If I went back to 1979 what low cost gear could I buy to emulate a les Paul into a Marshall?

hollywoodrox

Ok  A fave pastime of mine is to muse on if I could travel back in time ,retaining my knowledge 
  What gear could I pick up for a low price to get that Les Paul into a Marshall sound . (Being a Slash fan) 

also what could I also get in 85 . I would be able to afford up to £500 in 85 as I worked in a bar morning afternoon and night even doing the cleaning early AM before opening at 11.

79 I would barely be able to afford anything as I was 12 . But might have been able to combine 
family presents and savings up to £150 £200 over a year or two .

did Marshall do a practice amp then ?  What 2nd hand small amps would be good , would need headphone capability .  

What LP copies would have been the best ?

 

ICBM

Any one of the Matsumoku-made two-humbucker guitars into a solid-state Marshall, if you had to buy new - a Master Lead 30 was probably about as good you could do in 1979, but the JCM800 solid-state amps were out by 1985, I bought a Lead 12 then for £89 I think.

If you were going second hand, you could get the real thing - I bought my first Les Paul, a 1970 Deluxe, in 1986 for £325... followed not long after by a Marshall Artiste 50 valve head for £150, with a home-made 1x12" cab with a 200W HH PA speaker in it.

No amp had a worthwhile headphone output then - none of them had speaker emulation so they all sounded shit no matter how good the amp. You'd have needed something like a Rockman.

maltingsaudio

My recollections of buying gear in the 70’s was something like going into the music store and asking the bloke behind the counter how so and so got that sound. He would plug a guitar into a pedal then an amp, play it perfectly then sell me the pedal for all of my pocket money.

maw4neu

I was born in 1962 so I was 17 in 1979 . . . My first guitar roun about then was a Hofner Galaxy and I paid £30 for it . . My weekly wage as an Apprentice Sheet Metal Worker at that time, was £36.53 . . I cant begin to tell you just how "shit" that guitar was . . .

My mate Mick had a Black Hondo 11 Les Paul copy with Dimarzio Pickups . . he paid more for his guitar but I cant remember how much ?? probably around £50. I had a WEM Clubman Combo and I think my mate Mick had a Pignose Amp with batteries . . . The Clubman had issues and I eventually traded it for a little Vox Escort :-) Not quite your Marshall Stack :-) but fun at the time . . 

hollywoodrox

ICBM said:

Any one of the Matsumoku-made two-humbucker guitars into a solid-state Marshall, if you had to buy new - a Master Lead 30 was probably about as good you could do in 1979, but the JCM800 solid-state amps were out by 1985, I bought a Lead 12 then for £89 I think.

If you were going second hand, you could get the real thing - I bought my first Les Paul, a 1970 Deluxe, in 1986 for £325... followed not long after by a Marshall Artiste 50 valve head for £150, with a home-made 1x12" cab with a 200W HH PA speaker in it.

No amp had a worthwhile headphone output then - none of them had speaker emulation so they all sounded shit no matter how good the amp. You'd have needed something like a Rockman.

Thank you indeed , well in 85 I could have used a jhs rockbox ,one of which I own now,a cool rock and clone , in 79 would just have to be nifty with the volume control . Really appreciate your input ,thanks so much , I had an aria in late 2001 come to think of it that was a 78 model ,Andy summers actually sometimes played one.

thank you again for sharing your knowledge 

hollywoodrox

maw4neu said:

I was born in 1962 so I was 17 in 1979 . . . My first guitar roun about then was a Hofner Galaxy and I paid £30 for it . . My weekly wage as an Apprentice Sheet Metal Worker at that time, was £36.53 . . I cant begin to tell you just how "shit" that guitar was . . .

My mate Mick had a Black Hondo 11 Les Paul copy with Dimarzio Pickups . . he paid more for his guitar but I cant remember how much ?? probably around £50. I had a WEM Clubman Combo and I think my mate Mick had a Pignose Amp with batteries . . . The Clubman had issues and I eventually traded it for a little Vox Escort :-) Not quite your Marshall Stack :-) but fun at the time . . 

Thank you so much ,really appreciate it  so it may have been possible to get some sort of setup for under a £100 with clever shopping second hand . I forgot about the pig nose amps  ,  my uncle had an aria loco Amp still in the 90s I bet it was From the 70’s .

thanks guys for your input, I love to imagine what gear I could have put together in various decades 

chromatuna

Around that time (79) I had a non MV Marshall 50 amp (like the one on here recently for £1,400) and knackered 4x12  and I am pretty sure they didn’t set me back more than about £150 for the pair. The sound was there in spades even with a Columbus SG so you weren’t that far away from the real thing. I was on about £35-£40 a week as an apprentice. 

Oh to have that amp   Actually I traded up to an MV one as it kept blowing up, probably a dodgy impedance selector something...

I don’t remember seeing anywhere near as much new gear in shops but there were always used treasures

Rowby1

I was 16 in ‘79 and my local music shop had a couple of Les Pauls in. Iirc the Deluxe was £375 and the Standard was £450. Both way out of reach for and apprentice on £38 a week. I bought a Matsumoku Aria Pro II LC440 for £216 (which I still have tucked away in a cupboard).

