For those who are into scooped death metal tones...

[ultimatemetalguitartones]

Check this out.. Yeah it's the good ol Crate GX130C - at least a nice profile of it.
Signal - FGN Les Paul Custom JB pickup straight into the Quad Cortex

 

[DanTravis62]

Super underrated amp, one of my favorite ss dm tones

 

[ultimatemetalguitartones]

Super underrated amp, one of my favorite ss dm tones

hell yeah - same here

 

[MadAsAHatter]

Definitely an underrated SS amp.
Wasn't this one a clone; or at least very close equivalent, of the Ampeg VH140C?

 

[BeZo]

Sweet Pig Destroyer shirt. I love that band.

 

[ultimatemetalguitartones]

Definitely an underrated SS amp.
Wasn't this one a clone; or at least very close equivalent, of the Ampeg VH140C?

Yeah they do have some similarities but in my experience they are not the same. Listen to the Cannibal Corpse "Vile" album - That's the Crate

Sweet Pig Destroyer shirt. I love that band.

Yeah man they rule! He used to play the VH140C and the Crate 3500H (based on the same preamp)

 

[MadAsAHatter]

Yeah man they rule! He used to play the VH140C and the Crate 3500H (based on the same preamp)

The GT3500 sounds great for that type of riffing. I still have mine. It probably needs a tune-up though. I think I'm getting some channel bleed into the clean channel.

 

[ultimatemetalguitartones]

The GT3500 sounds great for that type of riffing. I still have mine. It probably needs a tune-up though. I think I'm getting some channel bleed into the clean channel.

View attachment 404411

That's the one!

 

[RaceU4her]

Definitely an underrated SS amp.
Wasn't this one a clone; or at least very close equivalent, of the Ampeg VH140C?

The GT3500 sounds great for that type of riffing. I still have mine. It probably needs a tune-up though. I think I'm getting some channel bleed into the clean channel.

View attachment 404411

the story on the internet forever has been the gx130c and vh140c are close, but i dont really find that to be the case, this gt3500 and the crate VTX heads i believe are supposed to actually be the vh140c

 

[MadAsAHatter]

the story on the internet forever has been the gx130c and vh140c are close, but i dont really find that to be the case, this gt3500 and the crate VTX heads i believe are supposed to actually be the vh140c

I know when SLM owned both Ampeg & Crate there was some crossover. I know the BV300 lifted the SVT power section.

The lineage of everything has gotten convoluted over all these years but I pretty sure it goes something like this...

• GX130c was developed separately from the VH140c but pulled inspiration from it. Amount of "inspiration" is debated; ie a full clone or cloned certain parts.
• GT3500 (Shockwave) was an "evolution" of the GX130c and lifted it's rhythm channel directly from the VH140c. The clean channel was different and likely used a different power section. The GT3500's Solo added the shape and more gain to the rhythm channel's EQ, so it was different but still tied to the VH140c.
• GTX3500 (Tidalwave) get's a little sketchy. It was either derived from the GT3500, but incorporated more from the VH140c or pulled directly from the VH140c with minor changes. Either way it should be closer to the VH140c than the previous 2. The GTX3500 is also the prototype for the VTX line
• VTX350 was developed directly from the GTX3500. Though I'm not sure if there were any changes or just a rebranding of the amp.
• One thing to note is this only applies to the "flagships" of the respective lines. For instance the GT120 and VTX212 were different amps from the GT3500 and VTX350 respectively. Similar to how the BV300 & BV150 don't share anything in common with the BV120 other than the name.

Regardless of the lineage, the GX130c, GT3500, GTX3500, VTX350, and Vh140c are good sounding SS amps that fit perfect for 90's death metal riffs.

 

[RaceU4her]

the vh140c is way more vesrsatile i think, the GX130C does the scooped 90s death metal thing perfectly but thats really about it, the ampeg you can get all sorts of mid heavy and grittier nastier tones along with all the scooped tampa style. ive not played either in a while, this peavey supreme is my new SS love for the moment, which is actually kind of in between the ampeg and crate. maybe ill do a comparison clip of all of them

 

[ultimatemetalguitartones]

the vh140c is way more vesrsatile i think, the GX130C does the scooped 90s death metal thing perfectly but thats really about it, the ampeg you can get all sorts of mid heavy and grittier nastier tones along with all the scooped tampa style. ive not played either in a while, this peavey supreme is my new SS love for the moment, which is actually kind of in between the ampeg and crate. maybe ill do a comparison clip of all of them

agreed - and lets not forget about the awesome clean channel as well (I don't play cleans but just saying ..)

 

[RaceU4her]

agreed - and lets not forget about the awesome clean channel as well (I don't play cleans but just saying ..)

both actually have great clean channels, im not much a clean player either but the crates clean with the chorus is always fun

 

[WizardAmpIphoneClip]

I had one of those about a year or so ago. Mine could never get very scooped even with the shape at the "scooped" side. Must be my shitty sounding room. Had an original Powerball and that one wasnt scooped in the least bit either hmm

 

[ultimatemetalguitartones]

I had one of those about a year or so ago. Mine could never get very scooped even with the shape at the "scooped" side. Must be my shitty sounding room. Had an original Powerball and that one wasnt scooped in the least bit either hmm

To get it to sound like this I ran an aphex aural exciter in the loop / settings at noon

 

[Devin]

• GTX3500 (Tidalwave)

Always wanted to try one of these but I've never even seen one in person

 

[MadAsAHatter]

Always wanted to try one of these but I've never even seen one in person

I've seen only one in person. Back when they were still being produced the local GC in BR got one like 3 weeks after I bought my Shockwave. I gave it a try and it sounded similar enough to the Shockwave that it wasn't worth the effort to trade out.

 

[ultimatemetalguitartones]

Always wanted to try one of these but I've never even seen one in person

I've seen only one in person. Back when they were still being produced the local GC in BR got one like 3 weeks after I bought my Shockwave. I gave it a try and it sounded similar enough to the Shockwave that it wasn't worth the effort to trade out.

Ιf I am not mistaken, Scott (Pig Destroyer) played one for years

 

[Devin]

Kustom WAV 1000 head is another water-adjacent SS amp I always wanted to check out just because of how strange it looks

 

[crwnedblasphemy]

I had this amp back in the day. Always felt the G160xl sounded a little better though. Had that amp too. Had both and the Ampeg SS-150. That was a good sounding Solid State head too.