After watching this and actually owning a few of them, my fav were the 1987X 50 watters. what do you think?
The 20 Best Marshall Amps?
- Thread starter guitarweasel
- Start date
Tony M.
Ambassador
I think that If there are 20 "greatest of all time" anything,
none of them will really stand out from their pack.
I'm not a "Marshall guy" but of the ones I have actually heard with my own ears,
I like the sound of an old JTM-45 into a single slant front 4 X 12 greenback cabinet.
none of them will really stand out from their pack.
I'm not a "Marshall guy" but of the ones I have actually heard with my own ears,
I like the sound of an old JTM-45 into a single slant front 4 X 12 greenback cabinet.
syscokid
Ambassador of War & Peace
Personally, I thought all of them sounded great with the exception of the first clip of a Marshall Major. The second clip of a Major, towards the end, was a very clean tone and quite different from the other 19. I loves me a proper JTM45, but that is not the quintessential Marshall tone... even though it was the first Marshall... go figure... 
“Mountain's first gig was at Fillmore West in 1969” remembers Leslie West. “I had been using Marshall amps, and that’s what I expected to find when I opened a bunch of cartons that had arrived from the airport, but instead I got a Sunn—and it wasn’t even a guitar amp. The cartons contained a Sunn Coliseum P.A. head and four 4x12 cabinets, and I thought, ‘There’s no way I can get a good tone out of this thing.’ But the head had four microphone inputs and a master volume control, and when I plugged in and turned it up I got this amazing tone, which became my sound. And remember, this was years before amps had master volume controls. The head had huge transformers and gigantic KT88 tubes, and the cabinets were loaded with Eminence speakers, which never hurt your ears even with the treble all the way up. That’s the amp I used on Mountain Climbing, which included ‘Mississippi Queen.’”
West was playing a couple of ’50s Gibson Les Paul Juniors at the time “Mississippi Queen” was recorded: a 1956 single-cutaway and a slightly newer double-cutaway. “The single-cutaway had a better sound than the other one,” he recalls. “And back then I used to string them with standard sets of La Bella Electric Guitar strings, but I’d substitute .010-gauge A banjo strings for the high-E strings and move the other five strings down one slot, because you couldn’t get extra-light sets at that time.”
The single P-90 pickups in those guitars were essential to West’s tones, but they tended to feed back and could be difficult to control.
“It always felt like the guitars were trying to jump out of my hands,” he says. “And the controls didn’t do much. Between about 1 and 6 the volume controls would give you a clean tone, then around 7 to 9 the sound got a little dirtier—but when you turned them up to 10 you’d get this extra blast of sound. I usually played with the tone controls fully open, because you didn’t get much variation when you rolled them back, unless you rolled them all the way off.
“These days, I can pretty much get the ‘Mississippi Queen’ tone out of any guitar. Larry DiMarzio once told me my tone was in my right-hand attack, and he was right. Also, I never felt like I needed a two- or three-pickup guitar, because you can get a lot of tones out of a single pickup. If you’re in a room filled with gasoline, how many matches do you really need? One good one and a backup!”
West was playing a couple of ’50s Gibson Les Paul Juniors at the time “Mississippi Queen” was recorded: a 1956 single-cutaway and a slightly newer double-cutaway. “The single-cutaway had a better sound than the other one,” he recalls. “And back then I used to string them with standard sets of La Bella Electric Guitar strings, but I’d substitute .010-gauge A banjo strings for the high-E strings and move the other five strings down one slot, because you couldn’t get extra-light sets at that time.”
The single P-90 pickups in those guitars were essential to West’s tones, but they tended to feed back and could be difficult to control.
“It always felt like the guitars were trying to jump out of my hands,” he says. “And the controls didn’t do much. Between about 1 and 6 the volume controls would give you a clean tone, then around 7 to 9 the sound got a little dirtier—but when you turned them up to 10 you’d get this extra blast of sound. I usually played with the tone controls fully open, because you didn’t get much variation when you rolled them back, unless you rolled them all the way off.
