A visit of an old friend: JCM 800 2204 MKII Super Lead, 50W

[NecroPolo]

Recently an old 'amp friend' of mine parked here a little and I made a short play-through video with it (no EQ/processing on the guitar tracks, only a DD6 stomped on for the solo). Despite that it's more than 30 years old, it is still kicking ass and as far as I know, apart from the occassional tube changes it's inact inside, no component failures breakdowns whatsoever. One of my fav Marshall amp heads ever I guess. Unfortunately the friend who bought it back in time doesn't want me to buy it back. Well, never sell stuff that you're too fond of

[DankStar]

Re: A visit of an old friend: JCM 800 2204 MKII Super Lead, 50W

Wow - great tone, riffs, vocals, & tune!

[ex-250]

Re: A visit of an old friend: JCM 800 2204 MKII Super Lead, 50W

Speaking of old pieces of awesome, is that the same Warmoth you've been playing for what…15 years?

[NecroPolo]

Re: A visit of an old friend: JCM 800 2204 MKII Super Lead, 50W

Thanks for the feedback!

Speaking of old pieces of awesome, is that the same Warmoth you've been playing for what…15 years?

Yep it's that old dawg of mine. I age much worse than this axe

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: A visit of an old friend: JCM 800 2204 MKII Super Lead, 50W

Sounds great. Pls tell more about the recording chain used.

[NecroPolo]

Re: A visit of an old friend: JCM 800 2204 MKII Super Lead, 50W

guitar -> OneWay DI / signal splitter, #A into the left TLA preamp as can be seen for possible future reamping, #B into the Marshall JCM800

Laney 4x12" cab with Greenbacks -> RODE M3 mic -> the right TLA preamp -> Focusrite interface -> Reaper DAW

The original song track was given a parametric EQ where I chopped out much of the mids around 3KHz and applied a very transparent bus compressor to give space to the spectrum and dynamics of my new guitar tracks.

I shot 3 video takes of the rhythm tracks with a Nokia PureView 808 phone (that I just strapped onto a mic stand) from 2 different angles through the whole song and 3 solo takes from 2 different angles that the DAW recorded simultaneously. Then I picked the audio takes that I preferred the most, synched the video with the DAW tracks using the cam onboard audio, muted the cam sound and panned the good quality DAW audio to L/R then started chopping all the silent video takes. The solo take in the mix is #3 and video takes #2 + #1 don't match everywhere but what the hell, it's still better this way than one static angle.

I used a simple Ozone master limiter with a very subtle compensation for the harsh frequencies and a Voxengo Span to check the RMS as I did not want to go overboard. I guess, that's all.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: A visit of an old friend: JCM 800 2204 MKII Super Lead, 50W

Thanks for the details. You should check out the Bogner Harlow, I think you would like it. It's quite squishy, but you can blend it in for a parallel compression that sounds super musical. I know a lot of high gain players do not like tracking with compression in front of the amp, but I have grown to totally love it.

[NecroPolo]

Re: A visit of an old friend: JCM 800 2204 MKII Super Lead, 50W

Thanks for the advice! I'll be trying that.