The Marshall JCM 800 has grown onto one of the most desireable Marshall amps. It’s a little funny beause at one time guitarists did not really care for the master volume marshall amps.

The 2203 is the 100w version. The 50w is the 2204.

The JCM 800 was a direct descendant of the JMP series of amplifiers. In the picture below notice the horizontal jacks. Earlier 800’s had vertical jacks. There were some very minor circuit changes when they switched to horizontal jacks. Many consider the vertical jack model more desireable.

I saw Extreme last night at Toads’s Place in New Haven. They were fantastic and at the top of their game. It was great to see them in such an intimate setting.

I took a few pics of Nuno’s amps setting on his new Randall signature series amp.

Also Nuno was using a Boss GT-8 primarily for effects and volume boost. Next to the GT-8 is a Boss OC-3 Octave pedal. I really didn’t notice if he kicked on the octave pedal.

Overall his tone was great. He had two heads on stage but one was a backup.

Vox has entered the low power tube amp market with the introduction of the Night Train. The amp features two 12AX7 preamp tubes and two EL84 power tubes which deliver 15 watts of power. The amp is switchable to deliver 7.5 watts in trio mode.

The preamp is pretty cool and has Treble, Middle and Bass control along with a switchable Bright and Thick mode. I haven’t seen a schematic but I imagine the bright and thick modes are accomplished by modifying the stock tone stack.

The amp is pretty nice looking and Vox has a matching 1-12 cabinet with a custom VOX Celestion ‘greenback’ speaker.

I haven’t had the chance to hear one in person. Vox has posted some excellent clips on their web site.

This is a pretty review on Youtube.

Overall I kind of dig how this amp sounds. To me it seems to have that Vox vibe (duh) and can get pretty snarly too.

The Bugera line of amps have been out for a while now. I wrote a little overview of the 6262 here. I went to my local Sam Ash and luckily they had a 333xl head in stock. The head was connected to a Bugera 4×12 cabinet.

I’ll start out by saying that the clean channel is what impressed me most about this amp. I started out on the clean channel just to dial in some volume levels and I didn’t expect to spend any time on the clean channel. But to my surprise the clean channnel sounded really great. It was about as clean as a tube amp could get with lots of headroom. It is a very dynamic channel that was a lot of fun to play with.

My next stop was the crunch channel. At the lower settings you can get a classic rock crunch tone like AC/DC. As you increase the gain you move more into an 80’s metal gain. The built in reverb sounds really nice.

The tone controls are active and very responsive. You can really hear a difference just by moving the tone controls a little bit. The lead and crunch channels have an “XL” button. I think it’s Bugeras attempt at a loudness control to make the amp sound fuller at lower volumes. I can’t say I heard that much of a difference with it in or out. I will say that this amp sounds perfectly fine at bedroom volumes though unlike a lot of other tube amps.

Another cool feature of this amp is a noise gate. It works well and the model I tried was pretty quite even with the noise gate turned off.

I really enjoyed the crunch channel and I would probably spend most of my time on it.

My next stop was the lead channel and it has more gain on tap than even I knew what to do with. Let’s just say it is teh br00talz.

Overall I am really impressed by this amp. The clean channel is excellent and the crunch and lead channels deliver in spades. I don’t think I would gig with it if I was a working musician due to an unproven reliability track record. However it is a no brainer for the home musician.

The Marshall Lead 100 Mosfet model 3210 amp was produced in the mid to late 80’s. It was one of Marshall earliest solid state amplifies and predates the Valvestate and MG series of solid state amplifiers.

A mosfet is a type of solid state transistor. Mosfet is an acronym for
Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor

The lead 100 mosfet is loosely associated with the JCM 800 line of tube amps. The physical size of the head is a little smaller than a JCM 800. There are two channels that share a common EQ. The amp has an reverb and effects loop. There is an optional two button footswitch for boost or reverb. Without the footswitch plugged in you can actually combine the clean and gain channels for some different tones.

The voicing is similar to a JCM 800. It’s not a modern high gain amp and delivers more of a crunch tone. The amp is quite capable to pull off classic rock tones such as AC/DC and Aerosmith and early Def Leppard. To get more modern distortion tones or a real singing lead a boost is required. The clean is not totally clean and has some grit to it.

Like most older Marshall the tone controls are basically useless. The treble has the most effect on the tone. The mids and bass are much more subtle. Thanks in part to the limited tone controls it’s hard to dial in a bad tone. There seems to be a high pass filter which limits the bass response compared to some modern amps.

Another thing I really like about the amp is that it is a great head to run a POD or floor processor through. All you have to do is plug the modeler into the effect return and you bypass the preamp and go straight into the power amp. The bass response is totally happening when bypassing the preamp in this manner.

In the picture below my head is sitting on top of a MG412A cabinet. I know a lot of people knock the MG cabs but this setup sounds pretty good to my ears.

Overall this amp is a steal for the price. They sell all day on ebay for about $200-$225. It can get classic Marshall tones on a budget and it looks cools as hell. Thanks to the effect return you can also plug a modeler into this head which really adds to the versatility.

Early last year Bugera released a series of amps which included the 6260, 6262 the 333 and the 333XL series. At the time of release many models were available for under $500 for an all tune 120w amp. At this price point these amps were very appealing. Bugera is owned by Behringer and many questioned the quality of these amps.

In recent months there seem be very little complaints about the quality. There also seems to be growing number of guitarists snapping up these amps and raving about the tones. It seems like the Bugera line is gaining some credibility.

