Marshall Amps

[Jim Saunders]

I don't think I've ever seen a Marshall amp being used by a steel player, but they are ever present with rock groups. Particularly the stacks. Are they just not suited for steel?

[Erv Niehaus]

I have a Marshall acoustic amp that sounds very good with an acoustic lap steel.
It sounds real good with my Weissenborn!
My Wissenborn has two pickups on it and I can run a stereo cord into the Marshall and blend the pickups.

Erv

[Michael Brebes]

Most of the newer multichannel ones are designed for distortion and not clean tones. The early amps would be suitable, like the JTM45, which are a slightly modified Tweed Fender Bassman circuit.

[Stephen Cowell]

I have a 4140 Club & Country... kind of a Twin Reverb clone. The reverb's never been great, but the amp is stellar... SRV used one for a while. If a Marshall tube amp was to be used for steel, this would be the one.

[Dave Mudgett]

There are many types of Marshall amps. As Stephen says, the Town and Country can get pretty loud and clean. And so can a Marshall Major 200-watt head. As mentioned, early JTM-45 heads are based off a 4x10" tweed Bassman, the latter of which is a fine steel amp if you don't have to be ridiculously loud. I use my Bassman periodically if the situation is right.

But not everybody wants clean. For example, forum member Leslie Ehrlich - profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=3331 - lists a Marshall JMP 2204 half stack in his signature, which is a typical 70s Marshall 50-watter. It's just a different sound.

I have occasionally seen steel players use British amps - Marshall, Vox, Hiwatt. I had an early 70s Hiwatt DR103 100-watt head that was, I kid you not, the loudest and cleanest amp I have ever played. I couldn't use it, just too loud. The first time I plugged it in (with a guitar), I thought I was gonna shatter the windows with the volume on 3, into a Mesa 4x12" cab with some high-power speakers in it.

I have a '66 Vox AC-50 with a 1x15" Vox bass cabinet with an EV 15" speaker for a different sound. First time I saw Eric Heywood, about 1992, he was playing for Joe Henry, who was opening for Uncle Tupelo - Sho Bud into an old AC-50.

[Tony Edwards]

I recall watching The Barbara Mandrell Show many years ago and she played a pedal steel through a Marshall amp. I don't recall the brand of guitar nor the model of the amp other than it being a Marshall. Of course, Barbara Mandrell could make anything sound good!

[Bob Carlucci]

Did a session at Bearsville over 3 decades ago. They had a Marshall tube 2x12 combo there.. I plugged it in and was satisfied with the sound and used it on this cut.. I liked the sound of that Marshall with my msa guitar..I do not remember the model designation.
bob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0GTFwTFrAA

[Bobby Snell]

Marshalls are heavy and expensive; many versions are unsuitable for 'clean' sounds. You don't want one.

But, I love them and have a dozen. JCM2000 DSL 100-watt head in my avatar is an older one that has a brother so's I can have 2 double stacks. I've got 2 40-watt combos, a JCM 800 Dual reverb 100 watt and have used them all with pedal steel in the last 20 years of my little part-time, minor league "career."

The DSL line can be a good place to start as they are respected for their 'clean' tones. My personal preference is to use pedals for overdrive and avoid the 'red' channel usually. With the 'green' channel gain about halfway there is a good range on the master volume for adjusting the stage volume.

Speaker choice is important if you experiment with Marshalls, as many combos and cabs have speakers designed to break up or at least compress more easily than may be desired.

Since I haven't been shopping amps for a few years, I am unfamiliar with some of the newer offerings such as a solid state modeling-type thing, or whatever their latest lines are. The older transistor amps are un-remarkable, IMO.

There is a Marshall Amp Forum, for more opinions and info. YMMV.

[Karl Paulsen]

What about something like this for a Marshal-style steel amp?
https://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/msg/ ... 93368.html

It's a 70's Traynor YBA4 someone modded "back" to a more marshal/bassman-ish circuit in a combo with a 15" speaker. I'm going to paste the text of the ad here so folks can read it even after goes down. I'm not buying or selling this, but it tickles the mind as a steel amp idea with turret board innards.

