Anyone played a Marshall 6100 series?

[Grievous]

Oh no, another amp question!

I've been trying out different amps and scouring the bay for a better tone (need tubes!) to my current digital and SS rig (pod for recording, ancient randall for loud) and haven't found anything good thats in my price range. Sadly down here good stuff is rare and is awfully expensive just for a head second hand...let alone new.

Anyway just saw a marshall 6100LM head on the bay for $1400AUD (about 900 USD?) - anyone ever play one of these? I think its the series that satch used to play, until he got sick of repairs and went with peavey? I wonder what sort of tones can you get from it...and how it react to boosts etc? It seems like quite an unusual amp that might be versatile - and I've heard really good things about the tone of the 61** amps. I don't want to buy an amp blind but it just sparked my curiosity!

Probably should have gone in Gear & Equipment...

 

[7 Dying Trees]

I have one friend who swears by his. I want one of these. By all reports one of the best marshalls made. If you like the sound of marshall, then get it.

 

[Benzesp]

They are really cool amps with lots of features. If you are into just buzzy "insane" super saturated tone this is not the amp for you. This amp will do clean to early 90's high gain rock tones all day. If you run a boost you can get some pretty mean metal/thrash tones as well. The 6100 is the real deal if you are a Marshall fan.

 

[Scali]

I have the 6101, the 1x12 combo version, and the 6912, 1x12 extension cabinet.
As said, the hi-gain is Marshallish... or rather, hotrodded Marshall. Think Soldano/Bogner style. A very 'open' sounding distortion.
Here's a track where I did the lead with the 6101, recorded mic'ed up:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=436524&songID=4441749

In this track I've done all sounds with the 6101, recorded using its speaker-simulated output:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=436524&songID=3648989

And here was an early attempt at fine-tuning my tone (still a bit more 'grainy'/'fuzzy' than the above recording)... at least there's some rhythm playing in there:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=436524&songID=3897709

So yea, great for classic sounds and 80s/early 90s metal tones.
I use a clean treble boost for the lead by the way.

Edit:
Almost forgot, I've done this video when I just got my S7320, to show it is quite versatile:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrIfK7K24H4
That is done with the 6101 aswell. The sound quality isn't great (cheap cam microphone), but it might give you a bit of an idea.

 

[Grievous]

Thanks for the info guys. Sounds like a pretty killer amp, especially for the kind of leads and solo instrumental stuff I'm into. The Randall is great for metal but I hate the lead sounds, and you can only go so far with a pod plugged in.

Scali those recordings seriously rock! The clean channel sounds orders of magnitude better than I expected...I've never been too keen on marshall cleans all that much tbh, but you've got some awesome tones there. I've played a few marshalls, jcm800, 2000 and an old plexi, and loved the sound of the boosted 800 and plexi for bluesy stuff. The 2000 sounded kinda uugh to me.

Anyway looks like I might have to pick this bad boy up...we'll see...

Cheers!

 

[bibz]

Thats a good price on it man, these things have the best of marshall in them. Wont get as heavy as a JVM, but boosted should have more then enough!

 

[Scali]

Scali those recordings seriously rock! The clean channel sounds orders of magnitude better than I expected...I've never been too keen on marshall cleans all that much tbh, but you've got some awesome tones there. I've played a few marshalls, jcm800, 2000 and an old plexi, and loved the sound of the boosted 800 and plexi for bluesy stuff. The 2000 sounded kinda uugh to me.

Thanks!
And yea, this amp has a lot of features. The clean is based on the Marshall JTM45, which in itself was based on the Fender Bassman. So there is a bit of Fender-sound in there. In fact, there's also a bright switch and a mid-shift switch, which will make it sound even more twangy and Fender-like, but I never use those.
In fact, some of my favourite sounds come from using the crunch channel in mode A (JTM45 crunch), and using it on the verge of breaking up, with some single-coil sounds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXcmErWC1ek


There are many more sounds you can get from this amp. The lead channel has a 'contour' switch, which will make it sound more scooped, more Mesa-like. And then there are options like low/high speaker damping, and triode/pentode mode. So you can make it sound a lot tighter, more modern, more compressed if you like.
The amount of gain on the lead channel is just stupid. I had it set to 4.5 here. Even the crunch channel has enough gain for serious metal in mode C. It's just a different sound, a more classic Marshall sound, more 'bite', more JCM800-like. I prefer the lead channel for rhythms because it sounds darker, heavier and deeper.

Then again, it's all personal taste I guess. Just the other day a guy (who uses a Digitech GSP2101 preamp) told me that he thought my amp sounds like a transistor amp.

 

[Grievous]

Well I got in touch with the guy and got to hear the amp in question, and I'm sold! I've got a friend who plays in a blues band with a fender bassman, I've played through a few times and loved the cleans, it's a pretty classic standard tone. I didnt know thats what they based the 45 circuit off.

It is a good price I think, and since I've had some cash saved for a new amp for ages why not. Should get it sometime next week.

Thats funny someone said your tone was SS sounding, I guess tone perception is so subjective these days. eg the 5150 sound is so popular with metal players but I've never like the sound. I'm much more into Mesa for rhythm and marshall for lead.

Thanks for all the helpful comments guys

 

[sami]

If I'm right, the 6100 is the 30th anniv? This was one of the amps used on Carcass's Heartwork.

 

[Scali]

If I'm right, the 6100 is the 30th anniv? This was one of the amps used on Carcass's Heartwork.

Yup, in fact, mine is from 1992, the anniversary year. In that year they used blue/purple tolex.

Well I got in touch with the guy and got to hear the amp in question, and I'm sold! I've got a friend who plays in a blues band with a fender bassman, I've played through a few times and loved the cleans, it's a pretty classic standard tone. I didnt know thats what they based the 45 circuit off.

Well, that's how Marshall started. They took the Fender Bassman circuit, and modified it to use common European parts, to make it cheaper.

Thats funny someone said your tone was SS sounding, I guess tone perception is so subjective these days. eg the 5150 sound is so popular with metal players but I've never like the sound. I'm much more into Mesa for rhythm and marshall for lead.

Yea, but still... There's a difference between not liking a sound, and saying it soulds like a transistor amp
I've just chalked it up to the guy being jealous, I dunno

Thanks for all the helpful comments guys

I hope you like your new amp. Then again, knowing how versatile the amp is, that's pretty much guaranteed.
Feel free to ask about settings if you're having trouble dialing in some tones.

 

[Grievous]

The title track of that album is pretty awesome, not a bad death metal tone at all!

Yeah I knew it was from a fender circuit, but I didn't know it was the bassman they started with. Learn something every day!

I'll post a thread on it when it arrives can't wait to see the range of sounds I can get out of it.

Just saw Jeff Beck live last night at the Enmore in Sydney, so I'm even more inspired to play some marshally goodness.

Cheers!