RIP, Electric Amplifier Inventor Jim Marshall, 'Father of Loud'

asavin writes "The founder of Marshall Amplification, Jim Marshall OBE, has died at the age of 88. A tribute to the man known as the Father of Loud was posted on his official website, praising the man whose name became iconic for electric guitarists." Reader LizardKing points to the Guardian's coverage of Marshall's passing, and adds : "A former drummer, Jim Marshall initially became involved with guitar amplification as an importer of Fender equipment, until he eventually decided to branch out and make his own amps. The trademark Marshall sound evolved alongside the requirements of such luminaries as Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton. The Marshall stack has since become a ubiquitous symbol of live rock music in particular — so much so that some bands perform in front of veritable walls of Marshall branded speakers. In addition to his lead guitar amplifiers, Jim will also be remembered for his great bass amps (as used by Lemmy Kilmister in particular) and the much sought after Guv'nor distortion pedal."

Comments

Always used Marshall, always will...

[AngryDeuce]

Never met a Marshall amp I didn't like. Met many I couldn't afford, but none that I didn't like.

Re:Always used Marshall, always will...

[LizardKing]

I love my Ampeg SVT, but would quite eagerly swap it for a valve based Marshall bass head. They even do an 8x10" speaker now, so you can get the best of both Ampeg and Marshall worlds. Sigh. Anyway, so long Jim, and thanks for all the tinnitus.

Re:Always used Marshall, always will...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I never met a marshall amp I particularly cared for. The cabs are standard backline everywhere though.

Re:Always used Marshall, always will...

[hairyfeet]

I'm a Trace Elliot man myself (pre-Peavey of course) but I always respected the Marshall Major. I got to play through one a few times and while it was damned near impossible to get a true clean sound out of those tubes (one of the reasons i love my solid state trace, satanically loud while staying truly clean) the Major had this "growl" to it, really hard to describe if you haven't played one. Paired with a Fender P-Bass they were monsters, back breakers and a bitch to move (tubes are naturally fussy) but man it did have a sweet sound.

RIP oh inventor of THE badass guitar tone, hell I doubt there was a band in the 70s or 80s that didn't use your amps to get their lead tones.

Re:Always used Marshall, always will...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sorry but they are popular amps, not the best amps. There were so many tech guys or electronic wizards getting into those amps and modding them to get a certain sound, or just to change the sound, because they were widely available, and back in the old days you could buy them cheap, or steal them from other bands. There amps are like Nike shoes not the best shoes just popular. The amps themselves were okay but you would always look for someone to mod them, even to this day, when you can choose from hundreds of foot pedals to add sound and even volume. These tech guys added to Marshall becoming more popular even tho a lot of these guys never worked for the company.

The pickups play a huge roll as well, and really getting a combination of Amp and Pickup is where your sound comes from. Pickups are the same way as Amps you find guys to mod or build them, even create circuits inside a guitar to boost your pickups.

People buy these amps because there favorite band or players use them, I did not read thur all the comments but it is surprising no one else said this. I also know players are fully aware of there equipment namely guitars and the hoards of thing that can be done to those alone. It also helps boost sales when you pay off bands to use them and endorse them.

Just my opinion not stomping on your love for the amps.. Everyone got there own thing that is the way it should be.

RIP???

[sribe]

I'm not sure "Rest In Peace" is appropriate here ;-)

Re:RIP???

[dkleinsc]

Yeah, I'd go for something like "REST IN HIGH VOLUME!" followed by several hours of ears ringing like crazy.

Re:RIP???

[Anonymous Coward]

ROCK in Peace....

Re:RIP???

[cayenne8]

I think this calls for a 21-Power Chord Salute!!

All amps being turned up to "11" of course....

Re:RIP???

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Rock Into Paradise?

Re:RIP???

[qwak23]

My boss has an amp that goes to "13".

It was advertised as a feature. ;)

Ride the lightning, big guy!

[Anonymous Coward]

RIP.

But this goes to 11!

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember buying my first Marshall, something special about that logo that just makes you want to pick yer kit and play!

Special burial?

[Moheeheeko]

Some marshal stacks are big enough one COULD be buried in one..... just sayin'

Re:Special burial?

[LizardKing]

That's a thought. Must amend my will:

.. to be cremated in the chassis of a Marshall 8x10" cab ...

To go along with the music requests that include Killed By Death by Motorhead, And no, I'm not joking about the music, as that's what my will really does insist on being played.

Goodnight.

[Anonymous Coward]

Goodnight, sweet prince.

Make his own?

[Anonymous Coward]

...he eventually decided to branch out and make his own amps.

What does that mean?

He went and got a degree in electronics? Or he was already an engineer like this guy.

I hate these media "rags to riches" stories. They make it sound like the guy went to Radio Shack (when it was for hobbyists), locked himself in his garage, and popped out a millionaire.

They make it sound so fucking simple - as if anyone could it. They can't. I've tried. I bought into the myth that anyone can get rich - 3 times and I'm failed. Didn't work hard enough? Oh, Please. My wife thought I ran off during those times. I almost lost her.

Do you really know what's marketable. What's cool to you may not be to the other guy.

Work your ass off and there will be copycats and they will have deep pockets to bury you in court when you try to sue for patent infringement.

Oh, patents. $16,000 min. That's for a lawyer to give you something lock solid to keep Wang Chung industries from duplicating you thing and selling it for half the cost - if that.

"Open" invention? Yeah, show me the little guy who made it work - not some big VC backed corp.

Re:Make his own?

[moronikos]

What does it mean?

Well, he owned a music store and was selling Fender amps from America. He took them apart and inspected them and figured he could make them cheaper and sell them for a better profit in England than he could by importing them from America. He used British variations of tubes that gave his amps a different sound than Fender amps. He happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right product.

Re:Make his own?

[Anonymous Coward]

Climb down off the ledge, Francis, everything's gonna be ok...

Re:Make his own?

[Hatta]

I hate these media "rags to riches" stories. They make it sound like the guy went to Radio Shack (when it was for hobbyists), locked himself in his garage, and popped out a millionaire.

Well, that was a long time ago, and analog amplification isn't exactly rocket science.

Re:Make his own?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, was he an innovator or a Steve Jobs?

Re:Make his own?

[backslashdot]

Chill out bro. Keep tryin' to b a millionaire. Now you didn't say what you did or what your angle on the market was .. but it's been always well known that hard work alone isn't enough -- you need good ideas, a marketing strategy that works, and smart practices. If wealth was based solely on how much hard work you do, people working at a fast food place or on a farm would be earning double what a CEO makes.

Anyway, ..according to wikipedia .. this guy owned a record store .. he understood music .. and people had told him there was a need for a decent amp .. so he formed a company .. hired some engineers .. and produced one.

Btw, most of the time.. by the time the Chinese copy your invention .. you'd have presumably made a chunk of money already (or how else would they know your invention even exists .. let alone that its worth manufacturing).