For sale is a 1978 Traynor YBA-4 amp that has been converted to a Mashall Plexi circuit.

Everyone knows that Traynor made a great amp that had a great Bassman/Marshall sound, but a bit different. The later 70s amps, though they had the same massive transformers, same fabled mustard capacitors used in the greatest Marshalls, and indestructible build quality, just didn't sound quite as good due to the active EQ section that was added in this era.

Here's where this one is different! What's been done:

-The circuit has been stripped out and changed to a 1987 model (50w Plexi), using the original mustard capacitors wherever possible, and Sozo mustard caps where the original caps didn't fit.
-The awful, generic 15" speaker has been replaced with a Celestion Fullback (15" version of the Greenback)
-Electro Harmonix tubes in the power section with a mix of modern preamp tubes.
-Filter, bias, and cathode bypass electrolytic capacitors have been replaced
-A bias pot has been installed
-Ground switch & associated capacitors have been removed from the circuit

The amp now sounds like a true classic, and has been tuned/dialed in to match this speaker and cabinet perfectly. The normal channel is close to a black-panel Bassman circuit, and the Bright channel is more like the bright channel of a late 60s model 1987 Plexi. There is no bright cap on this channel though, and the peaking cap has been adjusted the to get the best balance. Tone controls and presence have tons of range to handle any guitar. Jumper the channels, and get the most control possible.

[Cappone dAngelo]

What about something like this for a Marshal-style steel amp?
https://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/msg/ ... 93368.html

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I suspect it depends on (i) how much clean headroom you need - based on the description this amp should be capable of high volumes, but you may find that it starts breaking up too early on the dial for you to get to the clean volume levels you need, and (ii) whether you like the tone - for example, compared to a black-panel fender, which at least at some periods in history seemed to be the preferred tube amps of PSG players (and are my choice after trying various classic British and American amp types). For context, I love Marshall type tones for 6-string and I own 3 vintage Traynors (2 stock YBA-1s and 1 YVM-1 that I've modded).

That said, I likely wouldn't pay that much for a YBA-4 unless I plugged into it and found that it nailed a particular unique tonal need for me. Not that they aren't great amps - just that the resale value on modded late 70s Traynors is not particularly high, especially the combo amps which can be very heavy (whereas unmodified late 60s YBA-1 heads seem to be in higher demand).

[George Redmon]

I own a 1968 Jose Arredondo modded Marshall, that i will never part with. Bought it years ago off Reverb. Looks really nasty, the head cabinet is actually taped & elmers wood glued together in places. I haven't moved it in years, afraid to. Haven't made up my mind whether i should drive down to Kentucky (i'd never ship it) and have Rick Johnson painstakingly try to repair the original cabinet, or just build a new one for it. It's really in bad shape cosmetically, but sounds and works just excellent. Nope... won't ever part with it. Had an amp tech tell me once, that very few older Marshall amps were actually built like the schematic shows. He has repaired 100's of Marshall's in his day. Seems back in the day, before Marshall had distribution centers and USA distributors, back when jim was actually building his own amps, no two Marshall amps sounded exactly alike. If the schematic called for a certain resistor value, and Jim and his crew were out of them, they'd use whatever would work that they did have on hand. So you would just have to play through whatever the dealer had, and try to choose one that would work for you. Classic Marshall Amp's are truly amazing. I Wouldn't trade my beat up nasty looking Marshall for a truck load of new ones. Sounds sweet with steel to. I run just enough hair, to make it sound sweet on those ever elusive Robert Randolph slant/licks on my MSA SuperSlide Double12. Add a hint of delay, compression, just enough to make it interesting. You can get some nice West Coast steel sounds on E9th with it.

