Photos of your amps

pjpjpaul

DSL 40 C with celestion creamback speaker. Looking to add a tweed 6v6 style this year at some point. Let's see those amps! 

BALLBOY

pjpjpaul said:

DSL 40 C with celestion creamback speaker. Looking to add a tweed 6v6 style this year at some point. Let's see those amps!  Love seeing Chewie on there

BALLBOY

Fender 20w champion with Bart Otto & everyone's favourite bully Nelson Muntz  

mfc2006

Fender Hot Rod Deluxe

pjpjpaul

mfc2006 said:

Fender Hot Rod Deluxe

I used to rock a hrd in a band. Man that thing has clean headroom for days and volume to spare. Great with pedals too. Just w little too loud for me right now as I'm looking to do more studio work. I'm looking at either a princeton reverb, a blues jr., or a deluxe reverb. Not sure yet which one I'll end up with. Will probably have to try them out and see which one wins a spot on the team. I'll end up A/B-ing it with the marshall for a good clean ans crunch mix. 

gimmesometruth27

Here is my main amp. 1974 50 watt Marshall JMP, bone stock, 1978 A cab with original greenbacks. Cab is all original but has been regrilled at some point. I think the Marshall logo may be newer too. It is really bright white, but seems more brittle than it should be.

gimmesometruth27

To the left if my number 2. It is a 1994 35 watt Matchless Clubman built by Mark Sampson, the founder of the company. It is sitting on a 2004 Marshall A cab with vintage 30s. I use that one when I need something with a master volume. My JCM 800 and JCM 900 are at a friend's house from last time we jammed over there before covid. I need something smaller so I can set up and practice in my living room. Thinking about a Vox AC 15, but have not played one yet.

pjpjpaul

gimmesometruth27 said:

To the left if my number 2. It is a 1994 35 watt Matchless Clubman built by Mark Sampson, the founder of the company. It is sitting on a 2004 Marshall A cab with vintage 30s. I use that one when I need something with a master volume. My JCM 800 and JCM 900 are at a friend's house from last time we jammed over there before covid. I need something smaller so I can set up and practice in my living room. Thinking about a Vox AC 15, but have not played one yet.

Wow. I bet these sound fantastic. Really nice rig you've got there.

gimmesometruth27

pjpjpaul said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

To the left if my number 2. It is a 1994 35 watt Matchless Clubman built by Mark Sampson, the founder of the company. It is sitting on a 2004 Marshall A cab with vintage 30s. I use that one when I need something with a master volume. My JCM 800 and JCM 900 are at a friend's house from last time we jammed over there before covid. I need something smaller so I can set up and practice in my living room. Thinking about a Vox AC 15, but have not played one yet.

Wow. I bet these sound fantastic. Really nice rig you've got there.

thank you. my dream rig would be to have these both on stage and have an A/B/Y box and use the matchless for the cleans and the marshall for the dirt. unfortunately we are not playing the big stages anymore. we took a year off so guys can spend time with their little kids and we lost our spot in the rotation at the big clubs.

we planned on getting back into the scene on the back end of this year and started jamming again until covid hit. now a lot of the bars we have been playing have closed for good, so will be hard to find places to play when things reopen. everything band related is all up in the air right now. we are thinking we will not play a show this year.

gimmesometruth27

the thing about that marshall, is you have to have the volume knobs up over 4, which is insanely loud for a non master volume amp. the bright cap is engaged up until 4 or 5 and it is super bright. you get it up to 5 or 6 and the bright cap is not as powerful so you get that great, midrangey marshall crunch. when they say you have to crank them to get "that tone", they are right.

pjpjpaul

gimmesometruth27 said:

the thing about that marshall, is you have to have the volume knobs up over 4, which is insanely loud for a non master volume amp. the bright cap is engaged up until 4 or 5 and it is super bright. you get it up to 5 or 6 and the bright cap is not as powerful so you get that great, midrangey marshall crunch. when they say you have to crank them to get "that tone", they are right.

Have you tried an OX Box? I hear they sound way better than traditional attenuators and have a lot of very good features for the studio. 

dudeman

pjpjpaul

dudeman said:

Nice setup. Which Mesa Boogie is that? I really want to get a Mesa California Tweed but I dont have 2k to drop atm. They just sound amazing and have a slew of tone shaping options. 

dudeman

The Mesa is a Mark IIB. Built in the early 80s. I went through it a couple months ago to replace aging components and to clean it up a bit. Ended up sending it to Mesa to upgrade the reverb circuit and to apply a few "fixes" to issues they discovered after the IIB had been in production for a while. 

Ultimately, those upgrades and a revised topology became the Mark III.