As for "little guys who made it work" .. there are plenty of millionaires that made smartphone apps -- individuals who had good ideas, implemented them the correct way, and worked hard -- with almost no money or capital investment. Also your cloning theory is false. How come twitter clones didnt make it? Twitter is a fairly simple website that wouldn't have been difficult for any of the big boys to duplicate .. same thing with youtube. Anyway .. just cause you failed 3 times doesn't mean you should give up.. many people failed a lot more times than that before they made it.

Re:Make his own?

[Chrisq]

What does it mean?

Well, he owned a music store and was selling Fender amps from America. He took them apart and inspected them and figured he could make them cheaper and sell them for a better profit in England than he could by importing them from America. He used British variations of tubes that gave his amps a different sound than Fender amps. He happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right product.

And that's in a time before someone who had never made an amplifier in their life would turn up with a patent for "amplification giving a pleasing sound" and taking both fender and Marshall to court.

Re:Make his own?

[Anonymous Coward]

What it means is that the Marshall 1959 schematic looks identical to the schematic for a Fender '59 bassman...just sayin'

Re:Make his own?

[Zedrick]

Actually, making an analog guitar amplifier sound "right" is probably more difficult than building a rocket. I have a (digital and somewhat modern) VAMP3 and it's not possible to make it sound anything like a real Marshall stack with tubes.

Re:Make his own?

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have had hard work and dedication covered... Have you considered the possibility that your ideas were crap?

Re:Make his own?

[Tyler Eaves]

Making a good analog amp isn't especially difficult. What is difficult is doing it a cost that allows it to be retailed profitably. There are tons of absolutely killer boutique amp builders out there making great stuff that'll blow away pretty much anything mass-market (including marshall), but your're paying $4k+ for that sort of thing.

Re:Make his own?

[Gilmoure]

...And then some adenoidal typists from Birmingham with flabby white legs and diarrhoea trying to pick up hairy bandy-legged wop waiters called Manuel and once a week there's an excursion to the local Roman Remains to buy cherryade and melted ice cream and bleeding Watney's Red Barrel and one evening you visit the so called typical restaurant with local colour and atmosphere and you sit next to a party from Rhyl who keep singing "Torremolinos, torremolinos" and complaining about the food - "It's so greasy isn't it?" - and you get cornered by some drunken greengrocer from Luton with an Instamatic camera and Dr. Scholl sandals and last Tuesday's Daily Express and he drones on and on about how Mr. Smith should be running this country and how many languages Enoch Pow ell can speak and then he throws up over the Cuba Libres.

Re:Make his own?

[cyberchondriac]

I think it had to be a little more than just the tubes. I'm well aware tubes definitely affect the sound having experimented with them myself, but the difference between a Marshall Plexi (or even a combo) and say, a Fender Deluxe Reverb is more significant -or at least, quickly become so.
The irony is how much we now pay in America for his British amps! Ouch.

Re:Make his own?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a (digital and somewhat modern) VAMP3 and it's not possible to make it sound anything like a real Marshall stack with tubes

Yes it is. You need to talk to Carver to figure out how. It's actually pretty simple if you know what you're doing.

Re:Make his own?

[broknstrngz]

A Steve Jobs, but humble.

Re:Make his own?

[Sir_Eptishous]

Mod waaaaay up!

Re:Make his own?

[oldmac31310]

Interesting. A lot of guitarists liked to play their guitars through the Fender Bassman (Surf bands in particular).

Re:Make his own?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, EL34's sound different from 6L6's. But it is more than that. The way that the output transformer saturates is a big influence. The driver stage matters. The preamp stage matters. Even the power supply matters; how much the supply voltage sags under heavy load will change the sound.

There are two aspects of the output transformer that come into play, turns ratio and saturation. A pair of 6L6's will deliver the most power working into a lower impedance than a pair of EL34's. The tubes are close enough that either will work in a circuit designed for the other, but the optimal conditions aren't quite the same. So turns ratio of the transformers might differ. The supply voltage might differ. One might need more voltage swing from the driver stage, the other present a lower impedance to the driver.

Transformers distort. More current through a winding results in a stronger magnetic field in the core only up to a certain point. The core saturates, for any given alloy there is a maximum value for the magnetic field strength it can carry. This is also true for analog tape recording. In both cases, it's a fairly soft clipping.

Re:Make his own?

[drainbramage]

Are you talking about Bob Carver?
What seems easy for him is inconceivable to an average engineer.
Why does it seem like he keeps getting screwed by his business partners?

Re:Make his own?

[Tyler Eaves]

No, I was just talking in general terms about any number of boutique/hand wired amps, ranging from relatively high-volume companies like Soldano to super-exclusive stuff like Dumble, where it's one guy making maybe one amp a month.

Re:Make his own?

[Lisandro]

I have a Line6 Pod 2 which sounds really damn close to a Marshal stack, specially through headphones. The Line6 stuff usually does a much better job at emulating analog gear than Beringher, whose products i always found way to sterile sounding.

Re:Make his own?

[geekoid]

No, it isn't more difficult then building a rocket..assume you want the rocket to do somewhere and do something.

Re:Make his own?

[geekoid]

"It's actually pretty simple if you know what you're doing."
No shit.

Is there anything that isn't easy for you know what your doing?

Re:Make his own?

[BlueStrat]

Making a good analog amp isn't especially difficult. What is difficult is doing it a cost that allows it to be retailed profitably. There are tons of absolutely killer boutique amp builders out there making great stuff that'll blow away pretty much anything mass-market (including marshall), but your're paying $4k+ for that sort of thing.

There are a lot of people building their own amps these days, from "boutique" amp builders that charge exorbitant prices and use exotic/specialty and select "new old-stock" original parts & tubes, to fairly average guitarists that want a quality hand-built tube amp but lack the money to afford a Marshall or a boutique amp.

I've been playing for ~40 years, and my favorite, best-sounding amps are the ones I've built.

Cathode-Biased KT66s, Parallel-Triode preamp, ~30 watts: http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h103/stratman_el84/Testament%2030/

Cathode-Biased EL84s, Unique SRPP ( http://valvewizard1.webs.com/srpp.html ) Preamp Design, ~20 Watts: http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h103/stratman_el84/Testament%20MK%20I/

Both amps sound fantastic, and they cost a fraction of what anything comparable commercially costs.

Strat

Re:Make his own?

[evilgraham]

No it doesn't. A JTM45 on the other hand... Selmer also did a pretty much perfect clone of the bassman, again with different (UK) valves.

Re:Make his own?

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't heard a Carver amp then or followed Bob's history. Smart guy, deaf as a door knob. Payola in the hifi world is ridiculous.

Re:Make his own?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been having an absolute BLAST with Pod Farm. I got the full tone set and there's just so much to pick from. 3

Re:Make his own?

[Hognoxious]

Let me get this right: building a good analog amp is hard because you can't make a digital one sound like an analog one?

Re:Make his own?

[dontmakemethink]

Same thing happened in Canada, Peter Traynor was an amp repairman in Toronto who essentially copied the Fender Bassman design (much like Jim Marshall did) with just enough mods to keep from being sued, but while adding some innovations of durability. The Traynor Dyna-bass, later renamed the Bassmaster, was designed and tested so it could survive being thrown off the roof of the original 3-storey Long & McQuade music store building, and still work by just replacing the tubes.