Amp wise I saved up another year to buy an amp. I couldn’t quite stretch to the Marshall 2104 I really wanted.....so bought a Laney VA50R combo instead. It was a good amp, just not 2104 sort of good. Think that cost me £265 or something like whereas the Marshall was about £350 at the time.

sweepy

In 79 you could pick up an old Plexi 100 for £150 easily, crazy really 

chillidoggy

I could never emulate any sound I wanted, but despite the shite gear I bought, I suspect it was more to do with the fact I was in fact a shite player.

hollywoodrox

chromatuna said:

Around that time (79) I had a non MV Marshall 50 amp (like the one on here recently for £1,400) and knackered 4x12  and I am pretty sure they didn’t set me back more than about £150 for the pair. The sound was there in spades even with a Columbus SG so you weren’t that far away from the real thing. I was on about £35-£40 a week as an apprentice. 

Oh to have that amp   Actually I traded up to an MV one as it kept blowing up, probably a dodgy impedance selector something...

I don’t remember seeing anywhere near as much new gear in shops but there were always used treasures

The Columbus Sg sounds good , I think a smaller amp would only have been allowed in my 12 yo bedroom , at the price though sounds like a winner 

Rowby1

Knowing what I know now I’d have got hold of a “good” early 70s Strat or Tele and a used Musicman 65. I could have got those at the time for very similar money.....I just had no clue as to what was really any good back then......like most 16 year olds.

chromatuna

hollywoodrox said:

chromatuna said:

Around that time (79) I had a non MV Marshall 50 amp (like the one on here recently for £1,400) and knackered 4x12  and I am pretty sure they didn’t set me back more than about £150 for the pair. The sound was there in spades even with a Columbus SG so you weren’t that far away from the real thing. I was on about £35-£40 a week as an apprentice. 

Oh to have that amp   Actually I traded up to an MV one as it kept blowing up, probably a dodgy impedance selector something...

I don’t remember seeing anywhere near as much new gear in shops but there were always used treasures

The Columbus Sg sounds good , I think a smaller amp would only have been allowed in my 12 yo bedroom , at the price though sounds like a winner 

Oh I had a half stack and later a whole stack in my 17 year old bedroom. Dad was horrified,  probably justifiably so

Philly_Q

I can't really comment on what would've been the best options, but I got my first guitar and amp in 1980, within your 1979 budget - I think together they cost about £115.  The guitar was an Arbiter LP copy, the amp was a Laney Mighty Eight practice amp. 

Looking at the Laneys now on Google images they did, apparently, have a headphone socket but I didn't even remember that, so the headphone output must have sounded absolutely dreadful!  Also it turns out they had two tiny speakers, which I never realised.  As I recall the amp sounded OK (I may be wrong there!) but you had to turn it up really loud to get any distortion. 

hollywoodrox

Philly_Q said:

I can't really comment on what would've been the best options, but I got my first guitar and amp in 1980, within your 1979 budget - I think together they cost about £115.  The guitar was an Arbiter LP copy, the amp was a Laney Mighty Eight practice amp. 

Looking at the Laneys now on Google images they did, apparently, have a headphone socket but I didn't even remember that, so the headphone output must have sounded absolutely dreadful!  Also it turns out they had two tiny speakers, which I never realised.  As I recall the amp sounded OK (I may be wrong there!) but you had to turn it up really loud to get any distortion. 

Sounds good ,  considering what you can practice unplugged ,thanks so much for your input ,it is greatly appreciated

artiebear

In '79 I was probably playing a '59 Les Paul Special ( think it cost me about £450 ) through a non MV Marshall, along with my first Yamaha SG2000.

In 85, I had been pro for a few years and used loads of stuff, but do remember fondly an SG3000 and a heavily battered early 70's LP Custom, Used loads of amps by then but on the subject of small amps with speaker emulation etc, it must have been around then that I had some Gallien Kruger stuff which was a bit of a novelty in the studio or stereo through two 4x12 cabs. I could stick it in a holdall and carry it around for practise or sessions. 

hollywoodrox

Thank you.  I just remembered we had a garage in 79 so that would have given me a bit of room although it was quite small  philly’s arbiter les Paul copy is sounding a good proposition , with xmas ,followed by a birthday in February I could probably manage it 

Nitefly

In 1979 I had a DC Junior copy - CMI? CSL? - and a Yamaha 100 watt SS combo with 2 x 12" speakers.  It was fine for the pub-rock stuff I was doing in Blackpool.     I probably got both for less than £250; the guitar was new, but the amp was second-hand.

By 1984, I had 3 kids, and no gear 

Roland

In ‘76 I bought a used 100w Marshall bass amp and 4x12 for under £100, and an Epiphone Rivoli new for £65

Philly_Q

Jumping ahead to 1985, by then I had my Hamer Special (which cost me £250 in January 1982) and my amp was a Sessionette 75 (having briefly owned an orange Roland Cube 40).

I've completely forgotten how much the Sessionette 75 cost, but I reckon that and the Hamer definitely came in well under £500.  You could probably throw in the pedals I had at the time - an Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer and an Aria Loco Box CH-01 Stereo Chorus.

From '86 onwards I started adding to my guitar collection...

hollywoodrox

Philly_Q said:

Jumping ahead to 1985, by then I had my Hamer Special (which cost me £250 in January 1982) and my amp was a Sessionette 75 (having briefly owned an orange Roland Cube 40).

I've completely forgotten how much the Sessionette 75 cost, but I reckon that and the Hamer definitely came in well under £500.  You could probably throw in the pedals I had at the time - an Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer and an Aria Loco Box CH-01 Stereo Chorus.

From '86 onwards I started adding to my guitar collection...

Hey man, your 1979 setup would have been ideal , the 85 setup is also cool , love those sessionette amps ,they are still on the go in some form ,I was looking at their website a few years ago . Hamer  are class Guitars too . I remember Andy summers playing one in the doo doo Dah video but it was an explorer shape