Guitar Gear Forum

A few weeks ago, I posted here asking for advice on buying my first ever Marshall. I got several great responses, and just want to say thanks again for the thoughtful advice.

For my budget, it seemed the best options were either some flavor of DSL or the relatively new SV20. As luck would have it, an SV20H popped up for a good price on eBay, and, well, you know the rest...

I've had the amp for about two weeks. During that time, I've used it to record with my Captor X with great results using one of the stock Greenback 4x12 IR's. I was surprised at how quickly I could get some really classic tones. AC/DC, Van Halen, even Eric Johnson-style tones are all easily attainable with minor EQ tweaks and sometimes a boost. That said, I'm not really trying to copy those tones exactly; so maybe others would disagree.

I also gig regularly, and took the amp out last night to my weekly gig at a small honky tonk bar in Brooklyn. I have pretty much exclusively gigged with Fender-style amps over the last decade or so, and used Vox-style amps prior to that. So, this was a very different experience! We play a mix of Allman Bros Southern Rock, British blues, and Gram/Emmylou country duets. To make a long story short, I loved the SV20 for the rock and blues, but really did not like it for country, which isn't a surprise--"loud and clean" is not why you buy a Marshall! What was surprising, however, is how little I needed to rely on my typical OD and boost pedals. By our third set, I had settled on turning the amp up enough that my 335's volume knobs hovered around 5-6 until it was time to solo, when I would roll them up to 8-10. Dickey Betts is one of my tone heroes, and I managed to get a very convincing approximation of his sound while running the amp this way and keeping my EP Booster always on and set for no volume boost.

Everybody in the band and the sound guy complimented my tone last night, but I'm not sure I'm convinced this will be my main gigging amp, particularly since I play so much music requiring Tele+somewhat clean amp. I am so used to that combination and how it reacts that its kind of a mind trip to play something so different in timbre and dynamics. However, I don't really see the need to move it on, because A) it's a great tool for a sound I don't really have covered otherwise, and B) holy crap, it's a lot of fun to play!

So, I would wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone looking for a Marshall amp that can nail the classic 60's/70's overdriven tones at somewhat reasonable volumes--the reviews saying it's difficult to use at home without an attenuator are absolutely correct. If you can find one of these for $1k, as I did, it's a no brainer.

And thanks everyone at GGF who chimed in on my other thread. Super helpful!

Glad you like it, man! I get what you mean coming from a different type of tone and playing dynamic but it’s cool to switch it up. While it may not be your main gigging amp, I agree with you keeping it because of the reasons above, mainly it being fun. I’m in the opposite boat as my main amps for the last few years have been Marshall style amps (and even my Orange Rockerverb fits in the British camp), and a couple years ago I added a 76 Vibrolux to the mix. It’s a great clean amp and does the pedal platform thing well (I love mine with some kind of muff with an OD in front to tighten it up) but the Marshall style crunch and timbre is home for me. But that Fender is so good at what it does, I can’t imagine not having it.

Try throwing a compressor in front of the amp and start with the level at zero, then bring it up until you get a loud, clean tone. That's the trick to get a country ish tone on a Marshall. It's kind of like rolling back the volume but with the compressor making up for the volume difference, while limiting the break up point.

Yup like Bill said, use a compressor in to the lower gain input and you'll find the clean tones. I used mine with my Teles all the time and like you I came from a background of playing Fender amps.

Congrats!

Quick update:

I took SV20 out to a gig this weekend at a room I’ve played before, a restaurant/club of maybe 100 capacity.

I took my favorite Tele (Nash neck, mahogany replacement body, Lollars) and played around a bit with settings to try to put together a typical country sound. Played through my oversized 1x12 with a 65 watt Creamback. I ended up with what I have read are Eric Johnson’s settings: channels jumped, treble and presence off. I use these settings with humbuckers, too, but I run the bass and normal channel volume higher when using the Tele.

Long story short, I did not end up with a good country tone (though I haven’t been able try the compressor trick yet). BUT I did end up with one of my favorite blues/blues rock tones I’ve ever had! I could run this setup with no pedals happily, though I do really like running the EP Booster always on—I get why so many people ran these with Echoplexes.

Anyway, more experimenting needed, but I’m having a lot of fun with this thing.

CONGRATS AND HAPPY NEW AMP DAY!!!! WOOO HOOO!!!!!!!!