“They said if I told anyone, they would deny it.” Ritchie Blackmore got the loudest amp Marshall ever made. All he had to do was keep two secrets.

  • Thread starter Thread starter JohnnyGtar
  • Start date Start date
I gotta say, I have a mid 2000 ( or later) AC 30 combo and on that Top Boost channel or even the normal channel, crank that bastard up and it cuts and crunches. Very aggresive circuit and the chords feel like they bloom. They get big. I often think " that sounds like a good Marshall" so knowing which amp came first, this story seems legit. I like the sound of a Marshall and Vox together.
 
1998
Manowar on a Saturday
Motorhead the next night
Worth the ringing brain
I saw Motörhead in '98 as well, even nabbed the setlist from the stage afterwards!
It's one of the 3 defining moments that gave me some form of tinnitus.
It was soooo loud, afterwards I didn't even hear the high pitched ring you usually hear after a loud show, but it sounded like a gas-leakish sort of hiss...never experienced that before from other loud shows. It went away after a few days, but so did my ability to hear above 17kHz... o_O
 
I actually was up against the stage and heard Blackmore's stage volume. This was at the first two Rainbow shows in the US, they played on Long Island and NYC.
I never forgot the volume. Only guy I heard w/ same stage volume was Robin Trower. Again, right up against the stage.
Those were not TGP volumes.
I remember it well too. Perfect Strangers tour in '85. My ears were ringing for a month. That was a killer concert, my first. Next one was Dio shortly after. Dokken opened up for Dio, that was a show.
 
Seen alot of bands through the '70's. Nugent was the loudest I recall in '77.
 
When I had a small warehouse space for storage I had a couple chances super late at night to run two Custom 100 full stacks cranked to max and slammed the inputs with a cranked Treble Booster, a couple different fuzz pedals, and a Soldano SLO Pedal. The signal was split stereo with my Fulltone Tape Echo. I had a Friedman 412/15 paired with a JCM 800 Bass cab on one side, and a Bogner 412B and Electric Amps 412 on rhe other side.
How's life post liquification?
 

That video explores the idea that Blackmore used a VOX AC30 with his Strat. He actually used the VOX with a Gibson ES-335 for the first three Deep Purple albums up to around '69/'70. After he switched to Strats, they were always paired with a Marshall Major head that the factory modified at his request. He wanted it to sound more like the AC30 and after a few tries the engineers got it right. He used it with a modified treble booster in front till '73 when it was replaced with the AIWA TP-1011 preamp.



 
That's why concert sound is so sterile these days. Guys playing their digital units thru the PA. No volume, no excitement. Just fucking sheep holding their phones up.
So glad I saw so many great shows 70's- 2000's, and they were loud. In the clubs too. Not this neutered sound of digital cartoons.
Every component in the modern PA system has been digitized as well. The board, the FX, the line array. The power amps are also one rack class D a lot of the time instead of the behemoth power amps of old. Not to mention the LEDs and digitally controlled lighting making everything feel colder. As someone who was working live sound before and after the changeover, I think live concerts have lost a lot of sound quality in the pursuit of convenience and lighter load ins. Those old PA systems had PUNCH and detail for days.
 
How's life post liquification?
Not even joking, I had to stand around 20 ft away and off to the the side or it was like getting minor vertigo. I started feeling woozy and shit.

Too put it in reference, even standing in front of the right side PA tower at a Slayer concert (Decade of Aggression disc 1 show at the Lakeland Civic Center) that was in the Guiness Book of World Records for the loudest indoor arena show at one point I didn't have the same issue.
 
Seen alot of bands through the '70's. Nugent was the loudest I recall in '77.
I bet. But, if I recall, back in the day, Deep Purple was in the Guiness Book of Records for loudest concert. They were using 10,000 watt PA systems. Then, The Who passed them up.
 
Back
Top