? you are child-free.... what about santa;s skanky helpers?

double wow

Ghaaaaah!

everything he said is right

there's an equipboard article about online lessons... does your son read traditional musical notation and play another instrument? is he into doing this or is it more YOUR idea? When I gave lessons I hated the parents of kids who were more interested in the guitar than their children were. No amount of lessons helps a kid who is luke warm on the guitar. I eventualy just banned beginners and only taught only intermediate players! Then I quit because students are a hassle. But anyway...

All stringed instruments are painful at first (your hand is probably not meant to bend in weird directions, depressing pieces of steel, nylon, whatever for long periods of time) and if your kid isn't passionate about working through that you are wasting his time and your money.

the way you phrased this "add playing guitar to his talents" speaks volumes... you have talent or you don't.... you can teach him to develop a talent he has but you can't 'add to his talents' -- if music is not in his blood then let it go and encourage him to pursue something else he is already inclined to excel at... even if you said 'add to his accomplishments' I think playing an instrument is more than an act of dedication and will, there has to be more of a drive than "I can do this," a kid needs to be saying "I am compelled to do this! I have to express myself with a guitar!" My father, an accomplished musician, actively discouraged me from music.... but I was compelled, not by a desire to disobey him, but by a true fascination with music.... that's what your son needs. If that's the case keep talking to us. If its all about looking cool for him and about showing off your kid's talents for you then, at the risk of being offenseive, please just stop now.

now that I have your attention, what's everyone getting for the holidays?

I'll start, I got a vntage Selmer head and am waiting on an eganter MIDI controlled tube amp switcher so I can start using all my gear at once like the mad scientist I really am.... I might buy a Yamaha revstar too, depends on how much more I spend on the boy today.... if I buy him more stuff I get another guitar!

this is a real bear. I am sure all the plans on the net are good, but ISO boxes don't sound so hot unless they are ENORMOUS. Without enough air around them your guitar speakers may sound pinched and funky, especially if its a closed back cab in there. If you are going to really deaden the box making the walls super absorptive then bigger is better. A good rule of thub with closed back is to make the box considerably taller and deeper than the cabinet.... at least 4 times deeper so the wave forms have room to develop before being reflected or absorbed. You might be better off with a purpose built ISO cab, the ebst being Rivera's (again, other designs that are simpler sound weird, supposedly the rivera's porting system gives it enough air movement that it has a more natural cab sound but it also isn't dead silent) OR with a good reactive loadbox to run your 800 DI and then you can audition cabinet impulse responses via a VST IR plugin. That's a popular method these days and I do it a lot when I am not in a position to blast a bunch of noise....

Or when you say ISO box do you mean ISO BOOTH? Are you isolating a closet maybe? when I isolate a booth I like to have a floating floor and some walls within the walls. Its not just about thick and dense walls (though the outer walls should be like that and the materials you are looking at are a good way to go if your booth isn't alreasy made of concrete or brick), putting air between 2 sets of surfaces traps sound waves inside so the outer walls don't have to absorb as much... a good indoor/outdoor type storm door that seals shut is a good call, here you will want 2 layers of glass on the window with gas between them like my patio door, that blocks a lot of noise

new ampegs are not a knock on 70s ones quality wise, but hardly anyone makes a vintage reliable amp these days. I stay away from new stuff....

that said I was on tour with A 90S svt for 5 or years no issues

bring it boom... 300 wtts of ampeg is normal bass to me.... less sounds weird and quiet... if I daisy chain all my amps I think I have about 250 watts....two 50s and five 30s makes 250, right? but bass needs to have 2 to 3 times more power than guitar to be heard so I can just run 2 or 3 vintage amps to keep up with boom.... point of fact an ac30 hangs with a raging svt if you don't need a clean guitar sound, been there ;-) a single plexi at 10 was often at the limit of what an SVT could compete with clean, but who gets an svt for cleans?

seriously, you will really like the SVT, its a great sounding amplifier... loud at 1, but great

go tubes!

you called it 'waiting to exhale', huh huh

that's power tube distortion and maybe a little speaker distortion.... its magic, I am always trying to tell you youngsters about this. Big amps do it too, its burlier, but similar.... and of course much louder. I've never heard a pedal pull it off though many claim to. The ac4 has a particularly sweet type of power amp distortion being true class A. All even order harmonics. see what I mean when I tell people 5 tube watts are loud as hell and gig worthy? One day you will be a man playing in front of a raging halfstack at 10 and know the true joys of rock guitar playing.

