Dialling in the Marshalls

JTM45 is one of my favourite amps and it's been a workhorse for quite a long time for me.

Lately I found the lack of headroom problematic with this amp. I use real pedals quite a lot nowadays and the lack of headroom makes drive stacking not so easy. I recently changed to Plexi 100W model because of this.

Few tweaks you can try with JTM45:
- Change the tone-stack to Plexi 100 to get closer to the rumored "Hendrix" tone-stack. It's not 100% same tone stack values, but it's the closest tone stack we have according to Cliff. Clears up the bass and changes the tone. This also makes the "BMTP all on 10" approach work better.
- Lower the supply sag by half to emulate a solid-state rectifier (0.6-0.8 IIRC). I'm pretty sure the JTM45 model is modeled with tube rectifiers. Not sure if this is authentic or not.
- Crank the Transformer match to 1.8 to overmatch the transformer. Makes the amp more grainier.
- If you find the JTM45 model compressing too much, lower the transform match to 0.7-0.9. The JTM45 model is based on a 30W version, so it can compress the sound quite a bit.
- If the amp is too bright, turn the bright switch off. This is the same as clipping the bright cap on the real amp. It can sound dark on bedroom volumes, but if you have the chance to crank the volume up, it can sound just perfect.
- If you've lowered the treble because of too much icepick frequencies and it's still hurting your ears, use the amp eq and lower the 4k frequency. Boom, it's gone (thanks to @austinbuddy for this tip!)
 
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Awesome video. The bluesbreaker tone from the JTM45 video was great. I only have an XL though, so is there a cab you’d recommend from the II to get as close as possible to the cab you used? I tried a bunch but didn’t find one I was satisfied with. I have cab pack I as well btw.
 
I've been home sick today, so it's been a Leon Todd video review day.

Thanks for all you do - I pick up tidbits nearly every video!
 
Thanks for another great video, when will you get to the master volume models? I have a tough time getting a good sound out of the JMP 2204, even though I owned one many moons past, looking forward!
 
You can really pretty much control the transition from JTM to plexi to metal-panel by tweaking the bright cap value and progressively cutting bass.
 
You can really pretty much control the transition from JTM to plexi to metal-panel by tweaking the bright cap value and progressively cutting bass.

The bright cap value on these amps is super powerful, I almost always tweak it now.
 
The bright cap value on these amps is super powerful, I almost always tweak it now.

Or would you also say: "the bright cab value in these amps are super high i have to tweak it almost always." :)

this gets to be the case for me lately, especially when i dial clean-edge of break up tones unless i use the normal channel. (with single coils)

regarding the cleans, the vintage marshalls have beautiful clean tones (not only with the guitar volume knob trick but directly dialed on the amp). Would be nice if you covered those also...but anyways great video as usual.
 
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Awesome video once again! I've been really getting into the Plexi thing and for some reason I just love the 1970. It's a bit lower in volume when compared to the others but it has so much gain on tap it's insane. Covers a lot of ground.

About the ML IR in these videos. That's the "All mix" which is actually mixing all the different pre-Rola speaker options together in the "ML Legends" Cab Pack. It's most likely the darkest sounding IR of the pack. I would definitely recommend the M75 mix for humbuckers and H55 for single coils. That would kind of be era appropriate. The H55 is the Ritchie Blackmore speaker from the early days of rock after all. :)
 
Sounds great, although note that most of the Blackmore stuff was recorded with a Vox AC30.

True. But the TB preamp is pretty much identical to Marshall, up until the tone stack. It's not very tough to make one sound much like the other, if you're using the same cabinet(s).
 
True. But the TB preamp is pretty much identical to Marshall, up until the tone stack. It's not very tough to make one sound much like the other, if you're using the same cabinet(s).
Hmm... I don't know about that, but you'd think if they were so close that Blackmore would have used a Marshall. I literally read an interview this morning where he talked about Marshall trying to get him something close to the AC30 without success...

Also, I've found the Morgan AC20 works well for early Rainbow era Blackmore :)
 
Awesome video once again! I've been really getting into the Plexi thing and for some reason I just love the 1970. It's a bit lower in volume when compared to the others but it has so much gain on tap it's insane. Covers a lot of ground.

About the ML IR in these videos. That's the "All mix" which is actually mixing all the different pre-Rola speaker options together in the "ML Legends" Cab Pack. It's most likely the darkest sounding IR of the pack. I would definitely recommend the M75 mix for humbuckers and H55 for single coils. That would kind of be era appropriate. The H55 is the Ritchie Blackmore speaker from the early days of rock after all. :)

Thanks! I need to explore those some more and will definitely try those pairings.
 
Thanks! I need to explore those some more and will definitely try those pairings.
I highly recommend it. :) It's good to know a little bit about the Greenback history. M75 is obviously the most popular one but many Strat players wanted more low end so they went for the H55 and then the H75 and M55 have been used by many people who didn't realize it as they look pretty much identical with the M75 and H55 with different serial codes. :) Also I now own 7 pre-Rola M75s and they all sound very different. This one is definitely my favorite that I used in this pack. It's in the best condition. Still bright sounding and pleasant and even and all that. :)
 
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