18 posts
Check these demos out. Be sure to watch both. Pete is a great player and makes everything sound great, but this is a KILLER amp. (Unfortunately, it is priced accordingly :( )
A little VH-ish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57OofeWW4g0And Pete showing the versatility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3HBO2NvZ1M
Nice player, the tone, yawn, sounds like a whole bunch of other Marshall tones out there. I once had a hundred watt plexi back in the late 1960's, and I don't miss it a bit, and never did after selling it. Oh yeah it sounded good for hard rock or metal, but it was a one trick pony, and you had to have it loud as hell to make it sing truthfully. I am not a fan of the EL sound at all, it sounds too grainy for my taste. I like that smooth overdrive that Santana was famous for. 6L6's rock, they blues, they clean, they distort.
However the plexi was great for freaking out my band mate at the time, another guitarist that had a hundred watt something or other and played it full up, the day I showed up with my Plexi and a 6-12 Sunn cabinet, he freaked.
The first demo is strictly a Van Halen type tone. Did you watch the WHOLE second video? Pete plays it with a semi hollow, a strat, etc. I LOVE the tones and range of tones it gets.
I agree. The playing is amazing, the tone is not that exciting to me. There's a layer of high end hash on the top, a mushiness that fatigues me. I know that some Plexis sound like this, though this is definitely more gainy than most.
Suhr is the hotel mini bar of gear, they take ordinary stuff and make it expensive. $3500 for a Plexi clone, when 50 guys out there are selling hand-wired, hand-crafted Plexi clones for $1-2k less. Out of my league.
DreamTheaterRules — Apr 08, 2014The first demo is strictly a Van Halen type tone. Did you watch the WHOLE second video? Pete plays it with a semi hollow, a strat, etc. I LOVE the tones and range of tones it gets.
I just watched the first video Howie, so I missed some stuff maybe, still I don't like the EL84/34 sound as much as the 6L6/6V6 sound, no matter what they are playing. Just personal taste no offense.......
That's why I wondered. The first video is a short, all Van Halen-ish tone demo. The second one he goes through various guitars and gain ranges so it is more of a representation of what the amp can do. I think it sounds great and that you should listen to it if you have the time, just for the fun of it! ;)
Plus, anything Pete demo's is worth watching just to see him play.
He's fun to watch and he sure demoes a shitload of gear. Though I still love the guy at Prymaxe Vintage more... I'm a taste over flash guy, I guess.
second clip is taste over flash, but Howie munged the link :P
I think it sounds pretty awesome, especially in the second clip... I hear a lot of classic goodness in there...
That said, I agree $3500 is crazy.
ok, fixed the link
I think Pete is WAY taste over flash. He can really rip when he wants too, but he only does so very sparingly. He plays vibey stuff most of the time showing TONS of polish, but doesn't flash chops non-stop.
I think there is TONS of classic tones in the amp as well. And Charger, if you read any description of the classic Plexi amps, they are known for a bit of brash high end. I didn't listen to this on my highest res system, but I didn't hear "harsh."
Anyway, I think this amp sounds great, but I agree the price is way out of my league. I put it up because it's a high end modernized take on a classic amp, not because I am going to buy one. And, because I thought (as always for Pete) it was a great demo of that amp.
He's an amazing guitar player. He'd sound good on anything... I saw him completely killing it, demoing a Boss OD-1 and DS-1 a little while back. But on top of being a complete shredder who'd sound good on anything, he is sponsored by Suhr, so everything he plays is top of the line, CEO-grade stuff. His cables probably cost more than my entire jam rig. It's like asking a CEO where he takes his wife to dinner. You know it's totally awesome, but you can never afford it.
The thing I like about Pete Thorn's demos is that he starts off with lots of playing and then talks about stuff, and he has a very engaging way of talking about stuff too. He is the only "demo-er" that can watch and listen to. Great player, very entertaining and useful stuff too.
Oh yes, and I love anything that sounds plexi-ish anyway.
yeah, I knew this would be right up your alley! That and a Tonebender and Jon would be off to the Zeppelin races! ;D
OK Howie I listened to some of the second link and watched they guy play. Good player, Marshall plexi tone, I still don't like it for myself, the tone is penetrating, bright and grainy. The cleans were Ok mind you but still not as fat as I would like. The amp probably has a clipping diode in it, and if not, it sounds like it does. Of course it is a great hard rock and metal amp, none better for that kind of tones and those styles. I would not give a hundred bucks to get that tone, because I don't like it (unless I could resell the amp right away for retail, then I would buy it in a heartbeat ;D). I simply don't like the EL sound any, too skinny, grainy, and bright. I likes the fatties/smoothies 6L6's and 6V6's and those have to be JJ's too. 8-)
desertbluesman — Apr 11, 2014OK Howie I listened to some of the second link and watched they guy play. Good player, Marshall plexi tone, I still don't like it for myself, the tone is penetrating, bright and grainy. The cleans were Ok mind you but still not as fat as I would like. The amp probably has a clipping diode in it, and if not, it sounds like it does. Of course it is a great hard rock and metal amp, none better for that kind of tones and those styles. I would not give a hundred bucks to get that tone, because I don't like it (unless I could resell the amp right away for retail, then I would buy it in a heartbeat ;D). I simply don't like the EL sound any, too skinny, grainy, and bright. I likes the fatties/smoothies 6L6's and 6V6's and those have to be JJ's too. 8-)
No clipping diode, I can pretty much guarantee that. But I'm pretty sure it's got at least one more triode gain stage over a standard Plexi--remember, the Plexi was a Bassman with a different EQ stack, transformer, and different tubes--not a shred machine. And there's not a lot of knockdown of the high end between stages--it's not a big ballsy amp, but it would cut through just about anything.
I had a Plexi and I had a black face Bassman at the same time. Of course my Bassman was a 50 watt amp without reverb, and the Plexi was what it was, only it was the hundred watt version. Now don't get me wrong the plexi had some serious tonal wonders in it, and at the time I thought it was a great amp for playing some of the hard rock things I was into at the time. The bassman on the other hand did not compare with the plexi for sheer volume and the air it was pushing with the Sunn 6-12 cabinet.
But as I recall the plexi got sold long before the bassman went (wherever that went to). It was a one trick pony, and although I was into harder music then than I am now, it still had to go,
I replaced the plexi a few years later with the hundred watt Boogie Mark IIC+ so I did not miss it a bit, once I got the boogie, all my other amps got sold, and I stuck with Mesa for years and years in my amp buying odyssey.
I would have kept the plexi AND stuck with the Mark IIC+ ;) Two killer amps there for sure! And, two very different ones. The Plexi is wide open, brighter and brash, while the IIC+ is the smooth gain Mesa thing going on but could crunch as well (Metallica used them).
I used to go to Mesa's factory in Petaluma and got to know Mike Bendenelli who was part of the amp repair crew. He was good friends with Metallicas people.
I don't miss the Plexi, not even a little bit, in fact I am glad to be rid of it. Not to be obtuse, but that is the absolute truth. The tone was well, you know what the tone is, bright, thin and grainy. I like a fatter fuller smoother tone. The Mark IIC+ was a nice amp when turned up and it had a bunch of usable tones from clean to singing overdrive. I gave it to a friend of mine for a favor done, I don't miss that amp a single bit either. My modded Hot Rod Deluxe cheapo amp is my all time favorite amp I ever owned, especially with the C-Rex in it.