While Marshall innovated on tone moreso than Fender did (IMO) the original Fender Bassman is the blueprint from which most amps that use EL34 tubes are designed. Most of them from the 60's and 70's can be modified to each other's specs just by changing low-level resistors and capacitors, the expensive components are functionally identical from different manufacturers. I own 1968 and 1970 Traynor Bassmasters, one is modified to Marshall "plexi" JCM1 specs, the other is modded as a Bassman. Neither a JCM1 nor a Bassman can undergo a 3-storey drop and be expected to operate with replaced tubes, but my Traynors can. Each is sonically and electronically identical to their respective partners.

Nowadays, Marshall is a household name for guitarists, as is Yorkville for sound techs. Yorkville is essentially a co-venture of Traynor and Long & McQuade, and carries Pete Traynor's influence of being indestructible while providing the sonic characteristics to get the job done time and time again on a budget. I was pleasantly surprised that the two festivals I attended in Tennessee and Florida recently were using Yorkville speakers, and that the techs knew how to make them sound good. They're more tough than they are sweet-sounding, but dial them in and nobody complains, and they'll never ever let you down.

Sorry for the Can-con segway, Jim Marshall's impact on the music industry will never go unnoticed, much less forgotten.

Re:Make his own?

[dontmakemethink]

BTW most Marshall and Fender guitar amps are now built in China, much like all other brands. All Traynor guitar amps are made in Canada. Same goes for Yorkville PA speakers.

Re:Make his own?

[HyperQuantum]

Writing bug-free software, perhaps?

Re:Make his own?

[airdweller]

So you have a _digital_ modeling/effects processor which doesn't sound like a _tube stack_ and somehow that fact means that it's more difficult to make a tube amp than a rocket? Are you high?

Re:Make his own?

[sjames]

That's the big ingredient that always gets left out in those stories. The hard work, keen sense of what's hot, and a strong business sense will all make the big success more likely, but then you need a whopping big dose of luck.The luck is the only absolutely indispensable element.

No worries

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully he's only planning to be dead for a year or two for tax purposes

Wow!

[GmExtremacy]

Should've used Gamemaker. For shame...

Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[wisnoskij]

In my opinion, loudness was the worst thing that ever happened to music.
Pretty much destroyed all good music, and retroactively made many recordings of old music worse. Now that is not all this man's fault and music had to be digital eventually (and with digital comes a volume control). But he seems like the first step in a staircase of inept musical decisions.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[PIBM]

They weren't talking about the loudness war in the raw data of the file, but rather in the final output. Anyway, just saying..

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[Anonymous Coward]

In my opinion, loudness was the worst thing that ever happened to music.
Pretty much destroyed all good music, and retroactively made many recordings of old music worse. Now that is not all this man's fault and music had to be digital eventually (and with digital comes a volume control). But he seems like the first step in a staircase of inept musical decisions.

This is completely irrelevant to this discussion. We're not talking about the loudness war here, we're talking about rock music you twit.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[CanHasDIY]

So... electric guitars bad? What, you think if it's not written for harpsichord it's not music?

Amazing that one would even attempt to attribute the travesties of the Loudness Wars to one of the pioneers of modern music... I assume you exhibit a similar disdain for the late Les Paul?

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[wisnoskij]

Yes but they are absolutely related. Different techniques that both similarly diminished the art-form of music by making it louder.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[Anonymous Coward]

Loud as in volume, not the "loudness" of compression.

Wait...you think volume control came with digital technology?

How the hell did this get modded up?

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[LizardKing]

Yes but they are absolutely related. Different techniques that both similarly diminished the art-form of music by making it louder.

You haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about. The criticism of the loudness war is concerned with clipping and a lack of dynamic variation thanks to over use of compression, not increased volume per se.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[tlhIngan]

In my opinion, loudness was the worst thing that ever happened to music.
Pretty much destroyed all good music, and retroactively made many recordings of old music worse. Now that is not all this man's fault and music had to be digital eventually (and with digital comes a volume control). But he seems like the first step in a staircase of inept musical decisions.

Wrong loudness.

The "loudness war" is really a "compression" war. And not data compression, but dynamic range compression (the difference between loudest and softest).

A good amplifier should have a huge dynamic range - it can make your ears strain to hear that soft tap, and a split second later blow them out when someone plays a riff. (The usual limiter is the noise floor).

The loudness war is basically taking soft sounds making them louder to compete with the loudest sounds, so it's all one level. (Some older albums may have you twidding the volume knob because of this).

Digital compression techniques like MP3 and AAC will reduce the dynamic range out of necessity (it takes a LOT of bits to have a wide dynamic range and still record soft and loud sounds accurately).

And none of it has anything to do with an amplifier. Heck, distortion effects often need wider dynamic range, especially in solid-state amps. A tube amp will distort when overdriven, which generates many harmonics that are often nicer on the ear. A transistor, when overdriven, clips and that generates nasty harmonics that ound terrible and grate the ear. Digital signal processing can emulate tube distortion and sond like many classic amps, but they have to avoid clipping which requires that the input amp and ADC stay below clipping even when applying heavy overdrive.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[wisnoskij]

I know as much as you about the loudness war.
But ignoring the specifics and talking about generalities, the loudness war is all about make things louder. I personally do not like excessive noise, but my biggest problem with excessive noise in music is that half of modern music is willing to go to any extreme to be louder. The loudness war is only part of it, it is how they write music, play songs, and sing. When the most important aspect of a singers voice is how loud they can scream, when they sound like you put a bag of gravel in a food possessor, that is a bad thing.

the entire movement, starting with the father of loud, is about replacing quality with loudness.

Which is not to say that his invention was not needed to create many theoretically good musical things, but that they were misused.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[wisnoskij]

I understand that, but it is all done to make things louder. I personally do not like excessive noise, but my biggest problem with excessive noise in music is that half of modern music is willing to go to any extreme to be louder. The loudness war is only part of it, it is how they write music, play songs, and sing. When the most important aspect of a singers voice is how loud they can scream, when they sound like you put a bag or gravel in a food possessor, that is a bag thing. There is no comparison to the modern day rock and role singer (some smuck of the street who is willing to scream until he vomits blood) and a professionally trained opera singer who can actually control his voice.

the entire movement, starting with the father of loud, is about replacing quality with loudness.

Which is not to say that his invention was not needed to create many theoretically good musical things, but that they were misused.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[petsounds]

His amps weren't just about being louder. The tone of Marshall amps is stellar.

But in his defense, Pete Townsend of The Who is the one who demanded louder amps for their concerts. Most amplification systems at concert halls back then were seriously lacking for rock n roll, so you had to have a loud amp. Pete begged Jim to make a louder amp, and he came up with the 100-watt Marshall. Then of course every band wanted one, and I guess you could say there was a concert loudness war for a while (parodied by Spinal Tap's moniker "England's Loudest Band"), but as others have said that had nothing to do with the loudness war of the recorded music (which was indeed detrimental to the music itself).

