Is there a tube amp that can do this?

[dthmtl45]

Is there a tube amp that can do both hot-rodded Marshall tones and modern Peavey-type gain?

[Chris]

SLO is pretty close. It won't get you complete wide open Plexi but it's close enough, and it will certainly give you 5150-ish goodness.

[Budda]

Peters dual channel? FSM for 5150-esque.

[Greg McCoy]

When you say "Modern Peavey Gain", are you referring to a 5150 with 6L6 power section? "Hot Rodded Marshall" also needs to be expounded upon. 2203? Plexi? JTM45?

There's no basic amp head setup out there that absolutely nails both, but there are a bunch that get close enough. About a billion of them. It's an incredibly popular hybridization and has been for decades.

Usually when people talk about "hot rodded Marshalls" unless they are talking about the early 6550 stuff they are talking about EL34 sections.

There's very few amps that don't have some kind of complexities at the power section or a modular design that have like, a channel that is dead on hot rodded Marshall and a channel that is dead on 6l6 5150. You'd be better off with a modeler for that.

Most of them just have various blends of the spectrum between the two.

It's also probably going to be cheaper to just buy the Marshall AND the 5150 if dead on authenticity is your biggest criteria, since neither are that expensive. You can get both for under the price of a lot of the $4k amps that kinda do stuff in the same general spectrum as both.

Peavey also does 5150s with EL34 power sections, if what you are looking for is a hybrid sound.

By "does this" do you mean a sort of hybridization of the best qualities of each or discrete channels? The first is REALLY common. Second, not so much.

[lespauled]

Randall RM100. 3 Separate modules where you can have whatever you want. Another option is add a Synergy to your rig. Gives you an extra module, and extra options via foot switch.

[JJ Rodriguez]

I'd say you probably want a modular amp as well if you absolutely need those 2 things, a 5150-esque tone and a Marshall tone. Personally I would just try to find something you like rather than get hung up on what other amps they're copying.

[petereanima]

Diezel VH2.

This has the awesomeness of 2 Cahnnels: Ch1 = Hybrid of Ch1+Ch2 of the DIezel Paul, so clean to vintage hotroddness, and Ch2 is the power that is the VH4-Ch3 for the modernz.

[Greg McCoy]

Diezel VH2.

This has the awesomeness of 2 Cahnnels: Ch1 = Hybrid of Ch1+Ch2 of the DIezel Paul, so clean to vintage hotroddness, and Ch2 is the power that is the VH4-Ch3 for the modernz.

One of those is on my "To Buy" list. Do you have one? I love my Zerrer preamp pedal. I feed it into UA's excellent VH4 model too.

[Iron1]

Jet City Custom has all your needs in one amp:

https://jetcitycustom.com/custom-2-x/

[Dbwells]

If you want something cheap and interested in modding, there are Mesa and marshall jcm800 mods for a peavey valveking, that can be added to a toggle switch fairly easily. You can usually snag a used valve king head cheap like around 300 bucks.

[Randy]

So, the issue you've got there is that they're basically two distinctly different amps. The Marshall "thing" is crunch, the modern Peavey sound is "thick".

Tbh, the modern Peavey sound really comes from the 5150 design, which started as a modded Marshall. The problem is that the stock 5150 is more fat 6L6 sounding rather than the other versions of the Marshall mod from the 80s (ie Lee Jackson).

So think your solution is less "what does these two sounds" and more what IS these two sounds and you can basically dial in a little more or a little less of them. To thy end, I think you're looking at either a 6534+ or a 5150 III EL-34 and you can EQ more crunch or more fat.

Another option is the Friedman stuff like the Brown Eye, which is a Bogner-ish take on the Marshall but it's a little crunchier with the gain dialed back and can get insanely saturated when you crank it. Check out Jerry Cantrells stuff the last few years. Lot of the 80s guys got into the Friedman stuff because it's a nice amalgamation of the old and new.

