Blues Brother wrote:
You could always contact Benjamin Craig from Craigamps. He is local and he can build you an amp exactly to your spec. Check out his FB page. You cannot believe the quality. He is such a passionate and humble guy ?
Someone actually showed me to his site a few days ago.
Beautiful work. Its always so good to see someone take that amount of pride in something they so clearly enjoy doing.
Right down to the finishing is polished. I think I may feel a bit odd trying to ask someone to try knock off the sound of vintage plexi without feeling a bit guilty about it though :-\ Also Im not sure he would consider doing something like that. No doubt, he'd probably do an epic job of it though.
shaunf wrote:
Give Coastal Music a call and speak to Lee. 031 5731818, they're in Browns Drift road, off Riverside road now. If its that Plexi sound you're after, you'd be hard pressed to beat the Marshall YJM100 head they have there. If you don't know anything about these amps, it's a Yngwie Malmsteen signature 100w head based on a standard Plexi circuit, with a couple of cool features added, like a noise gate, a reverb, and and Yngwies choice of overdrive pedal built in that can act as a boost. The head can be switched from 100w to 50w and best of all, it has Marshall's Electronic Power Attentuation built in, which allows you to bring down the power output from 100w all the way down to 0.1w, while still driving the power tubes hard.
I have the AFD100 which has some of the same features, notably the EPA. It really is an unbelievable feature that makes a 100w fire breathing beast of an amp practical even for bedroom playing at low volumes, while retaining the character of the amp.
Otherwise if its an old Plexi you're after, you're going to have to watch the various classifieds and do a lot of research as to what to look out for and avoid where necessary, as many of these old amps have been modified or poorly maintained, and although in some cases they may be relatively cheap to buy, bringing them back to their former glory can be a costly exercise.
Hope this helps.
Shaun
Great advice, thanks so much Shaun.
I called them this morning, and I think I may have spoken to Lee. He advised me to come in with my guitar, plug into every amp they have, until I find the tone Im after... When he said that, I nearly dropped my damn phone man... Everywhere else here, apparently wont allow you near the amps. lol. Someone told me recently they had to stand and listen to a salesman shred, whilst they listened, to decide if they wanted the amp or not????
So it would seem, I have a date this Saturday morning ? The YJM100 indeed, seems gold man. I watched a demo of it on youtube.... WOW. Like 1959 came back and slapped me in the face and then some... I really liked the built in attenuator! Thats worth it on its own just about. Beautiful chunky wooden tones. If Coastal have one, I definitely think it may be my top 5 to test.
Id really like to test the AFD as well. Its just the JCM800 tone's that have me a little worried, although the hybrid build would definitely make it worth a run.
I tried to follow the tech on it, to see how closely they would come to matching #39 in 'start to finish.' Tim Caswell's Tremelo hotrod, I think was pretty flippen unique. Id LOVE to see the schematic similarities.
refuogee wrote:
I read that with newer amps the transformers aren't as good as their older counterparts so getting someone to build you a Plexi to vintage spec would probably be a good move and then you can finish it in purple ostrich skin or something awesome and have a completely unique amp ?
LMAO!!!
Purple Ostrich skin sounds pretty slick actually... When my playing sucks, I can just bedazzle any audience members (poor buggers) with my amp ?