[Kerry Johnson]

When I first heard the "Highway 101" tune, Walkin Talkin Cryin Barely Beatin Broken Heart, I had to find out what amp was being played through ... it just knocked me out, what was it ?
I found a picture of a live concert on another forum(don't recall) discussing the marshall major and it was titled Tommy Spurlock's pedal steel gear under that concert photo. The picture showed a large stage with a pedal steel positioned, far left, by itself and a marshall major head on top of a 4x12 cab directly behind the pedal steel steelseat.
Then my quest for the 200 watt marshall major began.
I finally found a Marshall Major power head with 2 JBL-D130 cabs and played my Steel thru it. The sonic signature of this amp was unmistakable and to my ears matched the tone heard on that song. It is heavy and you'll want to jumper the inputs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsOQCkx ... r4&index=5

[ajm]

Kerry Johnson: Regarding the Tommy Spurlock Marshall Major amp...........

Where did you hear or read this?

[Tony Prior]

I used a Marshall JCM900/50 watt half stack (4x12) for double duty for a while. Overall it was fine but it just made it in the "clean with enough gain" department for the Steel in a large room.

Wish I had that JCM 900 head back !

[John Larson]

I wonder if a non master volume vintage plexi would work with steel. They are legendarily loud and have a lot of clean headroom (you essentially have to deafen yourself to cause them to breakup, the infamous culprit of nearly all 70s heavy rock players suffering massive hearing damage in their older age).

[Dave Mudgett]

I think a 100-Watt Plexi or later non-master Marshall head into a clean cabinet would work fine. It also depends on how they're set up. Marshalls imported into the US from the late 60s or early 70s onward came set up with 6550 tubes, and tended to be set up for loud and clean. So loud and clean that a lot of rockers made the mods to re-biased to run with EL-34s.

As far as the master volume goes - it's pretty easy to just turn the master all the way up and control volume with the preamp gain. Some of them seem to work better for loud and clean than others I've tried. But I think the tube/bias setup has more to do with this than the master volume. Also note that there were some non master Marshalls right up into the JCM 800 era. Set up for the intended use, JCM 800s can be great amps. Definitely powerhouses.

What I notice is the different tone stack on a Marshall or other British amps like this. Not mid-scooped like a blackface/silverface Fender, and that can be a good thing if that's what you're looking for.

Of course, finding a nice old Marshall for reasonable do-re-mi is not exactly easy these days!

[Bill Terry]

Of course, finding a nice old Marshall for reasonable do-re-mi is not exactly easy these days!

Tell me about it.. I went on a mid-life crisis quest a few years ago, hoping to find a JMP50, since I'd owned several back in my rock-n-roll days. They are absolutely one of the best amps ever made IMO. I finally found one that wasn't hacked up with some poorly installed 'mod' (they were non-master volume originally, and many had master volumes added) or just plain beat to hell. I finally bought this one from a guy near Austin, it's a '73 point-to-point, dead original but for some required cap updates for routine maintenance and to keep it playable.

Based on how it sounds with this Tele, I'll bet it could sound pretty good with a steel guitar, but I've never tried it.. hmm...

This cab is a 212 closed back with Greenback Celestions G12s, i.e. half of a 1960B cab, which might not be the best choice for steel guitar (but definitely the RIGHT choice for guitar IMO).

[Dave Mudgett]

Yup, I had a '72 or '73 JMP50 30 years ago that was killer, once I got it running correctly. Of course, it was factory set up with 6550s, the original owner just stuck EL-34s in it and wondered why it got hot. So he cut a hole in the side and installed a fan! That didn't really help that much, so I got it reasonable.

Once I pulled that stupid fan off, replaced a few overheated and out-of-spec components, and set it up and biased it for a new set of NOS EL-34s, it was great. Guitar only, I started playing pedal steel later. That sucker could peel the paint off the walls, and I mean in a good way. Even at 50 watts, I could only use that on 'selected' gigs.

[Bill Terry]

Yep, this one has EL34s, but the guy I bought it from was a Marshall guru/tech, and the swap was done 'correctly'. My others came with 6550's except one that I bought brand new that came from UK with KT88s, which is I believe a Euro 6550?

They ARE incredibly loud, and we used all the standard tricks in small clubs, i.e. turn the cab backwards, cover the top two speakers with the cab cover, etc. BUT I like the sound so much, I just dealt with it, whatever I had to do to make it work. At one point I was hauling that Marshall half stack, and a 122 Leslie to every gig for guitar. It's great being young and strong... and stupid. LOL