warm fuzz tone - amp heads

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martin

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i've got a 4x12 marshall cab. i'm looking into buying a new 50W or 100W head. crucial to me is that big, warm overdrive, like you might hear on the first weezer album.
at first i thought marshall, but from listening to a lot of bands using marshall heads (e.g., a lot of punk bands), i have to say i don't like the way they sound. they're relatively thin-sounding, to me - they've got bass and highs but not much in between. i need those low mids that give you a nice warm big fuzzy guitar tone. so, i really want to save up my money and buy a mesa/boogie.

does anybody have any input on this? can you recommend any boogie heads? or has anyone managed to tweak the warm mids out of their marshall head? tone is more important than money here. the amp must also be footswitchable, and have at least 2, but preferably 3 channels, and an 8 ohm output.

ideas? c'mon.
 
Weezer played out of an old Marshall cab with a Mesa head and a newer Marshall head w/ a Marshall cab on their first album, thing is, they didn't use the amp's distortion. They use Big Muff pedals. Look at the inside of the first album's cover. There is one "newer" style (JCM 800/900, MOSFET, or maybe a JTM45) Marshall half stack (actually the cab doesn't have any words on it, but it still looks like a Marshall) to the left. On the right Rivers's amp is a Mesa head with what appears to be a 8x10" Marshall bass cab. I don't know much about Mea stuff, but I think it is one of those Mark things, it definately isn't a rectifier. Even if you just got a poweramp and some sort of Sansamp thign and ran a Big Muff, you'd sound a lot like Weezer. The other pedal to try, and is much cheaper, is that orange Boss Distortion pedal (like $40). I used that when I was doing Weezer covers, and it did the job well.

Jake
 
I was just reading a review in the new Guitar Player that Electro-Harmonix put out a new version of the Big Muff that is suppose to be close to the original. Unlike the reissue of a couple of years ago. I owned an original Big Muff pi, use to get a lot of useful stuff out of it. Until It got so beat up that it was more trouble than it was worth. I might like to check the new one out.
 
weezer album

yes, from what it says on their website, the guitars on the first weezer album were recorded with that mesa MKII head, and the marshall 8x12 cabinet (which actually only has 4 speakers in it). i don't think they started using big muff pedals until the second album. i had a big muff for awhile, but it got lost, but i wasn't that happy with the sound of it anyway. i'm not really a fan of pedal distortion. anyway.
 
I am absolutely positive they used the Big Muff's on album one also. Somewhere I saw some video of them recoridng the first album, and guess what was sitting right on the floor in front of Rivers? That cab don't look big enough for 8x12, but you never know. I think the second guitarist recorded his parts with his amp too (the more modern Marshall), because there are 2 very different guitar sounds on that album, that compliment each other very nicely. My suggestion on what head to buy is to the avail of most of this board, the Line 6 Flextone HD. I play out of a convereted Flextone Duo (I made the amp into a head, and tossed the speakers) and using the Brit High Gain setting with everything dimed (or close to it) I get that Weezer-esque tone. I play in a punk band that sounds a lot like Weezer, and am always complimented on my tone. Plus if you ever want to play some metal, theres a setting for that, and a setting for blues too, and tons of other settings to boot. Very versatile amp. Not as good as a tube-amp, but very respectable. I always thought the Flex's sounded better then the PODs too.

Jake
 
That's odd. I read an interview with Rick Ocasek where, in talking about the weezer sound, he mentions that Rivers played through Orange heads. He goes on to talk about the way he flattened all the tone out of his sound by turning the tone down on his guitar and cutting the high frequencies on his amps.

Martin, I think the scooped mid phenomenon has more to do with the tone those players are looking for than it does with the actual character of marshall amps. I've seen J Mascis take the stage in front of a few marshalls and he's the God of fuzz.

You might also look into fender bandmaster and pro-sonic heads. I don't know much about recommendations by year, but somebody here will.
 
that's a very good point. i guess the best thing for me to do is go to the store and actually try out some amps. there's so many out there... i just wanted to have some background or recommendations before i jumped into it.
thanks for your help.
 
have you thought about orange amps? they 've got that warm mid fuzzy tone, a bit the britpop amp you know

guhlenn
 
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