Your favorite amp EVER

rjmmusic

rjmmusic

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All of us gear sluts have to have a favorite amp - tell us yours, and why it's a favorite. (More than one amp is okay if you just can't decide :) )

For me, it's the Elmwood Modena 90. It's got a unique tone, very articulate and is massively versatile. Both channels and the boosts on both channels are incredibly useful, and the tone controls have a wide range of adjustment on them - you can dial in all sorts of tones, from clean to smooth to evil :twisted: . It's even relatively small and light for a channel switching monster (I'm a wimp). I think some people have trouble getting their head wrapped around it because it doesn't sound exactly like any other amp, but I consider it a plus.

(Disclaimer: I'm doing some work for Elmwood, but I was a Modena owner and outspoken fan for years before any business arrangement happened, so it's cool. 8) )
 
For me it's the Peavey JSX. Three great channels, nothing unnecessary like reverb, it has a built in noise gate which works, good channel switching and it looks great. Criticisms are that it's too heavy and 120w is just too much power really. But it sounds awesome.
 

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Hey Ron,Sheri, Martin,

Alex here joining the wonderful RJM family :) ... mine id hv to say its my Mesa Mark IV...i was that little kid who sat in stores for hours and dreamed of playing the big boys rigs. My goal was the Dual Rectifier cos i thought that was the amp for the sound i kept hearing. One day walked in the store n saw the only Mark IV (yes, in asia...ive never seen another since). I tried it n i knew that was the sound i wanted (i didnt know nuts bout tube amp back then). Sat there for 4 hours with my wife and called everyone kind enough to let us borrow their money...forget pride, i wanted this amp.
I got it, paid the guy back a week later and for some reason as i grow musically throughout the years, my ears doesnt ask for another amp but rather find more and more beautiful characteristic that makes me love it even more...kinda how i feel towards my wife ;P
I play Jazz, Fusion and Rock. Last 26 Dec we played the biggest Rock event in Malaysia on the main stage, they provided us with Rectifier Head/Cab, Marshall Head/Cab, all 4x12...i brought my lil Mark IV combo and it still wouldnt go past 3. People commented how Big the sound was and engineers were trying to hv me listen only to the monitors they provided cos the amp was so loud...so i said ok, ill turndown to 2,5 n listen abit to ur monitors...i love that little bugger....the only combo that whole night. :) .... thx for listening guys :)
 
Welcome, Alex! Mark IVs are definitely unique - I've never had the chance to play one, but every time I listen to Dream Theater, I want to try one. Not like I need another amp or anything. :roll:
 
I'm only a bedroom player these days and have a Mesa Boogie MKIV that I bought last year...I love it...still not had it up loud in a decent size room yet...I also have a Marshall 6101 30th Anniversary Combo that I bought when they came out which is a really nice amp...sounds great when used in a stereo rig with the boogie.....prior to these I had a Marshall Super Lead 100 watt head with matching grey cloth cab...sold it for a pitance many years ago...worth a fortune now I guess!! :(

Paul
 
There's so many amps I like that it's hard to pick a favorite. I played an Industrial amps Rock 120 at NAMM in 2008 that just killed..not sure that company is even around anymore. The Bluetron Blueverb is another hidden tone gem...but I'm gonna definitely give props to the Elmwood. Never played the 90, but the 60 is sick bastard and usable for almost anything. Really want to try a Guytron GT 100FV...the perfect amp is a Platonic ideal that amps in our world are only pale reflections of... :lol:
 
My dream amp is my Mesa Mark V Head, it's extremely versatile and I can get every sound out of it I want!!! The Clean tone is simply amazing :D And of course also the Lead
 
I must agree with the author! I have an Elmo M90 and it kills . I'm new to RJM, got a RG-16 and mastermind on the way. I'll be running the Elmo and a Marshall DSL together. With the low mids and high mids Im stoked to hear them together..
 
You guys are giving me major Elmwood GAS...but first there's a Kingsley Bailey, Effect Gizmo, Mini Amp Gizmo and Y-not on my list! Crap, that's a long list... :roll:
 
Devilinside said:
I must agree with the author! I have an Elmo M90 and it kills . I'm new to RJM, got a RG-16 and mastermind on the way. I'll be running the Elmo and a Marshall DSL together. With the low mids and high mids Im stoked to hear them together..
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I have both in the shop, but ironically I've never run them together. Hmmm.... Y-Not, Elmo, DSL, could be fun!