You've discovered the holy grail I keep trying to tell you about, now bend it to your will and tell the soundman to eat it.

but seriously, my evolution was a mix of formal education with bouts of excitement about certain records, some old, some new (at the time) but it really started with my mom playing me the Beatles' catalog and David Bowie's Live at the Tower album when I was a kid. I was so inspired by that music I started fucking with my dad's guitar behind his abck and I got really interested in weird keyboard sounds and begged for my 1st synthesizer.

and when they rule they'll get out their Emulator IIs and Drumulators and form a pet shop boys cover band...

I was trying to find a video or picture of an Emu playing some Emu gear but apparently I am the 1st person to think of this! Terry, you gotta get an Emulator or something and give it to an Emu! I would, but we don't have them here outside the city zoo. The bird that is. I actually have a drumulator....

jim says: too many knobs, I just wanna play!

jim says: its a tubescreamer, look at the PCB!

jim says: I broke one of those on the road in a month... it's crap!

jim says: why don't you just sue your guitar's volume knob, dude?

jim says: sorry for drunk-posting, oops

wow, man, its so cute!

https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/00/57/62/60/240_F_57626005_QND9rKnNsXgmB5R7Oy665iwmtAzNsUE8.jpg

Darwin's unfinished diagram of musical evolution....

oh god

oh, you asked about good used stuff on the cheap.... traynors are still a great deal. Can't go wrong with a Traynor Bassmaster head. Very much a Canadian plexi. They go for anywhere between $400 and $1000 these days. Generally closer to 1k for the earlier ones that push less wattage than alter ones but are more reliable and sound sweeter to my ear. If the cab ahs a flip top to access the eyelet board then don't buy it.... those are the later, mediocre ones.... you want one made no later than about 72. They are built like tanks and have beastial rock tone when turned up. The other traynor mdoels are cheaper, like the reverbmaster but theya re cleaner and more like 60s fenders with british tubes. They sound good but are not to everyone's liking. Then there's the rare PA head like I have. Older is better. The early circuit sucks as a PA but is a gainy rock machine for guitar whereas the post-69 circuit is cleaner and said to have some hiwatt quality to the sound but its hard to get it to break up. You see the PAs modded a lot, but stock ones are getting thin on the ground and stock 1st circuit versions like mine seem to be non-existent. If you find one, buy it. They have a lot in common with early oranges and have that smokey, never quite clean thing going on and when turned up they give an in your face natural overdrive that is very 70s. All the low wattage bassmate, studiomate and guitarmate amps sound great and are pretty cheap still.

there aren't a ton of vintage gems that are still affordable. I see some real junk going for big money just because its old. If you want something 800ish on the cheap look at a Laney AOR head. THey are like hot rodded 800s. The build quality is not great, but tis better than a lot of modern amps. They trade for 500 bucks or less. The best sounding ones are the earlier single channel models and I think the 50 waters sound better than the 100 waters. There's also a 30 watt AOR combo that people dig but I have never tried one. Laeny's 90s GH100L and GH50L are very good sounding 800 clones. There are some added features thata re implemented poorly but if you ignore the fx loop and you're judicious with useabe of the elad boost then its a solid amp that sounds very close to an 80s JCM.

old Univox bass heads are in the bassman/plexi camp too and can stll be ahd for very little money. I ahd one, ine was kinda like a high power tweed twin mixed with a superlead. Really good sounding amp that commands maybe 500 bucks in this market.

Silvertone made a bass head that looks like a smaller twin 12. Sucks for bass, righteous marshall-meets-supro type grind turned up and it maybe pushes 30 watts so great for gigging. Clean sounds don't suck either. Defintiely the most affordable sears amp these days and a real sleeper that sounds great and doesn't suffer from the problems the other guitar amps do because the circuitry is simple and less can go wrong on them. I wouldn't pay more than 500 for one. There was a time you could buy any silvertone head for under 100 LOL

Selmer treble n bass heads are still pretty cheap. I just bought one with a replaced power transformer for about 600 USD. Generally for that money you can get an early one like mine that's a little hacked up inside or you can get a later one that's minty. I think the older ones sound better, but they're all decent amps with a good post-marshall voice. A little plexi, a little hiwatty a little ac50ish and even a little fendery. Decent alla roudners, though they are not the cleanest build quality compared to other handwired british amps of the day. Definitely can develop hum and hiss issues due to lead dress thatw asn't good enough to survive half a century. If you are willing to service them though they are good vintage sleepers.

