know a good guitar amp for a heavy rock tone?

I've got a few Marshall amps, but for the past week I've been checking out a friend's new Randall Diablo amp and I gotta say..... it roars. Solid tight and very heavy, I don't want to give it back! :listeningmusic:

Listened to the video on the 5W version. Decent tone. Weird question. It looks like he's only playing one note at a time and getting first and fifth on every note played. Is running a pitch shift standard for this style of music?
 
Listened to the video on the 5W version. Decent tone. Weird question. It looks like he's only playing one note at a time and getting first and fifth on every note played. Is running a pitch shift standard for this style of music?

Maybe he's one of the millions of drop-tune metal players that can't actually play. Drop your low E to D and you can play brootalz power chords with one finger.
 
I've been playing with the little 1 watt Randall Diablo in my home studio using standard tuning and it records pretty nice for what it is & at the $250 price, it's a pretty amazing little hi-gain beast.
 
For the price, I like the Dark Terror stuff. Know it's not 40 watts though... But if you are recording you don't need a ton of wattage. I play a Rockerverb 100 and PRS Archon 100. Marshall, though not my favorite, sounds damn good at just about any price range. Even their solid state stuff gets good results. Crate Blue Voodoo 120s go real cheap used and have a TON of gain. Like 150-350 cheap. Touchy in the middle though. Easy to go from not enough to too much.
 
Cheapish Amp that goes loud and does metal - Peavy. It has the added bonus that you can drag it behind the car on the way to the gig and it will still work when you get there. Simple.
 
Except for Mesa. :D

Don't mind the man behind the curtain. :D

Mesas are tough for $500 or less, but a F30, DC-3, or Nomad-45 miiiiight just squeeze into your budget. They do a very different sort of heavy than a Marshall, but if it's a sound you gel with (and I do, unlike Gregor here), they're awfully tough to beat.

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Cheapish Amp that goes loud and does metal - Peavy. It has the added bonus that you can drag it behind the car on the way to the gig and it will still work when you get there. Simple.

There's that too - "metal on the cheap" is pretty much a 5150 to a T.
 
Don't mind the man behind the curtain. :D

Mesas are tough for $500 or less, but a F30, DC-3, or Nomad-45 miiiiight just squeeze into your budget. They do a very different sort of heavy than a Marshall, but if it's a sound you gel with (and I do, unlike Gregor here), they're awfully tough to beat.
I pick on Mesas, but I do really like Mesas cleans and crunch. And their build quality is impeccable. I just don't like their high gain modern rock/metal Nickelback sounds.
 
I pick on Mesas, but I do really like Mesas cleans and crunch. And their build quality is impeccable. I just don't like their high gain modern rock/metal Nickelback sounds.

I'm just giving you crap, man, no worries. :D Anyway, Nickelback isn't Mesa's fault, they'd have sucked just as bad with Marshalls!
 
True, very true, but with Marshalls I could say "well at least they have good guitar tone". :D

You know, it's funny, because the one thing I'll say for Nickelback albums is they have KILLER hard rock mixes. :laughings:

How've you been, anyway, man? Aside from your shitty taste in amps? ;)
 
You know, it's funny, because the one thing I'll say for Nickelback albums is they have KILLER hard rock mixes. :laughings:

How've you been, anyway, man? Aside from your shitty taste in amps? ;)

Haha, I'm good dude, how about you? I'm about to embark on building my own shitty amp too! I'm gonna do 50w Plexi clone.
 
Haha, I'm good dude, how about you? I'm about to embark on building my own shitty amp too! I'm gonna do 50w Plexi clone.

Badass - Post up progress pics if you can. I spent some play time with an ancient plexi recently and the thing was fucking awesome - even at low volumes surprisingly dark and spongy for a Marshall. I kind of wanted it, but it didn't really come into its own until it got louder than I could get away with in my place. :lol: It was at a studio around here, where a guy I knew was releasing a new line of pedals, so I'll have to see if it was one of their house amps. I'd love to try building an amp, but it's a bit of an undertaking for me - I might want to try an OD pedal first, though.

I'm good - buys at work these days (posting on my lunchbreak), but playing a ton outside, and I just finally released my debut album (spamming it over in the publicity thread). Don't go check it out though, you'll hate it - it's all Mesa-sounding, instrumental bluesy shred rock and metal stuff, which is about as far removed from what you listen to as I can imagine. :laughings:
 
Badass - Post up progress pics if you can. I spent some play time with an ancient plexi recently and the thing was fucking awesome - even at low volumes surprisingly dark and spongy for a Marshall. I kind of wanted it, but it didn't really come into its own until it got louder than I could get away with in my place. :lol: It was at a studio around here, where a guy I knew was releasing a new line of pedals, so I'll have to see if it was one of their house amps. I'd love to try building an amp, but it's a bit of an undertaking for me - I might want to try an OD pedal first, though.
Yeah find out what it was if you can. "Dark and spongy" tells me it could have been an actual 60s era Plexi. They were mild and had tube rectifiers. Like pre-1969. I can't imagine one of those things doing duty as a lowly house amp.

I'm good - buys at work these days (posting on my lunchbreak), but playing a ton outside, and I just finally released my debut album (spamming it over in the publicity thread). Don't go check it out though, you'll hate it - it's all Mesa-sounding, instrumental bluesy shred rock and metal stuff, which is about as far removed from what you listen to as I can imagine. :laughings:

Haha, that's great dude. Congrats. No, that aint my thing, but I know lots of guys that do like that stuff. I'll give them your link.
 
Yeah find out what it was if you can. "Dark and spongy" tells me it could have been an actual 60s era Plexi. They were mild and had tube rectifiers. Like pre-1969. I can't imagine one of those things doing duty as a lowly house amp.



Haha, that's great dude. Congrats. No, that aint my thing, but I know lots of guys that do like that stuff. I'll give them your link.

Right on, man, thanks!

Yeah, idunno what it was, but it was old as fuck, pretty beat up, and sounded fucking glorious. The studio website mentions a "Super Lead 100" and while my memory is hazy from this summer it looked a lot like what the 1959 Plexi reissues look like, just about 60 years old, of course. :lol: It probably was an original, with a matching 4x12, and it's one of the few Marshalls I've ever played that I really got on with. I'd love to be able to rock out on something like that more often, but it wouldn't be done justice in a home studio.

On my next release I want to track live drums, and this place is definitely one of the local studios I'd want to talk to when the material is ready to go.
 
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