In only slightly related news, I just finished a quick 'n' dirty video for the Y-Not using a "crunch mod" Plexi - wow, considering what little effort I put into mic position, I dig how it came out. It's the only amp I've tried so far that I like the recorded tone better than the live tone.
 
at the moment for me it´s my Mesa Roadster head. sparkling cleans, nice crunch and recto-style highgain (without the harshness of the dual rectos). overall a great amp.
two month ago i visited Peter Diezel and did a testdrive with a VH4. this is also a great amp and i loved that sound, but i´m more a mesa guy. but never say never, maybe i sell of my dual recto to refinance a VH4 someday.
 
well I do have a Marshall Plexi 1967 original I bought for £150 when I was 15 (21) years ago, My best buy ever! Sorry Ron the effects gizmo comes second. :lol:
 
Dominik1986 said:
My dream amp is my Mesa Mark V Head, it's extremely versatile and I can get every sound out of it I want!!! The Clean tone is simply amazing :D And of course also the Lead
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It's sounds interesting did you already start that?. I already have my own amp, I make it for the project purposes it's simple and low cost. No problems in terms of sounds, tones and others. Right now I still using it at home. ty guys
 
For me, its the series 1 Mesa Boogie Road King. For some reason it just seems to have that low end "thump" hi gain that seems different to the newer models. The verstility of the Road Kings is just great with assigning different power amp sections/cabinets to each channel. I also like the Marshall JMP-1 preamps with a Dual Monobloc 9200 poweramp. The JMP-1 is a great pre for getting the classic Marshall cleans and heavy sounds, and its all midi controllable as well. Im currently building a JMP-1/9200 rig with the intention of getting the Effect Gizmo to link it all up.

Cheer
MuFu
 
they are both old but I like them both

Marshall MGP9001 love all three channels but especially the lead channel and whilst its a full solid state amp the Calsbro Stingray lead built in the mid 80's beautiful clean channel and the reverb is lovely

Often use both together give a really nice rich/full sound
 
so far its the bogner xtc 101b custom.

had it a couple years now and still have no desire to get rid of it. Allot of people rag on the green channel but I actually love it and I can get more than enough gain from the red channel for very solid hard rock stuff and can get into metal territory without problem with a ts-9 and eq in the loop. its just been a very solid amp for me. used to have a triaxis and a herbert sold them. I just didn't use the triaxis anymore and I was fighting the herbert more than playing it if that makes sense. I have one of the old original NAKED amps (the ones in the black and blue shell) getting used to using that more and more but I dont think it will ever knock the xtc off the number one spot.
 
Hey guys and girls..!

First time poster here! thought i'd throw my two cents (or pounds for that matter :p) in the pot.

Now I used to be a massive marshall fan (it wasn't a secret) because I used to always believe in that a british band should have a british amp behind it (how naive i was as a teenager right? :roll: ). so I kinda worked my way up from a little marshall practise amp, to a 100w MG marshall combo and then for my 21st birthday I received £2100 worth of music gear from my mum, one of the items being the Marshall AVT50 head with the matching straight cabinet i wanted.

Now I used to always use run all amps clean and use a Boss MT2 for my distortion tone... betcha thinking oh great he's one of those guys right? but fear not! because after continually going back n forth between the amps distortion and the MT2 i started hear the faults that I used to always here/read people talking about the pedal and slowly became an amp distortion kinda guy (woohoo! :p ) and so for the last year or 2 I've been using the amps distortion as well as taking the decision to downsize on the amount of effect pedals I was running because half the time I weren't using them. so up until about 6 months or so ago I decided I wanted to buy myself a new amp head.. but this time I wanted to go for the all tube sounding amp.. (being the metal guy that I am :D )

So I went to a store a town over from where I live in the UK and tried out as many amps as the store would let me (before I annoyed the crap out of them) until I found the amp which has recently become the main source of my tone - The Randall RT503! - the more I played this in the shop .. the more I wanted it so I spent the next several months working up the cash to get it. I tried it out at a band recent practise session and was most pleased with it's performance at a higher level then what i've only been able to hear it.

I apologise for the waffling btw, I kinda have a knack for it.. but If you've read up to this point.. You are most epicly awesome to have done so Thank you!

Anyway...

During the time it took me to organise the money for the new amp I started looking into how to go about creating a rackmount style rig set up (to try 'n maximise sound but minimise on space out on the stage) and that's when I found out about the RG-16 and learnt of it's awesome features as well as learnt that the newer Randall amp is midi compatible, I can find solace in knowing that what I want to achieve can be done at a switch of a button just at the expense of a empy bank account... But as I'm sure all gear sluts know.. it's all worth it in the end! =D

Mikey
 

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Hey RJM,

Why thank you for the warm welcome =D
Its nice to know I'm not that only gear whore here, altho after perusing about the forum checking out peoples rigs n stuff.. i don't think i could compete with the amount of gear let alone the quality too!
 
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