white buffalo
Member
i've always loved high gain amps, but only ever owned one (mk iv) for a brief stint in high school. i never really bothered with them because the type of music i do simply doesn't call for that sound/those levels of gain- and for the times i did want those gain levels just to mess around with, i was able to get pretty damn close with pedals. example: https://soundcloud.com/user-378614181/klon-ocd sure, it could do with some tweaking, but it's a solid sound, imo. of course the wise thing to do financially is to stick to the pedals for the rare times where i want that sound, but i've got some disposable income now that i'm older and would like to have one amp for the dedicated high gain thing. i recently played a friends 2011 slo and was blown away by that thing, and am thinking one of those might very well be the answer. but i wanted to see what else you guys might recommend. i don't quite need diezel levels of gain, or even that modern a sound really. evh's tone will always be the pinnacle for me... i know that's a cliche, but i really have never found a better gained up tone that i liked more than his. and i dig ac/dc as well, though i know those gain levels are pretty low relative to more modern stuff. i have played a caa od-100 i really dug a couple years ago as well, plus it had a very nice and useable gain channel. i know caa was partly suhr, but i haven't played any suhr amps that blew me away unfortunately, and i have played most. oh, i did own a jp2c+ for literally just two days- bought it on the spot at the store after hearing it through a mesa 412, but couldn't make it work with any of my cabs at home and didn't have space for another or desire to buy another cab. i realize this might be an issue since i only have three cabs, two of which won't work for this as they're both g12h30/blue 212's, and the other is a matchless 410, which i'm not sure would be ideal for any of these amps. so maybe i'd be willing to add a 212 at most- def not a 412... maybe a bogner os 212 would be good. but back to amps... what are you guys thinking? first time i played a be-100 i was totally blown away... ditto the dirty shirley, pink taco, small box, etc. but as crazy as it sounds, the friedman amps come off as almost too perfect/polished to me if that makes sense- like a mastered record. i know that's probably a desirable trait to most, but i don't want that. maybe a friedman modded marshall of some kind? cameron? or should i just go all-in and do the slo?! eager to hear what all else is out there. a nice clean channel is def a plus, but i will settle for "usable". my main amps are all chimey el84 amps... audio kitchen big chopper, matchless hc30, bruno ug30... thanks in advance!
