For discussion about setting up your studio and advice on the gear and equipment within it.
By Ieysyell Thu Apr 11, 2019 10:37 am
Hello, I'm looking to upgrade my amp, my small fender mustang amp isn't cutting it. I've done some basic research on both of these brands but can anyone go into more detail on these two brands? The sound I'm going for mostly are 70's and 80's metal/rock, with some blues as well. Any Information or opinions about these brands is greatly appreciated!

I have an Epiphone Les Paul and a Fender Stratocaster.
User avatar
By tapedeck Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:30 pm
i bet as long as you stay in the not-cheap range of either line, you'll be fine.

i mean a les paul and a marshall is a classic combo - if you want to make it simple, just do that.
that being said, the orange amps are not bad at all, just sounds like you know what you want already for that style.

again tho - very important, i'm not talking about entry-level stuff.
By 6/8 Stanley Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:13 am
So many different models maybe better to check them out in the store. I had a bad experience in a music store with some digital "tube emulation" amps, but a tube amp came to my rescue. We're still together.
By CharlesRandolph Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:38 am
To capture that 70 rock and 80 metal sound, it comes down to the amp settings, direct out or mic'ing the cabinet. Let's not forget the kind of pick ups, strings, and tone setting on your guitar. The crazy thing is, now a days, it's really all about effects. You can pretty much emulate everything now, except good playing. :lol:
User avatar
By Monotremata Fri May 17, 2019 5:42 am
They'll both do 'rock' but Id probably go Marshall in this case. Orange's won't do '80s metal', at least not unless you plan on using it clean with pedals for your distortion. Oranges overdrive is a really thick and heavy sort of fuzz tone, compared to the harder/brighter grinding sound of a Marshall. Think like every modern day stoner rock/doom metal band. The Marshall JCM800 IS 80s metal. Mine stock is pretty much Iron Maiden all the way up to Slayer in a box. But that's a JCM800 (and mine is an old one, not a new reissue). Theres also the original Marshall Superlead (everybody wrongly calls a 'Plexi'), the later JCM900s, todays JCM2000s, JVMs, Vintage Moderns, etc... The main old amps you can still get as reissues too. The Superlead, JCM800, Silver Jubilee, JCM900, etc.. Go play them if you can, play them again, play them one more time, then pick the one that works best for you. Remember, each one is going to react different to each guitar and the environment it's in. They never sound exactly the same from one minute to the next. Hell just give em a couple hours to warm up they sound different than when you first turned it on. Don't settle on an amp based on forum advice if you can. You just gotta play em.
By Mystic38 Thu Jun 06, 2019 9:58 pm
I kinda agree..

The only Orange amp with a brighter tone (relatively speaking) is ch2 of the AD30HTC

All the others have full levels of low mids, and simply cannot be made to sound like a marshall..they do, however have their own thing going on..amps to note are the Rocker 30, Rockerverb and the CS50

my choice for 70's and 80's rock from Marshall would be the Vintage Modern.. LDR for 70's and HDR for 80's.