I’m interested in either a Bugera 6262 or the Bugera 333XL. The 6262 is considered to be a “5150 II Inspired” model. Unlike the 5150 however the 6262 has a usable clean channel. The amp is a two chanel amp with a clean and a lead chanel. The clean channel also has a switch to engage a “crunch” mode which essesntially makes this amp a three channel ampo with clean, crunch and lead.

There is an effects loop and unlike the 5150 the bugera has a reverb. A footswitch is included which allows you to select between the clean, lead reverb and effects. I would have left the reverb switch off and added the capability to switch on the crunch mode instead.

The 6262 can run either 6L6 or EL34 power tubes and Bugera makes it very simple to select and adjust the bias to run either. This is a nice touch. Also unlike a lot of tube amps the Bugeras sound good at lower volume levels.

Here is a Youtube video which shows the amp in action playing some Van Halen (not me).

Bugera 6262 guitar amp

I know this review is pretty much irrelevant since it looks like is phasing out this generation of the V series amps. Online retailers have slashed the price of this amp to $149.

I was in a Sam Ash and decided to plugin. In a nutshell this amp is a bargain at $149. The only reason I didn’t buy it is because I already have a small tube amp.

I’ll admit that in the past I was a Crate basher. Partly because I remember the total crap they were putting out in the 80’s. However since the Palomino series Crate seems to be gaining some fans.

The V18 is a stripped down meat and potatoes rocker. The amp breaks up rather early so there’s not a whole lot of clean headroom. Crank the gain a bit and the amp starts to growl. I would consider this amp to be voiced more like a british amp than a fender. Kind of Marshally, kind of Voxxy. It actually reminded me of the Peavey Classic 30.

The Crate V18 doesn’t have face melting distortion like a Recto or 5150. However users have reported this amp takes pedals well so you’d be able to throw a Metal Muff or something similar on front to get your grind on.

If you have the chance buy this amp. For a little more than the price of a pedal you get a Class A 18w tube amp. This price point is just silly for a tube amp and a few years back an amp with these specs would have been $750+. If you don’t dig it I can almost guarantee you could sell it for what you bought it for.

Check availability at Musicians Friend

After much hoopla Peavey has finally released the Vypyr series of amps. It seems that Peavey is aiming at the Line 6 Spider and Marshall MG series users as their target audience. The amp comes in 15w, 30, 75w and 100w versions. Later on Peavey plans to release 60w and 120w versions that feature tube power sections.

These amps are affordable. The 75w with a 12 inch speaker is $299. Best Buy had them listed at $209 on their web site and people were able to get Guitar Center to price match. Talk about a deal. Best Buy has since removed the amp from their site. I wonder if the $209 was the wholesale cost?

What makes the Vypyr unique is that it uses analog modeling using Peavey’s transtube technology. I think Peavey has done a nice job in the past with their transtube based amps.

In addition to the amp models there are 11 classic stomp box effects that you can kick in before the amp models just like a real guitar rig.

There are 11 post-amp effects as well. There is some kind of crazy SHARC processors on board to handle the digital effects.

Early reviews are favorable. It’s reported the Vypyr does a nice job of emulating the Peavey amps like the 6505 and XXX. The Vypyr has 12 different amp models. Each model has a clean and distorted version for a total of 24 models. I find it a bit odd there is only one Marshall model yet they model crap like the Krankenstein.

So what’s not too like? Well there doesn’t seem to be a way to model different cabinets or to turn it on/off for the USB recording out. There is an external speaker jack but the built in speaker stays on too. I don’t think there are any stereo capabilities. There is a serious lack of connection options. Peavey should have looked to the Behringer V-ampire to learn a thing or two about configuration options. The Behinger has 15 rear panel connectors that allows you to connect and configure the amp for just about any possible application from studio to live. The Behringer has midi in/out, 125 patch locations, a windows based editor to tweak the hell out of settings, pre and post stereo effects loops, S/PDIF output. All of these features would have been sweet on the Vypyr.

Overall this seems to be the most promising modeling amp since the original Vox Valvetronix series.

I saw Poison a few weeks ago. They are starting to turn into an annual guilty pleasure for me. I can think of a crap load of reasons why I shouldn’t like their concerts but honestly they are pretty damn good. Poison has a lot of energy live and there are plenty of babes in attendance. Musically the band is pretty tight. Brett Michaels really seems sincere to the fans and they tend to keep prices reasonable for their shows.

For the past few shows I’ve noticed CC Deville seems to have an amp off to his side. I think it’s only purpose is a stage monitor.

I got a pretty good look at the setup this time and it’s a Crate Shockwave. That’s right 350W of solid state goodness.

I’m not going to bash Crate because they have put out some nice amps as of late in spite of their reputation.

What’s the deal with CC removing the logos ? I mean if your going to play a crate at least leave the logos on.

The Behringer LX112 comes from the factory in L1 mode which means the cabinet modeling is on. Since you’re playing through a cabinet you don’t want modeling on. I have no idea why Behringer did this.

Here is how to set the Behringer LX-112 V-ampire amp to L2 mode and adjust the “Live” EQ settings. When you set the amp to L2 mode another set of EQ’s is available independent of the regular EQ.

• Press the two config keys at the same time to enter config mode. It is the “D” and “E” above the tone controls
• Push the up/dpwn buttons until the display says “L2″
• Adjust the tone controls and set the
  bass=2 o’clock mid=10 o’clock and treble=2 o’clock
• press the exit button