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I have been doing some gtr tracks this week and have been using 2 marshalls. One is a 1971 50w Make 2 lead amp. It says jmp on the front. The other is a brand new jcm 2000. The jcm shouldnt even be in the same room as the old one. I cant believe how whimpy the 2000 is next to the 1971. And the gain on the 2000 sounds like cheap dod distortion pedals compared to the 71. Volume wise the old one will kill you and you can feel the power coming out of the amp and it doesnt ever get to that crapped out thing. It just keeps getting louder. Right around 6 or 7 the natural compression is perfect. Even the meters on the board were amazingly more solid where as the 2000 had really hard peaks and then died quite a bit.

In defense of the 2000 I did get a sound out of it that is acceptable and will most likely get used quite a bit cause the sound is all about big, but I can hear now that it will need a little more stuff than the other. The style lends itself to a good helping of FX, so that will be to my advantage I think. For tracking I have them panned about 9oclock and 3 oclock with some flange and cho and verb hard panned. Not to thick but you hear it... well. Panning them any harder seems to take away from the punchyness of the sound and the FX are just making it wider and bigger. I have the drums panned more center than that with a small room verb hard panned, so I think that too helps keep it punchy.

FYI... I have them both running at the same time through a Radial ToneBone ABY box. This box is great.

Comments

Davedog Thu, 12/30/2004 - 17:02

Yeah...I used to own one of those...err..JMP Mark II in a combo.Not many of those around and now they sell for thousands of dollars....shist.........Oh yeah...It was as Loud As God Yelling.

I believe that either this head or the 45 watt pre Mark II is the amp that Malcom uses to get that gigantic sound on the AC/DC recordings.

Hack Thu, 12/30/2004 - 18:00

Thats interesting that you say that cause when I first heard it I said "I swear to god this amp sounds like acdc." I got it from a friend I work with on the road that got it mid 80s from a guy that did guitar rigs for cheap trick. They were out together with that band and aparently this guy had all kinds of old marshalls that he collected and maintained for touring bands. Its a lot of fun to play with.

anonymous Mon, 01/03/2005 - 12:46

JMP, JCM, ...how about a Wizard?

I believe both Malcom and Angus use Wizard amplifiers, or at least they did for quite a while. On stage, you will see Marshalls but I believe this is due to legal reasons...I've had and still have just about every marshall around and the Wizard Rock 100 and Metal 100 amps are just about the best plug and play guitar amp out there. Anyone else try one of these?

Davedog Mon, 01/03/2005 - 17:20

DPL...while I dont doubt you one bit , there was an article a while back with the brothers talking about their studio tricks and all that...Malcolm definately said he used an old 45 watt JMP head with no effects for the Back In Black track...This being something that Mutt had something to do with, I gotta believe there were 20 amps all hooked up together for each guitar sound.
As for Wizard Amps...no I've not had the pleasure but if they sound like Malcolm then they are dasheeet!
Back in the day when I was but a young rockin dude, I played in a band with FOUR(4) Marshall 100 watt MkII Stacks....FOUR...and the lights were all on...It was a very early lesson in the difference in tube amplifiers...Side by side they were all completely different! Cabinets too.When we hit the studio it was with only one slant cab and the two heads that sounded best...We wound up using a couple of Fender Deluxe's(black face) and a marshall cab with an old Ampeg Roc-jet head to get the sound we wanted...Funny, live you just couldnt tell what it sounded like but when you got to the studio, it wasnt right at all...It took a couple of 12 watt amps to prove it..Of course there was the U67's through an API to kinda hold it together....

anonymous Tue, 01/04/2005 - 13:11

Davedog, your memory serves you well! The Youngs moved to Wizard amps only a few years ago and the owner of Wizard, Rick St. Pierre, toured with them as their guitar guy. If you like the ACDC straight ahead crunch tone, you MUST find a Wizard to play with. My favorite combo is a 69 Les Paul Custom, a 15' 1/4" cable, and my Wizard half stack. Sure is nice to sidestep all the in-betweens
...
Check out the artists page on Wizard's website...http://www.wizardamplification.com

sammyg Tue, 01/04/2005 - 20:38

Hack:

I agree too, while Marshall will always continue to be Marshall, the old stuff kicks ass. Apart from recording every spare minute I get I also work part time at one of Melbournes biggest music stores, we get to hear all sorts of stuff, we had a guy trade in an old JMP1, mate, I should have bought this thing, im kicking myself now, it had a tone from hell with volume to match! Kicked ass over every other amp in the store. Single channel, but thats all it needed!

As far as the new stuff goes, well for that "crunch" sound the DSL in my opinion sounds better than the TSL.

Also, since we are on the subject of AC/DC, the young brothers actualy grew up in my neighbourhood, yup, long live the northern suburbs!! As shitty as these suburbs are, at least we produced one good damn thing!!

8-)

Sammyg

anonymous Wed, 01/05/2005 - 05:57

I'm curious what you guys think about the JCM900 100watt heads. I got mine new in 2000 and have found it to be quite versatile. I also have an Marshall 2x12 100watt valvestate combo amp that sounds quite good. I bought it new in 97 and have been quite pleased with it, but, IMHO, all of the newer valvestate amps sound horrible.