New Amp for Cleans *Vox Content*

cloy26

cloy26

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Jul 17, 2009
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So, I have been getting away from metal and my 5150 as of late. I need something with cleans. I've narrowed it down to a vox (o so I think.) My 2 amps I'm thinking are a Night Train through a marshall 1960a cab (I have already) or should I go with an ac15...

I feel like I will get more balls with the Night Train, but I don't know how the tones compare to each other. I will hopefully be playing these live in a Thrice-ish band soon... So it will be for my cleans. Any input?

Thanks guys.
 
"So, I have been getting away from metal..." maybe thats why nobody answer you. Metal lives in our veins and you are an UNFORGIVEN now ;) I have no tips on this. But the the best I know for cleans maybe a Fender Twin Reverb or a Vox for a little more vintage sound.
 
For your clean tones exclusively? Neither. AC30, for the headroom. An AC15 will give you nice pushed Vox tones at band volume. Those are not clean amps, not with a drummer they're not. The 30- I own and gig with a NMV AC30 in a goth band- is a different animal. I'm running an attenuator for rehearsal so I can drive the amp somewhat versus getting all my gain from pedals. Live, though is a different animal and it needs to be opened up a bit.

A 2xEL84 amp isn't gonna give you much in the way of clean at loud band volumes. Fine overdriven rock tones if poweramp dirt is your thing, hell yes. Clean? Gritty with the guitar volume rolled back. You may or may not need a little more volume depending on how loud your drummer is. This is from personal experience.

That being said, the AC30 has a glorious clean tone and is loud as hell. :D
 
I love the Vox sound, but I've heard nothing but horrible things about the reliability of the AC models. Any truth to this?
 
haha. Well, I apologize for insulting with the lack of metal.

I was pretty misleading when I said "clean". I want a pushed sound, but I feel like the ac30 would be too much... I don't have any experience with amps of this kind (only really played a 5150), so obviously the best is try and get my hands on one and play it. I just did some research and the vast majority of their "clean" is done with ac30s, but they crank 'em and I feel like for me to get the tone they have, an ac15 would better suit me.

brett, from my little research I heard that the ones that have terrible reliability are the older models. The new ones don't, or at least I "hear" they don't.
 
New AC30s are more road-rugged but don't sound as good as the older ones. Not by a long shot. The flipside is that the older ones are very expensive.
 
Cleans have just as much tonal differences and preferences as metal heads...

I am more of a Fender Bassman kind of guy... for the bordering clean and dirty-esque I actually really like my USA made Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with the stock speaker, even though I have tried many others. Distortion is poo, but the clean is sweet.

Never really got into the Vox sound, but many guys love it. Lots of JC-120 guys and those that into essentially PA's as well. Some even like Marshall cleans.

Anyway the other part of it is the rest of the equation. 4x12... umm... not really. 4x10, you are getting there. 1x12 open back, even better. I am even down with a 1x8 Fender Champ under a mic, sweet.

So then you have speaker choice as well, not a fan of Celestions for Clean, well maybe the G12H30 or Alnico Gold. Usually stick to American... Eminence, Weber, JBL, etc.

All preference... and different preferences too... oh fun fun.
 
I've owned a British Vox AC15, a British AC30 Handwired head, and now a new 2010 Vox AC15 Custom. The new AC15 Custom is my favorite of the bunch. Great tone, the built-in Greenback sounds really good (for such a small cabinet) and it's got external and extension speaker outputs - plug it into a 4x12 and it sounds HUGE. If you want to use the built in speaker, consider upgrading to the Celestion Blue, it sounds beautiful.

The last-generation (mid 2000s) Custom Classic Voxes are God-awful, stay away at all costs.

The Fender Twin Reverb and its brethren are among the greatest clean amps on the world, but forget about getting any kind of useful overdriven tones - they are CLEAN. A nice blackface Fender Bassman head does overdrive better and would be an excellent amp to check out if you can find one.

Lastly, don't forget to check out the Marshall JMP or 1987/1959 heads, they are great for doing the half clean/half dirty thing.
 
You might want to try a Fender Super65. Get the beautiful fender clean sound at lower volume, whereas the Twin you kind of have to push otherwise it sounds rather dead at low volumes. The Super some nice breakup when you push it. Good luck with your search.
 
After researching more and finding out what "true" clean is, I'm not looking for a true dedicated clean. I'm looking for a clean (to me, with my background of 5150s lol) that has a little dirt to it if I play it aggresively, but played delicately it sounds clean-ish. lol idk. I'm new to this. haha Thanks for the input guys. Seems there are a ton of options out there.
 
If you want the best of both worlds, go with the Peavey JSX! Best clean sound I heard from a high gain head ever! And two nice high gain channels in addition...
 
I second the JSX. Although, a Twin on half power (outer 2 power tubes pulled and biased accordingly) gets some pretty cool dirty cleans at gig level.

I had a Peavey Bravo 112 for a while that had some beautiful dirty cleans as well.
 
cloy26 said:
After researching more and finding out what "true" clean is, I'm not looking for a true dedicated clean. I'm looking for a clean (to me, with my background of 5150s lol) that has a little dirt to it if I play it aggresively, but played delicately it sounds clean-ish. lol idk. I'm new to this. haha Thanks for the input guys. Seems there are a ton of options out there.
Click to expand...

Then you want the Vox - the brink-of-overdrive tone is what it does best.
 
for me it is Mesa Mark IV. Damn how I love it, it IS versatile, not a pack of numerous average sounds, as we're used to think of something "versatile". Amazing leads, amazing crunch and just perfect cleans. And the sweeeet reverb.
I use it with Eminence Legend 125 speaker 1x12 open cab for cleans and light crunch.

I also had fantastic experience with Ampeg guitar amps. Creamy, something between fender and vox as i felt it.
 
I picked up a Peavey Classic 30 combo last month for £250 and be tubed it for £60 with JJs and compared to my mates Fender Blues Jr and Hot Rod Deluxe I way prefer the tone of this. For a couple of hundred quid can't go wrong, but I did have a blast on a Bogner Alchemist 112 and that thing is sweet....but a bit for expensive.

Tbh if you have an amp like a engl or peavey with a bit of a sterile clean and you want a bit of touch sensitive bite check out the BJF Honey Bee pedal. I'm having a clone built as we speak.....
 
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