Guitar Gear Forum

Man its been awhile since Ive used thee. Always one of my top 2 favorite 6l6 tubes.. Sorta got used to JJ's over the years and was using el34 in the xxx for a bit.. But saw a sale on these and figured lets dump em back in the XXX. I know I never had a problem with em in the years past in that amp.. And they really did wake it up!! I had some old 6L6's in there and they were prolly past their prime.. Quick riff.. Using an EMG81 loaded guitar at 18v, not the 27 one! lol.. Straight in.. No boosts or nothing.. Using a Mesa V30 mic'd with a 57. Standard schmandard. Of course Im more messing with these new Ugritone.. drums, so I just made up some shit that is simple to remember since IM just trying to get the drums dialed in for my guitar sounds..

XXX https://app.box.com/s/v2kklpu8lp2g31zewu5ktw4ct28twb43

5153 blu passive EVH frank pickup. AMP LOUD! https://app.box.com/s/uybkcso3l18h7uxkqha9ozohrqcisfhq

XXX git buss only https://app.box.com/s/rdwksxudvavt8fl5a31lqvu6uv9p8n38

5153 blu git buss only https://app.box.com/s/fpxjo9hfiyhp9fiej9hwrz3qe8jv3t2t

Last edit MY 4x12 cab. Just a 57. Micing some 16 ohm Celestion EVH spkrs. Much more scooped which is more fitting for the amp for sure.

5153 blu channel https://app.box.com/s/zw85a9fv4d98wsmeuygizthpqq3i02de

Man I love the sound of a pissed off XXX. Such a great amp.

greatmutah wrote:Man I love the sound of a pissed off XXX. Such a great amp.

It does have its own thing. I always got along with em and a couple things is they really do love the emg81. That and low output passives.

And on this clip I’m doing this little thing where you turn down the EQs real low. The original guy who posted about it called it the “Brown sound by turning down” lol. And he was almost on literally zero on all eq controls except the bass. Just open it up until the bass and overal tone opens up. It does sound pretty EVH. But it cuts a ton of volume in the amp. Cool for bedroom.

For this I basically did the same thing except I hit the bass at basically 9oclock and the other 2 controls are below 8 o’clock. This still gives a bit of volume and with both channel and master volumes cranked it gets as loud as anyone could want. It’s less “brown”, it it definitely gets more of the XXX vibe while keeping the low end punchy and mids smoothed out

Sounds killer. It's funny because earlier today I was looking at XXXs and JSXs on Reverb. I think I will buy one soon now that I have the Marshall figured out. I love these amps for modern 6L6 tones.


As for the EQ, the XXX has active EQ so "noon" is equivalent to Max on a regular amp. Then anything past noon is boosting frequencies. So keeping the EQ low works really well.

Yeah when I was running XXX's I loved the Sovteks in it. Still one of my top 10 tube amps I've owned. Killer tone as always!

Always cool to hear a XXX with Sovtek WXT+! Dig the drums as well.

It is amazing how much that reminds me of my old modded rockmaster preamp. My son has taken possession of the RM at this point as his go-to sound for 90's metal and grunge sounds. EMG 81 and 85 were always a good bet with those amps as was the Dimarzio Evo.

GuitarBilly wrote:Sounds killer. It's funny because earlier today I was looking at XXXs and JSXs on Reverb. I think I will buy one soon now that I have the Marshall figured out. I love these amps for modern 6L6 tones.


As for the EQ, the XXX has active EQ so "noon" is equivalent to Max on a regular amp. Then anything past noon is boosting frequencies. So keeping the EQ low works really well.

I’ve had this since 2004, I know about the active EQ. Hahahah. But for real this is still a bit “abnormally” low for eq settings. Whatver gets the job done for sure! And it’s honestly surprisingly effective even tho it does drop the volume. I forget but I’m pretty sure the EQ is pre channel volume. So it definitely effects the tone overall a lot. Again, I’m using it where if noon on the dial is “10” of a normal passive amp, it’s like BMT 5-2-3. So not too crazy but a bit weird for most amps. The original guys concept and it does work for sure but totally kills the volume is like BMT 1-0.2-0.2. Lol. Like barely cracked open…

Also maybe try that STL tones AmpHub plugin. They have a very convincing JSX. If you haven’t used up the trial demo yet, that might be a good way to see if you like this style of amp. Cause while I find the EQ doesn’t straight correspond how I think , it can be dialed in to sound very close to how I dial em in and the feel is definitely in there.

Mike Oxhuge wrote:Yeah when I was running XXX's I loved the Sovteks in it. Still one of my top 10 tube amps I've owned. Killer tone as always!

There really is sumthin good in those tubes. My old 5150 combo was those or the Winged C’s when they were readily available.

VTM wrote:Always cool to hear a XXX with Sovtek WXT+! Dig the drums as well.

Thanks dude.

Heath wrote:It is amazing how much that reminds me of my old modded rockmaster preamp. My son has taken possession of the RM at this point as his go-to sound for 90's metal and grunge sounds. EMG 81 and 85 were always a good bet with those amps as was the Dimarzio Evo.

Yeah it likes any sort of bright and cutting pickup, or again I found PAF style also works great with em. Mid focused high output ones are hit and miss. It’s like it just pushes the front end too hard

I would really like to play one of these, consciously. I think played one like 15 years ago, but I don't remember. My first good amp was a teal stripe Ultra 120 halfstack, and I would love to play one of those again too.

MacaroniSalad wrote:I would really like to play one of these, consciously. I think played one like 15 years ago, but I don't remember. My first good amp was a teal stripe Ultra 120 halfstack, and I would love to play one of those again too.

My first amp head was an Ultra 60. So thats maybe why I always felt at home with the xxx..

But also I updated the OP with a 5153 Blu channel straight in clip.. Same mic and speaker setup.. this is actually the cab I lend my other guitarist, but after today I may give him a different one. Lol.. Anyway, as the OP says, I turned the Blu up to about as loud as the amp goes without going to shit.. It was fucking loud as fuck.. But damn if it doesn't do that el34 compressing that seems to just be perfect for this style of tone.. I see Scott Ian use these amps and this is the volume I saw on some of his clips, so yeah, I know why! haha It definitely seems to record a little better at this volume because without the volume these amps have a ton of low end punch and they can get a bit too much and I always have to control it with multi band compression in post.. But this recording needed none of that

Heath wrote:It is amazing how much that reminds me of my old modded rockmaster preamp. My son has taken possession of the RM at this point as his go-to sound for 90's metal and grunge sounds. EMG 81 and 85 were always a good bet with those amps as was the Dimarzio Evo.

Reminds me of the Rockmaster pre as well, which IMO is the pinnacle of Peavey's Ultra series.

I like both a lot, seems like they would mix together perfectly... Both sound mean as hell!

Lance-a-not wrote:I like both a lot, seems like they would mix together perfectly... Both sound mean as hell!

They are definitely different enough.

Updated the OP with MY cab. Big difference.