Brutal tones/stock superleads?

[harddriver]

I saw that clip and made a comment and the thought police of the weak warned me for saying that dude in the clip was a weirdo. That amp sold for 10k, sad. That's what an amp like that in dead mint could possibly see. That headshell wasn't original for one. It wasn't pristine...

You are right and I agree completely when you say I need the right one tho.

Check out the new SNIPER mod by Ground Zero, this mod seems to cover alot of ground from tight modern metal to classic rock tones. This may work for you. It's a new plate driven 4 gains stage design from his YT description page. It's still different from a 2 gain stage plexi/superlead but it sounds good.

 

[Exo-metal]

Bc it has a warmth that is well known and if you have a recipe imo I believe it is relevant to achieve what I want to hear.

 

[harddriver]

Lotta talk these days about old Marshall's that compete with cascaded levels of gain but where are the crushing brutal clips?

Can anyone provide enough evidence to make us remove all the mods of the past and return these amps to stock?

How many of you use a stock 1959/86 100/50w plexi era amp with a distortion pedal in front and prefer that to a high gain mod? This thread excludes PaulyC and RacerXrated lol

Brutal tone doesn't always mean tons of gain......Tool has a brutal tone, but not tons of gain as someone else posted. Accept has a brutal tone, but nowhere near modern high gain amp gains.......so it depends on what is considered brutal.

 

[Exo-metal]

Most here realize that. Your prior post was good.

 

[Racerxrated]

The Marshall Plexi is the greatest sounding classic rock amp ever....... Why try making it something it's not?

Because, if you follow what I suggested, you aren't making it into anything. It stays totally stock, yet with the right piece of kit in front (BE OD, Griff TR/Ban Hammer, preamp MP1/Langner/Preamp pedal) the Plexi turns into a metal machine. Turn the unit off/unplug it, you have your collectible, totally stock vintage Superlead.
These old Marshalls have the most devastating power sections of any amp, with HiWatts/Wizards close....what better platform is there for pedals?
Nothing IMO.

 

[tallcoolone]

Because, if you follow what I suggested, you aren't making it into anything. It stays totally stock, yet with the right piece of kit in front (BE OD, Griff TR/Ban Hammer, preamp MP1/Langner/Preamp pedal) the Plexi turns into a metal machine. Turn the unit off/unplug it, you have your collectible, totally stock vintage Superlead.
These old Marshalls have the most devastating power sections of any amp, with HiWatts/Wizards close....what better platform is there for pedals?
Nothing IMO.

100% The best ‘mod’ for an old Marshall is a good boost/OD. Or Rat. Or Fuzz. Or SD-1,

 

[Chubtone]

That's why I find the 800 is better suited ever so slightly than a plexi for boosted duties. It's tighter with the preamp down but with the master UP gets loose and crazy similar ( not exact but very close) to a 1950/plexi. I find the 800's take pedals better and the plexi can be pickier and compress too much with certain pedals. But the usual suspects always slay: TS. SD-1, OD-1, EQ etc. I have some modded stuff but it is very hard to beat a boosted plexi/2204

Nah... I grew up on 2203's and 2204's. Used them forever and throughout my band days from 1982 - 1992 with them being pushed by an SD-1 and then later pushed even harder by a Furman PQ-3 into a Lexicon PCM41 and then being split into stereo 2204's.

I never could figure out how to get a Super Lead to sound right and we convinced our other guitar player to get rid of his plexi and get an early JCM800. When I finally figured out how to make a Super Lead work right I still had my '79, my '80 and my '81 2204's. I don't have any of them now. I don't miss them.

 

[Greazygeo]

Because, if you follow what I suggested, you aren't making it into anything. It stays totally stock, yet with the right piece of kit in front (BE OD, Griff TR/Ban Hammer, preamp MP1/Langner/Preamp pedal) the Plexi turns into a metal machine. Turn the unit off/unplug it, you have your collectible, totally stock vintage Superlead.
These old Marshalls have the most devastating power sections of any amp, with HiWatts/Wizards close....what better platform is there for pedals?
Nothing IMO.

