AC 30 tones, what are your favorites?

early rory gallagher, jeff beck and ritchie blackmore.
classic cranked out AC30 tones augmented w/ the rangemaster.

sometimes i think that folks forget that the AC30 is a kick ass rock amp.
the reason that the marshall amps became so well known is because they could play louder than the vox amps (well, the AC30) and not because the earlier ones had more gain on tap than the raunchy 'blizzard of nails' AC30s.

of course, everybody loves the mid gained jangly sounds that the beatles and, later, REM and tom petty and others got.

 

I think Rory Gallagher's tones are some of the finest sounds ever recorded with a guitar.

a big reason i got an ac30.

 

his early stuff w/ taste (tele and AC30 w/ a wee bit of rangemaster thrown in here and there) is landmark for me.

 

Yeah, Yardbirds BBC Sessions. Lots of great AC30 tones in there.
James Williamson's rhythm tone on "Raw Power"
Them "Baby please don't go". It defenitely sounds like an AC30, but who knows.. might be a Supro too

 

Brian May, especially the early stuff.

"Death On Two Legs" has one of my all time favorite guitar tones.

 

Heh, Heh, - I think I hear the same Supro on "Here Comes The Night"........

Never was a big fan of AC30's. Like them more in retrospect.

Best, Pete.

 

Hey Zero,
Did you ever get the alwood mod for your hayseed? I think most of them out there have beed upgraded, if you want your amp to sound right. you should upgrade it.
Rob

 

Brian May and Rory Gallagher are it for me.

I was fortunate enough to see Queen live back in their heyday (1977) from 8th row center seats and experience Brian May playing through his wall of Vox AC30's. Just completely blew me away. To this day that remains the single BEST live rock guitar tone I've ever heard.

 

U2U2U2!

You name the record/song. It's all fantastic.

 

Kinks and Yardbirds for me as well!

 

+1. That amp is much more than the bizzard of nails, jangly thing.

 

I dont know if they got big in the U.S.A but Status Quo were massive over here especially in the 70's and all their classic hits were recorded on the Vox AC30.

Both Parfit and Rossi, had banks of them behind them, and yet they very rarely get a mention where cool Vox tone is mentioned.

They have been using Marshall over recent years, but I got a close up of their stack during a recent interview and you could clearly see AC30 guts crammed into Marshall head boxes, put a smile on my face I must say..

 

An interesting snippit I heard, though cant verify, is that Jimmy Page when recording Phisical Graffiti used an AC30 for most of the tracks on the album.

I've tried this out with my own '66AC30 Top Boost, playing the riffs to
Custard Pie, Kashmir,and nite flight, with my R7 Les paul and I can see where they were comming from, a whole album on one amp is hard to imagine but for certain songs, I'm a believer.

 

+1

 

Mike Campbell always has his dialed in beautifully. That amp loves chords too.

 

i absolutely hear you... the day I picked up "night at the opera" i listened to that opening guitar note in death on two legs about 8 times in a row.

 

Haha... at one recording session I got to play a vintage AC15 purchased from Mike Campbell and modded by Mark Sampson... it sounded appropriately... awesome. Especially the modded channel, turned it into a monster.