Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Have any of you guys had the opportunity to play through -- or own!!! -- a Diezel amp? Are they really worth the $4,000+ price tag? Is there a poor man's version of the Diezel amp, something that can get in the same ball bark tone-wise without breaking the bank?

- Keith

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

I own a HackMan/Diezel rackmount 2x50W prototype, with the very same stereo power amp section as the VH4S and its subtly modded channel 1 and 3 with footswitchable boost option, buffered REC out and intelligent FX loop. No MIDI. Mr Hack is the guy who worked with Peter Diezel for years and invented lots of design tricks on VH4 amps. Now he is producing the signature amps of Matthias Jabs / Scorpions.

The VH4 amp is the best tube modelling stuff around, period. The amp has no real character but through the 4 channels you can find all the tones that "ideal" Marshall, Mesa, Fender, Vox, etc-etc amps should pump out and some beyond. Think stellar quality. Best available components and craftmanship. Reliability.

Like exclusive sports cars, Diezels have no cheaper alternative. Cost-wise spending $4000 for a programmable, trusty know-it-all amp is cheaper than keeping four great amps.


Although Diezels have better sonic quality, you might want to take a look at other tube modelling stuff like Randall RM modular system that is more than capable of producing great tones.

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

So the VH4 is a tube modeling amp?

 

[Top Jimmy]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

So the VH4 is a tube modeling amp?

No.

The Diezel VH4 is an all-tube amp with four individual preamps, integrated midi-switcher and . . . .


The Diezel Clean channel is one of the best in the industry, with plenty power and lots of percussive, piano like punch.


The Diezel Crunch channel is very pleasing for bluesy play or with less gain to resemble a vintage clean tone. Crank the gain up and it becomes a nice broad and open crunch a'la AC/DC.

The third channel (Diezel Heavy) is simply unbelievable. It has big dynamic ranges, from playful little licks, tasty solo work, to all out metal gain. The tone will not lose definition, though. Even at high gain selections, with humbucker guitars, it speaks straight from the artist's fingers. This channel is easy to play for the intuitive. It cleans up with guitar volume rolled off, and then comes on like a freight train when needed.

Diezel Channel four starts where three leaves off. If gain is your thing, then channel four is sure to please you. It compresses more than three, retains definition to a large degree, and just shreds with big bass and strong high end. It is smooth distortion, creamy but authoritive. Very Loud.

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

Sounds like an improved version of the Marshall JVM.

Very cool description, Top Jimmy. Have you played through one of these? Do you own one?

- Keith

 

[Top Jimmy]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

I own 3.




Bahahahaha, I wish. Just cut and pasted from a website that sells them...http://www.synergyguitars.com/Diezel-Amplifiers/Diezel-VH4-Amplifiers.htm

Just wanted to clear up the info for you. Happy amp hunting.

 

[brit84]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

Sounds like an improved version of the Marshall JVM.

Very cool description, Top Jimmy. Have you played through one of these? Do you own one?

- Keith

more like the jvm is a poorer copy of the diezel.....the latter having been around longer

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

Have any of you guys had the opportunity to play through -- or own!!! -- a Diezel amp? Are they really worth the $4,000+ price tag? Is there a poor man's version of the Diezel amp, something that can get in the same ball bark tone-wise without breaking the bank?
- Keith

I have played through a few, yes...IMO they are worth the price (and I rarely say yes to that question)...poor man's Diezel...not really, no. IN the ball park...which tone do you want???

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

I have played through a few, yes...IMO they are worth the price (and I rarely say yes to that question)...poor man's Diezel...not really, no. IN the ball park...which tone do you want???

I'm after the channel 3 tone.

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

So the VH4 is a tube modeling amp?

Yes and no.


It is not a typical modelling stuff, like Randall RM or Line6 that only PRETENDS to be something else. The Diezel VH4 is a full and real tube amplifier with four extremely flexible, individual preamps and highly interactive controls - and a very unique output tranny. Anyway, if you know the amp well, you can tweak it to get tones that people call Marshall tone and sigh, VOX cranked tone and sigh and dream'bout, Fender vintage clean tone with desire and rolled down teardrops on the face and so on.