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[mcgrew]

Dad? Is that you? I didn't know you had a computer! Gees, I'm 60 and have been listening to rock and roll since the '60s. If it ain't loud, it ain't rock. If it's too loud, you're too old.

Have you ever been to a Mozart concert? Have you ever heard Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture, with cannons? have you never in your life been to a parade? Loud music has been around for centuries. GOOD loud music. A live acoustic guitar playing with a live drumset is subaudible. Most non-amplified musical instruments, especially horns and drums, are DAMNED loud.

Hell, try listening to Zepplin's "Immigrant Song" at low volume, it's like drinking watered down beer. You've been listening to WAY too much canned music and WAY too little live music.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[thomst]

wisnoskij complained:

There is no comparison to the modern day rock and role singer (some smuck of the street who is willing to scream until he vomits blood) and a professionally trained opera singer who can actually control his voice.

Which is to say that you love opera, and rock music is not opera.

Well, duh.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[Half-pint HAL]

When the most important aspect of a singers voice is how loud they can scream, when they sound like you put a bag or gravel in a food possessor, that is a bag thing.

It is indeed. It's not my bag, it's not your bag, but it's clearly somebody's. Maybe it's my father's; he's just bought one from the shop -- it's brand new, you know.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[wisnoskij]

Well I have never listened to a single opera. I respect the dedication to improving a skill and professionals who strive to perfect a skill. And I understand that to be a good singer you need to have control of your voice.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[Anonymous Coward]

"the loudness war is all about make things louder"

You keep saying this, but it is wrong.

Jim Marshall was about providing the equipment needed to fill an auditorium with sufficient volume that everyone could hear (and in many cases feel) it. This is what we are talking about.

The "loudness war" is about making your music not seem quiet in comparison to someone else's WHEN PLAYED AT THE SAME VOLUME.

Jim Marshall = able to turn the volume up = more dynamic range

Loudness War = make it all sound the same = less dynamic range

Do you see why they are THE FUCKING OPPOSITE.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[wisnoskij]

Classical music has to be loud, at least sometimes. What makes it difference is that is equality loud and quiet. The classical song writers understood the significance and beauty of a whisper as much as that of the bang of the cannon. Modern music is the exact opposite, it is 1 volume (loud).

And considering that you where alive, let alone going to concerts in the 60s you are orders of magnitude older then I am. Good taste is ageless.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[oldmac31310]

Shows how much you know. Not much.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[oldmac31310]

Classically trained singers are bloody loud too. That's part of the training. Stop now, will you?

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[wisnoskij]

There is nothing wrong with loudness in its place. I never said anything over X db is bad.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[Anonymous Coward]

Volume is a tool. It can be used wisely, or used poorly. Electronics make it easy to play loudly, but it has always been possible. The loudest band I've ever heard was the Count Basie Band. They were also the most dynamic; very, very quiet, and very, very loud. It's amazing how much sound massed brass instruments can put out.

Good electric guitarists can, and do, play quietly as needed. If you want to complain about instruments that are always loud, consider the bagpipe. They're always set to 10.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[mcgrew]

Indeed, you are correct. If you look at the signals on an oscilloscope, an overdriven solid state amp will have a square wave with sharp corners, while the corners of a tube amp's distortion (clipped and overdriven) are rounded. This is what people mean when they say it sounds "warmer".

Many guitar players will play through a low power tube amp with a microphone in front of the tube amp that feeds a high power, not overdriven solid state amp. You get the sound of the tube amp without the higher cost of a Marshall that way.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[mcgrew]

Most people don't realise that to double the db you have to increase the amp's power by 10x. A 100 watt amp is twice as loud as a 10 watt amp, all other things being equal. A high efficiency speaker being driven by a 50 watt amp is louder than a low efficiency speaker being driven by a 100 watt amp. The amp output impedance and speaker impedance matter, too. Because of impedance mismatches, you can easily blow a solid state amp by running several speakers in series from it. You might even see the magic smoke.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[spitzak]

I suspect that if you turn an amplifier up a lot you will also get distortion, which is what the OP is probably trying to say. But bands could easily avoid this, they would spend more money on more expensive amplifiers (such as made by Marshall) and thus get the desired loudness with less distortion.

For the CD "loudness wars" it is too late. You can't improve the result by buying a more expensive CD player. That is a big difference.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[geekoid]

Yeah, the Who, Stones, Clapton...their loudness just ruined music~

At least we have idiots like you to tell us what music is, and apparently you have defined art. Well done.

Moron.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[geekoid]

Everything about your post is provable wrong, or based on a stupid fallacy.

Just the point that you compare anyone who 'sing rock' to a professionally train opera singer show you're inability to think logically.

I can pull out the top best rock and roll singers, and that would have better voice control that some yahoo singing opera in the shower.
Put together a logical argument...but I suspect you can't think clearly enough to put a logical argument together.

-

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[geekoid]

stop, he is a troll.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[geekoid]

Don't, he is a troll. He complain about 'loudness', and when direct confronted he changes the subject slightly. I mean, think abiout this: the crux of his argument* is that loud equals bad music.

He clearly doesn't understand distortion, or compression artifacts, or any technical aspect. Of course in spite of the clear evidence of hios ignorance, he gfoes on as if he know what he is talking about..
SO he is a troll.

*I use that term very loosely regarding his stupid statements.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[geekoid]

He's a troll. Ignore him.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[wisnoskij]

Yes because the loudness war (the movement that reduced the complexity of music by making it all 1 volume level) is provably a good thing?

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Actually there's a Universe of Bagpipes. Most every nation in Europe had or has an indigenous variety or varieties. Some of these are loud as hell, yes - Scottish (specifically Great Highland, the stuff you hear in parades), Breton, Galician. Others aren't any louder than an acoustic guitar, like the Irish pipes I play.

And curiously enough just this Tuesday I was talking to a friend about the Basie Band's guitarist, Freddy Green, who stuck to using a non-amplified archtop his whole career. Those things can really project, it seems.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[TigerPlish]

In my opinion, loudness was the worst thing that ever happened to music.

Orchestras are loud.

Big grand pianos, the type used in concerts, not little polite "baby" grands, are loud.

Pipe organs are loud. Probably the single loudest instrument ever built.

Point is, Loud has been with us for a few hundred years now, if not more. All the electric guitar and its amps did was bring Loud to the guitar.

Perhaps you're thinking of dymamic range compression? IMO, that truly is the most evil thing ever foisted on musicians and listeners alike. It's sole purpose is to render music playable by the lowest common denominator. Truly an abominable, despicable creation. It sucks all the life, all the soul, out of the music.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[Hognoxious]

I personally do not like excessive noise

Really? You seem to be generating plenty.

The loudness war is only part of it, it is how they write music, play songs, and sing. When the most important aspect of a singers voice is how loud they can scream

Which is nothing at all to do with amplifiers.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[thomst]

wisnoskij insisted:

Well I have never listened to a single opera. I respect the dedication to improving a skill and professionals who strive to perfect a skill. And I understand that to be a good singer you need to have control of your voice.

And yet you cite opera singing as somehow artistically superior to rock vocals.