Fortin does some of that as well but gets very pricey and his modern gain type sound is more distinct. Some models like his Randall design 667 does have some of his Marshall mod type sounds (like the Cali) and his more modern high gain stuff.

Last one I can thing of is Ceriatone, they sell some stuff like the Yeti, Chupacabra and others that are basically every version of a Marshall in a box from clean to Fortin with a shit ton of switches and adjustments to get you there. Very cool amps and reasonaBly priced.

[petereanima]

One of those is on my "To Buy" list. Do you have one? I love my Zerrer preamp pedal. I feed it into UA's excellent VH4 model too.

Unfortunately not. Wish i could justify getting one - but no band, no need for an amp. (Keeping the Orange only because vintage amp = $$$)

[Adam]

One of those is on my "To Buy" list. Do you have one? I love my Zerrer preamp pedal. I feed it into UA's excellent VH4 model too.

Have you tried the vh4 pedal? I had one and it was fantastic. Even straight into a flat SS power amp it was an amazing tone. I only sold it to fund a kemper and some vh4 presets 😅

I heard the vh4 pedal is a little closer to the real thing than the zerrer, so definitely worth a try if you haven't.

Edit. Don't get the mark 2 pedal with the extra channel. Apparently it's not as good. They had to make sacrifices to get two channels in the same size enclosure, and apparently the tone suffered as a result.

[Toshiro]

Laney Ironheart might get you close while not breaking the bank; it can do the British crunch, and can get very high gain, though not as loose/fat as a 5150.

[Tony]

Ceriatone King Kong with one channel set to 80s & the other set to modern

[Greg McCoy]

Have you tried the vh4 pedal? I had one and it was fantastic. Even straight into a flat SS power amp it was an amazing tone. I only sold it to fund a kemper and some vh4 presets 😅

I heard the vh4 pedal is a little closer to the real thing than the zerrer, so definitely worth a try if you haven't.

Edit. Don't get the mark 2 pedal with the extra channel. Apparently it's not as good. They had to make sacrifices to get two channels in the same size enclosure, and apparently the tone suffered as a result.

I believe they are actually very similiar, the Zerrer higher gain channel is supposedly based on the VH4.

The Zerrer is a different thing due to the "More robust" routing options. ("more robust" is my favorite pretentious term to describe routing options) I don't think it's a different product because of the preamp being substantially different. I don't know if they are identical, and the Zerrer channel 1 and 2 are taken from different diezel amps inspiration wise, but I think the actual preamp bit is pretty similar. I like the idea of the other pedals, but the Zerrer has like, 4 times as many routing options and much better IO and it's own FX loop.

I didn't even need a preamp, I loved the routing options on it. So I have a sort of stereo rig thing going on now.

The smaller ones are also DC power, the Zerrer is AC. That is most likely due in part to the fact it has a small on board power amp (like the ENGL e530, probably .5 watts or something thereabout), but it just synergizes better with my rig. I don't know if it has more gain stages or anything.

Peter Diezel has probably answered the question, and I didn't ask him myself, but I think the main difference is the Zerrer has a lot of extra features like Stereo FX loops. That is the main reason for the price point difference probably. I am a sucker for more loops and hubs and junctions.

I tend to like a lot of routing options and love throwing AB boxes in the signal chain and splitting stuff up, so the Zerrer is probably better in the long run. I already have a couple different AB boxes on my board. If I went with the VH4 pedal I would probably add a couple more.

I run it into the UA/Brainworx VH4 vst. Which is exceptional and officially licensed, highly recommend trying that if you haven't. Get it when it's on sale though (provided you have UA hardware, the UA version has extra shit). All of UA's plugins are pretty expensive, but they run 50% sales really frequently, so that is the time to get any of them. (assuming you have a UA interface of course)

The Diezel guys aren't huge fans of Kemper Diezel presets. If you didn't catch the whole "the newer diezels can tell when they are being profiled" fiasco a while back. I think this is probably in part due to the fact they have (had?) an exclusive partnership with Brainworx. I think the new ultra high tech Diezels have some of the Brainworx crew contributing to some of the higher tech stuff.