For example, imagine the best friggin' JCM800 on the Earth with some extreme classy mods and a tone that causes erection for all of them '80s metalheads. That's the VH4 second chanel, cranked (+ proper setting).

If you roll back the gain on a JCM800, it will sound like a JCM800 with less gain. It keeps the character. The Diezel doesn't. If you know it you will be able to tweak any tone out of it. That's why I called it the best modelling amp. If you roll back the gain of the VH4, the tone changes its character. Sounds like an another type of amplifier, for example a JTM45, stellar quality. It has no own tone that you can mark as a recognisable Diezel tone character, but instead it can deliver the best tones people ever used. That makes it an unique amplifier.


Primarily, it is for guitarists who use multiple amps onstage. For example, Matthias Jabs onstage uses Fender Twin for cleans, Mesa Recto for rhythm and Fender ProSonic for solos - and a switching system. If you send any ordinary 3-channel amplifier against this setup you will notice that one amp can't do these three things at once so well. Well, the VH4 can. Virtually, you get four highly flexible hi-class amps for the price of two.


I hope it clears out a bit.

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

I hope it clears out a bit.

Yes, it does.

sigh

 

[Binnerscot]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

Yes and no.


It is not a typical modelling stuff, like Randall RM or Line6 that only PRETENDS to be something else

:bsflag:

....dude, you are dead wrong on the Randall MTS series (RM stuff). There is no modeling in the RM series. They are all tube circuits, just interchangeable pre-amps (named after similar sounding amps). I know, I owned an RM100. It is an excellent amp. If wasn't for a room full of Mesa amps, I would still have it, but I don't need to be that redundant on tones.

...you haven't done your homework.

 

[disturb]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

Diezel Herbert owner. It's good stuff and built like a tank. The brand new un-opened '07 Bogner XTC I recently bought had a bad switch on the footboard, and a bad input jack. Very dissapointing. Bogner offered to fix them if I sent them the amp. Would've probably cost me $50 to send it cross country. So I bought a $10 switch and fixed the footboard, and payed my tech to fix the jack.

 

[Luke Duke]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

I've played through a Diezel, and they are expensive, and worth it.

Like was said earlier the JVM is a Marshall take on a Bogner or Diezel. Diezel was building the precursor to the VH4 in Marshall heads in the 80s, and the first official VH4 rolled out in 94. The JVM was came out in 06 if memory serves so that puts the VH4 predating it by at least 10 years.

Luke

 

[Johtosotku]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

I had an Einstein on order. They're supposed to be cheaper and a bit more simple than the Herbert and the VH4, iirc. Could be an amp for you with the smaller tag but Diezel quality. But the ordering times can be looooong... that's why I had it on order.

 

[rivera213]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

What amp(s) do you own at the moment, Keith?

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

What amp(s) do you own at the moment, Keith?

Right now, I own the following tube amps (in order of loudness ):

• Mesa Single Rec w. Mesa 2x12 Rec cab (closed back w. Celestion V30s)
• Vox AC-30 w. blue alnicos (the reissue that came out just before the Custom Classic)
• Fender Super Reverb RI
• Celtic Caitlin (tweed Tremolux clone)
• '82 Fender Super Champ

I also own a Vox Valvetronix AD100VTH 100-watt hybrid modeling head, which I run into the Mesa cab.

- Keith

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

My experience with Diezels runs to the Herbert combo and a one-off VH4-style amp built into a 70s Marshall head.

The Herbert was very impressive, with excellent clean, light/heavy crunch and lead tones. It struck me as an excellent pop sideman/top 40 player amp, as you could play anything from Country to texas blues to modern metal on it.

If anything, it sounded too good. That may seem like a weird thing to say, but to my ears it didn't so much sound like an amp in a room. Rather, it sounded like an amp that has been well mic'd, run through a really nice studio desk and compressors and then played back through excellent studio monitors. I can understand other dudes' opinions relating these amps to modelers, because that's how it struck me: incredibly versatile and strong in every area, but not really the same as playing a classic amp.

The modded marshall also sounded great, with lots of available gain and three channels that sounded pretty similar. Nice amp, with more of a 'classic amp' feel.

 

[The Golden Boy]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

Arrowed!!!!

 

[theodie]

Re: Anyone Here With Diezel Amp Experience?

I have Diesel engine experience.