...only cos everyone wants a JCM800..lol

Monotremata wrote:They'll both do 'rock' but Id probably go Marshall in this case. Orange's won't do '80s metal', at least not unless you plan on using it clean with pedals for your distortion. Oranges overdrive is a really thick and heavy sort of fuzz tone, compared to the harder/brighter grinding sound of a Marshall. Think like every modern day stoner rock/doom metal band. The Marshall JCM800 IS 80s metal. Mine stock is pretty much Iron Maiden all the way up to Slayer in a box. But that's a JCM800 (and mine is an old one, not a new reissue). Theres also the original Marshall Superlead (everybody wrongly calls a 'Plexi'), the later JCM900s, todays JCM2000s, JVMs, Vintage Moderns, etc... The main old amps you can still get as reissues too. The Superlead, JCM800, Silver Jubilee, JCM900, etc.. Go play them if you can, play them again, play them one more time, then pick the one that works best for you. Remember, each one is going to react different to each guitar and the environment it's in. They never sound exactly the same from one minute to the next. Hell just give em a couple hours to warm up they sound different than when you first turned it on. Don't settle on an amp based on forum advice if you can. You just gotta play em.
User avatar
By Wormhelmet Fri Jun 07, 2019 6:21 am
I upgraded amps about seven years ago. I chose neither. Instead bought one AMT Stonehead 50/4 four Channel 50 watt head, one Mahaffay HiLo Watt Plexi hand wired head, and two other AMT preamps - a D2 Legend preamp and the S-20 three channel tube preamp. The Mahaffay design is pretty much the same as the Mahaffay 33 watt Little Lanalei but in a small no speaker head form. It’s a single Ecc82 preamp Tube and Ecc83 Tube for the power amp (1/4 watt) fed into a 33 watt solid state booster amp. Will drive a 4/12 easy. I run the heads into a Marshall 2/12 vertical slant cabinet, but all the AMT stuff has cabinet simulation for recording direct. I can also run the Mahaffay into my AMT Chameleon Cab pedal which is a small cabinet simulator pedal. The Mahaffay has an fx loop and so does the Stonehead. Joe Perry from Aerosmith and Kirk Hammet from Metallica both have the Mahaffay amps for on the road hotel room practice amps.

The Stonehead review


The Mahaffay driving a 4/12 cab (the Amp is the little box on the top) review is a French speaking guy, but just listen to his Les Paul into the little hand wired amp
User avatar
By Wormhelmet Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:16 am
I’ve also owned several Marshalls- JCM-900 combo, JCM-800 Head, a Little Lead 12 combo (first amp in 1983)
Also Dean Markley 60 watt tube combo, Laney AOR 30 head, Fender Bassman, Fender Twin, Roland JC-120, Peavey Triumph 60 watt 3 channel tube (wish I still had this one, it’s much sought after now), Still own a Peavey Valve King II Head (switchable 1, 5, or 20 watt, cab sim, reverb, 3 tube 12ax7 preamp, 2x EL84 power amp tubes)

The Stonehead is the most versatile and one of the best sounding out of all those. They were all good amps, but eventually got rid of them all and replaced with software for a few years. Revalver and Native Instruments Guitar Rig, then Bias Amp. Wanted real amps again so bought the Stonehead, Mahaffay, and the Valve King II

The Stonehead cane shipped from Russia in a wood box with foam inside and wrapped in a burlap bag. Very safe shipping but drew odd looks from the receptionist at my work who signed for it for me. Tris Mahaffay is the guy that makes the Mahaffay amps and he’s kind of close to where I live. Bought the head off eBay but later talked to him in person about some cabinets he makes. He has several amps available including a larger head - the AW99 but still based on the same circuit. He’s also the guitar player for Striker and uses his own amps in shows.
By CharlesRandolph Fri Jun 07, 2019 8:58 am
On the Stone head do you like recording using a mic in front of a cabinet or do you prefer to track directly from rear outs of the head? Also what is your recording chain?

Guitar, Effects Pedal, Head to mixer
Guitar, Effects Pedal, Head to Cabinet, Mic to Mixer
User avatar
By Wormhelmet Fri Jun 07, 2019 10:44 am
CharlesRandolph wrote:On the Stone head do you like recording using a mic in front of a cabinet or do you prefer to track directly from rear outs of the head? Also what is your recording chain?

Guitar, Effects Pedal, Head to mixer
Guitar, Effects Pedal, Head to Cabinet, Mic to Mixer


I use fx loops for most fx and never mic cabs anymore. Guitar tracks now go into sampler. With the Deluge and disk streaming or my mv8800, each can do very long guitar recordings and I cut them up and place sampled slices sequenced. It’s funny because back in 1997 I was doing the same thing with my Yamaha SU700 for guitar tracks. Got into DAWs in 2000

Guitar, chorus/flanger, stage one of noise gate, Head preamp, fx loop (reverb pedal, delay, stage 2 of noise gate), cab sim out to mixer. Ocassionally throw an mxr 10 band eq in if trying to mimic single coil sounds on my humbuckers.

