Go to amp models for 90’s Rock/Grunge

I´d look first in the amps that were available at that time. The grunge era is also very pedal dominated like as mentioned above the ProCo Rat, the Big Muff or, speaking of Nirvana, the Boss DS-1 or the DS-2.
I´d go for JCM800 Marshalls (or for Nirvana a Bassman + DS-1)if you like the Grunge Era Sound.
In the Hard Rock Scene the SLO-100 and on basis of that the Rectifier and the 5150 were released so that might me a good choice as well...not to forget the Bogner Fish (Bogfish in the Axe)
 
Kim used Peavey VTM heads for many of the early years of Soundgarden before switching to Mesa much later. He was not a Marshall guy.
Agreed and that's why I said it will get you close. They did also use JCM800 from studio footage I have seen.
 
I own the Austin Buddy Live Gold pack as well. Do you just plug and play with one of his scenes?
More or less. I think for the JCM800 it’s just the preset with the drive tweaked. For the Ojai I mixed from the diff presets for clean to dirty.
 
Also, and I found this sounded awesome, use a JCM800 panned left and a Mesa panned right, it sounds huge and they really compliment each other.

Ill post that preset too.
 
I think you also want to try the JCM800 low input as a clean base tone and use drive pedals for distortion.

While the JCM800 low input is not modeled, you can get pretty close by lowering input trim to 0.1-0.3 and turning off bright switch. Note that it’s not unusual to crank the drive all the way up on the JCM800 low input. Then add a RAT pedal to bring in some distortion. If the amp sounds too bright, turn the treble to 0.
 
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I think you also want to try the JCM800 clean channel as a clean base tone and use drive pedals for distortion.

While the JCM800 clean channel is not modeled, you can get pretty close by lowering input trim to 0.1-0.3 and turning off bright switch. Note that it’s not unusual to crank the drive all the way up on the JCM800 clean channel. Then add a RAT pedal to bring in some distortion. If the amp sound too bright, turn the treble to 0.

The typical JCM800 is single channel - they only clean up with the preamp gain at 1 or 2 in real life as well. It was the basis of my rig from 2015-2019. They love rats, pi fuzz, TS808, compulsion distortion and micro boost (try FAS boost too).
 
The typical JCM800 is single channel - they only clean up with the preamp gain at 1 or 2 in real life as well. It was the basis of my rig from 2015-2019. They love rats, pi fuzz, TS808, compulsion distortion and micro boost (try FAS boost too).

I bet that sounded great. :)

Both an Hi and Lo Input??

With mine that Lo Input and a Pedalboard rig was astoundingly good. It is one amp I wish I never sold.
 
I bet that sounded great. :)

Both an Hi and Lo Input??

With mine that Lo Input and a Pedalboard rig was astoundingly good. It is one amp I wish I never sold.

I ran hi input only. Give me all the headroom!

Mine benched at 130W clean when I had to get it looked at. Thought I needed a new OT, luckily I didn't! My old bandmates '81(?) runs 6550's and we're pretty sure puts out 200W at least. I ran master at 8, his was at 4 haha.

This was a few lifetimes ago haha
 
The typical JCM800 is single channel - they only clean up with the preamp gain at 1 or 2 in real life as well. It was the basis of my rig from 2015-2019. They love rats, pi fuzz, TS808, compulsion distortion and micro boost (try FAS boost too).
Sorry, I of course meant the low input 🙂

Depending on the speakers and guitar, I mostly find the high input with low drive sounding too much like an icepick unless you turn the treble knob all the way to 0.
 
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Sorry, I of course meant the low input 🙂

Depending on the speakers and guitar, I mostly find the high input with low drive sounding too much like an icepick unless you turn the treble knob all the way to 0.
Huge bright cap probably. Bypasses the gain control at high frequencies, so you may want to make it smaller of you're running less gain.
 
STP used dual amps - an AC30 and a Marshall. He'd blend a cleaner sound and a distorted sound to get more clarity because a lot of their songs have weird chord voicings (by rock standards).

Pearl Jam has had a lot of different tones over the years but start with a bassman or Plexi and try different overdrives.
Mike McCready has said he used a JCM800 for the album Ten.
 
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