Several months back I started looking for an inexpensive combo amplifier to keep in my office. My main amp is a Marshall DSL15 stack. I keep it at church where we have band practice every week. It can be a pain hauling it back and forth. Plus, the older I get, the less stuff I want to move. Especially heavy and bulky things. I’m not 20 years old. I have nothing to prove by lifting a speaker cabinet over my head and twirling it around while doing backflips. Those days are over. Not that I could that anyway, I’m much too clumsy, but you get the point.
Anyway, back to my amp search. The true tone snob that I am had me looking only at low wattage all tube amps with a 12” speaker. Let’s go back to my first sentence. Do you see the word “inexpensive”? That is a key word. That word alone will determine what I buy. Most tube combos are already out of the picture based on that one word.
I go on with my search. I find a few amps that may work. The real problem with “cheap” amps are the speakers. To make an amp affordable, most are fitted with a cheap speaker. I’m painting with a broad brush here, but there is some truth in what I’m about to say. All guitar players are tone snobs. We want a certain tone and we won’t compromise. We’re always fiddling with something to get closer to holy grail sound. But I digress. So, if I find an affordable tube combo I’ll most certainly be swapping out the speaker. I can find a used one on eBay or Reverb for a fair price. I’m ok with that. But then I start thinking I’d like to have reverb. And it must be spring reverb. None of that digital nonsense for me. Well, that cuts my amp selection to about a fourth of what it just was and raises the price.
Long story short, on a low end I’m looking at $500. Realistically I’m closer to $800.
Scratch that. Back to the drawing board. Maybe I should look at solid state or even – gasp! – DIGITAL!
There were a few I considered.
- Boss Katana
- Blackstar ID: Core
- Marshall CODE
YouTube is an amazing resource. I don’t live that close to anything. And to get to a guitar store that would have several brands of amps would be about a two-hour drive. With YouTube I can somewhat narrow down my search. As I searched for demos and reviews, I ran across a video call “Marshall CODE settings to make it sound EXACLY like a PLEXI!” by Johan Segeborn. If any of you are familiar with him, you know he could plug a guitar into a potato and make it sound like a Plexi. Talk about the ultimate classic rock tone – he’s got it!
Time to just buy an amp, stop with the endless searching. After all, it’s just an amp to keep in my office and maybe play it for an hour a week. I find a used CODE 50 on eBay, make an offer, and in a few days, it arrived at my front door.
First, I’m surprise how little it weighs. Second, I’m blown away with the factory settings. This thing is awesome! It’s no match for my DSL15 stack but it’s not bad either. I make a few adjustments on some of my favorite settings and there we have it. A perfect combo for me to noodle about on.
Now, the point I really wanted to get at is this – I found some really good presets on the My Marshall website and I’d like to share my favorites. Here they are in no particular order.
- 19sixty2
- Gary’s Blues
- Purple Plexi
- JTM Chill
- Gritty Rhythm
- Valve Bleed
- Sweet Jubilee
- Sweet Child O Mine
Remember how I previously said this amp is no match for my DSL15? Well…. with these presets, it’s gets a lot closer. I don’t think I’ll give up tubes just yet. However, digital is more convincing that I originally thought.
That is all!
Here is a link to Johan’s CODE video