Its getting harder to find them, but tweed Gibsons (and the 2 tone ones when you see them at good prices) from the 50s and very early 60s can be a good deal and they are very much in the small fender camp. Some sound better than their fender counterparts but the louder ones kinda suck for rock n roll. Also the model names don't denote wattage. a GA40 les paul amp is not 40 watts, maybe 20 watts soaking wet. But there are good deals if you keep your eyes peeled. Ebay is full of dealers asking speculative buy it now prices, but really most old gibbies should be udner a grand. The best models are the GA6 lancer, GA8 and GA9 gibsonettes, GA14 titan, and GA20 ranger. They are all similar being champ/deluxe variants. They're gainier and midrangier than the fender models they are like and I think they just rock way harder.

The Sovtek Migs are okay and still relatively cheap. The build quality never looked great to me but you never see them broken... must be functional if ugly inside. They are in the bassman/plexi/JCM camp. All the models sound pretty okay. The one with extra gain and a master volume, the 60 I think? is the sleeper usually costing very little and it has a real sound of its own.

80s peaveys are well made. The Windsor is the most notorious 800 clone, but Peavey also released the VT series amps all of which build on the 800 platform, some with additional features. Some use 6L6 tubes instead of EL24s. They are ugly as sin, but cheap and good sounding. Pay no more than 400 for one.

Silverface Fender is still a relative deal mostly because a lot of the flagship models were ruined by CBS's engineers... but the small amps are still great and the series has some real sleepers in it like the mighty Bandmaster Reverb head. You can guess what that amp is! Very good sounding amps in a fender way.

Mesa's unloved caliber amps are still relative deal. Earlier ones are kinda like the mark series and later ones have a fender channel paired with a triple rectifier style lead channel. I like the older ones myself. They usually trade for 600 to 800 USD.

Plush amps are 70s plexi copes that look like the tuck n roll Kustom amps we all love to hate.... you can generally get a 100 watt plush for under a grand. They sound really good and the looks are hysterical and fun.

The 80s Hiwatt lead amps are sleepers too. They aren't exactly hiwatts being built on PCB with inferior transformers, but they add a 'lead channel' feature that's 800ish in a hiwatt way. They sound shockingly good. Usually less than a grand. Good resale. Also, the 80s 30 watter Hiwatt made is GREAT and well under a grand. you can usually find one online for about 700 bucks. Its very Marshally.

aww man, I am glad I don't have tocheck under the toilet seats for redbacks.... nasty little fuckers, yuck

its a touching story.... I wish I was named Zane,though.... that's one badass name! If I were to buy another Jackson with a Floyd and join a hair band I think I would go by Zane Whiplash while I whored my waya round the sunset strip

I have no experience with either but people love the bassbreakers, I mostly own vintage stuf... but 45 watts is loud, address the venues you are playing! 5 tube watts is loud as fuck through efficient speakers in a small room

it won't matter much once you use the companion fuzz, it depends on the speakers and room really as the shin-ei does its thing and your goal is not to be too boomy and abrasive, just nasty enough.... on a solid state I would try diming the mids first with the bass and treb down and then turn them up until you like it in the room you are playing in... if the sound is then too honky or nasal for your liking slowly back off the mids

in general tone control settings are more about the speakers you use and the space you are playing in unless its a dimed plexi or something where you are trying to set some accent on the power amp distortion.... that scenario will not apply to your gear or your goal -- tweak to the speakers and the space

I really like the vox ef86 channel and ac30 normal because there aren't any tone controls and I just let her rip, no fiddling... tone controls are overrated... even on my pro, traynor and selmer amps I really don't worry too much.... dark amps I dime the treble, bright amps I cut it, I usually go really fast and never have any issues with tone.... to much emphasis is placed on settings versus gear with character and your CHOPS

when I had an 800 I used to just put everything around 5, no joke -- gain, treb mid bass, master, presence.... all about halfway worked fine for all purposes--- superleads are pickier they wanna be run loud as fuck to break up and sound best to me low presence, dimed treble and mid, abss to taste... fender, the magic blackface settings are typically bass at 2 treble at 7, mid at 7 if it has a mid and then depending on the room or spekers you can engage the bright switch if you want more zing, from the alrger amps though, small bf's don't have a bright switch and don't really need it.... hell adding tone controls was a waste of time the old tweed and brown little guys sound amazing with almost no controls

don't sweat it, just get the right fuzz and let it happen

You are probably right. The fractal styff sounds damned good though. Not as flexible as kemper but the sound is close to a tube amp....