Not much worse than an MP1 in front….that was terrible. Many hours of frustration with that setup.

 

[Exo-metal]

The Langner modded 3 tube mod changed that drastically.

 

[mentoneman]

love that man!!

mahalo D-Dawg! hope u and the missus are groovy!

 

[mentoneman]

Basically, we're talking about running a BE OD or a clone into the front of a clean-ish Plexi, and getting easily into metal type gain while taking advantage of the monster power sections of these early 70s SLs. Or, taking a preamp and running in into the front in the same manner. The vol on the Distortion pedal acts like a master vol, as does the output on a Langner preamp for example. I love to boost/double boost it as well; but there's a limit as to how saturated the amp gets...and, no control over the vol as it's heart attack city. Great sound too...but, if you want to NOT mod your vintage Marshall AND want thick/saturated gain like a modern amp, this is the way you can get there.

i have a BE-OD Deluxe and agree it’s great in front of my Peacemaker and can slide from bluesy boost into the modern zone pretty nicely. but like @harddriver alluded to, if you really wanna get filthy, an uberschall, herbert, or coli III are some of the modern metal solutions i’d say outperform the pedal distortion route.

having said that, the Griffin Atomic Punk pedal is much more my gain taste for transforming my PM into a VH plexi and way deeper feature wise than the nux plexi crunch and a bit greasier/saggier in the specialized brown feels than the BE:

 

[acceptance]

These old Marshalls have the most devastating power sections of any amp, with HiWatts/Wizards close...

So the 1959 and 87, not the 2203/4, or including?

 

[Exo-metal]

Not including the 2203/2204.

 

[SpiderWars]

So the 1959 and 87, not the 2203/4, or including?

The power sections are the same in both amps.

EDIT: and fwiw, the V2 part of the preamp is also the same however sometimes the plexi/SL circuit had a bypass cap on that last gain stage before the cathode follower. That mostly added gain.

 

[Braciola]

These old Marshalls have the most devastating power sections of any amp, with HiWatts/Wizards close....what better platform is there for pedals?

Using a plexi (or any clean amp) with a distortion pedal in front will never sound the same as a good high gain amp

 

[VESmedic]

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/n8zu...ey=2wpr8cxc8h0lcm9j70klya0jf&st=6evdsmyh&dl=0



There ya go no EQ. Beginning is some delay and effects, no boost or anything. The only thing I do is turn on a horizons precision drive, it’s very obvious when I do. Marshall GT75s, single 57.

I’ll do a 7 string next, just going to pick up a guitar I had lundgrens put in actually.

 

[Racerxrated]

Using a plexi (or any clean amp) with a distortion pedal in front will never sound the same as a good high gain amp

Negative. And, this opinion is why Ted started this thread.
After having 60+ stock, modded Marshalls I disagree big time. My latest comp, was a particularly nasty(in a good way lol) 1969 Nick modded-Aldrich-'FrankenMarshall'. It started life as a 1969 Major, that someone turned into a Superlead with proper 1970s 100w Dagnall transformers. Nick K did his well known 'mutant Aldrich' mod to it, and it killed. Easily up there with the Camerons I've had, if not a little better. Brought it to a Chicago amp fest, and it was one of the top amps there.
But, when I A/Bd it with my stock 72 SuperTrem + Griff's Tone Ripper Dist(BE OD clone), the 69 sounded almost flat in comparison. Not even close. The 72 has this '3D' thing that just slays, whether it's stock, OD boosted or Dist pedal in front.

I challenge any of you who have stock old Superleads, to grab a BE OD clone from Griff and try it. Set the Marshall to clean, then hit the Dist pedal and use the vol on the pedal for your MV. Around noon on the pedal and it's unity gain/vol which is so loud the paint starts peeling from the walls lol.

