question about marshall plexi's?

[Gearjoneser]

Re: question about marshall plexi's?

You also gotta understand that the plexi sound is a particular tone that's a great one, but not everyone's cup of tea. One reason people like that exact tone is that it's very present, meaning it punches through a mix a lot more than most amps. It's an aquired taste, which usually comes after owning lots of amps specifically designed for high gain. After awhile, you may decide that simple gain is not enough...it's actually got to be accompanied with clean punch, being pushed into natural overdrive. It's not a sound for everyone, but it's one that many gravitate toward. The bottom line is that it's best to use the same or similar kind of amp that your favorite artists use. The people that favor the plexi tone come from the same camp as the guys who made that amp famous. I love the plexi tone because of it's woody bark, but couldn't live on that tone, alone. It's not a bad idea to become familiar with these tones, in order to be like a painter with a pallette in his hand.
Fender 6L6 American clean, Vox EL-84 British clean, EL-34 British Plexi midgain, and EL-34 or 6L6 high gain designs. Those are the 4 that will cover most bases, then it goes outward from there into other tube designs, SS, and modeling. The others are usually variations on the theme of those 4.

[Young Angus]

Re: question about marshall plexi's?

From what i've learnt over the past year or so about valves, mostly from this forum, is that the old plexi amps and whatnot didnt have complicated preamp stages which could give you stacks of gain on demand like some amps these days (bogner, ENGL, etc.) so they had to be "cranked" to give you that real warm thick gain that they're famous for. And this gain comes from the power tubes, and is hence known as "power tube distortion" to some people. And the only way to get the power tubes to distort is to crank the absolute poo out of them so they start breaking up.

And this is what i think is done with old amps such as plexi's to get them to distort like so many people love. Hence why people use attenuators to crank amps, because they can get the sweet power tube distortion without blowing their heads off and wrecking their hearing...because unless you are already deaf, 100watts of cranked valves will hurt your ears a lot!

[Jake]

Re: question about marshall plexi's?

my brief experience with a plexi was in a guitar center, and it had some great dirtyish cleans, but they never let me crank it to test out the real gain

[That90'sGuy]

Re: question about marshall plexi's?

absolutely

[\m/(00)\m/]

Re: question about marshall plexi's?

While I don't own a plexi, I can sorta describe "cranking" a tube amp. To me, the sound gets richer and punchier. My amp definitely has a lot of kick when it's cranked. It also appears as if the tone is "opened up" if that makes any sense. Plus, distortion or overdrive at low volumes usually always sucks with tube amps. It's very often muddled with no low end. All that gets changed with volume, so it really is worth it to get an attenuator or an understanding neighborhood (I choose the latter )

so i take what Nigel has been saying this whole time is right, as his new amps go to infinity, volume is better

[That90'sGuy]

Re: question about marshall plexi's?

While I don't own a plexi, I can sorta describe "cranking" a tube amp. To me, the sound gets richer and punchier. My amp definitely has a lot of kick when it's cranked. It also appears as if the tone is "opened up" if that makes any sense. Plus, distortion or overdrive at low volumes usually always sucks with tube amps. It's very often muddled with no low end. All that gets changed with volume, so it really is worth it to get an attenuator or an understanding neighborhood (I choose the latter )

[\m/(00)\m/]

ok, i've wondered this for a long time. i know that todays amps, ahve craploads of gain and distortion. and you dont need to crank it to 11 to get gain. i've never had the chance to play a real plexi, or at least crank one so i dont know how they got the overdrive from it.
is it just by cranking it, you distort the signal waves and thus creatying overdrive? can someone explaing this to me, and how does the overdrive sound when it's cranked?

-Jim