What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

ehdwuld said:
Shoot my Laney GC80A is a solid state tone monster
Of course it's not as well known as the Bandit and Roland
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Never played one but that’s good to know :)

But I now remembered the Yamaha G50 and G100...
 
Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

No love for the Marshall MG? [emoji23]
And No one has suggested Dumble yet sooo,,,

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Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

Gorilla Tube Cruncher (my first amp with built-in distortion)
 
Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

Securb said:
B. B. King always seemed to get a great tone out of his Lab Series, and a lot of the fusion and jazz guys like Allen Holdsworth used them back in the days. They are beautiful amps in the right hands. I think they are far from horrible.
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Yes, and those guys play relatively clean. As I said, you can get decent clean out of them... Gain tones? Er, no!
 
Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

My only SS amp is an old 70's Unicord 720 which most reviews would say is a horrible amp. I don't know why, it's punchy and has its own sound. Then again it's buried in a closet somewhere.
 
Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

I actually prefer playing through my Ampeg GVT amps over my Marshall. I guess I just prefer the attack and feel of Class A / cathode bias amplifiers with a good drive pedal.

Truth told, nearly every classic brit rock band of the 6O's and 7O's recorded through Vox and Ampeg amplifiers. Fender Tweed and Ampeg were the favored amps for American players, but AC3O's were popular as well, especially in California. 1OO watt amps were generally restricted to live use. In the early days, EVH used his plexi as a PA to amplify his VOX AC15 heads.
 
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Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

67Mopar said:
Yes, and those guys play relatively clean. As I said, you can get decent clean out of them... Gain tones? Er, no!
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I guess you are not familiar with Allen Holdsworth he has legendary gain tones. Ty Tabor of Kings X also got great gain tones from a LabSeries. Are you making these comments based on past ownership or from information you have read online?
 
Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

Securb said:
I guess you are not familiar with Allen Holdsworth he has legendary gain tones. Ty Tabor of Kings X also got great gain tones from a LabSeries. Are you making these comments based on past ownership or from information you have read online?
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A local music store (Music Shack) where I purchased my first Gibson guitar (1978) was a Lab Series dealer. So yes, I have played through them. The cleans were just okay, gain was comical. In those days, the Roland JC-120 was the king of solid-state clean tone. The best solid-state gain tones came from Peavey Backstage, Bandit, and Renown amplifiers. Although Lab Series amps sucked balls, they did have a relatively cool sounding phaser effect. I think it was a phaser? I remember it had large wheels on the sides of the housing. Wasn't as good as the EH Small Stone, but it was cool.

Allan Holdsworth, not Allen. Anyway... That compressed, syrupy tri-chorus tone makes me nauseous, literally. I find his playing overindulgent, unnecessary, and uninspiring. He would have been the perfect addition to Frank Zappa's cacophony of musical lunacy. Alex Lifeson (post Moving Pictures) leaned heavily on that sound; which is how they lost me as a fan.
 
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What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

67Mopar said:
Allan Holdsworth, not Allen. Anyway... That compressed, syrupy tri-chorus tone makes me nauseous, literally. I find his playing overindulgent, unnecessary, and uninspiring. He would have been the perfect addition to Frank Zappa's cacophony of musical lunacy. Alex Lifeson (post Moving Pictures) leaned heavily on that sound; which is how they lost me as a fan.
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Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

Blille said:
What I find unnecessary is to correct the name followed by a snarky “anyway” then by insulting two widely respected musicians. Then again, YMMV.
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You forgot to place a comma between unnecessary and is and anyway and then. :usa2:
 
Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

67Mopar said:
Lab Series. ...just kidding.
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Worked for B.B. King.

I’d love to have one.

My favorite amp I own is my handwired Vox AC30.

Then my two 50’s Gibson GA20’s. Ry Cooder likes those too.

But we’re talking personal favorites. I know they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

I’ve owned a few tweed Fender Bassman amps, including some from the 1950’s and a handwired Victoria.

