While the rest of the world went jcm800 crazy.......

timmysoft

What other amps were around that caught your eye? I'm talking about amps like the laney aor, carvin x100b, peavey butcher! What others are out there? Single channel or primitive channel switchers, I want to know!

octatonic

Mesa Mark II?

57Deluxe

I always like those old Oranges... Before the days of Apple and the Blackberry, they were steadfastly there to make up part of your 5 a day - no 7 a day...

ICBM

Fender 'Rivera' series, which were excellent - then the 'Red Knob' series, which were less so

Roland JC-120 and other models - an all-time classic

Burman - marketed as a sort of 'British Boogie', they weren't really although they did use a primitive cascaded-gain design

Carlton - a British (Scottish!) 'solid-state Boogie', which was genuinely good

Peavey - Bandit, Special, Studio, Backstage etc.

I recently picked up another Peavey Studio Pro 110, which is a really nice little amp. I'd quite like to find another Carlton as well...

Lodious

I guess there was a pretty short window before ADA MP1 and a quadraverb became the dogs twitcher....dark days indeed.

Phil_aka_Pip

dunno, I had a MkII Super Lead at the time and "didn't need" anything else. These days I could GAS for a JCM800 ...

Dave_Mc

I was more into transformers and thundercats at that time. actually probably wasn't even born if you mean when the 800 first came out. )

FelineGuitars

Lodious said:

I guess there was a pretty short window before ADA MP1 and a quadraverb became the dogs twitcher....dark days indeed.

The Quadraverb was the big problem - it killed the dynamics of the MP1....unless you put it in a parallel loop via a line mixer and killed the dry signal coming out o it - then it was excellant.

I loved my first ADA rom 1988 - the early ones did sound diferent - not as much gain but all the better or it.

DannyP

What years are we really talking about?

p90fool

I had a Burman for about a week. It sounded like it would be the answer to my prayers, but it totally disappeared in a band mix, and I tend to recall it as a forerunner of the now classic Teenager-with-a-Spider15-on-full-gain sound.

This is deeply unfair and was probably user error, but I couldn't wait to ditch it and go back to my Superleads after two gigs. I was a teenager myself at the time and it would be interesting to revisit one to see what I could get out of it now.

octatonic

DannyP said:

What years are we really talking about?

JCM800 was released in '81 IIRC.

timmysoft

There seems to be so many sleeper amps from the mid 80s through to the mid 90s. I definitely want an AOR, that's for certain, then maybe something like a trace Elliot bonneville as a back up, unless I can find one of the old peavey bandit based heads

ThePrettyDamned

timmysoft said:

There seems to be so many sleeper amps from the mid 80s through to the mid 90s. I definitely want an AOR, that's for certain, then maybe something like a trace Elliot bonneville as a back up, unless I can find one of the old peavey bandit based heads

AOR's are supposed to be really great.  I've often considered getting one, but I'd need to have it fully serviced first and I don't know of any amazing ICBM style amp techs around here.  

I keep looking for the bandit heads - I can't remember what they're called, so I search Peavey Transtube.  Bandits go dirt cheap, and the revolutions (2 and a half channel bandits) go for les than a ton, too.  

EdGrip

I always liked the idea of taking the amp out of a Bandit and just screwing it to a piece of board with a handle at one end. Rough-and-ready Bandit head for your lo-fi black-label backline. 

Bidley

I've an X100B Reissue head, which is awesome, and the original combo version from '81, which may even be slightly better. The cleans are amazing, and the gain is excellent. So underrated.

cosmiccarrot

Mesa was my first jump from marshall, short lived though.

Dave_Mc

timmysoft said:

There seems to be so many sleeper amps from the mid 80s through to the mid 90s. I definitely want an AOR, that's for certain, then maybe something like a trace Elliot bonneville as a back up, unless I can find one of the old peavey bandit based heads

I haven't tried it, but some of those era laneys have a rep of having dodgy tube sockets, I think. Hopefully ICBM can confirm.

ICBM

Dave_Mc said:

timmysoft said:

There seems to be so many sleeper amps from the mid 80s through to the mid 90s. I definitely want an AOR, that's for certain, then maybe something like a trace Elliot bonneville as a back up, unless I can find one of the old peavey bandit based heads

I haven't tried it, but some of those era laneys have a rep of having dodgy tube sockets, I think. Hopefully ICBM can confirm.

Yes. And many later ones too.

Also, if you get a Trace Elliot anything as a backup, make sure you also buy a backup for your backup.

Dave_Mc

Thanks And )

koneguitarist

During early 80's I think I was using a Selmer TnB then a Pro Amp venom or viper, then swapped to a JC50 for a while.

Like a lot of guitarists I was getting more and more into SS amps then rediscovered valves again.

So much stuff then without so much of the prejudice  we have now to old or new gear. 

impmann

80s amps? Guaranteed to ruffle ICBMs feathers but the Sessionette 75 needs to be in there... Gigged mine yesterday.

A band-mate had an ADA/Quadraverb setup into some kind of power amp. I have to be honest, I always thought it sounded a bit flat and... 1980s!!!

There were also some quite nice HiWatts (Lead 50/100, IIRC) too. A chap at the studio we used to rehearse at let me borrow his once and I remember it sounding amazing. But hey that was nearly 30 years ago!!!