Are you familiar with the logical error known as "appeal to authority"? Because you just indulged in it.

As for your contention that:

There is no comparison to the modern day rock and role singer (some smuck of the street who is willing to scream until he vomits blood) and a professionally trained opera singer who can actually control his voice.

I recommend you hunt up the original recording of Jesus Christ Superstar, and listen closely to "Gethsemane". The guy singing it is Ian Gillian, the original lead singer of Deep Purple, and thus one of the originators (with Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin) of hard rock/heavy metal vocals. Hands down, it is the premiere interpretation of the part. His voice soars, pleads, agonizes, and, yes, at times screams. And the emotional impact is devastating. I defy you to criticize it - it is simply one of the best rock vocal performances ever recorded.

Better yet, listen to Murray Head's performance as Judas, singing "Superstar (I Only Want To Know)". Holy freakin' shit, Batman!

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your typing is pretty good for a 6 year old or a 6 month old. Or some order of magnitude younger than 60 years anyway.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[mcgrew]

But the subject was amplification, not dynamics. It isn't Marshall's fault that today's sound engineers seem to all be less than competent.

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[airdweller]

You forgot to end your rant with 'Get off my lawn!' :)

Re:Worst thing that ever happened to music.

[justthinkit]

One thing is for sure, calling it a "compression" war is dead wrong. More like an "expansion" or "removal of headroom" war.

I'm turning my amp up to 11...

[Arrogant-Bastard]

...and playing "Too Rolling Stoned" all the way through.

Rock on, Jim...rock on.

Re:I'm turning my amp up to 11...

[dkleinsc]

That's nothing - if you want to do something really fun, try plugging the output of one amp into the input of another. (*note - keep a fire extinguisher handy)

Re:I'm turning my amp up to 11...

[LizardKing]

I've experienced someone running the power amp output of one Marshall amp into the power amp input of another, then into a 4x12". The sound was a phenomenally throaty roar, but I doubt it would do much for the longevity of the second amp.

The "father of loud"

[Animats]

By the end of the 1960s, rock amps had achieved enough power to reach the threshold of pain. From then on, much of the "wall of amps" thing was fake. You just didn't need that much speaker area to hit the threshold of pain.

A friend of mine was a roadie for metal groups years ago, and she discovered this when setting up for Metallica. Most of the "amps" were empty boxes. At least they were enclosed boxes. In the picture above, the low-budget metal band just used fake fronts.

Re:The "father of loud"

[osu-neko]

Yeah... I saw a play the other day, and the house these people lived in was missing an entire wall.

Re:The "father of loud"

[Anonymous Coward]

By the end of the 1960s, rock amps had achieved enough power to reach the threshold of pain.

An acoustic guitar can exceed 120dB if you put your ear in front of the sound hole. Heavy metal bands are retards but more speakers will move more air with less distortion. The caveat is that speakers sound better (at least for rock) around their maximum excursion. Most bands use 4x12s and either 4x10s or 8x10s (for bass), more than enough and it doesn't matter so much if you blow a speaker.

Re:The "father of loud"

[squidflakes]

There's also a reason why the Dead's "Wall of Sound" didn't last long. Two semi-trailer loads of audio equipment leap frogging across the nation, and a mixing board and wiring so cantankerous that a short in a single portion would render the entire system inoperative? Yeah.

Re:The "father of loud"

[jafo]

A friend of mine was a roadie for metal groups years ago, and she discovered this when setting up for Metallica.

Speed of Sound tour? Let me guess, they were a bunch of assholes?

Re:The "father of loud"

[oldmac31310]

Scandalous!

Re:The "father of loud"

[unitron]

Yeah... I saw a play the other day, and the house these people lived in was missing an entire wall.

Was that house in a Potemkin village, perchance?

Re:The "father of loud"

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Has said friend's career slowed down lately, too?

...luminaries as Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton..

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? No mention of Hendrix? Seriously Sad.

Can anybody tell me

[Chrisq]

Can anybody tell me what the "Marshall Sound" was, and how this would compare to a guitar played through something like a Yamaha?

Re:Can anybody tell me

[Anonymous Coward]

Google "Cream Sunshine of your love"

Re:Can anybody tell me

[Anonymous Coward]

yamaha have uh smah penis. Not rike uh big mahshah penis.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[stewbee]

The best way that I can explain this is how the whole system is made. One big distinction is tube vs solid state amps. When operating any amp in compression, it will generate harmonics. (think of the difference between a sine wave vs a square wave when looking at the frequency spectrum). If you add multiple sine waves (ie a chord on a guitar). Each frequency for each note of the chord will mix together when going through the amp, which are called intermodulation products. These intermod products give a certain profile to the sound that come out of the amplifier that give each amp its own unique sound. The differences come from the design of the amp. Many people claim that tubes give a 'warmer' sound from the better intermods that they create. This is probably true, but I don't have any evidence one way or the other. It would make sense that the transition from linear to nonlinear (ie approaching saturation) in a tube amp would be different vs a solid state amp which will affect the harmonic creation.

Another way that the sound is different would be what kind of speaker cabinet the amplifier is connected to. The acoustic performance will also shape the sound.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[cyberchondriac]

It would sound a hell of a lot better than a Yamaha if the sound you were after was a heavy rock'n'roll sound. I've had Marshalls, and I've had a Yamaha, it was godawful nasal sounding. Not bad for clean, great for jazz, but it didn't distort well at all.
If you like the sound of early Van Halen, that was a 100watt Plexi model (albeit run through a variac and -possibly (though it's contested) modded some).

RIP Jim Marshall, rock would not have been the same without you. I give you a moment of ... screaming feedback! Okay, so we would still have Fender, possibly Mesa, and Vox, (unless Vox was a Marshall clone? Admittedly I don't know the history of Vox), and maybe some others, but it wouldn't be the same. Marshall seems to have been the primary catalyst behind the harmonically distorted guitar.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of this has to do with the type of tubes used in a marshall. Typically, a "marshall" sound is a tube amp overdriven to with heavy compression of signal from the power amp section. This is different than overdrive from a fender or vox that has tubes that don't compress as much in the power amp section. This sound has been emulated by thousands of different amps, pedals, software plugins over the years. To me, a real tube marshall gives the best feel and dynamics in the tone.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[irussel]

Listen to anything by AC/DC. Angus Young plugs his SG directly into a Marshall amp, no effects.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[Jawnn]

An amplifier's "signature sound" is a combination of many things; circuit design, component selection, even cabinet design, material, and construction has a role. As has been posted above, a big part of "the Marshall sound" came for the unique characteristics of the tubes, or "valves" as they're commonly referred to over there. As any "hollow state" aficionado can tell you, different types of tubes all operate on same basic principle, the way they perform varies greatly from one design to the next, and to a certain extent, from one manufacturers implementation to another on any given design.
Yeah, fine, but what is that (Marshall) sound? That's tough to pin down. It's like trying to describe the difference between "red" and "blue". They're both colors but they are decidedly different. FWIW, the Fender amps of that era were prone to a certain kind of distortion when driven at all hard. This the very characteristic that is prized to this day by blues guitarists who use it as just another part of their style. The problem Marshall solved was that there were limits on how loud you could make an amp with those characteristics before that distortion lost it's unique charm. To be sure, the Marshall gear had it's own type of "crunch" but it could be delivered at much higher levels before turning ugly.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[Anonymous Coward]

Another difference is signal path. An "American" signal path places the EQ before the distorting element, so EQ is not as much a "tone" control as it is a "color" control. A "British" signal path places the EQ after the distorting element, and it acts like an EQ on the resulting sound.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[squidflakes]

No, not really. You need to play guitar and hear and feel the way your music comes out of a Marshall vs. a VOX or a Yamaha.