They always sound shrill to me eventually and I wind up selling them. But that’s me...not everyone else.

I’d say the Mount Rushmore’s would have to include the tweed Bassman, AC30, Deluxe Reverb, Princeton Reverb, Twin Reverb and Plexi Marshall like Hendrix and Clapton used.
 
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Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

67Mopar said:
A local music store (Music Shack) where I purchased my first Gibson guitar (1978) was a Lab Series dealer. So yes, I have played through them. The cleans were just okay, gain was comical. In those days, the Roland JC-120 was the king of solid-state clean tone. The best solid-state gain tones came from Peavey Backstage, Bandit, and Renown amplifiers. Although Lab Series amps sucked balls, they did have a relatively cool sounding phaser effect. I think it was a phaser? I remember it had large wheels on the sides of the housing. Wasn't as good as the EH Small Stone, but it was cool.

Allan Holdsworth, not Allen. Anyway... That compressed, syrupy tri-chorus tone makes me nauseous, literally. I find his playing overindulgent, unnecessary, and uninspiring....Alex Lifeson (post Moving Pictures) leaned heavily on that sound; which is how they lost me as a fan.
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Well that explains a lot... You don't like one of the clean tones of two incredible guitarists...nothing wrong with that but I wasnt talking about gain.

I'm not into metal but I'm not going to bad mouth metal amps... I'll leave that to metal gurus... I'll rate the amps that do a good job of doing what I do.

Not being critical, but I can confirm the Lab series, jc120 and Yamaha SSs are a perfect platforms for big clean chorus, delays... I fade pedaled between clean and crunch amps and easily found Lifeson tones from 2112 on, mainly in the middle.

Playing the parts... That was the hard part.



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Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

67Mopar said:
Allan Holdsworth, not Allen. Anyway... That compressed, syrupy tri-chorus tone makes me nauseous, literally. I find his playing overindulgent, unnecessary, and uninspiring. He would have been the perfect addition to Frank Zappa's cacophony of musical lunacy. Alex Lifeson (post Moving Pictures) leaned heavily on that sound; which is how they lost me as a fan.
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Even if you don't like a musician, you can still be subjective as to what they are doing and have accomplished. If you can not see that why would I listen to you your opinion on anything else? Especially gear? I can not believe you bashed Holdsworth, Lifeson and Zappa in a single post.

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Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

Securb said:
Even if you don't like a musician, you can still be subjective as to what they are doing and have accomplished. If you can not see that why would I listen to you your opinion on anything else? Especially gear? I can not believe you bashed Holdsworth, Lifeson and Zappa in a single post.

credibility-you-had-lost-it-you-did.jpg
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Correction, I bashed their use of tri-chorus clean tones. Alex Lifeson's best tones are on the RUSH debut album. Allan Holdsworth's guitar playing gives me a migraine headache. What better way to ruin a rocking party, than for some nerd to throw-in an Allan Holdsworth recording. :poed:

Zappa music is where dope-heads and nerds actually agree on something. At least, that's the way it was in the 70's. If you don't mind... how old are you?
 
Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

If I'm going for a pristine clean, it's my Ampeg GVT15, Rockman Chorus, and TTE. I once owned a Tri-Chorus rack. An outrageous piece of gear, no doubt about it. Not my thing, but for what it does, it does better than any other. I find the Rockman Stereo Chorus is the best (non Tri-Chorus) there is. Roland/Boss CE-1 is equally great. I have a MXR Dyna-Comp, which I rarely use. I kick it on with slide, but that's it.
 
Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

This thread reminds me of one guy's rig that I used to play with. He stacked a Fender Champ on top of a Princeton, on top of a Twin Reverb, on top of a Fender Bassman. It was a hellacious awesome mountain of Fender Power.
 
Re: What is the Mount Rushmore of guitar amps?

The "Mount Rushmore" of amplifiers is as follows....

Ampeg
Boogie
Fender
Marshall
VOX

All others are pretty much variations/exaggerations of the above. All born of D.T.N. Williamson.
 
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