And why is it the Matamp GT120MV?
I am really digging the Joyo Bantamp Meteor. It's a miniaturized clone of an Orange Jim Root Terror - smaller than a lunchbox. Really nice clean channel and a satisfyingly heavy dirty channel.
I run the effects send through a cab sim pedal into my interface. When I have plugged it into a cabinet it's too loud for apartment use. Brilliant little device, and almost disposably cheap. A real feather in the cap for the productive forces of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
That thing and the Zombie are both amazing for the price.
Line 6 Spider II
Lmao jk:miyazaki-laugh:
Fender Twin Reverb or the Roland JC-40. Really hard to choose between them on the basis of sound alone, I love them both so much. I can move the JC-40 regularly without herniating a disc which is a plus.
The GT120MV seems gnarly though damn
Line 6 Spider II
im not a tone snob anymore but 10 years ago this would have made my eye twitch lol
:michael-laugh: i used that thing for way longer than i should have. I still have it but i just use it as a stand for the roland and much like a french gourmand preparing to devour a tiny songbird, i have covered it with a cloth to hide its face from god.
Ironically these days when I perform I don’t even use an amp I literally just use a waves prs guitar amp plugin on my laptop lol
Hey, at least it's not a Digitech RP series. :side-eye-1:
Silverface Twin Reverb? And why not the JC120 in combo version? It has wheels!
Nah, it's a blackface reissue. I think it's from 1995, new tubes and recapped. And most importantly a purple lamp jewel✨. Lol the wheels are righteous but the JC-40 is a real sweet spot for bedroom practice/band practice/and at least small gigs. I was super tired of wrestling the twin reverb up/down stairs, to my car, up/down more stairs, and back every week for practice so the weight was a consideration too. Even though I've ended up parking the Twin at the practice space and keeping the JC here at home anyhow.
I used to have that 180 watt tube Fender that they did for like 3 years in the late 70s. That shit was H E A V Y. Glad the 40 is treating you well!
The super twin combo? 95lbs holy. Do you play a lot of heavy/doom/sludge sorta stuff? I see people seem to like the GT120 for that and I remember a user posting a while back about getting to do some shows with their doom band or something, might be thinking of someone else though.
Oh sick, you guys have a lot of stuff up! I will check it out. What makes the GT120MV your favorite? My amp requirements have been excellent cleans and good headroom so whatever combination of pedals I throw at it come out detailed and rich. Curious what you go for in a doomin' rig.
Theres a vintage super reverb at my local music shop for $2k and every time I walk in my gf has to pull me away that thing.
:isaac-pog:
My twin reverb was $500 at a pawn shop but i quickly found it needed tubes and new capacitors which was a bit of a bummer. Was like ten years ago though.
How's your jc-120 treating you? I've read the old ones can be noisy.
Honestly, the possibility of everything that can go wrong with those vintage tube amps + my lack of engineering knowledge + it weighs like 120 lbs is why I probably won't ever get one :/ but a boy can dream. Shame cuz I really love the tone of those fender tube amps. My roomate plays a twin reverb and loves that thing.
Yeah, I did hear a bit about JC-120s allegedly having a bit of a low dB "hiss" regardless of how loud the amp is cranked. I tried it out a bit before I bought it and, to my ear at least, it's practically unnoticible. I think it will be a fantastic gigging amp. In live settings that hiss (which really is barely noticable) will be completely irrelevant... the notoriously clear guitar transients just cut through everything like fucking butter. I couldn't believe how clear and clean it sounds.
I havent tried yet, but I'm pretty confident I'll be able to double mic the amp for recording with no issue. Even at, like... 0.2 volume setting, the background noise completely disappears. Maybe it's just a case by case thing with the 80s models though, and I just got lucky? I have no idea. Based on this one though I would definitely recommend it, especially if you can find one on the cheap!
Ahh that's awesome to hear you got a quiet one, sounds like a pretty good deal too! I love my JC-40, absolutely only complaint I can come up with is that I wish the EQ was more responsive which is a very minor complaint. I double mic'd mine with the chorus on when I first got it just to see and it sounded great, the stereo totally comes through. I don't use the chorus super often though, it is too lush and decadent for me, i don't deserve it :punished-bernie:
I just do everything in Native Instruments Guitar Rig :shrug-outta-hecks:
I personally find it easier to dial in a tone in Amplitube but I really respect Guitar Rig's ability to get weird
Traynor yba-1. Right now i'm running a sansamp and an ashdown abm-600, though.
Warning: :flattened-bernie: content.
I’m so out of date with guitars, but in my misspent youth playing djent music before it was called that I loved:
- Engl Powerball (just an amazing crunch channel)
- JCM-120 for clean tones
- Peavey 5150 Mk. 2 (for copying every North London metal band in the early 2000s)
I never owned those amps but borrowed the heck out of them from pals. I chased tone to no avail with a:
- Mesa/Boogie Triaxis and Simulclass 2:90 power amp (it just sounded like shit - fizzy distortion with no guts. Editing patches felt like I was trying to use a Yamaha Portasound keyboard)
- Hughes and Kettner Triamp Mk.2 (a pal played a Duotone and I loved his clean sounds, but his distortion tone was too “rock”ish. I got the Triamp in hope of hoping it’d give me everything I wanted, but I never managed to get a good tone out of the Triamp. I blame myself there. In hindsight, they are both the cheesiest looking amplifiers ever made).
If I were to find the time and money to pick up something now, I’m curious about Blackstar amps, or maybe a PRS amp - I loved their guitars, and was surprised to learn they made amps now.
