A friend loaned me his for a test drive, I couldn't get along with it either.
The worst sounding amp you’ve played through?
- Thread starter Tomm Williams
- Start date
BFRaid
Roadie
- Messages
- 119
i think 90% of what constitutes 'worst' is the margin by which somebodys expectations of said amp dont meet their own. but i think a lotta times thats not that different than a racecar driver expecting a ups truck to take corners at 190mph.
some amps are just UPS trucks. we still need ups trucks.
I totally agree. I have some low-end amps that sound great for what they are. I have my $50 Peavey Microbass sitting next to me right now. It does what it was designed to do, I am not taking it to the recording studio any time soon.
That said, when I mentioned the Fender FM212 it was supposed to be some kind of solid-state entry-level Twin. That amp had zero Fender DNA. I am sure there is someone out there who spent some time with it and is getting a killer tone out of the amp. For me, who has played Fender Twins for decades, it was a frustrating experience.
metropolis_4
Rock Star
- Messages
- 4,829
I just remembered another one!
Vintage Marshall Plexi half stack
Not sure the exact year or model, but it was 100w. It was the first time I ever used a Plexi. It belonged to a guitarist from another band and we had to share gear for this show. I had no idea how to dial it in and it was a small room and I needed clean, so we had to keep the volume level low (no master volume on the amp).
It was a night of the worst hard, harsh, clanging, ice-pick in the ear tone I’ve ever had to deal with!
I thought I hated Marshalls for a long time after that night. Turned out I just needed to learn how to use them
Vintage Marshall Plexi half stack
Not sure the exact year or model, but it was 100w. It was the first time I ever used a Plexi. It belonged to a guitarist from another band and we had to share gear for this show. I had no idea how to dial it in and it was a small room and I needed clean, so we had to keep the volume level low (no master volume on the amp).
It was a night of the worst hard, harsh, clanging, ice-pick in the ear tone I’ve ever had to deal with!
I thought I hated Marshalls for a long time after that night. Turned out I just needed to learn how to use them
- Messages
- 507
I bought my son one for use in his punk high school band in the '00s when they came out. Sounded great to both of us.
Might have been that was the context, might have been the cab, might have just been us. Who knows. I'm not sure there's a universal opinion on any of this stuff.
- Messages
- 507
Me too. One of my favorite recorded tones ever was The Cure's "A Forest" (in fact the whole record), and it was all Jazz Chorus.
dronerstone
Shredder
- Messages
- 2,062
I can 100% relate to this. Back when most cheap practice spaces over here were filled with old Marshall stacks and broken Fender Twins, and I was young and naive, and enjoyed the Fenders much more, hated the Marshalls, because I thought "that's how a Marshall sounds".
- Messages
- 507
Me too. And now my favorite amp of all time is a PRS HXDA, which is a clone of Duane Allman's 'Live at the Fillmore' Plexi (his was a Superbass; the HXDA has switches that progressively make it a Superlead they borrowed from Eric Johnson, so it can do both things and stages in between). PRS got Duane's actual amp because the Allmans knew the guy who it was given to, and they were endorsing PRS amps up until the end.
It's also hand wired like the old gear. When I first tried it, there was the Duane Allman tone. Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
newholland
Shredder
- Messages
- 1,096
i can definitely say i wasnt in the pool wanting to use marshalls because i thought they all sounded nasal and gainy like jcm800 abuse from the 80s
they totally dont. but i now know that i also dont need to turn the gain all the way up on a jcm800. 
and plexis sound amazing. but so do 800s if you dont go full hairspray on em.
they totally dont. but i now know that i also dont need to turn the gain all the way up on a jcm800. and plexis sound amazing. but so do 800s if you dont go full hairspray on em.