The Mark IIB is a killer amp but it is way overkill for my use of it at home. To be honest, I much prefer to use the blonde Super Champ Xd. That has been hotrodded and is a smoking practice/recording tool. It sounds way better than it should. Loud enough to peel paint off the walls too.

gimmesometruth27

pjpjpaul said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

the thing about that marshall, is you have to have the volume knobs up over 4, which is insanely loud for a non master volume amp. the bright cap is engaged up until 4 or 5 and it is super bright. you get it up to 5 or 6 and the bright cap is not as powerful so you get that great, midrangey marshall crunch. when they say you have to crank them to get "that tone", they are right.

Have you tried an OX Box? I hear they sound way better than traditional attenuators and have a lot of very good features for the studio. 

i've not tried it. heard really good things about it though.

the hotplate meets my needs in a live setting. any recording i have done has been on that matchless or jcm 800 because they have a master volume and are easier to tame than that jmp in the picture. that jmp, to sound good, has to be cranked. when you use a hotplate and attenuate it you lose some of the treble, so you have to compensate by using a clean boost like a klon type pedal or use the brignt switch on the hotplate. i think the bright switch on the hotplate gives it too much treble so it is kind of overkill. the problem with the old amps is you have to find the balance and they can be tempermental. 

mfc2006

Nice looking setups!! I love my HRD, but may be looking at adding another amp to the arsenal later this year.

pjpjpaul

I just ordered a Mesa Boogie California Tweed amp from Sweetwater that should arrive this week. Will post some pics and a review this weekend.

pjpjpaul

The cali tweed arrived today. Cant wait to put it through its paces. 

dudeman

Nice! Great amp.

pjpjpaul

I just ordered the Universal Audio OX Box as well so I will be able to crank this up in my home studio without making the neighbors crazy. 

dudeman

Out of curiosity, do you think you will need an attenuator with the power scaling features already on your amp?

I imagine you should be able to slam the front end and push the power section with the ability to dial the wattage down. 

pjpjpaul

I want to push the tubes on the 40 watt setting and attenuate that sound plus I will be utilizing the headphone feature, the cab and room simulator options... The OX is a great solution for silent recording and quiet practicing with good tone. Even with the power scaling on the amp already I can't crank the master volume without it getting too loud for the house. This will solve that too. My 97 and 95 year old grandparents who live with me will appreciate the purchase  

dudeman

Got ya. Thanks!

pjpjpaul

First impressions of Mesa California Tweed

1 The amp is aesthetically pleasing 

2. The power switching options are great for those who need the ability to lower or increase headroom and db's for different playing situations. So far my ear has taken to the 40 watt 20 watt and 2 watt settings as being the most sonically pleasing but again it all depends on the situation and what tone you want.

3. The knobs for gain, eq, presence, and master volume are all very touch sensitive. If you move them just a bit you can hear a big shift in tone. Some people will like this and some won't. I like the fact that there are a wide spectrum of tones available but I also hate having to tweak too much to find a sweet spot so I've recorded a few settings I like and keep flipping between them.l depending on how much gain or headroom I need. 

4. This amp is a great pedal platform. I have used delays, chorus, compression, boosts, overdrive, wah, and fuzz so far and they all sounded phenomenal. 

5. This amp really brings out the sound of your pickups and guitar without coloring the sound too much. Again some will and some won't like this aspect of the amp. Many ampa have a particular sound and eq curves  that add color or a particular"personality trait" to the sound of a guitar and its pickups. Marshall's have a distinct sound, as do vox's, and fenders... but this is a more neutral canvas. Pedals can get you almost any sound imaginable these days and having that neutral canvas helps in that respect too because your amp is not impacting the desired tones of the pedal as much either. 

I will have more to add to this review later. My Ox Box showed up this weekend and I have been using it with this amp so I will let you all know how that had been going.

dudeman

Sounds like it's going well! Lots to explore with those amps. Enjoy!

JH228

Here is one of my favorite amps...It is a combination of an Orange OR80 and Matamp GTO circuit. Thick distortion!

dudeman

I moved the Mesa/Boogie MK-IIb along and just picked up this Carvin on Friday.

Made in 1996, it has 4 x 12AX7s and 4 x EL84s, an Accutronics spring tank and 1 x 12" speaker. Makes 33 watts.

I bought it in as-is condition due to a non-functioning reverb and scratchy pots. All it needed was a good cleaning with Deoxit and about an hour of my time. It also came with a full spare tube compliment, both pre and power tubes.

The clean channel sounds really, really good but the drive channel needs modifications. There are clipping diodes in there that have got to go. I will probably experiment with this one a little. 

brianlux

Very happy with my latest set up:  '65 Fender Princeton Reverb, 80's Squire Strat with Humbucksers, Big Muff Ram's Head, PolyTune tuner.  Now I just need to find that "right-for-me" affordable Tele and maybe a wah pedal (possibly a Cry Baby like I had ages ago).