Somehow that's not the same, even though those are the other 2 great guitar amp makers. I rarely hear the terms "Fender stack" or "Vox stack". Nor do the walls of fake amps seem to bear any name other than Marshall. I'm a Fender player, but I do get the love of the big stack...for others.
That's not a wall, nor stack, that's a pile of Vox amps! I love it. I really get your screen name now, Voxman.
although i've heard guys get great tone from a Marshall, i have NEVER played through one that I liked. From full stacks to the little ones, they just don't do it for me. A tweed through the black-faced Fender Bassman amps and small Fender amps are it for me. Next on the list would be a VOX amp - incredible tone. I've played thru a few Orange amps, one BUDDA amp, a few Boogie amps, and a Dr Z amp that I liked too. Matchless amps sound wonderful but i never played through one. Pretty much everything else doesn't do it for me... Amps that I would LOVE to try: Matchless, Cornford, Matamp, and of course a Dumble or a Trainwreck...
ok, I'm proud to be a marshall half stack fan! I do still have my DSL 50 head and 1960A half stack but honestly it rarely gets used these days. Still I hold onto it for reasons I can't put my finger on. It has to be loud to be appreciated but there is something to be said for feeling the power chords right in your gut when you play. In the spirit of full disclosure, the amps that get the most play time from me these days are either my mesa subway rocket reverb which is i think 20 watts or my spider jam which is not even a tube amp but has the full backing track stuff that helps me practice. For the record, I love the tone from the little subway rocket reverb. It gets loud but not crazy loud like the marshall does. I've played with the little rocket with a full band and had no problem hearing my guitar in the mix.
Got it - Laney, Tony Iommi! another great Italian ancestry guitar player. As an Italian-American, I an always happy to see how many of us were guitar players, since Eddie Lang. (Salvator Massaro).
ORF I totally understand about the Subway Rocket. I have a 1 X 10 Mesa Express 5.25 and I love it. Hard to believe there's only a 10" speaker in there.
My band personally use Marshall stacks. We have a loud stage volume and then mic the amps too to be louder. If places say we're too loud then we don't play typically but nobody ever says that we're too loud.... Here is the tone we get, the PA was a bit toppy sounding here... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2C12g40DNQ]Terawatt-(Chuck Berry) J B G - YouTube[/ame] Also, those amp cabs you see on stage for AC/DC are all in use
I'd love to have a Marshall amp someday. That being said, my Egnater Tweaker (with a few mods) can make my Les Paul Custom sing and my SG bark, and all at tolerable levels. I think I'm set for awhile.
hey zr, that looks like you guys were having a great time on stage! I assume you are the lead player with the SG and if so, you have alot of the classic Angus moves down on your guitar. Oh and the duck walk bit was fun too! Tony, I tried one of those little mesa express amps at the store and really liked it. The power switch is a very cool feature! Oh and mesa sure knows how to get alot of sound out of a small amp. Love my little rocket reverb and have even been watching local craigs list for another one I could pick up cheap just to have as a backup.
Woohoo!!! I'm glad I'm not the only small amp guy. Playing through a Fender Champ was recommended to me a few years back by a guitar buddy of mine. I'm glad I took his advice. Plus, although the SG is a rock icon, I actually do play it clean fairly often, depending on what's happening in a given song, and Fender is great for cleans. I'm not saying other amps can't do good cleans, but I like a Fender clean alot. This is my 1973 Silverface.
Fender is the definition of what a clean guitar tone should be....I'm happy to hear that you play your SG clean a lot - I've been known to play jazz gigs on my SG's. They sound wonderful clean.
That reminds me...the very first time I played my SG in public was in the church I grew up in. I played the classical piece, Bourree, by Bach. It was kinda funny. I held my SG like a classical guitar on my left knee and even put my left foot on a little foot-stool! That was about 24 or 25 years ago.
smitty, I had a silverface vibra champ waaaay back in my band days. It was a fantastic amp and sounded great. In my stupidity, I traded it for a peavy solid state amp back when Eddy VH was pushing solid state amps and have missed that little fender ever since. I have tried several small fender amps since then but none had the tone of that little vibra champ. I keep hoping one day to find one in a pawn shop or garage sale cheap and snatch it up quick!
here's a picture of a stage setup we had. My Mesa Subway rocket is at left side of picture, on the stand. By having it raised and angled up towards me, I don't have any trouble hearing myself on stage..... Here's a close up: As for Vibro champs, here's some of mine.
