A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

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blacktiger
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A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by blacktiger » Mon Sep 12, 2022 6:13 am

I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet instead of telling my whole life story (for once).

Clean sound ideal: Cocteau Twins
Dirty sound ideal: Swervedriver
Current amp: Marshall Class 5 combo
Current guitar: Jazzmaster w/vintage style wiring and pick-ups
My issue: When I play clean with effects, say Hardwire RV-7 + MXR chorus + Makekko analog delay, the sound has too many piercing highs but is muddy at the same time. I’m not going crazy with the effects, either. None of them is cranked up particularly high.

If this is an amp issue, amps I have really liked in the past include: big box tweed Tremolux (‘59), brownface Fenders, and ‘70s Marshall 20 watt head w/1x12 cab, but that was when vintage amps were cheap AF. Can’t afford them these days. Also, I live in an apartment, so anything too loud is probably out of the question.

Anyone have any idea where I’m losing my way here? I’m fearing it’s the amp, which is a shame, because the idea of a tube 5 watt Marshall combo is perfect, but maybe the reality isn’t…
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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Mon Sep 12, 2022 6:14 am

Roland JC-120, or smaller iteration thereof.

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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by sal paradise » Mon Sep 12, 2022 6:56 am

Roll off the tone on the guitar?

As above, amp with completely clean channel will help you.

Maybe new pickups? The right pickups change everything
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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by Sauerkraut » Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:13 am

sal paradise wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 6:56 am
Roll off the tone on the guitar?

As above, amp with completely clean channel will help you.

Maybe new pickups? The right pickups change everything
At the risk of starting a big debate that’ll derail the thread; imo you can have the nicest pickups ever made, but they’ll still sound like p00p through a crappy amp (works the other way around too, though to a lesser degree).

JM pickups can sound hella bright, but hardly muddy. So i suspect it’s the amp. A 5 watt tube amp will get dirty quickly. It might also be the speaker. I’d take that guitar and go try some amps at a shop, or try a friend’s amp, to figure out what the culprit is.

If you need a cleaner amp, in the case of a tube amp you will need more output (something with at least two output tubes, preferably not EL84s, probably at least 15 watts), but that can quickly get expensive. On the other hand, there are plenty of solid state options. What’s your budget?

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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by blacktiger » Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:29 am

Thanks for the replies so far. I have tried rolling back the tone on my guitar, and it helps playing straight in, but doesn’t do much to help with effects in the chain.

The Class 5 is actually LOUD for a 5 watt amp, so clean headroom isn’t really an issue. If I played it loud enough to break up, the neighbors would be pounding on my door. But, it IS a dark amp. I’ve been meaning to put some nice NOS tubes in it to see if that helps (I have them on hand, so that’s a 0 dollar investment), but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I was also thinking that a different speaker might help, though most people seem to think the stock speaker is pretty solid.

If I decided to explore the idea of a pick-up swap, what would y’all recommend? I’m tempted by Filtertrons, since I really love that early Chet Atkins clean tone, but I know it would probably be a PITA to actually install them in a standard JM rout.
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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by blacktiger » Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:42 am

UlricvonCatalyst wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 6:14 am
Roland JC-120, or smaller iteration thereof.
Funny, I was just watching JC-22 videos today…
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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:47 am

blacktiger wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:29 am


The Class 5 is actually LOUD for a 5 watt amp, so clean headroom isn’t really an issue. If I played it loud enough to break up, the neighbors would be pounding on my door. But, it IS a dark amp.
I read a book somewhere that was talking about electric guitars and they made sure that you don't get lost in the details of electronics by recommending that you focus on the thing that the sound comes out of... the amp.

To me, it sounds like you might be talking about two different phenomena here, the highs sounds like what a Jazzmaster will output, but the muddy lows sounds like your amp.

You could probably find a way to test this to some degree with an EQ pedal or something, roll the highs down a bit on your guitar so they aren't overwhelming the low end, then try and EQ your low end and see if you can add any clarity there.

But really, as has been suggested, it just sounds like you might want an amp that offers more clean headroom and tight bass. The Roland idea was good, for instance. I'm skeptical to think that a 5 watt Marshall is ever going to get you into Cocteau Twins clean territory.
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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by Embenny » Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:05 am

I'm with Larry on this one. Clean Marshalls can often tend toward congested sounding low mids, and that's a small combo to boot. I'm willing to bet that it's the source of your dissatisfaction.
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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:10 am

blacktiger wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:42 am
UlricvonCatalyst wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 6:14 am
Roland JC-120, or smaller iteration thereof.
Funny, I was just watching JC-22 videos today…
Yeah, I was desparate for one of those a month or two ago, but eventually convinced myself that the 2 x 10 JC-44 would be a better buy. Then I realised there are lots of vintage MIJ 2 x 10 ones out there for not much more money. Then I got my friend's MIJ Cube 60 Chorus on permanent loan and forgot all about my dream of widescreen stereo....for now.