I’m sparse on fx usually. The noise gate is probably best in business for guitar that I’ve ever used - G String Decimator II. Amazing two part gate for guitar. It will gate the guitar signal completely when you stop playing but delay tails won’t get cut until you decide they should be cut by using the delay in the loop.

When I used a DAW, I just did dry tracks and used Bias Amp or previous to that, Revalver or NI Guitar Rig. I have a bunch of cab IR’s I could apply to sim to get realistic cab responses recorded. Bias Amp is crazy good software and if you’re an Amp tweaker, you can get down to the point of changing transformer types and rolling virtual tubes in the software. I used to like to try and nail specific guitar sounds like Page’s Supro sound and Neil Young’s Fender Twin sound, etc

I still use Bias Amp on my iPad sometimes. Bias FX also. Still fun to build out amps. If I was doing DAW work still I’d use Bias Amp on the desktop and just record my real amps into Bias and get a model of them. They will nail real-time modeling of your own actual amps if you don’t want to use cab sims out and just want to do dry tracks and use Bias Amp on the dry tracks. Dry track recording with good software modeling is the most flexible way to record. Guitar tracks can be infinitely tweaked and changes made to how the overall sound comes out in your DAW.
Last edited by Wormhelmet on Fri Jun 07, 2019 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By Wormhelmet Fri Jun 07, 2019 10:57 am
Here’s my 2/12 slant with both small heads on the top for the picture. Have to put the Stonehead on its side but it has rubber feet on the side to stand up like this

Image

I’m also crazy for the AMT products in general

Image
User avatar
By Wormhelmet Fri Jun 07, 2019 11:41 am
CharlesRandolph wrote:To capture that 70 rock and 80 metal sound, it comes down to the amp settings, direct out or mic'ing the cabinet. Let's not forget the kind of pick ups, strings, and tone setting on your guitar. The crazy thing is, now a days, it's really all about effects. You can pretty much emulate everything now, except good playing. :lol:


Except good playing. You got that right.

I think I could match about any amp tone with Bias Amp and tweak a pre-eq before guitar signal hits amp to mimic pickup eq curves.

Having a guitar with hum-buckers tweaked to sound like single coils is still not like playing a strat or Tele. Unless your strat or Tele has humbuckers...
User avatar
By Monotremata Fri Jun 07, 2019 5:14 pm
My Tele believe it or not easily keeps up with the humbucker in my Strat. Its a Classic 60s Tele and I left it stock with the 'Vintage 60s' single coils in it. That thing RIPS. With a Rat or an HM-2 and my JCM800 that thing is evil and does Godflesh tones all day long hah. That reminds me I need to start getting ready to go broke buying the Jimmy Page Tele when it comes out next month.
User avatar
By Ill-Green Sat Jun 08, 2019 1:53 pm
Single coils can match a humbucker, thats if the single coils were wounded in opposite polarities. Like those reversed wound P90s for example. 2 P90s become a giant humbucker when both pickups are activated.
User avatar
By Monotremata Sat Jun 08, 2019 5:18 pm
The reverse winding/reversed pole is for hum cancelling.. Its running the two pickups in parallel that boosts the output and will give it a big fat stacked humbucker sound. Gotta watch the polarity though, you cant do it with a normal wound pickup. About 25 years ago, Duncan's instructions for installing their humbuckers left out this little fact that if you put them in a Fender guitar you have to reverse the wires in it. Of course nowadays that info is right there in the instructions and on their website but my Strat's position 4 (the bridge and middle pickup) has been out of phase ever since I installed it haha. I just left it that way cause its kind of a neat effect if I need it. Its not like I ever use anything but the bridge pickups anyways. My Telecaster might as well have been an Esquire, I still might actually screw the neck pickup all the way down and just put an Esquire pick guard over the top of it.