Much like the great Gretch sound, you can't really explain it to someone in words they'll understand.

I can tell you that a Marshall is richer and has that classic tube sound where the peaks and valleys don't seem chopped off which makes your brighter tones a lot brighter and your bass notes a lot darker and fuller, but what does that even mean?

You just have to listen.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[icensnow]

A minor addition to the previous responses: most of the not-electric-guitarist (normal?) kind of people I talk to don't realize that most of us are getting our overdrive or distortion by overdriving the pre-amp, and the differences among the main amplifier types are much more obvious when they are lightly distorted from slight overdrive than when they are clean or in full metal mode. Many of the better distortion pedals are designed to emulate a particular type of amplifier's distortion, e.g., Rothwell Hellbender to sound like a Marshall Plexi or Lovepedal Les Lius to sound like an old Fender.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[operagost]

Actually, the "Marshall" sound comes from an era before solid state amps. British amplifiers used different tubes from American ones.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[bratloaf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqh54rSzheg

Oh, god, you just gotta watch Ginger BAKEr... in this live film. I can just smell the dope smoke from my monitor...

Re:Can anybody tell me

[mvdwege]

Actually, just pre-amp distortion is an anonymous fuzzy sound that sounds the same in almost all amps. It doesn't help that just about anyone uses the ubiquitous 12AX7 preamp tube.

It's the poweramp distortion that creates the unique character. The 6L6 tubes in Fender amps deliver a different sound than EL34 tubes (which, if I'm not mistaken, are still the power tubes in Marshalls).

And then there is the electrical feedback from the output transformer and the speakers that influence the poweramp distortion, which also counts a lot for sound.

I've played with overdrive pedals, but none of them could emulate the sound of a real amp cranked up to 10. The only thing that matched that sound was the Hughes&Kettner Cream Machine, which was basically a full 5-watt two-stage amp with a bit of circuitry to emulate the output stage on a line-level output.

Mart

Re:Can anybody tell me

[soundguy]

The best way that I can explain this is how the whole system is made. One big distinction is tube vs solid state amps. When operating any amp in compression, it will generate harmonics. (think of the difference between a sine wave vs a square wave when looking at the frequency spectrum). If you add multiple sine waves (ie a chord on a guitar). Each frequency for each note of the chord will mix together when going through the amp, which are called intermodulation products. These intermod products give a certain profile to the sound that come out of the amplifier that give each amp its own unique sound. The differences come from the design of the amp. Many people claim that tubes give a 'warmer' sound from the better intermods that they create. This is probably true, but I don't have any evidence one way or the other. It would make sense that the transition from linear to nonlinear (ie approaching saturation) in a tube amp would be different vs a solid state amp which will affect the harmonic creation. Another way that the sound is different would be what kind of speaker cabinet the amplifier is connected to. The acoustic performance will also shape the sound.

In simple terms, overdriven tube amplifier circuits generate more odd-order harmonics (3rd, 5th, 7th) and overdriven solid-state circuits tend to generate more even-order harmonics (2nd, 4th, 6th). Odd-order harmonics are much more "musical" and pleasant to listen to. Even-order harmonics sound like a chainsaw going thru a metal garbage can full of cats. (not that there's anything wrong with that) Compare the guitar tones of Hendrix and Dimebag. The difference is obvious.

Over the years, devices have been created to enhance odd-order harmonics to "sweeten" the sound of harsh transistor amplification paths. Examples are the Tube Screamer pedal and hordes of rack-mounted tube preamps for live work and the Eventide Harmonizer and its successors for studio work. Now that touring PA systems are in the megawatt range, the onstage volume of individual instrument amps is irrelevant, so the tube amp is again king in most music genres because of its superior musical tone. Everything is close-miked and sent thru the mains and monitors at appropriate volumes.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[evilgraham]

Hi Mart,

I'll second that. I use to own a WEM westminster combo (5 watts, 10 inch speaker) that sounded great. Years after I sold it, I saw Alvin Lee (no less) using one on the Old Grey Whistle test. Could have kicked myself (again).

Re:Can anybody tell me

[evilgraham]

Just have to add, if you turn 'em up, they really do sound like that.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry to say you got the right idea but, You got the even vs odd backwards. Tube amps tend to produce even order harmonics. More to the point, Single Ended tube amps tend to produce even order harmonics. With a push pull power amp section you do tend to get odd order harmonics when it distorts. This is why preamp distortion tends to sound different than power amp distortion. Even order harmonics are produced by asymmetrical errors. Single ended tubes by nature will have some amount of difference in gain as you look at the positive vs the negative swing of a sine wave. When you put tubes in a push/pull configuration, most of the asymmetrical errors cancel. what you are left with are symmetrical errors which tend to produce odd order harmonics. The truth of the matter is what you mostly want to do is to have low order harmonics. The 2nd and 3rd overtones are pretty dang musical as they are the octave and an octave and a fifth. If your distortion products are mostly 2nd and 3rd order, you are in good shape. 4th and 5th are somewhat less musical and it just gets worse as you go up in numbers.

        The simple truth is that well designed amps tend to sound good and poorly designed amps tend to sound bad. There are plenty of tube amps out there that do not sound very good at all and there are also a number of solid state amps that sound surprisingly good. I am a tube guy. I love good tube amps. Its what I prefer but, I've also used a number of small solid state amps in the studio and had them sound great. Heck I've even used line six stuff direct into the board and got good sounds from it. Your tone is in your fingers and how you use the gear at hand. I didn't matter if Jimi used a Fender Twin Reverb, a Sunn or a Marshall stack. He used all of these at different times, but he ALWAYS sounded like Jimi. He also used a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz face which is a solid state distortion pedal. Remember, It's not the amp that makes it music. The music comes from the person playing the instrument. If that were not the case I could just put a full stack in the basement, Turn it on and hear great music. Who would need a radio.

Jim Marshall was simply a tool maker. He made some great tools to be certain but, a saw does cut anything without someone running it.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool video, but someone should've told the cameraman that Clapton was playing the guitar solo, not Jack Bruce.