“These days, I can pretty much get the ‘Mississippi Queen’ tone out of any guitar. Larry DiMarzio once told me my tone was in my right-hand attack, and he was right. Also, I never felt like I needed a two- or three-pickup guitar, because you can get a lot of tones out of a single pickup. If you’re in a room filled with gasoline, how many matches do you really need? One good one and a backup!”
Favorite Marshal = JTM45 + Cabinets
Best tone and still portable = DSL40C
Best tone and still portable = DSL40C
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Tony M.
Ambassador
Speaking of Leslie West, when he was in the Vagrants he played a Starfire V.
He wore it way high up, above the considerable waist bulge he had at that time
and played it through an Ampeg super echo twin that was up on a chair.
His playing was blindingly fast and very flashy back then, a far cry from
the Leslie West we all knew in Mountain and W B & L.
He wore it way high up, above the considerable waist bulge he had at that time
and played it through an Ampeg super echo twin that was up on a chair.
His playing was blindingly fast and very flashy back then, a far cry from
the Leslie West we all knew in Mountain and W B & L.
OP
OP
I've played through Major's and found them sounding more like 200 watt Fender Twins, ungodly loud and sounding nothing like the 100 or 50 watters
Ritchie's main amp for the studio was a Vox AC-30, for live work he used 2 Marshal Major's. His Majors we modded by Dawk Stillwell, he boosted the output to 278 watt's. Ritchie also used a Hornby Skewes Treble Booster and a Aiwa TP 1011 reel to reel recorder for delay and as an extra boost.
I've seen Purple countless times (seeing as there one of my favorite bands.) and can attest to the fact they were probably the loudest band I've ever seen!
The Hornby Booster.
The Aiwa TP 1011.
OP
67plexi
Ambassador of Amps
That would explain it I played two Fender Twins for years. I still like the 33k/540 PF tone stack in the JTM 45/100 and Black Flag Marshall's.
I still have 2 1968 100 watt Marshall's and a Park 75 1969 Funny the nastiest most gain is the Fender 1960 Concert with the tweed Bassman OPT.
I built a 50 and a 100 Dumble ODS Marshall transformers both with vintage OPT pre 1969 on/on/on switch up 250 Pf middle 0 down 500 Pf they were the best
until I built the EF86 amp.
I still have 2 1968 100 watt Marshall's and a Park 75 1969 Funny the nastiest most gain is the Fender 1960 Concert with the tweed Bassman OPT.
I built a 50 and a 100 Dumble ODS Marshall transformers both with vintage OPT pre 1969 on/on/on switch up 250 Pf middle 0 down 500 Pf they were the best
until I built the EF86 amp.
syscokid
Ambassador of War & Peace
My first amp kit that I assembled was a 50 watt Plexi that I purchased from Metroamps. Even though they don't sell these kits directly anymore, Metroamp works closely with Valvestorm to continue the sale of these high quality kits. Regrettably, I sold the Purple Levant monster, but yeah, what a classic Marshall sound... :dood:
50 Watt Build Checklist | ValveStorm
A JTM45 build is on my wide scanning radar though. Right now I'm targeting on a BF Champ-style build from Allen Amps.
AMEN! I couldn't agree more...I sold mine largely because of transportation issues....
ivan H
Ambassador of Tubes & Grooves
Robert @ Valvestorm is a great guy to deal with as well. I always get orders from him quickly & I'm in Australia. I prefer Marstran transformers though I believe both Metroamp & Marstran are wound by Heyboer. Brian @ Marstran is also great to deal with & really know's his stuff. He also has period correct 50 watt plexi chassis'. Pity Brian Haberman is no longer doing PTP boards (they were nice). I got some blank (unturreted) board of him just before he stopped supplying & he also sent me some NOS iskra's which was nice of him. Cheers