Amps

Soldano solved 'deep but not muddy' in 1987. Where did high gain go next? One clear peak sits in 1994: Peter Diezel's VH4. The theme had shifted — from depth of gain to separation and definition. How to keep every note apart, outlined, inside deep distortion.

Turn the gain up and, usually, the sound gets worse — muddy, flabby, smeared. Yet some amps get better the more you push them. The classic example is the Soldano SLO-100. What makes the difference isn't the amount of gain but how it's distributed: how it's split across stages, and what gets tidied up between them.

The Carvin Vintage 16 is a small all-tube 1x12 combo: 12AX7 preamp, EL84 power, switchable Pentode 16W / Triode 5W. This Kemper profile was recorded deliberately in Triode through its Celestion Vintage 30. Not loud high gain, but the small, warm voice of a tube amp.

The Micro Jugg MJ-3 is a small hybrid amp from Nihon Hammond: solid-state preamp, 6L6GC tube power, 40W. Known for organs, the maker also built guitar amps. This Kemper profile was recorded through the amp's own period Japanese speaker.

The Randall RH300 G3 Plus is a high-gain solid-state head built for modern metal: tight chugs, lows that don't swell, each note clearing its place. This Kemper profile was captured with an unusual method, its preamp run through a Fryette PS-2A tube power stage into a Marshall 1912.

Carvin is an American maker that worked mainly by direct sales, so many know the name but have never heard one. The Vintage 16 is its small all-tube 1x12 combo. Why a known-but-unheard amp is worth recording as a Kemper profile.

The TriAxis is a variable preamp housing the circuits of successive Mark series in a 1U rack, with modes recallable by MIDI. But what this piece wants to see isn't the TriAxis alone. The TriAxis is only the front stage — a preamp makes the 'raw material' but doesn't decide the sound to the end. The power amp does.

The SL-X and Friedman, roughly, face the same direction — both in the lineage of 'distorting the Marshall sound more.' So they're sometimes discussed together as Marshall-style high gain. But ring the two under the same conditions and there's a distance that 'similar' can't settle.

Ask a certain generation of guitarists about rehearsal-studio amps and roughly the same answer comes back: the JC-120 or the JCM900. The memory that those were the only two choices. And that fact of 'what was placed there' still casts a shadow over the verdict on the JCM900.

In 1990s Marshall, there was more than one way to make a high-gain lead sound. Some designed a whole amp as a high-gain unit. Some prepared one high-gain channel inside a multi-feature amp. The JCM900 SL-X and the 6100LM represent those two ideas.

The JCM900 has the number after the JCM800, so it's easily received as an amp that honestly evolved the JCM800. But looking at the SL-X, that view feels slightly off. The SL-X looks less like Marshall advancing its own history than like an amp answering demands pushing in from outside.

The name JCM900 carries a vaguely awkward impression. Not spoken of as a great, yet not clearly denied either — long left at the ambiguous verdict of 'a not-so-good Marshall.' How accurately does that impression reflect the real amp's sound?

The Marshall JCM900 SL-X 2500, a 50W head built in 1994. Discussing this one amp by the three digits 'JCM900' alone feels somehow inaccurate. Under that name, several models with different design directions coexist. Using this amp as an entrance to re-examine where 1990s Marshall was heading.