Re:Can anybody tell me

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry , no. That's more of an early amplifier vs a modern amplifier thing. Marshall put the tone stack where fender did early on. The only way to get them to break up was to just plain crank them. It didn't matter where the tone stack was, it would tend to washout. Remember that Marshall was one of the last companies to add a master volume to its amplifiers. They didn't even think about moving the tone stack till after they added a master volume. Mesa Boogie was the first that I know of to put EQ after the distorting element when they offered the graphic EQ on the mark 1 and 2 series. Fender places the EQ after distortion on its protube series which includes the Concert Reverb and the Super Sonic amongst others. The classic JTM45 is a virtual clone of the early Fender Bassman (5f6 circuit). A bright amp and a normal amp summed them into a gain stage followed by a cathode follower and into the tone stack. The weirdest amp, circuit wise, that Marshall made was the Major. It put the tone circuit in the feedback loop. Weird. Not quite Ampeg weird but, weird none the less. .

You damn kids and your damn pianofortes...

[uqbar]

...and don't get me started on equal temperament!

Farewell from EL34 and the Humtones:

[Anonymous Coward]

Rest at 11, Jim.

And please give my best regards to Jimi, Leo, Les and the all the other greats!

I'll remember you fondly every time I notice my chronic ear-ringing!

Should be restrictions

[j1976]

Loudspeakers are all and well, but no-one under the age of 30 should be allowed to own one. Especially not my neighbors.

Re:Should be restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

i couldn't agree more and i'm not even 30

I guess..

[Walterk]

He finally went up to 11..

Re:I guess..

[unitron]

The next time they give me 15 mod points, I'll just let them expire and we'll pretend your comment got all of them (in a good way).

crank it to 11

[jschmitz]

RIL - love my Orange though -

Re:...luminaries as Pete Townshend and Eric Clapto

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you want a list of all the eleven gazillion people who ever used a Marshall amp? Would that make you feel less sad?

Bad title.

[JohnnyBigodes]

Fix the title please. Jim Marshall based his designs on Fender amps (basically "hotrodding" them). He didn't invent them. Having said that, I have no wish to diminish the impact of the Marshall amps, much the contrary. Music wouldn't be the same today without him/them.

Re:Bad title.

[pteron]

So what?

No one lusts after a Fender amp, they want a Marshall.

He did it right.

Re:Bad title.

[Anonymous Coward]

People do indeed lust after Fender amps. I've never lusted after a Marshall. I prefer Mesa Boogies.

Re:Bad title.

[pteron]

Ahh but you're anonymous and therefore a no-one. I should have said, "anyone who's anyone lusts after a Marshall rather than a Fender" but it seemed a bit pretentiously correct and you know, uncool. But you had to go and ruin it. Your bad.

Re:Bad title.

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

At the moment the highest price I see on eBay for an old Fender amp is $7,850 for a 1956 Super. I'd call that lust. And vintage Marshalls are actually cheaper, huh.

Re:Bad title.

[unitron]

So what?

No one lusts after a Fender amp, they want a Marshall.

He did it right.

Yeah, that's why pawnshops everywhere are full of early '60s Fender amps gathering dust.

Re:Bad title.

[evilgraham]

Ok, people lust after '64 blackface Supers and Bassmen. And possibly blackface Deluxes (although I don't quite get than one), but you are comparing oranges with apples. Depends really what you are putting through them. Marshalls, generally, sound great with humbuckers (ie. Les Pauls), Fenders sound great with single coils (ie. Strats and Telecasters, and Gretsch). Which is not surprising, 'cos that's what they were designed for. If you heard someone slinging a Strat through a Marshall back in the old days, bet your life they had a treble booster in between. Or something in that vein. I've owned a few, and curse the day when I was left with a Fender Super Reverb to run a Les Paul through. It loves my Stratocaster though.

He stole their design in other words.

[Anonymous Coward]

He took them apart and inspected them and figured he could make them cheaper and sell them for a better profit in England than he could by importing them from America.

So, he was a goddamn thief. A copycat. No better than Wang Chung Enterprises who steals American designs and sells them for much much less.

Now, I have to kill my socialized superiority.

Re:...luminaries as Pete Townshend and Eric Clapto

[nospam007]

"Did you want a list of all the eleven gazillion people who ever used a Marshall amp? "

Only those who used one which goes to eleven.

Rock On!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be cranking up my Marshall JCM 900 Halfstack in memory of you tonight, Jim.

Re:"Electric Amplifier Inventor" my fucking ass!

[interval1066]

Pedantic, much?

PRS Amps

[Sir_Eptishous]

The guitar player in my band just got this:
http://www.prsguitars.com/se50/
A 50 watt PRS amp that is amazing. He had played Marshalls and Mesas for years, but this PRS is incredible.

We all know what....

[Anonymous Coward]

...his gravestone should be shaped like.

Pardon

[Anonymous Coward]

PARDON?

Re:...luminaries as Pete Townshend and Eric Clapto

[squidflakes]

British Amps, British Rockers.

Real Live Amp Sound

[chocolatetrumpet]

I feel almost ashamed to say that as a 30 year old man, music teacher, and classically trained musician, it wasn't until just last weekend that I heard REAL live guitar amps, performed in a hall by expert musicians, without any other sound reinforcement.

I had been to many, many rock concerts, but they all fed the sound through the PA system, and though it sounded good, it was nothing like I heard in the hall last weekend. Just two small floor guitar amps, one on each side of the hall. The stereo effect was amazing. The bass player had his own amp. Otherwise the drums were un-mic'd, and only the vocal mics were fed through the PA system.

Speaking about just the tone quality, I'd rate every other rock concert as being about 60%-80% of last weekend's tone. It absolutely blew my mind.

The only thing I can compare it to is standing in front of a really good drum corps.

Even recordings I thought sounded awesome can't touch the live sound I heard last weekend. I'm afraid I'm addicted, and I don't even know where I'm going to find more performances like that. Even in the smaller clubs here, most bands feed through a PA system.

It is something I think every person should experience. No PA; just the amps, live in a good hall, expertly performed. If anyone cares, it was the wonderful Christina Courtin and her band.

Re:Real Live Amp Sound

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even know where I'm going to find more performances like that. Even in the smaller clubs here, most bands feed through a PA system.

For garage / rock or punk it's the norm at house parties and impromptu gigs. I've seen a few folk and blues / jazz gigs with this kind of setup too. I suspect what you really heard was the sound of guitar amps in a nice reverberant hall - yes it sounds awesome and IMHO regardless of musical genre.

Even recordings I thought sounded awesome can't touch the live sound I heard last weekend

Recordings with this clarity (musical "space", not fidelity) sound anemic unless they're played back at a suitable level and reverb tails vanish when the recording is mixed / mastered to be "punchy" on typical playback systems. The advent of multitracking hasn't helped, a bass or kick drum that sounds good in isolation ends up filling too much space in the mix. You have to go back to before this microphones upto the amplifier grill, multitrack nonsense to hear recordings that ... while not hi-fi by todays standards allow the listener to hear everything.

Re:Real Live Amp Sound

[mcgrew]

I don't even know where I'm going to find more performances like that.

Most bars I listen to live music in don't have PA systems, so every band is like that. Of course, they have to have the settings right and actually be good musicians.

You're 30 so you're a child of the digital era. You simply can NOT get very high fidelity from a CD. Few LPs would anyone confuse with a live performance, either, but there were some, Van halen's first album comes to mind.

