Help with setup

[damaan]

I am hoping that someone can help! I am looking to setup my rig so that I can have an ’80 metal sound. I want to recreate the sound of Appetite for Destruction, Dr Feelgood, Slippery when wet and Metallica Black album – you know the sound I mean. I know that all of these artists have their ‘unique’ sound, but I’m trying to get a setup that will get reasonably close to each sound with certain tweaking.
I have currently 2 Epiphone Les Paul’s, one with active pickups and the other with Slash’s Alnico II Pro APH-2S Humbuckers. I have a Blackstar HT-1 Metal amp, but I still can’t get that ‘80’s sound.
I have £200 to spend or £350 ($450) if I sell the amp. Through watching videos and reading around, I am thinking of the following:-
New amp – Marshall DSL40 or Egnater Tweaker 40 112 valve combo or Boss KTN-100 Katana 100 Combo Amp
New pedal – Amptweaker Fat Metal or Bogner Ecstasy Red or EVH 5150
Has anyone got any experience of this? Any advice/ideas will be welcomed.
Thanks.

 

[skullfxr]

At your budget you are going to have to make a decent sacrifice I think. I would have to say DSL40C, but they need a few things IMO.

The tweaker series is meh. I owned one. Very underwhelmed. It's an amp with gimmicks that make it seem cool that you can dial in to any amp if you had an EQ pedal.

Either way I am not sure how close you will get.

 

[Racerxrated]

Go with the DSL, and I'd get a TS type pedal for the boost. That mid hump is useful for those 80s tones. Not very familiar with the pedals you mentioned...but a Maxon OD 808 or similar would do the trick.

 

[311boogieman]

I really wouldn't do either of thosr choices (if it were me) but the DSL will get you closer me thinks - although I have not played the DSL40. I have not played the Katana either but I've heard really good things. There are all kinds of posts over the Guitar Gear Forum praising the Katana.

Where do you live roughly?
Will you be gigging/jamming or just bedroom?

I'd personally look for a used amp that can get you were you want and then something like the Digitech Bad Monkey (Tubescreamer clone for $50 new).

As a side note, I got my Peavey Vypr Tube 60 (hybrid) used for $315 and it does all kinds of amp tones fairly convincingly and take my Bad Monkey like a champ too. I also really dug the Marshall TSL60 I played...for what it is ymmv.

PS: Welcome to Rig-Talk