Most iconic hard rock/metal amp & speaker?

[NKBassman]

What has been iconic in say the past 10 years?

Ampeg, Mesa, Orange. With Darkglass coming up fast.
I want to say Verellen is probably close to the front of the pack in the booteek category.

 

[jnsnj]

That's interesting.
What class D heads have you seen?

Peavey, Mark Bass, and Orange. Typically the people who use them also have large pedal boards set up and mostly use it as a power amp or a handful of people that I know who Biamp like them just for the weight savings.

 

[NKBassman]

Peavey, Mark Bass, and Orange. Typically the people who use them also have large pedal boards set up and mostly use it as a power amp or a handful of people that I know who Biamp like them just for the weight savings.

Mark Bass for heavy metal?

 

[Lammchop93]

i cant think of an iconic amp besides the SVT, but to me the Sansamp pedal is what has been a staple of hard rock/metal over the last 10-20 years. Darkglass is quickly replacing that though.

 

[jnsnj]

Mark Bass for heavy metal?

Yeah wouldn't be my first choice. When I first considered selling my tube amp and making the switch I borrowed a friends Markbass amp. It was a nice amp but it had way too much compression running it overdriven. I would chalk that up just to them being affordable and readily available. With the exception of that Crate class D amp that came out forever ago it was probably the first class D amp that they were able to actually try out in GC.

 

[jnsnj]

Mark Bass for heavy metal?

And again as long as the power amp is loud you can put what ever preamp you want infront of it.

 

[NKBassman]

And again as long as the power amp is loud you can put what ever preamp you want infront of it.

That wouldn't really qualify it as an "iconic amp" for the genre, IMO.

Close your eyes, picture yourself at a metal show... what amp do you see on stage? I wouldn't in a million years ever associate Markbass with heavy metal. Nothing wrong with it, but I've honestly never seen a single Mark Bass amp at any metal show I've ever been to.

 

[4stringmf]

Lol that's awesome man

I worked as a salesman at K & K and also the Rental Dept at Guitar Showcase for a short time. Probably seen every single way a JBL , EV or Eminence speaker could possibly be destroyed lol

And basically lived at all of John Nady's clubs. One step beyond, The stone and The Omni

The place of Fame in those days to find worthy equipment was Starving Musician. Complete walls of new and vintage equipment of every single brand. Including very rare synths and the famous pedal cabinet.

I was pretty well known there as the speaker guy. Meaning I constantly blew up vintage Cerwin Vegas in all my Acoustic Amps. And destroyed probably every raw 15" they had hanging on the wall. And every single bassman or Traynor 2x15 that nobody ever bought.

Likewise after buying my first 810 my speaker murder days ended. And carried on with monthly repairs at starving musician on 2 blueline SVTs and a backup CL lol

Anyways at K&K Mesa only allowed dealers to be so many miles within each other. Basically anybody who bought a Dual Rec in the Area probably bought it from me. And pretty much every 400+ as well

Likewise kids working for Bob would drop off new GK cabs that still smelled like fresh spray paint.

Aside from huge sales from PA and lighting from what pretty much started the west coast rave scene.

GK sales pretty much kept the doors open there.

And aside from amazing music equipment. Absolutely amazing junkyards lol Between San Jose Speedway and illegal drag racing. I grenaded every Dodge motorhome motor or van limited slip rearend I could find out there.

Anyhoo just surprised you never mentioned starving musician. San Jose had walls of amps. And we gathered up endless Moogs and B3s and rotary speakers in Santa Cruz. I forget the repair shop in Santa Clara but he was pretty much " the guy" for busted Fender Rhodes tone bars or B3 key clickety clicks

Don't forget about Black Market Guitars in SF. Oh the days of the Stone and Omni

 

[J-Mags]

I don't think you could say that the early Acoustic 360s and their spawn, along with various 70s Sunn models weren't iconic. The various looks were indelible, they're loud, and lots of people used them. Lots of doom/retro bands still use them. They are still underrated for their tone (raw and immediate) and their volume (lots).

Also rans: GK RB 800, Ampeg V4B, Piles and piles of Peavey!

But if you're an established hard-rock/metal band putting dummy cabinets onstage, there's no substitute for an SVT.

Even guitar players have only a few "iconic" hard-rock/metal amps.

 

[jnsnj]

That wouldn't really qualify it as an "iconic amp" for the genre, IMO.

Close your eyes, picture yourself at a metal show... what amp do you see on stage? I wouldn't in a million years ever associate Markbass with heavy metal. Nothing wrong with it, but I've honestly never seen a single Mark Bass amp at any metal show I've ever been to.