When they have insanely high sampling rates and much higher bit depth than now you'll get higher fidelity than LP, but CDs are inferior to analog reel to reel or even LPs.

Re:Real Live Amp Sound

[evilgraham]

Can only agee here. I saw Joe Bonamassa last night (in Glasgow), and I have to say that, despite Joe's undoubtedly good playing (with 4 Marshalls, RIP Jim), the entire experience was somewhat underwhelming. Sound mix was total shite to the point that we could hear the guitar, a bit of singing, but there were also keys & bass, who may have well as been miming. Could hear the cymbals acoustically, plus apparently soundless tom-toms & snare. To ice the cake, the front-of-house sound was about 1/10th second out of synch with what was actually being played. I played pub gigs for years, and have watched many others, and as the OP says, completely different (and better) quality of sound.

A drummer is generally very loud, so you will get along just fine with (variously) 40 watt Fender, 100 watt Marshall or anything in between, although perhaps two 4 x 12's will move maybe a wee bit too much air for the smaller venue. 300 watts for bass is not too much at all, but you have to be careful because larger speaker enclosures (eg. 15 inch speakers & up) don't sound loud until you are about 25 feet away from them.

The people in the '60s used backline amplification for instruments and PA for vocals only, and they were right.

It might be some modern thing; I don't seem to remember Blackmore, Hagar, Nugent, Gallaher, Moore et al sounding quite so bad 30-odd years ago, but that might just be old age, or perhaps the insidious creep of digital processing.

As an aside, I could kick myself for letting various point-to-point wired Marshalls go over the years, especially a little 20 watt head and 1 x 12 cabinet, and a Park 100 watt master volume combo. Lovely, lovely things...

Moral - avoid stadium rock if you care about sound quality.

Re:Real Live Amp Sound

[Anonymous Coward]

If you say so, grandpa.

Dude...

[Anonymous Coward]

...quit posting like such a ree-tard.

Well, we still have Hartley Peavey

[e9th]

I play the pedal steel guitar, one of the few electrics that doesn't sound better through a Marshall. Steel guitarists mostly rely on Peaveys like the Nashville, Session, and Vegas models. Peavey is a privately owned company, and Hartley, its founder, is now in his 70s. Maybe because he's a Mississippi boy, his company has produced amps for us since the '60s, even though we're very much a niche market.

When he's gone, I will mourn Hartley Peavey as much as I do Les Paul, Leo Fender, and Jim Marshall.

R.I.P. Jim Marshall

[Anonymous Coward]

I was 15 years old and I was saving up all of my money for a Mesa Boogie guitar amplifier. Any guitar player from back in the day knows the Mesa Boogie catalogs were a work of art and the stuff dreams were made of. The beautiful full color pictures and descriptive copy made you salivate. I poured over those pages, dreaming of the day when one of those beauties would be mine, and I was almost there... I had $700 saved.

And then I walked into Wayne Music. There sitting along the hallway wall was a 100-watt JMP Marshall top and matching 4x12 cabinet with 25-watt black back Celestion speakers. I lost my mind. "MOM!! MOM!! This is what I want. This is it!!! I gotta have it!!.' My Mom tried to talk me in from the ledge 'But Den, you've been saving for the Mesa-Boogie amp, you almost have enough money.' 'Yeah, I know Mom but this is a Marshall!'. They wanted $750 so my Mom gave me the difference and we left the store with it, me wedging it into the back seat of my Mom's maroon Ford Fairmount.

I remember the next day I had my friend over to show him the amp, my Mom and her friend Fran were in the kitchen, about 15 feet away from where this EL-34 powered behemoth sat in our TEENY TINY living room. I asked, "Hey Mom, I can I just show this to Anthony for a second? I promise I won't play it long.". She of course said it was fine. That's the kind of Mom she was. So..... I grabbed my 1965 Gibson SG Jr and plugged in. Turning the amp on, even with the guitar volume down you could hear how incredibly loud it was just idling. I turned my guitar's volume knob up and ELECTRICITY filled the shoebox sized room. I took my pick and with my left hand muting all of the strings I simply 'chunked' on the strings. It was like a freight train came barreling through. It seemed as if every one of the NUMEROUS knick knacks on the piano, television and shelves (my Mom had a thing for tchotchkes) bounced in the air. My Mom's friend Fran who was an elderly woman (or just always seemed that way) looked as if she was ELECTROCUTED!! She was lifted out of her seat, twitching. I swear I saw her beauty shop coiffure have lift off.

Thus began my love affair with Marshall amps. Thanks Jim Marshall, you were a force to be reckoned with and made all of my childhood dreams come true.

R.I.P.

Re:"Electric Amplifier Inventor" my fucking ass!

[oldmac31310]

He didn't invent anything. But his company made great amps. He did a good thing. He's dead now. RIP.

Same day as Ferdinand Porsche ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite uncanny ...

Fathers of speed & sound ..

http://www.wheels24.co.za/News/Industry_News/Mr-Porsche-911-dies-at-76-20120405

Re:Same day as Ferdinand Porsche ....

[unitron]

Yeah, but that Porsche was the son of the son of the founder of the company.

Well, that's a very short list then...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only those who used one which goes to eleven.

1) Nigel Tufnel

-end of list-

Re:"Electric Amplifier Inventor" my fucking ass!

[geekoid]

Yes he did. He invented an amplifier to get a specific sound musicians.

Re:"Electric Amplifier Inventor" my fucking ass!

[oldmac31310]

? He adapted existing amp designs to make an amp that did something different than what was available at the time and I and many people think that was something better. But he didn't invent, did he? Maybe you are misunderstanding me. I love Marshall amps. He was an innovator and a very important one who deserves a huge amount of credit - and perhaps really actually got the satisfaction in his lifetime that people loved and revered his contributions - I hope he felt it.

he's dead jim!

[Anonymous Coward]

R.I.P. Mr Jim.
Cheers to you and yours!
Slainte Mhor!

Zak McFlimby

[12WTF$]

Marshall
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Silly maybe but an example

[oldmac31310]

Check this. Horrible recording. An unrehearsed jam. I'm not a hot shit guitar player but I still get a kick from listening to this: http://www.acetonestudio.com/ACEtoneAudio/OthersAudio/Rising%20Gorge%2012-9-05/PlanetMongoReEQ.mp3 (give it 35 seconds for the guitar to kick in!) Relevance: The Marshall amp in question (unfortunately I don't own it and not sure which model it is) can cut through drums bass and everything - and it is not just about loud - it's getting the tones and sounds through all of that 'noise'. I've played Fenders and they don't have it (for me anyway). I would love to own the amp this tune is played on but I have to make do with an old Line 6 that approximates those kinds of sounds. And it's not just the sounds. At the right levels I have found myself playing beyond my limited ability. This may be a feature of the intensity of the jam, but it is never the same with a different amp. I was at a rehearsal studio a couple of years ago - they had all of the boutique amps and none of them did it for me. A difference between turning it up and turning it on. That Marshall turns me on as a player. Nice work Mr. Marshall.

Prove your comparison.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the comparable amps you refer to? And what fraction? 9/10s?