[Adam]

That's cool, I had no idea about the on board mini power amp. I'm looking for something diezel flavoured with a small power amp for practice at home through a cab (the same way the e530 works). In term of routing, I just use a boost out front and delay in the loop. Done.

I've not played a real diezel in years, but the ones in my kemper are great 😅

Did that new tech ever get implemented? I swear Ive seen profiles of the vhx floating around somewhere.

[Greg McCoy]

That's cool, I had no idea about the on board mini power amp. I'm looking for something diezel flavoured with a small power amp for practice at home through a cab (the same way the e530 works). In term of routing, I just use a boost out front and delay in the loop. Done.

I've not played a real diezel in years, but the ones in my kemper are great 😅

Did that new tech ever get implemented? I swear Ive seen profiles of the vhx floating around somewhere.

I don't actually know if it's intended to drive a cab or small speaker like the e530. It's mentioned for headphones by the Diezel guys. It's not as powerful as the e530 one. Haven't used it that much yet. SS poweramp though. Couldn't hurt to try. It's a stereo headphone power amp, which is cool. I haven't had an e530 in forever, so I don't remember if it was stereo or not.

It's not as "polished" looking of a product as the VH4 and other preamp pedals. It pretty much just is the same kind of thing in a format for people who want more routing options. I think they are made in much smaller numbers than the other ones. I don't think it's really a "mainline" Diezel offering. I had trouble getting hold of one. They are made in smaller batches. It's obviously more "made to order" looking if you put it by the enclosure for the VH4 pedal. The enclosure is unfinished aluminum, it has handwritten numbering on it and shit. I believe it was very much a feature set some customers requested after trying the smaller preamp pedals, a lot of them didn't even ship with power supplies. You have to source your own.

There's some good info on it on rig-talk. The Diezel guys don't post much there anymore, on account of rig talk being a shit hole most likely. But pretty much everything they've said supports the genesis for the zerrer being exclusively for guys who wanted more IO and more "Deluxe" ways to integrate it into a system. I don't think any of the price difference relates to the actual preamp sounding better. Guys were buying the other pedals and were like, "this is cool, but we want more outs and controls, etc."https://www.rig-talk.com/forum/threads/zerrer-pedal.156724/

I think soundwise they are pretty close in terms of the higher gain channel on the Zerrer being similar to the VH4 pedal.

Funnily enough, you are supposed to turn the signature Diezel "deep" control all the way off if you are using it with the Brainworx stuff with the preamp defeat switched on in the plugin. I've heard the "deep" control may be better on the Zerrer or some generations of the preamp pedals vs others, but considering with certain power amps and VSTs you are supposed to turn it off anyways I don't know if it's worth worrying about.

IIRC the new tech didn't stop it from being profiled, it just knew if the amp was being profiled and recorded it. Don't know what happened after the backlash.

[JJ Rodriguez]

I think most "power amps" in preamps are designed just to mimic power amp sag if recording direct or through headphones. My GP3 which I think is like 20 years old now has a mini "power amp" and a knob on the front called "Dynamics". You basically just dial it in until you like how it "feels" and leave it alone.

[Drew]

I'll reiterate Greg's question - "hot rodded Marshall" means a LOT of different things to a LOT of different people, as does "modern Peavey-type gain."


There are plenty of amps that can do Marshall-style crunch AND heavy, thick modern high gain - I own two, the Brit mode in my Mesa Roadster and Mark V does a great Marshall-style crunch, which is odd as I understand it's more of a HiWatt sound by inspriation - but if you were thinking more of a Randy Rhoads tone, that's a whole different ballpark.

[RevDrucifer]

Fuck all that, just buy an AxeFX and make your own Marshall JCM5150 Dual Plexifier.

[Nick]

Synergy