But, anyway, those Rolands like pedals. Just ask Robin Guthrie. Could be the answer to your pedal woes.

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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:21 am

mbene085 wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:05 am
I'm with Larry on this one. Clean Marshalls can often tend toward congested sounding low mids, and that's a small combo to boot. I'm willing to bet that it's the source of your dissatisfaction.
I did a little reading on the amp and bear in mind that all I know about it is reading, but when I see things like "The preamp has a pair of ECC83 tubes for preamp distortion", and then I read about how it's going for a Bluesbreaker sound, I cannot bring myself to imagine much clean sound.

Also it has a single 10" speaker there and again that does not suggest the tightest low end in the world to me.

I recently watched this video comparing Fender Princetons with 10" and 12" speakers, and while I know no one is asking about Princetons, but you can hear the 10" speaker struggling with the bass around the 13:50 mark or so.

The best advice I've seen here is to go to a store and try out some new amps. It's probably something I should do as well, for a person who has played guitar for decades I know surprisingly little about amps.
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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by GuitarsnGravel » Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:33 am

The 5watt Marshall is a very boxy and the lows are muddy, imo. I tried one several years ago and rejected it. last year, there was one in a studio I was visiting. I plugged in and it sounded OK for rock at higher volume, but didn't have enough headroom for the clean stuff I was playing. I have a Laney L5S, it doesn't have that weird boxy sound that many small amps suffer from.

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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by stevejamsecono » Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:00 am

Yeah this is 100% that amp. Most low wattage amps in my experience sound congested with effects period, much less at bedroom volume. Definitely would recommend solid state or modeling.
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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by tequila_in_teacups » Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:14 am

blacktiger wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:42 am

Funny, I was just watching JC-22 videos today…
JC-22 was my first thought. I have one, and it’s a great little amp. With the right drive running into it, I think it’ll do exactly what you want.

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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by øøøøøøø » Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:27 am

Concurring with the others here--a small Marshall combo is probably not the ideal amp to get what you're after.

For Cocteau Twins clean, the Roland JC recommendation is solid.

For Swervedriver-style distortion sounds that wouldn't get you very close to the mark, but maybe that's okay... it'd be hard to find one amp that did both of those things truly well (unless you went for a Kemper-style convolution-based solution--which could be a great shout if in the budget, incidentally).

Do you like how your little Marshall sounds distorted? If so, would it be possible to keep it and add a Roland JC90 (or similar) for cleans?

If this is mostly for playing at home, two different amps is great. If you're looking for something to use in performance, that quickly becomes less-practical.

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Re: A Cry for Help: WTF Am I Looking For?

Post by blacktiger » Mon Sep 12, 2022 3:27 pm

øøøøøøø wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:27 am
Concurring with the others here--a small Marshall combo is probably not the ideal amp to get what you're after.

For Cocteau Twins clean, the Roland JC recommendation is solid.

For Swervedriver-style distortion sounds that wouldn't get you very close to the mark, but maybe that's okay... it'd be hard to find one amp that did both of those things truly well (unless you went for a Kemper-style convolution-based solution--which could be a great shout if in the budget, incidentally).

Do you like how your little Marshall sounds distorted? If so, would it be possible to keep it and add a Roland JC90 (or similar) for cleans?

If this is mostly for playing at home, two different amps is great. If you're looking for something to use in performance, that quickly becomes less-practical.
Based on everything I’ve read about these amps, it probably is my problem, unfortunately. I don’t really crank it enough to get amp break-up. Even on the low power setting, that gets plenty loud. I like the sound straight in, but if I’m honest with myself, it doesn’t really take effects well. I’ve been playing Jazzmasters with the tone on 10 for decades, so I’m clearly not scared of bright sounds, and to a certain extent, I think I’ve always equated “bright” with “clear,” but with this set-up I’m definitely getting some bright mud. In a way, it’s all academic because when/if I do home recordings, it’ll be direct, probably through an amp sim pedal, and I don’t play out. This is really just about the sound I’m hearing when I’m dicking around alone. It’s probably time to give up on the idea of having a Marshall (I grew up on Hendrix and punk rock, so that sound - or the idea of it - is really ingrained in me) and get something that actually gives me the sound I want.
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