In my punk days I ran my guitar through an effects processor into a stereo amp and the left speaker cabinet our drummer stole from his dad.
I am thinking about getting a Helix just for the pack of Sovtek IRs that JHS is going to release
I also run mine through an interface into my pc and I mostly use a rectifier model. No idea if it sounds like the real thing but it sounds really good with some tweaking.
Out of what I actually own, I'd have to go with my second-gen Marshall Valvestate head. Ever since experimenting a bit with cabs (and a Torpedo captor and a shitload of IRs), I just keep coming back to it. It does the Death sound, and the OD1 channel does a sort of convincing JCM800 impression. Just never, ever turn it up past about 7 or 8, because the power stage farts out and it turns into a muffled mess.
That said, I've been GASsing for either a Peavey 6534+ or an EVH 5150 III EL34 lately. Or a Randall Satan, but it's not like I could afford it if I actually found one. :shrug-outta-hecks:
Used to have a JCM800 combo. Loved that fucking thing
I've been into all kinds of metal subgenres over the last 20 years, but I recently realized I had never given Death a solid listen. I threw on Sound of Perseverance and Symbolic while driving the other day (I've since gone through most of their discography) and jesus christ -- those are some special, special records.
I used to feel bad as a metal guitarist when something I wrote sounded too similar to some other riff I had heard, but now i realize every fucking band I liked was copying them. And frankly, nothing I've heard in the last 20 years (with a few exceptions) sounds better than the records bands like Death, or Bolt Thrower, or whoever the fuck, where making 30 or 40 years ago. I'm ashamed I found them so late; Death made me realize metal can actually be an artform... sonically beautiful, artistic, layered, unpredictable. I'm also deadset on getting a Valvestate head now.
I had the same realization some time around 10 years ago. You're right; those albums (plus Human) are like this perfect cross-section of death and prog.
If you go hunting for a Valvestate head, either an 8100, 8200, or VS100H will do just great -- the VS100H should honestly still be dirt cheap because it isn't steeped in Chuck Schuldiner mojo, but expect to have to replace the tube. A JJ long plate 12AX7 sounds pretty good in there. Just avoid the AVT series amps (third-gen and later), because those have a very different sound to them; they're more like an MG with a usable tone stack. The AVT series 4x12 cabinet is an interesting one, though -- practically travel-size, albeit with horrible speakers for anything higher-gain than boomer party rock.
Failing that, Master Effects makes a pedal called the Martyr that is a near-exact copy of the OD2 channel's preamp circuit from the 8100. There's an older version that included the OD1 channel (diode clipping trying really hard to sound like a JCM 800), but they removed it both to take the price down a little and because hardly anyone wanted or used it. That thing is fun into an effects return on a big amp (or something like a Duncan Power Stage or Blackstar Amped1).
I'm finally coming back to this to say thank you so much for turning me onto the Human album. Honestly, that might be my favorite Death record now. Thanks for the amp/pedal recs too, comrade:rat-salute-2:
Hell yeah! Always happy to drag someone else down the Death rabbit hole.
Funny timing, because I just dusted off my VS100H yesterday and was trying out different speaker cabinet IRs with it. Mostly in the interests of dicking around with a new noise gate pedal, but it also occurred to me that I hadn't heard this thing through actual Vintage 30s or G12T-75s yet. I guess Chuck used a first-gen Valvestate series 4x12 cab for the studio albums, but I can't find any info on whether he upgraded the speakers. If it was stock, then those were Celestion G12L-35s, which apparently sound sort-of-vaguely-similar-but-not-really to a greenback. Sounds like I need to either find or make some more cabinet IRs.
I literally just drove an hour and half to buy a 1980s Roland JC-120 off some dude for $500. I have no idea when or how I'm gonna use it, but jesus christ it sounds amazing. I hope I get to gig with it soon.
Having said that, I've been getting really into Death lately (mostly Sound of Perseverance/Symbolic records) and am now determined to buy a shitty used DSL20 Marshall head.
A guy I play with has an old Roost head, and it sounds like nothing else. Googling it now, it looks like someone has started the brand up again but I doubt it's anything like the old shit seen here https://jedistar.com/roost/
I live in an apartment so I don't know about that's but goddamn if it doesn't just sort of sound like amp.
My Marshall 2466 Vintage Modern 100w Head and matching 4x12 cab loaded with heritage reissue greenbacks. Coupled with a ToneKing Ironman II reactive load attenuator so I don't get evicted.
best amp I ever had hands down was a '68 super reverb with the jensens in it. damn that thing sounded great, but no way would I want to pack it around with me these days. lol I'd fitted it with casters, but it was too top heavy to leave it sitting on the wheels so I would have to remove the casters once I got it on stage, then put them back on to wheel the thing out. not my favorite thing to do when I was in a hurry to get a sound check did or clear my gear off the stage.
I have an Orange CR60 that I got almost a decade ago. I have not practiced it in for awhile but I really enjoy it. The amp's biggest strength is that you can play almost any style and it will still sound good imo (I played Indie rock, noise rock, midwest emo, shoegaze, ambient, drone, black metal, and jazz on it but with more of a jangle pop tone instead of the stereotypical jazz guitar tone), but its definitely better for more abrasive shit.
I played on some Roland JC-120, Fender Deluxe Reverb, some bigger Vox amp, and some Black Star amp. I thought the Fender amp had a better clean tone than the Orange CR60 but tbh I have not found an amp that was as versatile as the latter in terms of sounding good. The Roland is prob the best if your super into pedals but tbh I'm not a big pedal fan despite using some.
