Marshall Vintage Modern advice

[stompboxfreak72]

I am looking to get another amp outside of the Mesa family and the Vintage Modern stirs some interest in me. Any opinions on this piece of gear ?

 

[Sustain]

JCM 800 is nice. Dont know about the re-makes of them.

I like mine....but i would be willing to sell if the offer was ridiculous enough.

 

[francm]

I am looking to get another amp outside of the Mesa family and the Vintage Modern stirs some interest in me. Any opinions on this piece of gear ?

Go try it. It effing rocks. Real nice power section on there. If you like the trademark Marshall sound, you should like it.

The DSL is nice too, more versatile, but out of production.

 

[scruffydoo]

I just sold the 50watt head although I'm keeping the 425 cab as its superb for the greenback tone. I liked the amp a lot at first but got bored pretty quick, it has some basic design flaws which become a pain e.g. boosting for solos etc. Decent tone once dialled in but definately a one trick. I have a jvm also which is much better for versatility and more fun to play with some great features, also takes some dialling in but it'll nail a JCM800 tone and has good cleans, not super impressed with the high gain channels tho and would move it on for a stilletto.

Have to say my mesa has a far better tone than both, for a great fun mesa alternative you can't beat the spider valve head, that's a crazy amp and cheap too.

 

[francm]

pain e.g. boosting for solos etc. Decent tone once dialled in but definately a one trick.

Boost through the effects loop with a clean boost pedal.
Versatility? Use your guitar's volume knob! Marshall respond nicely to picking attack and volume on the guitar.

 

[AustinK]

I played a few and i really didn't like it that much. It just has one sound that i found that i liked. Its good for 80's metal but outside of that i would look elsewhere.

 

[scruffydoo]

pain e.g. boosting for solos etc. Decent tone once dialled in but definately a one trick.

Boost through the effects loop with a clean boost pedal.
Versatility? Use your guitar's volume knob! Marshall respond nicely to picking attack and volume on the guitar.

I know there's workarounds but in the end I got very similar tones from the JVM without the hassle. I don't buy in to the 'its a true guitar players amp cos you use the vol knob' either, every amp works that way.

Its a decent amp and does the one thing it does very well and to be fair that's all its designed for, I liked it best clean with single coils but in the end just wasn't for me although it was good with pedals, bet V2 has a boost and a fix for the vol jump between ranges :wink:

 

[francm]

pain e.g. boosting for solos etc. Decent tone once dialled in but definately a one trick.

Boost through the effects loop with a clean boost pedal.
Versatility? Use your guitar's volume knob! Marshall respond nicely to picking attack and volume on the guitar.

I know there's workarounds but in the end I got very similar tones from the JVM without the hassle. I don't buy in to the 'its a true guitar players amp cos you use the vol knob' either, every amp works that way.

Nope - you're wrong buddy... Not every amp cleans up nicely when you change the volume knob setting on your guitar. Not Every amp responds to picking dynamics well either. This just shows how much you don't know.

This thing can easily do early Bluesbreakers Eric Clapton, Hendrix and just as well, some heavier classic rock, hard rock.

I'm sure you could say the same thing about other Marshalls but this particular model can get that vintage vibe better than say... a DSL which is a great amp, but a little more modern sounding. Never tried a JVM. I'm sure its a cool amp though.

I'll definitely be getting a VM this year.

 

[scruffydoo]

Nope - you're wrong buddy... Not every amp cleans up nicely when you change the volume knob setting on your guitar. Not Every amp responds to picking dynamics well either. This just shows how much you don't know.

I'll definitely be getting a VM this year.

OK if you want to be specific, not every amp, but you get the drift right? the bit I do know is that the VM doesn't fully clean up either, the range voicings need tweaking yet, high dynamic gets good crunch but doesn't fully clean up on the 50w (the 100w will be better with more headroom I suppose) and low dynamic just doesn't get a good crunch without a pedal so you kind of stuck with one range that doesn't go clean to hard rock without changing ranges and suffering the huge vol jump, you'll see what I mean when you've had one a while.

Its really nice with single coils hendrix style but like I said I'm sure a V2 will be much improved.

 

[Artmusic]

Just a thought, I recently picked up a Vox AC50cph and it has some very nice sounds which are nothing like a Mesa. Nice grind and lots of balls.
Art

 

[francm]

Actuallly, if you want Marshall'esque sound for real cheap, pickup an ADA MP-1. They're awesome little preamps.

 

[Sustain]

Actuallly, if you want Marshall'esque sound for real cheap, pickup an ADA MP-1. They're awesome little preamps.

ADA Rules, I own one.

It sounds nothing like my marshall