Agreed but my first post was a reply to someone saying they've never seen class D used for metal. Tube and A/B are still far more common. And then when I do see someone using a class D it's most likely going to be a Peavey and possibly hidden on a pedal board. It also depends what kind of metal are we talking about. Doom it's mostly vintage stuff especially Sunn. Grindcore playing in the basement of a rowhome? Class D works well for that.

 

[swarfrat]

Does this mean it's finally time for that 6V6 power amp that can be slaved to the 800w class D power section.

 

[NKBassman]

Agreed but my first post was a reply to someone saying they've never seen class D used for metal. Tube and A/B are still far more common. And then when I do see someone using a class D it's most likely going to be a Peavey and possibly hidden on a pedal board. It also depends what kind of metal are we talking about. Doom it's mostly vintage stuff especially Sunn. Grindcore playing in the basement of a rowhome? Class D works well for that.

Ah gotcha. I don't disagree with that. For the greasy underground metal scene, pretty much anything goes when it comes to amps. As long as it's loud, grindy, and either a) older than whoever is playing it, or b) cheap, indestructible, or replaceable.

 

[hennessybass]

I think of something like a GK 1001RB with a GK410&115 cab.
Maybe stuff like the SVT-3pro / 4pro with what ever ampeg 10" cab 410, 610, 810...
Maybe Trace a little further back. Mesa.

Over the past 30 years, my mind goes to lead sled heads with big cabs (10, & 10&15s)
Darkglass should maybe get a mention for the past 10 years.

When I think of amps like Orange, Marshal, Sunn, I'm thinking a little further back in time.
In the present, I associate those tube amps as well and stuff like MatAmp, Electric, maybe Valerian, etc, with more stoner / doom / sludge.

 

[_Some Dude]

Ampeg, Mesa, Orange. With Darkglass coming up fast.
I want to say Verellen is probably close to the front of the pack in the booteek category.

+1.

Plus we're fighting the DI. Any bassist that wants to develop a unique and/or signature sound through the amp/cab is fighting an uphill battle against conventional wisdom. It's forced players that want to be unique to focus on getting their sound through the DI, with the stage rig evolving into a personal monitor rather than a tone generator.

 

[NKBassman]

+1.

Plus we're fighting the DI. Any bassist that wants to develop a unique and/or signature sound through the amp/cab is fighting an uphill battle against conventional wisdom. It's forced players that want to be unique to focus on getting their sound through the DI, with the stage rig evolving into a personal monitor rather than a tone generator.

+1. And with companies like Darkglass, Two Notes, etc... the signature DI tone game has never been stronger.

 

[_Some Dude]

Like Andrew said, something black, very powerful and fairly simple. The preamp should start truly flat with the eq set flat. No compressor, they are too personal preference. Tube preamp, at least at the input, active solid state eq. Actually, this all sounds a lot like the new amp you just put out. I haven't tried one yet.

If Mesa put out an amp with a WD800 preamp strapped to a 200-300w tube power amp...

 

[Haroldo]

I know next to nothing when it comes to this subject, so I can only ask questions.

Are there different metal market segments? I'm thinking principally in geographic terms - is Scandinavian metal different from metal in the UK? Is Europe apart from Scandinavia a different thing? Is the US market distinct from the rest of the world? And what about Asian metal? Or is it the case that globalization has homogenized and blurred these former differences out to such an extent that they no longer exist (if they ever did)?

And if Mesa is looking to cement a place in the (I assume fairly substantial) metal market, are areas outside the US meaningful to them?

 

[_Some Dude]

+1. And with companies like Darkglass, Two Notes, etc... the signature DI tone game has never been stronger.

If there's a direction the industry is going that Mesa should be paying attention to...

 

[hennessybass]

Plus we're fighting the DI. Any bassist that wants to develop a unique and/or signature sound through the amp/cab is fighting an uphill battle against conventional wisdom. It's forced players that want to be unique to focus on getting their sound through the DI, with the stage rig evolving into a personal monitor rather than a tone generator.

Big +1
I think this is a concern for a lot of bass players now not just in these heavy genres.
Considering the way bass players now shape their sounds with pedals and amps, and the way those sounds get amplified in modern PA systems, this is a real deal.

@JimmyM just posted a thread about his new pedal board and new band. HPF/LPF on the board after a lot of effects.

So much use of Fuzz, distortion, synth sounds, etc... Look at how many guys are getting into cab sims or HPF/LPFs to try to have some control over the signal they send.

 

[_Some Dude]

...(cough) high gain tube DI for bass players (cough)... clean/dirty blend (cough)... A/O triple blend clean/scooped dirt/mid hump dirt (cough)... cabinet emulation on the dirt but not the clean (cough)... multi output in case you can get more than one channel (cough)...