u/DishPractical7505

Was watching “Becoming Led Zeppelin” again and the live scene of Dazed and Confused has the whole band using WEM sound reinforcement. Bass, guitar amps and PA it appears. Went down a rabbit hole reading about these. I nerd out for guitar amps a fair amount but didn’t really know anything about these prior to spotting them on the film. Anyone played them? Looks like their Marshall Superlead adjacent/equivalent offering was called the ER100 - although they pre-dated Marshall ubiquity to some extent according to what I’ve read. I’d like to find some more info on these. Guess I’ll check YouTube and see what I can find. Even more interested to know if any of you out there have come across any.

(UJ/ this dude is A GOLD MINE, in an argument with people on EVERY ONE OF HIS POSTS - surely he’s been covered before, but ladies and gents this is a real true honest to god custom amp manufacturer doing business on Facebook.)

Forgive the image quality, it’s cropped from a much larger image - included for reference (and showing off maybe idk I fucking love my amps).

Anyway, per the title, who else just uses very straight forward pedals? I see so many esoteric awesome boards on here with super cool also very esoteric pedals. I just can’t seem to make that stuff work for me and I always end up with very simple pedals and rigs. Ignore the Royalist preamp and the copper sound as they’re not plugged in. If a pedal has too many switches and knobs, I’m too dumb to get anything good out of it. I think that’s basically it.

I just resort to two or three types of drive, and a few options for reverb, and an echo. My main amp is a 1959hw. I’m not saying that my board is minimalist at all. It’s just that the pedals in the chain are pretty straight forward and don’t have a lot of options. Aside from the expanse. But I only use it on one setting and never tinker with it. I could see how some would find this effect chain I’m using pretty boring. Currently, it’s as follows Tuner> LA2A comp (always on) > Tube Driver > OCD > Plumes > Orion echo > Keeley Omni Reverb > Expanse. I’m mainly using the expanse to split to stereo for when I’m running both Plexis in stereo. I don’t use the controller for it that’s also on the board. These are pretty much all the pedals I own. Minus a big muff that’s not hooked up.

Who else likes feature scarce, straight forward pedals? I wish I had more time to play with pedals and explore.

About four years ago, I sold this amp. Times were tough and I’ve regretted parting with it ever since. The guy I sold it to approached me about me or the tech I use fixing it (I’m in training I guess you could say, id love to know enough to be a proper amp tech someday, but I have a while to go. The amp when bumped makes some popping noises. I suspect a cold/intermittent solder joint.

This amp absolutely rips and runs perfect otherwise. It’s an odd bird. I was able to purchase it back for a fair as-is price.

Anyway, It’s a bit of an odd bird. Rectified with two KT66 power tubes. Three 12ax7s in the preamp. I’d describe it as the love child of a JTM45 and a hot rodded 2204, but much much much smoother. It’s the smoothest amp I’ve ever played. It loves humbuckers and singles. It’s dark. Maybe too dark for some. Unmistakably British character, but it doesn’t have that midrange Marshall bark. A lot of note bloom and sustain. They’re funky little amps, and the SDII series came with a huge variety of power tube and wattage options. The 45 with its KT66s always was my favorite. KT66s to me just have a “girth” about them that I love. Sounds GIGANTIC and shakes the walls on the neck pickup.

I think my next investment is going to be some proper shelves for my amp heads. Then maybe a head/cab switcher to prevent all that patching and re-patching when I want to play different stuff.

I’m looking forward to getting her up on the bench and seeing what’s going on inside. If I’m not mistaken the preamp tubes are on the PCB, which I don’t love; but it’s workable. Pretty clean layout from what I can recall, just a liberal use of hot glue on the caps and a few pesky secondary PCBs to mess with. The power tube and rectifier are chassis mounted at least.

Just got my 1987x back from my tech.

I recently got a great deal on a 1959HW (traded a Les Paul that was a case queen and just didn’t get played much). It had been modified and I was just in awe of how good the tone stack was voiced and it also had a master volume mod installed. I inquired who’d done this fine work, so he referred me to his tech. Everyone at the shop he owned raved about this guy, so naturally, I called him up and he invited me over to play some of his creations. Amongst them was a 50 watt metal panel JMP from the early 70’s with what he called his “Van Halen 1” mod suite. That was a really good name for it, because it sounded a lot like Eddies early stuff.

I never really found a spot on my 1987x that I just LOVED like I have with my JMP2204, my 1959HW and my 2245 JTM45 Reissue. It was always a very mid forward, harsh and outright rude amp. Don’t get me wrong, it never sounded bad, but it definitely had an attitude that just wasn’t my thing.

This mod suite reworked the tonestack to something more in line with that of a JTM, and features a sort of Jose/one-wire hybrid. The volume pot on the input is what he calls the “Gonzo” knob. It sounded like an odd combination when described to me, but it sounded excellent when I played his.

It now operates as a single channel amplifier, wherein the high treble volume is the channel volume, the normal volume is a master volume, and the input volume pot adds extra gain to the point of this being a considerably high gain plexi (from what I’ understand, it’s essentially adding an extra gain stage from the other half of the v1 12ax7 which used to belong to the normal channel. When the “gonzo” knob is down (as pictured) it just operates as an 87x (with a reworked tone stack) and a master volume.

At full tilt, with the gonzo knob at noon the gain is seething. Absolutely rips. A little goes a LONG way.

After I got it home, I decided to retube to my preferred tubes (JJ’s) as it still had the factory Marshall tubes. So I performed a quick rebias (where I decided I prefer the sound of running it a little colder than before). Now she’s up and running and sounds epic!

Sound clips coming soon!

I was cleaning out some of my stuff from my mother’s house (I’m 41 and moved out when I was 19) I was shocked to see this GX15 which was my first amp ever. My parents bought it for my 11th Birthday, meaning I’ve officially been playing guitar for 30 years now. It sat many years alongside the Ibanez Roadstar 2 they also bought for my birthday. Sadly the Ibanez is no longer with us.

I fired it up, plugged the speaker out into my 1960B, plugged my Revstar straight in and that’s what you hear in the video. Pretty good! The overdrive channel is stuck permanently on, the lamp on the front doesn’t work, and it had some cobwebs, but it works! It dates back to June of 1995.

I’m tracking guitars for an album with my band and I think I’ll sneak it in somewhere for sentimental purposes. How fun!

Threw both cabs on the 1987x and let ‘er rip. Little bit of tube driver and tape echo.

Hello all! My 1959HW started up with this horrid squeal that sounds like an intermittent connection/short. The video shows a quick clip of the issue. I troubleshot the pedal board, all checks out, the issue persists when the channels are not jumped and going straight into the amp. The issue repeated with different guitars. Any guesses before I cart it off to the tech?

1959HW w/ Master volume & Super Bass mod suite.

Glorious! A much tamer beast than its little brother sitting atop it.

Had a Les Paul I never played laying around collecting dust, so I decided to trade it towards something I’d use more. I originally set out to trade towards a lower wattage head - BUT I’ve been wanting to 1959 Super Lead for a while. Found a good deal on this one. It’s been modded for a PPIV master volume and what the owner described as a “super bass” mod. It’s definitely a bit smoother and tame than some of the SLP reissues I’ve heard. In a good way. This thing sounds FANTASTIC.

It’s not much louder than my 1987x, just a bit punchier and much smoother. It’s far more polite than my JMP2203.

Definitely a good get.

1979, all OG except for stainless frets and a radius job.