 

[Racerxrated]

So the 1959 and 87, not the 2203/4, or including?

While yes, the power sections are the same, the act of adding a MV in the 1959/1987 and cascading the pre takes a good amount of punch away from the stock NMV circuits. In the room, a particularly great 1983 2203, with GE 6550s, was flattened by the power/thump of my 72. Even though they are both 100w, the Plexi circuit is WAY bigger sounding in the room.

Adding a MV to a NMV amp takes away the raw brutality of the NMV amp..while it becomes more controllable, IMO they don't sound as good.

 

[harddriver]

peacemaker pretty clean with a $50 NUX plexi crunch pedal

https://on.soundcloud.com/iPtK1E4UMr8tnfCL7

To be fair the Mojave Peacemaker is 3 gain stages with a gain stage driving the higher filtered plexi circuit. I'm not sure where the cathode values are on the peacemaker so I don't know if it in line with the cold clipper 10K stage of a 2203 Marshall circuit. You can clearly hear the compression the Dual Recto brings to the table with the extra gain stage over the Marshall. I think the Dual Rectos are four gain stages like the SLO. The power sections of the 2203 usually aren't going into clipping like a cranked Superlead so they are tighter by comparsion. When the power section of the superlead clips it has it's own characteristics.

For me this clip by Killertone using a Maxon ST9 pro+ into a totally stock Marshall 2203 is my definition of brutal but not quite modern Marshall heavy tones via stock three gain stages. I'm not sure if a 2 gain stage Superlead or plexi would respond exactly the same to this pedal minus one gains stage.


If your original question was what to add to a Marshall Superlead without modding it to achieve more gain and modern brutality maybe a Legendary tones hot mod to add that third gain stage essentially making it a 2203 and then a boost up front and an EQ would get you there although I find the hot mod to be kind of tubby but maybe you can EQ that out.

Since you have a bunch of Langner and Cameron amps.... I know you know gained up Marshall tones.

 

[braintheory]

Because, if you follow what I suggested, you aren't making it into anything. It stays totally stock, yet with the right piece of kit in front (BE OD, Griff TR/Ban Hammer, preamp MP1/Langner/Preamp pedal) the Plexi turns into a metal machine. Turn the unit off/unplug it, you have your collectible, totally stock vintage Superlead.
These old Marshalls have the most devastating power sections of any amp, with HiWatts/Wizards close....what better platform is there for pedals?
Nothing IMO.

They have very strong power sections, but not the very strongest I've had. The Beta (680 PV), Blueface, Hell Razor KT150 (680 PV), Rev 1 Uber, Schroeder Dozer (700's PV) when compared IME had even stronger sounding power sections and then some amps about equal like the Alessandro DAZZ, Ronin P88, Mako Dorado. With the other Wizard models I had I’d agree about close, but not there

If I went very deep into the rabbit hole of best pedal platform amps (I am curious now, thanks lol) I'm not sure if these Marshall's would rank #1. There's some contenders like the late '60's/early '70's Ampeg SVT's (300w via 6x6550's) and looking back maybe if we compared more apples to apples using a dist pedal through that IIC+/B Coli's clean channel maybe it could've sounded as big or bigger than the 72 rather than getting flattened vs it's lead ch (IME a dist pedal through a high powered clean always moved a lot more air). I didn't think to try that somehow, but I did through the III++ coli's I had and it sounded huge, I just haven't yet enjoyed much the tone of dist pedals even through these great amps, but the air push of course is hard to ignore

I've tried the rack preamps I had in the past (including the Langner DCP-1) ran this way too and didn't like it for the same reason. It was sort of to me almost like a modeler amp (as I've gotten with all these rack pre's) in terms of lack detail to the sound or receptivity to nuance in playing vs my stand alone amps, but with that huge push/air moving. I do want to try though a V1 RAT through my 72 and other platform amps. Maybe that could be a game changer for me